(18 Jun 2017) LEADIN:
The Nogais people of Russia have come together in Moscow to celebrate their music and culture, and break the fast.
STORYLINE:
The Muslim community of Moscow's Ramadan Tent hold iftar in honour of the Nogais people of Russia.
Small crowds gather outside the tent.
Inside, they are entertained with traditional music performed by traditional Nogais musician Alibiy Romanov while they wait to break the fast and share a meal.
Rashid Akkaziev is the deputy Mufti of Moscow and Director of Moscow Regional Social Organization of Nogais People.
He says the Nogais must work hard to preserve their culture.
"The Nogais people today are rather few. According to statistics around 100-thousand remain, 130, 140 (thousand) depending on who you ask. The Nogais are very scattered and divided, spread around the entirety of southern Russia, and forms part of many administrative regions", he says.
"This makes it difficult to preserve our ethnicity, our language. We are faced with many problems in the fight to preserve our culture, our language, our wholesomeness, and we have many hurdles to overcome. This is why Nogais people today are trying to come together in order to preserve their people, their future, and their religion," he says.
The Nogais are an ethnic group of people originally from southern Russia.
People at the event pray together before breaking the fast.
Banker and Nogais community organiser Alizaj Imambetov says they must keep the traditions of the Nogais people alive.
"Apart from our responsibility to support our families, the responsibility to maintain the cultural pride of the Nogais people lies on our shoulders as well. We must pass on to our children the Nogais culture and language, and explain to our brothers and sisters that Nogais people are first and foremost Muslims," he says.
Alibiy Romanov is a well known Nogais musician.
He says traditional music is about nature and the things which are important to Nogais people.
"Our music is naturally occurring, it comes from the steppes. It harmonises within it… with animals, with birds, with the howling of the wind, howling of wolves, the galloping of thousand-strong herds," he says.
Populations of Nogais people live mostly in Russia but there are populations also living in Turkey and Romania.


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