Photo exhibition "The visible image of rebirth"

The photo exhibition “The visible image of rebirth” is dedicated to the revival of two shrines - the Bulgarian settlement and the island-town of Sviyazhsk.

The Bulgarian settlement is a monument of federal significance. This is the northernmost monument of Muslim architecture in the world, a unique and almost the only example of Bulgarian-Tatar architecture of the XIII-XIV centuries. Ostrov-grad Sviyazhsk is a unique historical-architectural and natural-landscape monument of regional (republican) significance with almost five centuries of history. Archaeological excavations and research work has been carried out on the territory of the Bulgarians and Sviyazhsk in different years and with different intensities for many years. A completely new page in the “biography” of Ancient Bolgar and the island-town of Sviyazhsk was opened after the establishment in 2010, at the initiative of the first President of the Republic of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev, of the non-profit organization “Republican Fund for the Revival of Monuments of History and Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan”. Under the auspices of the Revival Fund in Bolgar and on the island-town of Sviyazhsk, large-scale restoration, construction and research work is underway. The project of the revival of the two shrines has become popular. As a result, in June 2016, the Bulgarian historical and archaeological complex was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

At the exhibition opening in Khazine on March 16, photographs from the collections of the Ostrov-Grad Sviyazhsk Museum Reserve, the Bulgarian Museum Reserve and the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan will be presented. In the photographs, one can see the Bulgarians and Sviyazhsk both before the revival process and today. Of great interest are works made in the 1970-2010s by such masters of Kazan photography as Evgeny Kanaev, Valery Pavlov, Farit Gubaev, Andrei Bogdanov, Sergey Eromlaev, Alexander Semenov, Sergey Maximov and many other authors. Early photographs of Kazan masters allow us to appreciate the enormous work that was done to preserve and develop the cultural potential of Bulgar and Sviyazhsk, two shrines - Muslim and Orthodox, which, by fate, ended up on the banks of one great river, which united and still unites people of different faiths.

The exhibition, which runs through March 26, features more than 200 photographs.

E. Kanaev

F. Gubaev