2007 Press Releases
U.S. Consulate General Hosts Iftaar in Urals Village
September 17, 2007
On September 17th the U.S. Consulate in Yekaterinburg organized an Iftaar dinner in the village of Ufa-Shigiri. The U.S. Consulate has been celebrating Ramadan by hosting an Iftaar with members of the Urals community of Muslims for 4 years.
This year the Consulate celebrated Iftaar in the Bashkir and Tatar village of Ufa-Shigiri, whose students have participated in a three way digital ecological conference, sponsored by the Consulate in March 2007, with Kiowa-Native American students living in Oklahoma and tribal peoples of Sarawak, Malaysia. Certainly the environmental situation is an important topic for consideration during Ramadan, and the children of Ufa-Shigiri consider it a central concern of their village.
The Consul General John Stepanchuk congratulated the village 's people on the opening of a new school, which is also attended by children from the smaller villages located nearby. The director of the school , Shamgiya Akhmetova, took her guests for a tour around the new building. Schoolchildren organized a concert and performed Bashkir and Tatar traditional songs, dances, and poetry. The show was enriched by the performance of a band of singing and dancing elders in their national costumes. Vakif Akhmadeyev, the elder of the village, greeted the Consul General and PAO, and emphasized that all world religions have the common roots, and people of all religions should live in peace and respect.
Then, more than 100 guests of all ages were invited to a prayer and a traditional Iftaar dinner. This celebration gathered together the entire village and the representatives of the Muslim communities in Yekaterinburg, Ufa, Pervoural’sk, Krasnoufimsk, and the surrounding area. All the participants in the Iftaar dinner shared a warm , country atmosphere of friendliness and generosity.
The students and teachers of Ufa-Shigiri are planning to hold an ecological camp this summer and they hope that some of their new friends from Oklahoma and Sarawak might be able to join them among the beauties of the Urals, where they can share their concerns and their love for the environment. PAS Yekaterinburg will support a projected digital video-conference in March 2008 that will be a next step towards an indigenous students’ ecological camp.
