Tatar Congress Adopts Resolution To Protect Language, Culture

Some 800 delegates from Tatar communities in Russia attended the World Congress of Tatars.

KAZAN, Russia -- The World Congress of Tatars (DTK) has adopted a resolution on preserving the Tatar language, culture, religion and traditions.

The resolution will be sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The DTK's lawyer Artur Zinnatullin told RFE/RL that about 800 delegates from Tatar communities in Russia and abroad finished the DTK's four-day assembly in Tatarstan's capital, Kazan, on December 9.

The gathering took place as the Russian Duma is scheduled to resume debates over the draft of a new education law on December 11 that would allow parents in ethnic republics to decide if their children should study indigenous languages at school.

Current laws in the republics require children of any ethnicity to study indigenous languages, which, along with Russian, are official languages in the republics.