Turkish warming: Yunus Emre knocked on the door of KFU again
The Turkey Study Center named after Yunus Emre, which is, in fact, the cultural representative office of the Turkish Republic and thta fallen first victim of the confrontation due to the downed Russian SU-24, can resume its work. As the University of Kazan reports, the talks with the former leadership of the cultural-educational centre are already underway. Meanwhile, the Turkish students started to return to Kazan, the number of which was reduced by almost half last year.
Negotiations with the teacher
As it became known to Realnoe Vremya, against a background of warming relations between Turkey and Russia, the Kazan Federal University officially can resume the work of the Turkey Study Centre named after Yunus Emre.
'It exists, we did not close it, just suspended the activity. Now we are waiting when the teacher who was the head there will return to us. He says that now he is solving the issues. Also, financial issues arise there,' said the director of the Department for external relations of KFU Andrey Krylov.
According to the director of the Institute of International Relations, History and Oriental Studies Ramil Khairutdinov, the cooperation has not ceased: so it coincided that at the time of the suspension of the work of the Center, some of the employees' contracts expired, of others — visa. Besides, such programmes are being implemented in the University Center 'Turkic world'.
'The situation is quite complicated. The officials of various ministries, including the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education of the Turkish Republic are changing, according to my information. So, a lot will depend, of course, on the constructive role of our Embassy and then – on the public organization, which is represented by the institution of Emre,' said Khairutdinov.
In the Turkish Embassy they did not give a detailed comment, only saying that the issue is under agreement stage.
We tried to contact the former head of the Centre Ihsan Demirbash. However, his Kazan phone was unavailable, written questions remained unanswered, too.
The Turkey Study Center of the Institute named after Yunus Emre was opened in KFU in 2012 in the framework of the agreement between the Institute of Oriental studies and international relations of Kazan Federal University and the Institute named after Yunus Emre (Ankara).
The Emre centers are operating in different countries of the world, including in Egypt, Germany, Kazakhstan and Russia. They acquaint the students with the culture, art, history of Turkey, teach Turkish language, hold conferences, exhibitions and lectures, organize the examination on knowledge of the Turkish language. The Turks themselves called the Institute named after Yunus Emre and ite foreign centers the conductor of soft power in Turkish foreign policy.
The return of the Turkish students to Russia
Earlier, in a course a press-conferences, the director of Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication Radif Zamaletdinov confirmed that after the Russian-Turkish conflict a part of the Turkish University students preferred to return home.
'The Turkish students continue to study in our University — about 30 people in all forms of education. In total they were 78, it was the preparatory deartments. Some of them, when it started decided not to continue education in our university and return to Turkey. Some of them remained – those who were studying at the main educational programmes. They said: 'We'll finish, it suits us.' Now the situation has changed in a positive way,' said Andrey Krylov.
According to him, as today the process of restoration of relations with Turkey is taking place, Kazan Federal University is ready to accept Turkish students – the applications from the enrollees are already being received. Krylov notes that they mostly choose Humanities, particularly Economics and Philology. Students, who choose the economic direction and who study the Russian language, expect to get a job in companies working with Russia.
'First and foremost, in my opinion, the economy has suffered greatly when it was frozen. Now it began to develop. Education, against this background, was a very small part,' says Andrey Krylov.
The monument to Maksudi is in question
We asked the Turkish Embassy whether another project — the installation of the monument to Sadri Maksudi in the Park Istanbul — will be revived in connection with the warming of Turkish-Tatarstan relations. But so far we have no definite answer on this. The Embassy only reported that it is also in the stage of agreement.
The monument was made by the project of the famous sculptor Asiya Minnullina and stored in one of the warehouses of the Executive Committee of Kazan.
'We think that we should not look for a political underlying reason that the monument has not been installed yet. It is expected that it will in the future, most likely, in the square during the visit of high officials from Turkey. In principle, it is as originally planned — to time the event to coincide with a visit,' commented the situation the Vice-Consul of Turkey in Kazan Nurettin Kaya.