The Blue Shawl

One thing I love about Europe is that what seemed like a normal meeting with my tutor can turn into a fun evening at the Tatar theater...the only sad thing is that I didn't bring my camera! I met my tutor on Friday afternoon at the Soviet Lifestyle Museum and we were joined by her in-laws and the American host parents of her husband. He lived in Missouri in high school and his host parents were in town visiting. It was fun to hang out with them and I got to practice my translation skills which is always good! They were headed to the Galiaskar Kamal Tatar Academic Theater that evening and invited me to come along to the last showing of the Blue Shawl. They didn't have an extra ticket so we went to the box office to see if there were any left. Unfortunately, there were none left so my tutor thought maybe someone standing at the front of the theater might be selling extra tickets. She yelled is anyone selling tickets and it turns out a couple of girls had an extra ticket so I bought it for 100 Rubles (which is about $3). The play was in Tatar so I needed to get an ear piece so you can listen to a translation in Russian or English. Once we got in we realized that my ticket that was on the balcony did not have a space for the earpiece so my tutor's father in law who speaks Tatar generously changed seats with me so I could understand the play. The performance was wonderful and was about Sabantuy the midsummer's festival celebrated here in Tatarstan. There was a lot of singing and dancing and the play reminded me a lot of Skroderienas silmačos a Latvian play about Jani, the midsummer's festival there. The big difference was there was a Sultan lots of wives and an Imam because Tatars are Muslim. It was a really wonderful evening! Here is a photo of the performance that was posted on the Kazan tourism page so you can see the beautiful costumes and the blue shawl that the play was based on! 

  

This is a photo of four of the sultan's many wives and their costumes. People clapped when these women came out so I think they must be famous actresses in Tatarstan.