The main theme of the “Pechen Bazaar” festival was the Tatar home. Raūza Sultanova, head of the Department of Fine and Decorative Arts at the Institute of Language, Literature and Art, and Jamila Khusnutdinova, founder of the Tyumen-based studio Miras, reflected on how to express national identity in interior design.
Colorful and Bright
Raūza Sultanova presented the exhibition “Tatar yorty” (“Tatar Home”), based on materials from expeditions carried out between 2021 and 2024 across Tatarstan, the Volga region, the Urals, and Siberia. During these trips, Sultanova and art history PhD candidate Lyudmila Shklyaeva studied how Tatars live. The projects featured in the exhibition were created by architects Galina Bakulina, Rustem Shamsutov, and others.
“You might say the houses are beautiful but imagined. But that’s not the case — we created a typology just as it really is,” Sultanova emphasized.
Some houses described in the studies no longer exist, Sultanova noted — such as those in the burned-down village of Yuldus in the Kurgan region. But the projects remain. Many houses had already lost much of their decorative elements, yet researchers still documented them in detail.
What distinguishes a Tatar home? Bright colors, ornate window frames, a garden, gates, a fenced yard, buildings and entrances hidden inside — and in earlier times even separate entrances for men and women. And that’s just the exterior — there is also a rich interior décor. Each region has its own features, which can be seen at the “Tatar yorty” exhibition. For example, in Troitsk, the Yaushev family houses could have 30–40 windows!
These characteristics can also be observed in Kazan’s Old Tatar Settlement: for example, the large Valibay House near the Marjani Monument, with preserved courtyard structures, or the Wafo Bakhteev House, revived from ruins. On a broader scale, the unique features of Tatar design can be found in the Zakazanye, Atninsky, Vysokogorsky, Kukmorsky, and Baltasinsky districts.
The main theme of the “Pechen Bazaar” festival was the Tatar home. Raūza Sultanova, head of the Department of Fine and Decorative Arts at the Institute of Language, Literature and Art, and Jamila Khusnutdinova, founder of the Tyumen-based studio Miras, reflected on how to express national identity in interior design.
Colorful and Bright
Raūza Sultanova presented the exhibition “Tatar yorty” (“Tatar Home”), based on materials from expeditions carried out between 2021 and 2024 across Tatarstan, the Volga region, the Urals, and Siberia. During these trips, Sultanova and art history PhD candidate Lyudmila Shklyaeva studied how Tatars live. The projects featured in the exhibition were created by architects Galina Bakulina, Rustem Shamsutov, and others.
“You might say the houses are beautiful but imagined. But that’s not the case — we created a typology just as it really is,” Sultanova emphasized.
Some houses described in the studies no longer exist, Sultanova noted — such as those in the burned-down village of Yuldus in the Kurgan region. But the projects remain. Many houses had already lost much of their decorative elements, yet researchers still documented them in detail.
What distinguishes a Tatar home? Bright colors, ornate window frames, a garden, gates, a fenced yard, buildings and entrances hidden inside — and in earlier times even separate entrances for men and women. And that’s just the exterior — there is also a rich interior décor. Each region has its own features, which can be seen at the “Tatar yorty” exhibition. For example, in Troitsk, the Yaushev family houses could have 30–40 windows!
These characteristics can also be observed in Kazan’s Old Tatar Settlement: for example, the large Valibay House near the Marjani Monument, with preserved courtyard structures, or the Wafo Bakhteev House, revived from ruins. On a broader scale, the unique features of Tatar design can be found in the Zakazanye, Atninsky, Vysokogorsky, Kukmorsky, and Baltasinsky districts.
Source: realnoevremya.ru
