Students of the Institute of Management and Territorial Development of KFU, Aliya Fayzullina and Gulchachak Mukhametzyanova, have become laureates of the International Festival of Crimean-and-Tatar and Turkiс culture “Gezlev K’apusy” (“Gezlev Gates”).

The festival was held from August 15 to August 18, 2013 in Evpatoria, which was called Gezlev in ancient times. The duet of Tatarstan representatives who took part in the vocal contest “Altyn Ses” got 39 points of 40 from a competent jury, which permitted the girls from Kazan to win the honourary title of the Second Class laureates. According to the deputy head of Evpatoria-city administration, Mr. Eduard Kugel, KFU students had made a significant contribution to cultural and creative interaction between Crimean Tatars and Tatars of Volga Region.

A Kazan team’s program supervised by the Associate Professor of the Department of Fine Arts and Design of the Institute of Philology and Arts, Madina Makhmutova, was very heavy: Aliya and Gulchachak sang a song “Yaratam” by Aliya Fayzullina during the festival opening ceremony and took part in a theatrical procession in national costumes of participating countries, and also sang the song “Zenger Toman” by the Kazan composer Rezeda Akhiyarova at the festival closing ceremony, which made all our countrymen gather around the stage, as the girls told us.

Aliya Fayzullina added: “Crimean Tatars’ culture is rather close to ours, we fluently spoke and communicated with Crimeans in our Tatar language”. Here we’ve made a lot of new friends with whom we will have a chance to meet again at a festival in Turkey on invitation of Silifke-city mayor. We are very grateful to the Organising Committee of the Festival, our supervisor and, first of all, to our beloved Kazan Federal University for the opportunity to participate in such a large-scale event offered to us”.