Silver Made of Coffins: The Empire Is Finishing Off the Tatar Village
Tubylgy Tau has seven centuries of history, fewer than five hundred residents — and at least seven funerals from this war. One in every 19 working-age men has been killed. More than 9,600 natives of Tatarstan have now been verified dead.
Tubylgy Tau in the Novosheshminsk district is seven centuries old. It stands on the land of a 14th-century Bulgar settlement. This land survived the Golden Horde, the Romanov Empire and collectivization. Four years of Putin’s war may prove harder to survive.
An Idel.Realii investigation found that at least seven of the village’s roughly 130 working-age men have been killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine. That is one in every nineteen. The concentration of deaths is about seven times higher than the average for Tatarstan.
Behind the figures are people, and we name them. Tractor driver Artur Bukharov was 23: eighteen days of service were enough for the empire to take his life. Mobilized soldier Ilnaz Abdrafikov was taken away in a single day, while his family searched for his body for two years. Others were recruited directly from prison by a private military company and killed within a month of being sent out. Mobilized men, contract soldiers, prisoners: the empire is scooping the village empty by every available method.
A silver medal no one asked for
As of August 21, the deaths of more than 9,600 people from Tatarstan had been verified. Precision matters: these are only the names that could be confirmed from open sources, and the real number may be higher. In the empire, the only podium offered to colonies is made of coffins. Tatarstan has been given one of the heaviest places on it by the number of confirmed losses. We do not accept this award.
A centuries-old formula
Decisions are made in the metropolis; funerals take place in the colony. A village that has lost one in every nineteen working-age men is a village losing tractor drivers, future husbands and its future itself. Moscow calls this a ‘partial’ price of a ‘special’ operation. We call it what it is: the colonial disposal of a people.
The right to say no
Sovereignty is not an ornament or a holiday on the calendar. It is one essential power: the right to decide for ourselves whether we go to war. As long as others make that decision for us, the count will keep growing. Independence is the only known way to close that account for good. We will continue to record it, name by name, until the day when no new names have to be added.