20 Oct 2021 10:00 30 years ago

Democratic Party of Russia Activists demand resignation of Tatarstan's leadership, referendum on republic's independence at rally in Kazan

This news story first came out 30 years ago to the day, and we are publishing it today as part of Interfax's project, "Timeline of the Last Days of USSR. This Day 30 Years Ago." The project's goal is to reconstruct as fully as possible the timeline of the last few months of 1991 and to give everyone interested in understanding the historical processes of that period the opportunity to study and analyze the events that led to and accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the new Russian state. The complete timeline can be found in Russian.


MOSCOW. Oct 20 (Interfax) – Some 600 activists of the local branch of the Democratic Party of Russia demanded the resignation of the president and the chairman of the Supreme Council of Tatarstan at a rally in Kazan on Sunday.

The rally's participants described the October 15-16 events, when a large crowd of supporters of the Tatar National Movement blocked entrance to the republic's parliament, as an attempted coup. The Tatar National Movement is demanding the immediate declaration of Tatarstan's independence.

In addition to the demand for the resignation of that the republic's leadership, which the activists consider to be over-tolerant tolerant of radical nationalists, it was noted in a resolution adopted at the rally that only a referendum could resolve the issue of Tatarstan's full independence.