April 27th, 2021 

Head of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia (the SAMR), Mufti Albir Hazrat Krganov, held a meeting with Ambassador of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh to the Russian Federation Mr. Kamrul Ahsan. The meeting was also attended by the First Secretary of the Embassy of the People's Republic of Bangladesh Mr. Mazed Sarker and the Imam of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia Farid Hazrat Sayfullin. 

The meeting was held in a friendly and positive atmosphere. During the conversation, both parties discussed issues of interreligious and interfaith relations both in Russia and Bangladesh, education and cultural exchange, humanitarian cooperation between the two countries, as well as a number of issues related to labor migration. 

Albir Hazrat also provided His Excellency Ambassador with a brief overview of current activities of the SAMR and its regional structures, provisions of "Strategy of Development of Islam and Muslim Organizations in Russia until 2035" and activities of Center for Legal Protection and Socio-Cultural Adaptation of Migrants “ROSMIGRANT”. 

Mr. Ahsan thanked the Mufti for such a warm welcome and interesting conversation. He also invited Albir Hazrat to pay an official visit to Bangladesh in order to establish and develop closer contacts with some official Islamic organizations in his country. 

At the end of the meeting, the participants expressed their hope for further fruitful cooperation. 

April 22 2021 

Head of the SAMR Albir Hazrat Krganov stated that legal migrants have the opportunity to be vaccinated against coronavirus in Russia and must do so. 

Previously, the Chairwoman of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, said that the CIS countries need to prepare for the restoration of the previous volume of labor migration, and this process must take place meeting all sanitary requirements. 

Mufti noted that the situation with the coronavirus is gradually normalizing and people are being vaccinated, and “we need to think about restoring the number of legal migrants heading to the Russian Federation”. 

 “We urge migrants to get vaccinated – both  those who arrive and those who are already staying in Russia. There are no restrictions on vaccination of legal migrants in Russia. They get vaccinated. Everyone is interested that migrants get vaccinated, especially those who work in the service sector  –  deliver food, taxi and so on” Albir Hazrat said. 

 “Within the framework of our project - the Center for Legal Protection and Cultural Adaptation of Migrants - we conduct a serious work: we provide documents, explain them how to fill them out ... Now our center communicates with several thousand migrants who want to legalize their staying in the Russian Federation. We must lend a helping hand to them,” Mufti explained. 

At the beginning of April, Emergency Headquarters for Combating the Spread of Coronavirus told that the Russian Federation has not decided yet to oblige employers to vaccinate migrants against COVID-19. 

April 14, 2021 

Representatives of the SAMR took part in online plenary session of the XV International Scientific and Practical Conference "Religion and Society". The event was organized by Mogilev State University named after A.A. Kuleshov, Mogilev Religious Center with the active assistance of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus, the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. 

Representatives of the scientific and expert community and religious organizations of the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Poland and the Republic of Kazakhstan took part in this particular conference. On the whole, 135 reports by Belarusian and foreign authors will be presented within the framework of the event. All the reports will be published after the conference. 

The main issues of discussion were the following: 

- Freedom of thought and freedom of conscience in the history of culture, politics and law. 

- Religion and state-confessional relations. 

- History of religions and interfaith relations. 

- Regional aspects of the religious situation in the Republic of Belarus. 

- Religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in the CIS countries. 

- Religion and culture, literary criticism, linguistics. 

- Religion and education. 

- Issues of the history of religion in theology. 

- Issues of the history of religion in school local history. 

- Issues of religion and education in the secular system of general secondary education. 

The participants noted in their speech that freedom of conscience and religion and interfaith harmony are the foundations of the development of modern society and one of the priorities of the national development of a modern state, including Belarus. 

April 8, 2021 

The First Vice President of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia Mufti Tagir Hazrat Samatov met with the official delegation from the Republic of Uzbekistan headed by the advisor to the Chairman of the Uzbek Governmental Committee for Tourism Development Utkir Saidov 

The main topic of the talks was the resumption of religious tourism between the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan, which was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The meeting was also attended by representatives of Russian and Uzbek Muslim community, employees of the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan for Tourism Development, representatives of Russian and Uzbek travel companies, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Uzbekistan, as well as employees of the Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the Russian Federation. 

Representatives of the regional muftiats belonging to the SAMR from Kemerovo, Tomsk, Penza, Volgograd, Vladimir, the Republic of Chuvashia, Mordovia and other regions also participated in this meeting via Zoom platform. 

It was noted during the meeting that a key factor in the popularization of Uzbekistan as a direction for religious tourism is the resumption of regular flights between the two countries and the establishment of fixed prices for flight tickets. 

In conclusion, the parties thanked each other for a fruitful discussion and valuable suggestions for finding new formats of cooperation and also expressed their hope that joint work in this direction will lead to an increase in the tourist flow between the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan in the near time. 

April 6, 2021 

Head of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia, Mufti Albir Hazrat Krganov held a meeting with the director of the Institute of Russian History of Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Petrov. During the meeting, the parties discussed issues of strengthening cooperation in the field of military-patriotic education and enlightenment of youth, preserving national traditions, and developing interfaith dialogue. 

Both sides were unanimous in their opinion on the need for a precise and careful approach to historical processes, highlighting the role of interreligious and interethnic relations in the public and information space. 

The meeting took place in a warm and friendly atmosphere. Albir Hazrat and Yuri Petrov thanked each other for the fruitful conversation and expressed hope for further cooperation. 

The Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences is considered to be a leading scientific institution that deals with studying fundamental problems of Russian history from the period of Ancient Rus to the present. 

Today the staff of the Institute makes up more than 160 researchers, mainly doctors and candidates of sciences. Among the scientists of the Institute there are full members and corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other academies and scientific societies. 

Every year scientists of the Institute publish dozens of monographs and collections of articles on general and specific problems of Russian history, prepares and publications of unique historical sources.  

March 31, 2021 

Russia President Vladimir Putin stated during the last meeting of the Council for Inter-Ethnic Relations: “We in Russia should not allow and we will not allow anyone to show an aggressive, disrespectful demonstration of their ethnicity towards representatives of any other nationality, and of course we will prevent transferring conflicts to our land. He also emphasized that although economic and political reasons underlie the emergence of most of the conflicts in the world, ethnic and religious intolerance is usually used to fuel these conflicts. 

The head of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia Albir Hazrat Krganov supported the position of President on this important issue. In his speech he focused his attention on the enemies' attempts to undermine the relations between ethnic and religious groups in our country. He mentioned that all these attempts can be seen even today, and he is aware of them due to his membership in the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. 

Albir Hazrat also added that the main reason behind the collapse of the Soviet Union was the use of "nationalist sentiments" against Moscow policy in that period of time, saying that “we got what we got”, referring to the difficult situation in Ukraine. 

Mufti stressed that serious work on the settlement of interethnic relations is being carried out on behalf of Vladimir Putin nowadays. "In Russia, we pay more attention to the opinion of our President considering him to be a guarantor that such situations will not  be repeated in our country in order to avoid the transfer of conflicts that are happening in a number of foreign states to the territory of the Russian Federation," Albir Hazrat said. 

March 24th, 2021 

In the framework of the round table meeting held at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Moscow on March 24, Mufti Albir Hazrat Karganov, head of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia met with the head of the Indonesian parliamentary delegation Mr. Faisal Riza, where two parties discussed issues of enhancing bilateral fruitful cooperation between Muslims of Russian and Indonesia. 

Previously in September 2019, the Russian-Indonesian Interfaith Dialogue took place in Moscow. The event was organized in conjunction with the SAMR and was mainly focused on very important issues such as tolerance and interfaith harmony, confronting extremism, the principles of soft power in the context of combating terrorism and extremism, the role of mass media in the era of globalization and etc. 

The Russian delegation, which included Albir Hazrat Krganov, was headed by Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Konstantin Shuvalov, from the Indonesian side - Head of the Directorate General of Information and Public Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia Chechep Heravan and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Indonesia to the Russian Federation Mohammad Wahid Supriyadi. At the end of the event, both parties agreed to continue their cooperation in Indonesia, but the Covid-19 pandemic prevented the realization of all these plans. 

Mr. Faisol Riza is an MP from the National Awakening Party in the Parliament of the Republic of Indonesia, an Islamic orientation party affiliated with the major Islamic organization “Nahdatul Ulama”, one of the largest independent Islamic organizations in the world. According to some estimates, it has over 30 million members all around the world. The organization is engaged in charitable activities, helping the government to implement social programs such as providing assistance to schools, hospitals, rural communities and war veterans. 

March 24, 2020  

Head of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia Mufti Albir Hazrat Krganov participated in the meeting on cooperation between Russian governmental bodies and public organizations with the immigrant community in Moscow, which took place in the administrative district of Troitsk and New Moscow. During this meeting Albir Hazrat presented a new web-portal rosmigrant.ru launched by the Center for Legal Protection and Social Adaptation of Migrants, a division of the SAMR. 

This center currently works in 24 regions of Russia, where mosques and regional muftiats belonging to the SAMR are located, including Moscow, Moscow region, Leningrad region, Omsk region, Republic of Dagestan, Tomsk region, Novosibirsk region, Chuvash Republic, Penza region and so on. 

The center has already created a strong base for an interregional system of information and methodological support for public organizations working in the field of providing assistance to migrants. The Center for Legal Protection and Social and Cultural Adaptation of Immigrants works in a different way compared to many other similar centers in terms of providing assistance for free and in the native language of migrants. 

The multifunctional information platform rosmigrant.rf (rosmigrant.ru) is being gradually launched, where all the necessary information is available to migrants in several foreign languages.  

During the meeting, some special proposals were made for the further implementation of this significant project and increasing the effectiveness of the expected results for migrants. 

March 18th, 2021 

Mufti Albir Hazrat Karganov participated in a session of the round table dedicated to the role of enlightenment and education in improving ethno-political processes in the North Caucasus, where a new expert report "Ethnic Dynamics of Politics and Management in the North Caucasian Federal District" was presented. The event took place in the international multimedia press center of "Rossiya Segodnya» news agency. 

In recent years, some positive trends have been witnessed in the North Caucasus Federal District. These changes are connected with political and administrative activities of regional and local authorities, public opinion leaders and heads of national cultural and religious organizations. Monitoring at the federal and regional levels shows the overcoming of severe ethnic contradictions and achievement in addressing conflicts in the region. 

In his speech, the head of the SAMR noted that, despite all the strategic legislative acts adopted by the Russian government to develop and strengthen interethnic and interreligious harmony, it is necessary to carry out a more specific work directly with the citizens of the region, with their minds and world outlook.  

Albir Hazrat also added that we should not stop on the positive results achieved in the interethnic and interreligious spheres. Interethnic and interreligious relations today are considered an alarming potential that can unexpectedly change in a negative direction. 

Albir Hazrat Krganov also drew attention to the important role that spiritual leaders play in the Caucasus in promoting spiritual and moral foundations and educating youth in the region. 

At the end of the round table, the participants thanked each other for a very fruitful discussion and expressed their hope for more cooperation in the future.