Tatarstan, an autonomous republic within Russia, has been agitating for its independence, while Moscow has been revoking autonomy agreements with other republics.
In one of Russia's most important regions, a familiar struggle is building. The autonomous Republic of Tatarstan is fighting to keep its autonomy, as time runs low on the region's power-sharing agreement with the federal government of Russia. Tatarstan's state council has appealed to extend the agreement, which allows the Tatar republic to remain autonomous. But the Kremlin, which has grown wary of Tatarstan's increasingly combative stance toward the Russian government, may not be willing to grant an extension. Tatarstan is the gateway between European Russia and Siberia, situated in the heart of Russia's strategic Volga region. More than half of the republic's population is made up of ethnic Tatars, originally a series of Turko-Mongol nomadic groups who settled along the Volga River a thousand years ago.
