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760 TATARS
Soviet Union's largest polyethylene plant. One-third of the Soviet Union's polyethylene
and synthetic rubber and half of its movie and photographic film are
produced in the republic. Outside of the capital, petroleum processing and production,
along with the new Kamaz truck works on the Kama River, are important
realms of employment. Due to their emphasis on education, Tatars make up 30
percent of the faculty of the University of Kazan, one of the most respected
institutes of higher learning in the Soviet Union.
Their urban concentrations notwithstanding, many Tatars are employed in
agriculture, especially in the Volga region. Here they dwell predominantly on
collective farms on which grain (wheat, rye, oats and millet), hemp, legumes
and other fodder crops are grown. Dairying and poultry raising are also important
pursuits.
Contemporary Tatar city residents live no differently from ordinary Russian
families, but in rural areas some pre-revolutionary traditions persist. Soviet
studies of the state of Islam in rural Tataria in the early 1970s indicate that the
religion is very much alive. More than 30 percent of the Tatars questioned were
true believers, whereas another one-fifth were undecided. About 51 percent
favored circumcision, and 40 percent said they celebrated Muslim holidays.
Kurban Bayram and Uraza Bayram and Maulud, though officially attacked, have
not been eradicated, and mosques are full on such occasions.
Prior to the revolution, the Tatars, in comparison to other Muslims in Central
Asia, possessed medium-sized extended families and maintained exogamous
relations. The modern rural Tatar family on a Soviet collective farm is now
reckoned in two, or at most three, generations living under the same roof. With
the diminution of even these moderate extended family ties in the Soviet period,
the need for a clear knowledge of genealogy has diminished also. The complexity
of the pre-revolutionary system of terminology can be illustrated by the fact that
almost 200 different names for relatives existed in the Tatar language at one
time.
Social structure remains strongly patriarchal, with the father serving as legal
head of the household and private plot. His word is final on all issues confronting
the family. Work, although not strictly regimented, is divided along traditional
lines. The women cook, carry water, wash clothes and tend livestock; the men
engage in labor requiring more physical strength. As a further indication of male
dominance, the head of the household is also in charge of family earnings,
determining when and how the income should be spent. In case of his death,
the father is succeeded as family head by his widow or, if his wife is already
dead, by his oldest brother or sister.
Despite continuing patriarchy, the rights of women in Tataria continue to
improve. Between 1959 and 1970, for instance, the number of women holding
higher degrees among Tatars rose 22 percent. (For men, the same increase was
30 percent.) In the Volga-Ural region, women have begun to appear in mosques.
In modern Tatar families, the allocation of property is handled differently than
in the past. For example, in the absence of brideprice and, more importantly,