KAZAN, Russia -- A Koran billed as the world's largest is to be presented to the leader of the Russian republic of Tatarstan on November 17, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports.
Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov will be presented with the Koran at a special ceremony in Kazan's Qol Sharif mosque.
The book was printed in Italy on the order of Resurrection, a Tatarstan state fund involved in the preservation and revival of Tatar cultural heritage. The book weighs 800 kilograms and is 1.5 meters by 2 meters in size.
Slovenian media reported this week that the jewel-encrusted Koran was made at a cost of some 1 million euros ($1.3million) by a Slovenian-owned company based in Gorizia.
The Koran will be placed on the first floor of the Qol Sharif mosque until June 2012, when it will be moved to the town of Bolgar, the ancient capital of the Volga Bulgars -- the ancestors of the present-day Tatars who converted to Islam in 922.
Read more in Tatar here
Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov will be presented with the Koran at a special ceremony in Kazan's Qol Sharif mosque.
The book was printed in Italy on the order of Resurrection, a Tatarstan state fund involved in the preservation and revival of Tatar cultural heritage. The book weighs 800 kilograms and is 1.5 meters by 2 meters in size.
Slovenian media reported this week that the jewel-encrusted Koran was made at a cost of some 1 million euros ($1.3million) by a Slovenian-owned company based in Gorizia.
The Koran will be placed on the first floor of the Qol Sharif mosque until June 2012, when it will be moved to the town of Bolgar, the ancient capital of the Volga Bulgars -- the ancestors of the present-day Tatars who converted to Islam in 922.
Read more in Tatar here
