Today I met up with a Tatar acquaintance from my Fulbright days and went to a Turkish restaurant. The food was real Turkish food! (That might sound like a given to Americans, but finding authentic ethnic food from places outside the former Soviet Union is quite rare in Russia. Except sushi, which is hugely popular.) She explained that several Turkish firms were doing business here in the 1990's, so the Turks built themselves some restaurants so they could have food from home. There are somewhat fewer firms now, apparently, but the restaurants live on, and if you go at night, you'll see Turks dining there. (We went for lunch.) There are also three Turkish schools in Tatarstan – two for boys and one for girls – that teach in Tatar, Turkish and English. I asked if they were Gülen schools, but she said she doesn't think they're religious.
She also answered my weird but burning question about "ak çiçekler." It's the title of a very famous novel by Abdurakhman Absaliamov, a Tatar writer of the mid to late 20th century. The novel is about doctors, and for any Tatar (or any Russian living in Tatarstan), the phrase "ak çiçekler" is associated with doctors. So they named the prize that.
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