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Astrakhan, Russia's Eurasian melting pot

Sudha Mahalingam

It is Asian enough to be familiar

Astrakhan (Russia): As the Nikitin expedition moves south and east, the urban landscape becomes more oriental than Russian even before you cross the Caucuses. Astrakhan, situated 100 km from the shores of the Caspian, is Asian enough to be familiar and provincial enough to be intimate.

More global

Dusty ramshackle wooden bungalows, reminiscent of Indian towns of the 1950s line both sides of the narrow streets. Soviet-style high-rises are few and far between and traffic is tolerably sparse.

But make no mistake. Astrakhan is more international than Moscow. The town lives up to its reputation as a key link in the north-south silk route. The quays are dotted with boats and cranes.

Europe and Asia converge in this town, which is home to 1.2 million people from 170 nationalities. Russian Christians make up the majority, followed by Tatars and Kazakh Muslims. Cossacks from Krasnador Krai and Stavropol dressed in breeches and carrying sabres are not an uncommon sight on the streets of Astrakhan. Azeris run the thriving catering businesses. Armenians, Caucasians, Georgians and Dagestanis all come in search of jobs in oil and caviar for which this region is famous. Multinational and Russian oil majors — Agip, BP, Rosneft, Gazprom and Lukoil — are drilling in the Caspian, hoping to hit it big in this region acclaimed as the second Middle East. The legal status of the Caspian is yet to be determined and the littoral states are fighting over whether it is a sea or a lake. Meanwhile, Astrakhan, the bridgehead for oil and gas exploration in the Russian coast of the Caspian Sea makes hay, merrily drilling away. A state-of- the- art port — Olya — is being built here and, when completed, will become the bridge to the north-south trade corridor that could bring Russian goods to Indian shores and vice versa.

But it was neither oil nor caviar that first brought Indian traders to this part of the world more than 200 years ago. Enterprising Gujarati merchants trudged all the way from Kutch piled high with super-soft cotton razaais lovingly sewn by Kutch women. They came on boats, camels, horses and even on foot to trade in other goods. After all they were all vegetarians and did not care much for caviar nor had the means to carry oil back home. In fact, most of them decided to stay on.

There was a flourishing Indian trading yard in the affluent part of the town adjacent to the Persian and Armenian trading centres, but today nothing survives. The Astrakhan state administration has seen it fit to mark the site and declare the site of the trading yard as a national monument.

Indians woo

Indians continue to fascinate historians and scholars alike. We meet @@ at the @@ library. She is researching for a book on Indians in Astrakhan based on extensive secondary material — books, portraits, photographs — housed in the local library. Unfortunately, Indians in Astrakhan are no longer distinguishable since they have intermarried and merged with local peoples. @@ also tells us that many Indians were also hounded out of Astrakhan during ## for charging usurious rates of interest!

Perhaps it was this Indian connection that brought Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to Astrakhan in August this year. Ahmedabad and Astrakhan are sister cities and Modi landed with a group of businessmen from Gujarat. Many MoUs were signed. Collaboration in oil and gas exploration and production was one of them.

We visit the very modern and very impressive Astrakhan State University, whose medical faculty boasts many Indian students.

Astrakhan is truly a melting pot of many cultures and civilisations. Islam practiced in these parts seems a liberal version, one that tolerates consumption of alcohol as well as pork. Before the Russian Revolution, Astrakhan province had 260 mosques, and the town itself was home to 91. But during Soviet times, all the mosques were converted into offices and barracks. Now worship takes place only in 8 mosques.

Says Refat Asanov, a Tatar youth, "We hope to get back the mosques one day". We visit the White Mosque built in 1898 by Hazrat Wahabuddin. During the one-hour we spent in the premises, we saw several worshippers - Azeri, Kazakh, Chechen and Tatars - trooping in for prayers. Some of the madrassas are being revived although funding seems to be a problem. There are many churches and a Buddhist monastery as well.

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