title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Povetkin won the fight via majority decision. The fight proved to be a tough test for Povetkin. One judge scored the fight a 114–114 draw, whilst the remaining two judges scoring the fight 116–113, and 116–112 in favour of Povetkin. All three ringside announcers from EPIX scored the fight in favour of Huck. Chisora and Dimitrenko, who were sat ringside, scored the fight a draw. Arthur Abraham and Tomasz Adamek scored the fight clearly for Huck. The opening round started off slow however Povetkin started taking over the fight landing body shots and using his straight rights. In round 4, Huck began to let his hands go and found his range, even rocking Povetkin. Huck controlled the championship rounds as Povetkin began to show signs of fatigue. Huck came close to dropping Povetkin in the final round. After the fight, Povetkin admitted, "I underestimated him. Perhaps I didn't take this fight seriously enough." Huck said, "A lot of people who saw this fight see me as the winner." It was reported that Huck had injured his right between rounds 6 and 7. The verdict was met with boos around the arena.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Despite rematch called for Povetkin vs. Huck, Team Sauerland firmly stated that as previously negotiated, a fight with former WBC world champion Hasim Rahman (50-7-2, 41 KOs) would be next. It was originally for 14 July 2012 at Upton Park in West Ham, London, with David Haye vs. Derek Chisora as the main event. The venue was later changed to Alsterdorfer Sporthalle in Alsterdorf, Hamburg. On 28 June, Rahman pulled out with a hand injury. The fight was rescheduled for 29 September with Kubrat Pulev vs. Alexander Ustinov for the European title as co-feature. The opening round saw very little action between both fighters. Round 2 saw Povetkin come out throwing and landing at will with Rahman spending most of the round against the ropes. Rahman did not throw back and eventually referee Gustavo Padilla stepped in to stop the fight. At the same time, Rahman's corner appeared to be on the ring apron with a towel. The fight was slated as a miss-match. After the fight, Povetkin said, "I'm ready to fight everybody. When (my handlers) say it's time to fight Klitschko, I will be ready. He's the best heavyweight in the world and I will be ready to fight him." According to CompuBox Stats, Povetkin landed 42 of 85 punches thrown (49%), this included 33 power punches and Rahman landed 10 of his 44 thrown (23%), 2 of which were power shots.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: In April 2013, prior to a big showdown with Wladimir Klitschko, Povetkin chose to fight Andrzej Wawrzyk (27-0, 13 KOs) on 17 May, in a voluntary title defence. Team Sauerland revealed as part of the deal, if Wawrzyk pulled an upset, he would sign with Sauerland Event on a 3-fight deal. The fight took place at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow. Like most of Povetkin's fights, the first round had very little action. Povetkin dropped Wawrzyk in round 2 with a right hand. Wawrzyk beat the count and barely made it to the end of the round. In round 3, Povetkin carried on landing big punches, dropping Wawrzyk a further two times before the referee intervened to stop the fight. In the post-fight, Povetkin said, "I just wanted to show some offensive arsenal. I trained for a longer fight but, well, it has ended pretty fast. We didn't plan to win by a TKO."


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: At the end of 2012, the World Boxing Association ordered its super-champion Wladimir Klitschko (60-3, 52 KOs) to fight regular-champion Povetkin by 24 February 2013, but the two sides couldn't reach an agreement. WBA let Klitschko have another voluntary title defence before taking on Povetkin, but there should have been a signed contract with Povetkin before 28 February, with a new deadline for their bout no later than 31 July.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Promoter Vladimir Hryunov won the right to promote Klitschko vs. Povetkin with a purse bid of $23,333,330 and Russian businessman Andrey Ryabinsky putting up the money. Failed bids made were from K2 Promotions ($7,130,000) and Povetkin's promoter Sauerland Event ($6,014,444). It allowed Ryabinsky to dictate the location of the fight and guaranteed the fighters the biggest purses of their careers. Based on being entitled to 75 percent of the winning bid, Klitschko got $17,499,997, while Povetkin received $5,833,333. The Klitschko camp were said to be surprised by the bid. The fight was expected to generate around 100 million viewers in Europe. It was reported that the President of Russia Vladimir Putin was going to attend the fight.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: The fight took place in October 2013, Klitschko's third consecutive undefeated opponent. The bout was marred with over 160 clinches, most initiated by Klitschko, followed by several repeated roughhouse tactics throughout the match. This included Klitschko's leaning on his opponent and pushing his head down and throwing Povetkin away to prevent Povetkin from clinching, which resulted in the referee scoring some of Povetkin's fallings as knockdowns, as well as Povetkin's punching after referee's break command and leaning his head too low. Klitschko won by unanimous decision scoring a knockdown in round 2 from a quick left hook, and 3 knockdowns in round 7 including one prompted from a straight right hand. All 3 judges scored it 119–104 on the scorecards. Klitschko landed 139 of 417 punches (33%) and Povetkin connected on 59 of 283 (21%). After the fight, Klitschko told in the interview that he had little desire to go for the knockout as the Russian crowd would be disappointed, which lead to speculations about the alleged agreement between the champion and organisers to let the bout go the distance, which Klitschko later denied. With 9.2 rating, the fight became the most popular sporting event on Russian television in 2013, as well as the most watched TV programme of the year in the capital of Russia with 13.9 rating, surpassing the Moscow Victory Day Parade.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Povetkin bounced back in 2014, completely changing his training routine and diet. On 2 May 2014, it was confirmed that he would fight former WBC title challenger, WBC #7 ranked Manuel Charr (26-1, 15 KOs) on 30 May. Povetkin claimed the vacant WBC International title after stopping Charr in 7 rounds. Both fighters started off strong with Charr landing his jab, however at the same time, Povetkin managed to land big uppercuts. Over the next three rounds, both fighters continued to press on the attack. At the end of round 4, Charr had managed to only win one round on all three judges scorecards. In round 7, Povetkin landed a three-punch combination which dropped Charr, flat on his back. Referee Massimo Barrovecchio did not count and stopped the fight immediately at 1 minute and 9 seconds.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: In August 2014 it was announced a deal was close to being reached which would see Povetkin challenge French-Cameroonian contender Carlos Takam (30-1-1, 23 KOs) for his WBC Silver heavyweight title. A few days later, World of Boxing promoter Andrei Ryabinsky stated the contracts had been signed for the fight to take place on 24 October at the Palace of Sports in Luzhniki. In what was considered a back and forth fight and potential fight of the year, Povetkin scored a round 10 KO win to secure the WBC Silver title. At the end of round 4, two judges had Takam ahead 39–37 and 39–38, whilst the remaining judge had Povetkin ahead 39–37. From round 8, Povetkin began to increase the number of punches he was throwing and in round 9, referee Kenny Bayless issued a standing 8-count to Takam after Povetkin landed some unanswered shots, which had Takam held up by the ropes. Takam failed to recover and in round 10, Povetkin landed a left hook to his chin, dropping Takam. Bayless waved the fight off immediately. BoxingScene.com voted the final punch as their knockout of the year for 2014.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: It was announced that Povetkin's next fight against Irish based Cuban contender Mike Perez (21-1-1, 13 KOs) would take place on 22 May 2015 and serve as a final eliminator for the WBC heavyweight title, held by American boxer Deontay Wilder. Due to the winner potentially being next in line to challenge Wilder, ESPN announced they would air the fight live on ESPN3.com. Povetkin earned a mandatory title shot by knocking out Perez in the first round in devastating fashion. The fight lasted just 91 seconds. Povetkin sent the southpaw Perez down with three right hands. Perez beat the count, then took a beating on the ropes, ending the contest.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: In August 2015, a deal was reached for Povetkin to fight once beaten former world title challenger Mariusz Wach (31-1, 17 KOs) in Kazan, Russia 4 November 2015. Wach had previously gone 12 rounds with Wladimir Klitschko. The fight would be the main event of a packed Russian card that featured multiple world title fights. After the fight was announced, Povetkin spoke of his disappointment of not being able to land Wilder on the same date. Wach started off the fight with success, keeping the smaller Povetkin at range with his jab. But as the rounds went on, Povetkin was able to find his range and begin to push Wach around the ring with combinations on the inside. Towards the end of the fight, with both participants cut, Povetkin urged the referee stoppage as he deemed Wach, who was being hit at will essentially, unable to continue. On the morning of the fight, the WBC approved another voluntary defence for Wilder, which would likely take place in January 2016. This meant the potential Wilder vs. Povetkin fight would take place around May 2016. Wach allegedly only received 10% of his purse, due to his ongoing difficulties with his promoter Jimmy Burchfield. In December, it was reported that Wach failed a post-fight drug test.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: It was announced that Povetkin would fight WBC World Champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) in Moscow, Russia, on a date set to yet be announced at the Megasport Arena. It was originally set for May 21, 2016 until Povetkin failed a drug test. On May 14, it was reported that Povetkin had failed a drugs test. The fight has been put in jeopardy after he tested positive for the banned substance meldonium. Promotor Andrei Ryabinsky added that Povetkin did take meldonium last year, but stopped before it was banned, and only "leftover traces of meldonium at a very low concentration" were found in a blood sample given by the 36-year-old last month. It was reported on May 15, that the assertion from Povetkin's promoter that it was in his system only because he took it late last year, before it was banned, appeared untrue. The WBC announced on May 15, a week before the fight that it would be postponed. On May 31, it was announced on Sky Sports by Povetkin's promoters that new drug test results prove the Povetkin is a clean athlete. The new doping test, taken May 17, showed no traces of meldonium. This was reported by VADA.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: With Wilder out until early 2017, the WBC ordered mandatory challenger Povetkin to fight former world champion Bermane Stiverne for the interim WBC heavyweight title. Stiverne previously held the WBC title losing his first defence to Wilder. The winner would eventually go on to challenge Wilder upon his return for the full version of the title. A purse bid was scheduled for October 10. The purse bid was won by World of Boxing promoter Andrey Ryabinsky. The winning bid was $3.165 million, beating out the two other bids, one from Don King for $2.1 million and another from Eye of the Tiger promotions for $542,000. Povetkin and Stiverne are due to earn a base purse of $1,424,250 each due to a 50–50 split, with the winner receiving the remainder $316,500 as a bonus.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: On November 11, the WBC were told by VADA that Stiverne had tested positive on a drug test. It was said that the banned substance was methylhexaneamine, which is also known as dimethylamylamine or 'DMAA'. Povetkin's camp confirmed the fight will still go ahead. Stiverne claimed he ingested a post-workout supplement called SUPERPHARM without knowing it included dimethylamylamine, but under VADA’s rules an athlete is responsible for whatever goes into their body. The WBC took into account that it was Stiverne’s first offence when making its ruling and fined him $75,000. Just 20 hours before the fight was to take place, the WBC withdrew its sanction of the fight stating Povetkin had failed another drug test, this time for Ostarine. The test was taken of December 6. Stiverne later made a statement to tell everyone he will be heading home to Las Vegas and did not want to fight if the sanction was off, as that was the whole reason for him training and taking the fight in Russia. Following the cancellation, Stiverne's promoter Don King stated he would be filing a lawsuit against World of Boxing promoter Andrey Ryabinsky, just as Ryabinsky did against King when Lebedev pulled out of his scheduled rematch against Guillermo Jones, after Jones tested positive for a second time. At that time, Ryabinsky was awarded $1.6m in damages. On December 23, Ryabinsky stated that Povetkin's sample from December 13 came back negative. Ryabinsky claimed that the test where he had tested positive contained 0,00000000001g traces of ostarine and a previous random test in November also came back negative.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: After Stiverne withdrew himself from the title claiming he would be heading home, there was ongoing talks for WBC Silver heavyweight champion Johann Duhaupas (34-3, 21 KOs) to step in and fight Povetkin instead. Hours later it was confirmed that the fight would take place on short notice with no titles at stake. Povetkin dominated and knocked out Duhaupas in the 6th round. Povetkin had Duhaupas hurt in the 4th round after connecting with a right hand to the head. The end came when Povetkin hurt Duhaupas with two left hooks to the head in round 6 to knock him down and out. The fight was halted by the referee, as Duhaupas was badly hurt from the left hands. The official time of the stoppage was at 2:59 of the 6th round.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: On March 3, 2017, Povetkin was handed a fine of $250,000 and banned indefinitely by the World Boxing Council for failing drug tests. Their ban meant they would no longer sanction his fights. It was also noted on the documents presented by the WBC that Povetkin would be allowed to apply in March 2018 to be included in the rankings. The lifetime ban was lifted by the WBC on 8 December 2017. it was announced that Povetkin would be inserted back into the WBC rankings from January 2018.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: On 16 May 2017 it was confirmed that Povetkin would return to the ring on 1 July in Moscow. In a statement, Povetkin said: "I do not care with who I fight with. I'm sure my team will pick me a good interesting opponent, with whom we will have a spectacular fight. My job is to train and show good boxing ability. I'm ready to fight against any opponent." His promoter, Andrei Ryabinsky was in talks with several candidates. On 24 May, it was announced that Povetkin would fight Andriy Rudenko (31-2, 19 KOs), who was ranked 9th by the WBO; and 13th by the WBC and IBF. The fight was being billed as a "Battle of Russia vs. Ukraine", despite the fact that Rudenko was relatively unknown in Ukraine, where the fight was featured on rather smaller TV channel XSPORT instead of Inter. Rudenko was on a seven-fight winning streak following back-to-back losses to Lucas Browne and Hughie Fury. On 14 June, the WBO decided to sanction the bout and announced that the vacant WBO International heavyweight title would be at stake.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Soon after the fight began Rudenko had problems right away. The fight almost came to an end in the first round after Povetkin accidentally hit Rudenko in the back of his neck with an overhand punch in the middle of a clinch. Rudenko spent five minutes complaining that he had injured his neck while Povetkin waited patiently in the corner to resume but fans in attendance began to whistle in displeasure at Rudenko whom they saw as feigning injury. The ringside doctor determined that Rudenko had a spasm and that Rudenko wanted to pull out of the fight. However the referee eventually persuaded Rudenko to continue. During the interval between rounds eight and nine Rudenko again wanted to stop the fight but his corner firmly insisted on continuing. Povetkin went on to control every round winning a one-sided fight on all three judges scorecards 120–109, 120–108, and 120–108. Along with the WBO International title Povetkin also won the WBA Continental title. Following the win the IBF re-instated Povetkin into the rankings for July 2017. He was placed at No. 13 ranking.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: On 10 October 2017, it was revealed that Povetkin would return to fight at the DIVS in Yekaterinburg on 15 December. It was rumoured that his opponent would be No. 2 WBO Christian Hammer (22-4, 12 KOs) in a title eliminator. #4 WBO Tom Schwrtz was also considered. Povetkin's promoter, World of Boxing stated the WBO International title would be at stake. At the time, Hammer was on a five-fight win streak since his last loss, to the hands of Tyson Fury in February 2015. On 23 October, Alexei Titov, executive director of RCC Boxing Promotions who were working to organise the event, stated that he would attend WBO's annual convention in the next week and ask them to sanction the bout as a final eliminator. On 31 October, Hammer's promoter Erol Ceylan of EC Boxpromotion confirmed the bout. A month prior to the fight, Povetkin's manager announced that former cruiserweight contender BJ Flores (34-3-1, 21 KOs), who had previously called out Povetkin, would be on standby as a replacement in case Hammer withdrew or could not make the fight. A deal could not be reached with Flores, and instead Japanese contender Kyotaro Fujimoto (18-1, 10 KOs) signed the contract to become the back-up. On 8 November, the WBC announced that they would be lifting the lifetime ban effective immediately from 7 December 2017. From this date, WBC would start a probation period which would end on 6 December 2018. The ruling also stated that Povetkin would be re-instated in the WBC rankings in January 2018. Povetkin outworked a survival-oriented Hammer to win a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision, in what was a final eliminator to the WBA title, held by Anthony Joshua. The three judges' scores were 120–107, 120–108, and 118–108. The referee had warned Hammer repeatedly to stop putting Povetkin in headlocks, but he did not stop, eventually having a point deducted in round 7. Hammer came alive towards the end of each round, landing some big shots, at times knocking Povetkin off balance. After the fight, promoter Andrey Ryabinskiy said, “I have confirmation from WBA that Anthony Joshua must fight the winner of Povetkin-Hammer.”


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: On 16 January 2018, after unification fight Anthony Joshua vs. Joseph Parker was announced, promoter Eddie Hearn offered Povetkin an opportunity to fight on the undercard, which would take place on 31 March at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Contenders Derek Chisora and David Price were mentioned as potential opponents. The next day, Price spoke to Sky Sports stating they accepted Hearn's offer and would be willing to fight Povetkin. On 30 January, Hearn told a reporter a deal was close being done after Povetkin also agreed to the fight. Three days later, the fight was officially confirmed. Povetkin won the fight via knockout in round 5. Povetkin badly hurt Price with a right hand, who was then defenceless, Povetkin finished off with a left hook that put Price down flat on the canvas. Without a count, referee Howard John Foster halted the fight. The official time of the stoppage was at 1:02 of round 5. In round 3, Povetkin knocked Price down with a right hand to the head. Price got up and came back strong landing some hard punches of his own. Price hurt Povetkin late in round 3 with a left hook which resulted in Povetkin falling backwards towards the ropes. The referee ruled it a knockdown due to the ropes holding Povetkin up. Price did not take advantage of the knockdown, but it looked as though he had tired himself out. With the win, Povetkin was now in position to become Anthony Joshua's mandatory challenger from the WBA and WBO. Joshua picked up the WBO title in defeating Joseph Parker in the main event. Dillian Whyte, who at the time was ranked WBC #1 stated he would fight Povetkin.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: From April up until the end of June 2018, both camps of Anthony Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs) and Deontay Wilder were in deep talks around the super fight to finally take place. The main hurdles were split, date and venue. At one point Wilder had agreed to fight Joshua in the UK, however there was slight confusions in the contracts that were being sent back and forth. At the same time, Hearn was also working a deal out for Joshua to fight WBA mandatory challenger Povetkin. The WBA initially ordered the fight after Povetkin knocked out David Price on the Joshua-Parker undercard. Negotiations took a turn on 26 June when the WBA gave Joshua's camp 24 hours to finalise a deal with Povetkin. With Joshua closer to fighting Povetkin in September 2018, Hearn stated the Joshua-Wilder fight would still take place in April 2019 at Wembley Stadium. Hearn later explained that the WBA would have granted an exemption, had Wilder signed a deal to fight Joshua.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: On 5 July, Hearn announced the Wembley Stadium in London would host Joshua's next two fights on 22 September 2018 and again on 13 April 2019. On 16 July, Joshua vs. Povetkin for the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles was officially announced for 22 September on Sky Box Office. Many British pundits and trainers spoke around how Joshua should not underestimate Povetkin and how he would pose a big threat to Joshua.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: In front of nearly 80,000 in attendance, Joshua overcame a short struggle, eventually coming out with a victory in round 7 through TKO to retain his world titles. Using his movement and coming in and out, Povetkin had Joshua hurt early on with his big shots. In round 2, Joshua's nose began to bruise. From round 5, Povetkin began to tire. Joshua dropped Povetkin with a left hand to the head in round 7. Povetkin got back up but Joshua was straight back in with a flurry of hard shots, before the referee mercifully stopped the fight. At the time of stoppage, the three judges scorecards were 58–56, 58–56, and 59–55 in favour of Joshua.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: In the post-fight interview, Joshua stated, "I've got my knockout streak back and I found my right hand again. Alexander Povetkin is a very tough challenge. He provided that, he was good with left hook. I realized he was strong to the head but weak to the body so I was switching it up. Every jab takes a breath out of you and I slowed him down." He then announced he would post a poll on Twitter asking the fans who they would like to see him fight next. Compubox Punch stats showed that Joshua landed 90 of 256 punches thrown (35%), with 53 of them landed being jabs. Povetkin landed 47 of his 181 thrown (26%). Povekin connected with 43 power shots compared to the 37 Joshua landed. There was also a huge size advantage in favour of Joshua, who weighed 246 pounds to Povetkin's 222 pounds. It was reported that Joshua would earn around £20 million and Povetkin would earn around £6 million for the fight.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: In November 2018, according to his promoter Andrei Ryanbinsky, Povetkin would retire after two more fights.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: By the end of December 2018, Povetkin recovered from elbow operations following his loss to Joshua and stated he would start a training camp in January 2019, hoping for a fight in April. Povetkin expected his return to the ring would take place in either the UK or US. A few names had been reported such as Dillian Whyte and Oleksandr Usyk. On 4 March, it was reported that Usyk would fight either Povetkin or Carlos Takam on 18 May 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. Two days later it was reported, whilst a potential Usyk-Povetkin fight could take place in 2019, both boxers would take interim bout first.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Povetkin scored a twelve-round unanimous decision against Hughie Fury on 31 August 2019 at The O2 Arena in London on the Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Luke Campbell undercard. All of the officials had the bout exactly the same – 117–111 for Povetkin, who turned 40 two days later.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Povetkin faced Michael Hunter on 7 December on the undercard of Andy Ruiz Jr. vs. Anthony Joshua II built Diriyah Arena in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Both shared a split decision draw after twelve rounds, the first draw of each fighter's career. In the ring following the fight, Povetkin and Hunter spoke about their desire for a rematch to settle the score.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: The fight began at a furious pace as Hunter came out fast and rocked Povetkin multiple times in the first round. The two relatively small heavyweights traded hooks and did not hang around before jumping in close. Hunter's speed continued to trouble Povetkin in the second as he wobbled the Russian again, who stood firm and refused to wilt early on. Povetkin appeared to have somewhat weathered the storm by the third and fourth rounds as Hunter's punches had less of an effect on him and he returned fire with shots of his own. The tables turned for a moment in the fifth as Povektin rocked Hunter with a left hook. The 31-year-old staggered backwards and was seemingly kept up by the ropes, though no knockdown was given. Action died down slightly in the sixth but reignited in the seventh as both men traded in the middle of the ring and appeared to hurt one another with their respective power punches. As the bout drew deeper into the second half, the pair simply could not maintain the pace of some of their earlier exchanges and things became scrappy at times. Hunter appeared to be landing the cleaner shots, catching Povetkin as he came charging forwards before utilising his own effective aggression. By the tenth, Povetkin appeared to have expended all of his energy and in the eleventh he began to grab hold of Hunter while being repeatedly caught with right hands. Come the final session, the result seemed to be heading in the American's favour, but his lackluster efforts in the last minutes proved to cost him as the result was read out as a split decision draw: 115–113 Povetkin, 115–113 Hunter, and 114–114 draw. Hunter said post-fight: "I don't make the scores so there's nothing I can say on it. I think I've done enough, but obviously the judges didn't think so, I hope I get the chance to fight him again." Povetkin replied: "I think it was a 50/50 fight. Absolutely, I will do it again for sure."


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Povetkin was scheduled to face WBC interim heavyweight champion Dillian Whyte on 2 May 2020, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the date was pushed back to 22 August. Whyte, installed as the pre-fight betting favourite, started off well and controlled the fight in the first four rounds, knocking Povetkin down twice in the fourth. However, 30 seconds into the following round, Povetkin landed an uppercut which left Whyte laid flat on his back, prompting the referee to call a halt to the contest. With a knockout of the year contender, Povetkin was announced the winner of the bout by fifth-round technical knockout. According to official viewing figures, the fight accumulated 222,000 PPV buys on Sky Sports Box Office.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Povetkin's first defence of his WBC interim heavyweight title consisted of an immediate rematch against Dillian Whyte in Gibraltar. The fight had originally been scheduled to take place in November 2020, but was postponed to 27 March 2021 when Povetkin contracted COVID-19. With a mainly pro-Whyte crowd of 500 fans present at the Europa Point Sports Complex, Povetkin lost the fight by way of fourth-round technical knockout, a result that saw Whyte regain the WBC interim title at Povetkin's expense. After the fight, Russian promoter Andrey Ryabinsky said he would try to "persuade him [Povetkin] to end his career", citing concerns about the fighter's health.


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: On 13 June 2021, Povetkin announced his retirement from boxing aged 41, citing lingering injuries that require treatment: "The years take their toll, I have all kinds of injuries that still need to be treated. The time has come for me to end my career."


title: Alexander Povetkin

text: Povetkin has a daughter named Arina with his ex-wife, Irina. In July 2013, Alexander married Yevgenia Merkulova in the Czech Republic. He also has a brother, Vladimir Povetkin, who fights as a professional light heavyweight. Both fighters were trained by Valery Belov. Povetkin has declared himself a Rodnover, he wears a Perun Axe necklace and has the Star of Rus tattooed on his inner left biceps.


title: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport

text: Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport is an international airport located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, serving the Kolkata Metropolitan Area and is the aviation hub for eastern and northeastern India. It is located approximately from the city centre. The airport is locally known as Kolkata Airport and Dum Dum Airport before being renamed in 1995 after Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a prominent leader of the Indian independence movement. Opened in 1924, Kolkata Airport is one of the oldest airports in India.


text: Spread over an area of , Kolkata Airport is the largest hub for air traffic in the eastern part of the country and one of two international airports operating in West Bengal, the other being Bagdogra. The airport handled almost 20 million passengers in the financial year 2017–18, making it the fifth-busiest airport in India in terms of passenger traffic after airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. The airport is a major centre for flights to Northeast India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Southeast Asia and the Middle Eastern cities of Dubai and Doha. In 2014 and 2015, Kolkata Airport won the title of "Best Improved Airport" in the Asia-Pacific region awarded by the Airport Council International. The airport is awarded as best airport by hygiene measures in Asia-Pacific in 2020 by Airports Council International.


text: Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport was founded in the early 1900s as the Calcutta Aerodrome. The airport traditionally served as a strategic stopover on the air route from North America and Europe to Indochina and Australia. Dakota 3 was the first aircraft to land in the airport. In 1924, KLM began scheduled stops at Calcutta, as part of their Amsterdam to Batavia (Jakarta) route. The same year, a Royal Air Force aircraft landed in Calcutta as part of the first round-the-world expedition by any air force.


text: The airport began as an open ground next to the Royal Artillery Armoury in Dum Dum. Sir Stanley Jackson, Governor of Bengal, opened the Bengal Flying Club at Dum Dum/Calcutta aerodrome in February 1929. In 1930, the airfield was made fit for use throughout the year, and other airlines began to utilize the airport. Air Orient began scheduled stops as part of a Paris to Saigon route and Imperial Airways began flights from London to Australia via Calcutta in 1933, thus drew many airlines to Calcutta Airport. Many pioneering flights passed through the airport, including Amelia Earhart's in 1937.


text: Calcutta played an important role in the Second World War. In 1942, the United States Army Air Forces 7th Bombardment Group flew B-24 Liberator bombers from the airport on combat missions over Burma. The airfield was used as a cargo aerial port for the Air Transport Command and was also used as a communication centre for the Tenth Air Force.


text: Passenger services grew after the Second World War. Calcutta became a destination for the world's first jet-powered passenger aircraft, the de Havilland Comet, on a British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) route to London. Furthermore, in 1964 Indian Airlines introduced the first Indian domestic jet service, using Caravelle jets on the Calcutta–Delhi route. Between the 1940s and 1960s, the airport was served by several major airlines including Aeroflot, Air France, Alitalia, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Philippine Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Pan Am, Qantas, Swissair, and SAS.


text: Due to the introduction of longer-haul aircraft and the poor political climate of Calcutta during the 1960s, several airlines discontinued their service to the airport. The 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War saw a large increase of both refugees and disease in Calcutta, causing more airlines to cease services to the city. In 1975, the airport opened the first dedicated cargo terminal in India.


text: The 1990s saw new growth for Calcutta Airport, as the Indian aviation industry saw the arrival of new airlines such as Jet Airways and Air Sahara. A new domestic terminal named Terminal 2 was opened in 1995 making the international one Terminal 1, and the airport was renamed in honour of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. In 2000, a new international arrival hall was opened.


text: 2005 saw the growth of low-cost carriers in the Indian aviation sector, with new airlines including SpiceJet, IndiGo, and Kingfisher Airlines. This led to a dramatic rise in passenger numbers at the airport. Overcrowding in both terminals led to the implementation of a comprehensive modernisation plan for the airport.


text: Work included an expansion of runway 01L/19R, rapid-exit taxiways and parking bays. The runway was extended by (2790 metres to 3190 metres) on the northern side and on the southern side and was fitted with CAT-I facilities for night use. A 119-year-old mosque that lies 30 metres from the runway' northern end prohibits further expansion in this direction. The longer runway, 01R/19L, was upgraded from CAT-I to CAT-II ILS status to allow landings in poor visibility. In August 2014, it was announced that the instrument landing system of the primary runway would be upgraded to CAT-IIIb. This allows flights to operate till visibility drops below 50 metres. The secondary runway would be upgraded to CAT-II. The upgrading work started in February 2015 and was completed in January 2018.


text: The modernisation plan included some improvements of the airport's existing terminals, including the addition of extra ticketing counters, check-in kiosks, and cafes to the domestic terminal in 2009. However, the need to replace the airport's terminals entirely led to plans for a new integrated terminal, known as T2 to differentiate it from the older domestic block, to serve both international and domestic destinations. A Thai-based company, the Italian-Thai Development (ITD) Corporation (ITD-ITDCem JV, a consortium of ITD and ITD Cementation) and the 125-year-old iconic Project Management Consultant–Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) was hired with Delhi-based designer Sikka Associates to construct the building. Construction commenced in November 2008, and T2 was inaugurated on 20 January 2013 after overshooting the previous deadlines of July 2011 and August 2012. The former airport hotel 'Ashok' was demolished to give way for two new five-star luxury hotels and a shopping mall in its place.


text: Commercial operations were intended to start on 23 January 2013, the 116th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. However, the shift to the new terminal was only completed on 16 March 2013. Airports Council International named it the best improved airport in the Asia-Pacific region in 2014 and 2015.


text: The airport has two parallel runways, The primary runway 01R/19L has a capacity of 35 flights per hour and the secondary runway 01L/19R has a capacity of 15 flights per hour. The secondary runway is used as a taxiway and the main runway is mainly used. When the primary runway is shut down for maintenance, the secondary runway is used.


text: Air India operates hangars at the airport, while Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil act as fuellers. Catering facilities are owned by Taj-Sats and Oberoi Flight Services.


text: The airport's new integrated terminal T2 is spread over and can handle 25 million passengers annually, compared to the previous terminals' capacity of five million. The terminal is an L-shaped structure, containing six levels. It contains 128 check-in counters that utilise CUTE (Common User Terminal Equipment) technology and has 78 immigration counters and twelve customs counters. Passenger lounges are provided by Air India. The terminal is equipped with 18 aerobridges and a further 57 remote parking bays. There are plans to construct an 18-foot bronze statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the integrated terminal complex.


text: Kolkata's old international and domestic terminals closed permanently when the integrated terminal opened. However, the old international terminal may be used for future hajj services and is currently under renovation, and the domestic terminal may be used by regional airlines. An earlier proposal of continuing low-cost carrier operations from the existing domestic terminal has been shelved due to the need to fully utilise the new integrated terminal's capacity, making it the first airport in India to shift even its low-cost domestic airlines to the new integrated building upon completion.


text: In the financial year from April 2011 to March 2012, Kolkata Airport served 10.3 million passengers, 85% which were travelling domestically. The withdrawal of Lufthansa's service to Frankfurt in March 2012 left Kolkata with no direct connections beyond Asia. However, other international operations increased in 2012. The new terminal has attracted some airlines to expand their route networks to include Kolkata.


text: In September 2012, the Airports Authority of India upgraded the airport's cargo-handling capacity, enabling it to cater for the demand until 2015–16. There has been a 25 per cent growth in international cargo movement to and from Kolkata Airport and a 15 per cent increase in outward transit. Automobile parts accounted for the bulk of the growth in the movement of cargo from the city to other countries. In November 2008 the first Centre for Perishable Cargo (CPC) in West Bengal was opened at the airport. The CPC has an area of and an annual storage capacity of 12,000 million tonnes. The CPC had been undergoing trials that started in June 2008 and were built with a grant-in-aid from the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) part of the Commerce Ministry. The volume of export was 21,683 tonnes in 2008–09, during the current fiscal more than 23,042 tonnes of cargo were handled by the airport. Similarly, the volume of import cargo increased from 16,863 tonnes to 18,733 tonnes, increasing over ten per cent during the same period. However, in 2008–09 the total volume of cargo handled by the airport declined by 4.8% from the previous year. On 3 June 2019, Singapore Airlines operated the Airport's first Airbus A350 service from Singapore to Kolkata, enhancing the weekly seat capacity.


text: The construction of the new terminal, as well as runway expansion, marked the end of Phase I of the project. AAI officials have announced that they are prepared to execute Phase 2 of the Kolkata Airport expansion plan. This involves the construction of a new ATC Tower to provide controllers with a better view of the planes at the new terminal. The building will be accompanied by a 4-storey office complex. Initially, a 112 meter tower was proposed, but the height has been revised multiple times and in 2017 it was decreased to 51.4 meter. The under construction tower is expected to be complete by late 2023.


text: The new terminal T2 inaugurated in 2013 is on the verge of reaching its annual capacity of 24 million passengers four years ahead of the initial projections. To tackle this, AAI has planned to upgrade and expand the airport and increase its passenger capacity by 100% to handle up to 40 million passengers annually. The new ₹1,000 crore expansion plan will be carried out in 2 phases. The number of parking bays will be increased to 105 by 2024.


text: Airport officials said as per the first phase of the expansion plan, the old domestic terminal will be demolished and a 7000 sq. m. new building will be constructed in the area. The building will be linked with the existing terminal of the airport with the help of walkalators and would also have walk-in gates on the ground floor. This building will be used only for boarding and de-boarding of passengers. Passengers arriving in the boarding building would take the connecting bridge to the terminal and then leave the airport. This would reduce peak-hour congestion when several flights do not get enough apron space. This would immediately increase the passenger capacity by a few million and would solve the space crunch for the time being. The phase 1 expansion plan has been sanctioned by AAI.


text: A master plan has already been made for the construction of a third terminal that will increase the airport's passenger capacity to 45 million. The plan has received the first nod from the aviation ministry. The new terminal T1 will come up north of the current integrated terminal. The Air Traffic Navigation Building and the old international terminal that are situated beyond the old domestic terminal (which will become a passenger boarding building), will be demolished to make way for the new terminal T1, which is expected to house only domestic flights while the existing integrated terminal T2 will be allotted only to international flights. The construction of new hangars and bays is also part of the current expansion plan.


text: As of the financial year 2019–20, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport was again the fifth-busiest airport in India in terms of the total number of passengers served, which was about 22 million, 0.6% increase from the previous year. Out of which, 19 million passengers were domestic and 3 million were international. The cargo traffic saw a decline of 1.1% from its previous year, with 153,468 metric tonnes of cargo.


text: The airport has a well-established facility of prepaid taxis and air-conditioned buses connecting it to the city centre. As part of the larger modernisation programme, a flyover at Nagerbazar and an entry ramp on VIP Road have also been constructed. A flyover from Kestopur to Raghunathpur (near Tegharia) was built to speed up airport-bound traffic. These reduced journey times to the airport. Parking facilities at the new terminal include two underground parking levels accommodating 3000 cars, as well as an outdoor car parking which can handle an additional 2000 cars.


text: Two new Kolkata Metro lines are under construction which will connect to the airport: one from Noapara (Yellow Line), and the other from New Garia (Orange Line). Both lines will converge at the Biman Bandar metro station. An American aviation planning firm has drafted a plan for a futuristic multi-modal transport hub at Kolkata Airport modelled on similar projects in European airports.


text: The airport was connected to the Kolkata Suburban Railway system's circular line branch. The long elevated track connected the airport Biman Bandar railway station with Dum Dum Cantonment railway station, passing Jessore Road. Electric multiple unit rolling stocks served the line. However, due to poor patronage and plans to replace it with metro service, the railway line was closed in September 2016 to facilitate construction of the new lines. The remaining infrastructure was dismantled in early 2020 to make space for road upgrades.


text: On 2 May 1953, BOAC Flight 783 de Havilland Comet bound for Delhi crashed after takeoff from Calcutta Airport with the loss of 43 lives. Parts of the aircraft were found spread over an area of eight square miles, near Jugalgari, a village some 25 miles north-west of Calcutta, suggesting disintegration before impact with the ground.


text: On 12 June 1968, a Pan-Am Flight (N798PA, named Clipper Caribbean) Boeing 707-321C struck a tree 1128m short of the runway during a night-time visual approach in rain. The aircraft subsequently crashed and caught fire. The fuselage remained largely intact, although the aircraft's landing gear broke off. Out of the 10 crew and 53 passengers aboard, 1 crew member and 5 passengers suffered fatal injuries due to the fire.


title: Kafir

text: Kafir ( '; plural ', ' or '; feminine '; feminine plural ' or "") is an Arabic and Islamic term which, in the Islamic tradition, refers to a person who disbelieves in God as per Islam, or denies his authority, or rejects the tenets of Islam. The term is often translated as "infidel", "pagan", "rejector", "denier", "disbeliever", "unbeliever", "nonbeliever", and "non-Muslim". The term is used in different ways in the Quran, with the most fundamental sense being "ungrateful" (toward God). "Kufr" means "unbelief" or "non-belief", "to be thankless", "to be faithless", or "ingratitude". The opposite term of "kufr" is "īmān" (faith), and the opposite of "kāfir" is "muʾmin" (believer). A person who denies the existence of a creator might be called a "dahri".


title: Kafir

text: "Kafir" is sometimes used interchangeably with "mushrik" (, those who practice polytheism), another type of religious wrongdoer mentioned frequently in the Quran and other Islamic works. (Other, sometimes overlapping Quranic terms for wrong doers are "ẓallām" (villain, oppressor) and "fāsiq" (sinner, fornicator).) Historically, while Islamic scholars agreed that a polytheist/"mushrik" is a "kafir", they sometimes disagreed on the propriety of applying the term to Muslims who committed a grave sin or to the People of the Book. The Quran distinguishes between "mushrikun" and People of the Book, reserving the former term for idol-worshippers, although some classical commentators considered the Christian doctrine to be a form of "shirk".


title: Kafir

text: In modern times, "kafir" is sometimes applied towards self-professed Muslims particularly by members of Islamist movements. The act of declaring another self-professed Muslim a "kafir" is known as "takfir", a practice that has been condemned but also employed in theological and political polemics over the centuries. A "Dhimmī" or "Muʿāhid" is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. "Dhimmī" were exempt from certain duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid the poll tax ("jizya") but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation according to some scholars, whereas others state that religious minorities subjected to the status of "Dhimmī" (such as Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians) were inferior to the status of Muslims in Islamic states. Jews and Christians were required to pay the "jizya" and "kharaj" taxes, while others, depending on the different rulings of the four "madhhab", might be required to convert to Islam, pay the "jizya", be exiled, or killed under the Islamic death penalty.


title: Kafir

text: In 2019, Nahdlatul Ulama, the world's largest independent Islamic organization based in Indonesia, issued a proclamation urging Muslims to refrain from using the word ""kafir"" to refer to non-Muslims, because the term is both offensive and perceived as "theologically violent".


title: Kafir

text: The word ' is the active participle of the verb كَفَرَ kafara, from root ك-ف-ر K-F-R. As a pre-Islamic term it described farmers burying seeds in the ground. One of its applications in the Quran has also the same meaning as farmer. Since farmers cover the seeds with soil while planting, the word ' implies a person who hides or covers. Ideologically, it implies a person who hides or covers the truth. Arabic poets personify the darkness of night as "kâfir", perhaps as a survival of pre-Islamic Arabian religious or mythological usage.


title: Kafir

text: The practice of declaring another Muslim as a "kafir" is "takfir". "Kufr" (unbelief) and "shirk" (idolatry) are used throughout the Quran and sometimes used interchangeably by Muslims. According to Salafist scholars, "Kufr" is the "denial of the Truth" (truth in the form of articles of faith in Islam), and "shirk" means devoting "acts of worship to anything beside God" or "the worship of idols and other created beings". So a mushrik may worship other things while also "acknowledging God".


title: Kafir

text: The distinction between those who believe in Islam and those who do not is an essential one in the Quran. "Kafir", and its plural "kuffaar", is used directly 134 times in Quran, its verbal noun ""kufr"" is used 37 times, and the verbal cognates of "kafir" are used about 250 times.


title: Kafir

text: By extension of the basic meaning of the root, "to cover", the term is used in the Quran in the senses of ignore/fail to acknowledge and to spurn/be ungrateful. The meaning of "disbelief", which has come to be regarded as primary, retains all of these connotations in the Quranic usage. In the Quranic discourse, the term typifies all things that are unacceptable and offensive to God. Whereby it is not necessary to deny the existence of God, but it suffices to deviate from his will as seen in a dialogue between God and Iblis, the latter called a "kafir". According to Al-Damiri (1341–1405) it is neither denying God, nor the act of disobedience alone, but Iblis' attitude (claiming that God's command is unjust), which makes him a "kafir". The most fundamental sense of "kufr" in the Quran is "ingratitude", the willful refusal to acknowledge or appreciate the benefits that God bestows on humankind, including clear signs and revealed scriptures.


title: Kafir

text: According to the "E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936, Volume 4", the term first applied in the Quran to unbelieving Meccans, who endeavoured "to refute and revile the Prophet". A waiting attitude towards the "kafir" was recommended at first for Muslims; later, Muslims were ordered to keep apart from unbelievers and defend themselves against their attacks and even take the offensive. Most passages in the Quran referring to unbelievers in general talk about their fate on the day of judgement and destination in hell.


title: Kafir

text: According to scholar Marilyn Waldman, as the Quran "progresses" (as the reader goes from the verses revealed first to later ones), the meaning behind the term "kafir" does not change but "progresses", i.e. "accumulates meaning over time". As the Islamic prophet Muhammad's views of his opponents change, his use of "kafir" "undergoes a development". "Kafir" moves from being "one" description of Muhammad's opponents to the primary one. Later in the Quran, "kafir" becomes more and more connected with "shirk". Finally, towards the end of the Quran, "kafir" begins to also signify the group of people to be fought by the "mu'minīn" (believers).


title: Kafir

text: The status of the "Ahl al-Kitab" (People of the Book), particularly Jews and Christians, with respect to the Islamic notions of unbelief is disputed.


title: Kafir

text: Charles Adams writes that the Quran reproaches the People of the Book with "kufr" for rejecting Muhammad's message when they should have been the first to accept it as possessors of earlier revelations, and singles out Christians for disregarding the evidence of God's unity. The Quranic verse ("Certainly they disbelieve ["kafara"] who say: God is the third of three"), among other verses, has been traditionally understood in Islam as rejection of the Christian doctrine on the Trinity, though modern scholarship has suggested alternative interpretations. Other Quranic verses strongly deny the deity of Jesus Christ, son of Mary and reproach the people who treat Jesus as equal with God as disbelievers who will have strayed from the path of God which would result in the entrance of hellfire. While the Quran does not recognize the attribute of Jesus as the Son of God or God himself, it respects Jesus as a prophet and messenger of God sent to children of Israel. Some Muslim thinkers such as Mohamed Talbi have viewed the most extreme Quranic presentations of the dogmas of the Trinity and divinity of Jesus (, , ) as non-Christian formulas that were rejected by the Church.


title: Kafir

text: On the other hand, modern scholarship has suggested alternative interpretations of verse Q.. Cyril Glasse criticizes the use of "kafirun" [pl. of "kafir"] to describe Christians as "loose usage". According to the "Encyclopedia of Islam", in traditional Islamic jurisprudence, "ahl al-kitab" are "usually regarded more leniently than other "kuffar" [pl. of "kafir"]" and "in theory" a Muslim commits a punishable offense if he says to a Jew or a Christian: "Thou unbeliever". (Charles Adams and A. Kevin Reinhart also write that "later thinkers" in Islam distinguished between "ahl al-kitab" and the polytheists/"mushrikīn").


title: Kafir

text: Historically, People of the Book permanently residing under Islamic rule were entitled to a special status known as "dhimmī", while those visiting Muslim lands received a different status known as "musta'min".


title: Kafir

text: "Mushrikun" (pl. of "mushrik") are those who practice "shirk", which literally means "association" and refers to accepting other gods and divinities alongside the god of the Muslims – Allah (as God's "associates"). The term is often translated as polytheism. The Quran distinguishes between "mushrikun" and People of the Book, reserving the former term for idol worshipers, although some classical commentators considered Christian doctrine to be a form of "shirk". "Shirk" is held to be the worst form of disbelief, and it is identified in the Quran as the only sin that God will not pardon (, ).


title: Kafir

text: Accusations of "shirk" have been common in religious polemics within Islam. Thus, in the early Islamic debates on free will and theodicy, Sunni theologians charged their Mu'tazila adversaries with "shirk", accusing them of attributing to man creative powers comparable to those of God in both originating and executing his own actions. Mu'tazila theologians, in turn, charged the Sunnis with "shirk" on the grounds that under their doctrine a voluntary human act would result from an "association" between God, who creates the act, and the individual who appropriates it by carrying it out.


title: Kafir

text: In classical jurisprudence, Islamic religious tolerance applied only to the People of the Book, while "mushrikun", based on the Sword Verse, faced a choice between conversion to Islam and fight to the death, which may be substituted by enslavement. In practice, the designation of People of the Book and the "dhimmī" status was extended even to non-monotheistic religions of conquered peoples, such as Hinduism. Following destruction of major Hindu temples during the Muslim conquests in South Asia, Hindus and Muslims on the subcontinent came to share a number of popular religious practices and beliefs, such as veneration of Sufi saints and worship at Sufi dargahs, although Hindus may worship at Hindu shrines also.


title: Kafir

text: In the 18th century, followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (aka Wahhabis) believed "kufr or shirk" was found in the Muslim community itself, especially in "the practice of popular religion":


title: Kafir

text: While ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Wahhābīs was/were "the best-known premodern" revivalist and "sectarian movement" of that era, other revivalists included Shah Ismail Dehlvi and Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, leaders of the Mujāhidīn movement on the North-West frontier of India in the early nineteenth century.


title: Kafir

text: Whether a Muslim could commit a sin great enough to become a "kafir" was disputed by jurists in the early centuries of Islam. The most tolerant view (that of the "Murji'ah") was that even those who had committed a major sin ("kabira") were still believers and "their fate was left to God". The most strict view (that of Kharidji Ibadis, descended from the Kharijites) was that every Muslim who dies having not repented of his sins was considered a "kafir". In between these two positions, the "Mu'tazila" believed that there was a status between believer and unbeliever called "rejected" or "fasiq".


title: Kafir

text: The Kharijites view that the self-proclaimed Muslim who had sinned and "failed to repent had ipso facto excluded himself from the community, and was hence a kafir" (a practice known as "takfir") was considered so extreme by the Sunni majority that they in turn declared the Kharijites to be "kuffar", following the hadith that declared, "If a Muslim charges a fellow Muslim with "kufr", he is himself a "kafir" if the accusation should prove untrue".


title: Kafir

text: Nevertheless, in Islamic theological polemics "kafir" was "a frequent term for the Muslim protagonist" holding the opposite view, according to "Brill's Islamic Encyclopedia".


title: Kafir

text: Present-day Muslims who make interpretations that differ from what others believe are declared "kafirs"; "fatwas" (edicts by Islamic religious leaders) are issued ordering Muslims to kill them, and some such people have been killed also.


title: Kafir

text: Another group that are "distinguished from the mass of kafirun" are the "murtad", or apostate ex-Muslims, who are considered renegades and traitors. Their traditional punishment is death, even, according to some scholars, if they recant their abandonment of Islam.


title: Kafir

text: "Dhimmī" are non-Muslims living under the protection of an Islamic state. "Dhimmī" were exempt from certain duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid the poll tax ("jizya") but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation according to some scholars, whereas others state that religious minorities subjected to the status of "Dhimmī" (such as Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians) were inferior to the status of Muslims in Islamic states. Jews and Christians were required to pay the "jizyah" while pagans, depending on the different rulings of the four "madhhab", might be required to accept Islam, pay the jizya, be exiled, or be killed under the Islamic death penalty. Some historians believe that forced conversion was rare in Islamic history, and most conversions to Islam were voluntary. Muslim rulers were often more interested in conquest than conversion.


title: Kafir

text: Upon payment of the tax ("jizya"), the "dhimmī" would receive a receipt of payment, either in the form of a piece of paper or parchment or as a seal humiliatingly placed upon their neck, and was thereafter compelled to carry this receipt wherever he went within the realms of Islam. Failure to produce an up-to-date "jizya" receipt on the request of a Muslim could result in death or forced conversion to Islam of the "dhimmī" in question.


title: Kafir

text: Muslim belief/doctrine is often summarized in "the Six Articles of Faith", (the first five are mentioned together in the ).


title: Kafir

text: According to the Salafi scholar Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali, ""kufr" is basically disbelief in any of the articles of faith. He also lists several different types of major disbelief, (disbelief so severe it excludes those who practice it completely from the fold of Islam):


title: Kafir

text: According to another source, a paraphrase of the Tafsir by Ibn Kathir, there are eight kinds of "Al-Kufr al-Akbar" (major unbelief), some are the same as those described by Al-Hilali ("Kufr-al-I'rad", "Kufr-an-Nifaaq") and some different.


title: Kafir

text: When the Islamic empire expanded, the word ""kafir"" was broadly used as a descriptive term for all pagans and anyone else who disbelieved in Islam.


title: Kafir

text: Historically, the attitude toward unbelievers in Islam was determined more by socio-political conditions than by religious doctrine. A tolerance toward unbelievers "impossible to imagine in contemporary Christendom" prevailed even to the time of the Crusades, particularly with respect to the People of the Book. However, due to animosity towards Franks, the term "kafir" developed into a term of abuse. During the Mahdist War, the Mahdist State used the term "kuffar" against Ottoman Turks, and the Turks themselves used the term "kuffar" towards Persians during the Ottoman-Safavid wars. In modern Muslim popular imagination, the "dajjal" (antichrist-like figure) will have k-f-r written on his forehead.


title: Kafir

text: However, there was extensive religious violence in India between Muslims and non-Muslims during the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire (before the political decline of Islam).


title: Kafir

text: In their memoirs on Muslim invasions, enslavement and plunder of this period, many Muslim historians in South Asia used the term Kafir for Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains.


title: Kafir

text: Raziuddin Aquil states that "non-Muslims were often condemned as "kafirs", in medieval Indian Islamic literature, including court chronicles, Sufi texts and literary compositions" and fatwas were issued that justified persecution of the non-Muslims.


title: Kafir

text: Relations between Jews and Muslims in the Arab world and use of the word "kafir" were equally as complex, and over the last century, issues regarding "kafir" have arisen over the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Calling the Jews of Israel, "the usurping kafir", Yasser Arafat turned on the Muslim resistance and "allegedly set a precedent for preventing Muslims from mobilizing against 'aggressor disbelievers' in other Muslim lands, and enabled 'the cowardly, alien kafir' to achieve new levels of intervention in Muslim affairs."


title: Kafir

text: In 2019, Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest independent Islamic organization in the world based in Indonesia, issued a proclamation urging Muslims to refrain from using the word "kafir" to refer to non-Muslims, as the term is both offensive and perceived to be "theologically violent".


title: Kafir

text: A hadith in which Muhammad states that his father, Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, was in Hell, has become a source of disagreement among Islamic scholars about the status of Muhammad's parents. Over the centuries, Sunni scholars have dismissed this hadith despite its appearance in the authoritative "Sahih Muslim" collection. It passed through a single chain of transmission for three generations, so that its authenticity was not considered certain enough to supersede a theological consensus which stated that people who died before a prophetic message reached them—as Muhammad's father had done—could not be held accountable for not embracing it. Shia Muslim scholars likewise consider Muhammad's parents to be in Paradise. In contrast, the Salafi website IslamQA.info, founded by the Saudi Arabian Salafi scholar Muhammad Al-Munajjid, argues that Islamic tradition teaches that Muhammad's parents were "kuffār" ("disbelievers") who are in Hell.


title: Kafir

text: By the 15th century, Muslims in Africa were using the word Kaffir in reference to the non-Muslim African natives. Many of those "kufari" were enslaved and sold to European and Asian merchants by their Muslim captors, most of the merchants were from Portugal, which had established trading outposts along the coast of West Africa by that time. These European traders adopted the Arabic word and its derivatives.


title: Kafir

text: Some of the earliest records of European usage of the word can be found in "The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation" (1589) by Richard Hakluyt. In volume 4, Hakluyt writes: "calling them "Cafars" and "Gawars", which is, infidels or disbelievers". Volume 9 refers to the slaves (slaves called "Cafari") and inhabitants of Ethiopia (and they use to go in small shippes, and trade with the "Cafars") by two different but similar names. The word is also used in reference to the coast of Africa as "land of Cafraria". The 16th century explorer Leo Africanus described the "Cafri" as "negroes", and he also stated that they constituted one of five principal population groups in Africa. He identified their geographical heartland as being located in a remote region of southern Africa, an area which he designated as "Cafraria".


title: Kafir

text: By the late 19th century, the word was in use in English-language newspapers and books. One of the Union-Castle Line ships operating off the South African coast was named SS "Kafir". In the early twentieth century, in his book "The Essential Kafir", Dudley Kidd writes that the word "kafir" had come to be used for all dark-skinned South African tribes. Thus, in many parts of South Africa, "kafir" became synonymous with the word "native". Currently in South Africa, however, the word "kaffir" is regarded as a racial slur, applied pejoratively or offensively to blacks.


title: Kafir

text: The song "Kafir" by the American technical death metal band Nile on its sixth album "Those Whom the Gods Detest" uses the violent attitudes that Muslim extremists have towards kafirs as subject matter.


title: Kafir

text: The Nuristani people were formerly known as the Kaffirs of Kafiristan before the Afghan Islamization of the region.


title: Kafir

text: The Kalash people who live in the Hindu Kush mountain range which is located south west of Chitral are referred to as kafirs by the Muslim population of Chitral.


title: Kafir

text: In modern Spanish, the word "cafre", derived from the Arabic word "kafir" by way of the Portuguese language, also means "uncouth" or "savage".


title: Bashkirs

text: The Bashkirs (, ; , ) are a Kipchak Turkic ethnic group, indigenous to Russia. They are concentrated in Bashkortostan, a republic of the Russian Federation and in the broader historical region of Badzhgard, which spans both sides of the Ural Mountains, where Eastern Europe meets North Asia. Smaller communities of Bashkirs also live in the Republic of Tatarstan, the oblasts of Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk and Kurgan and other regions in Russia; sizable minorities exist in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.


title: Bashkirs

text: Most Bashkirs speak the Bashkir language closely related to the Tatar and Kazakh languages, which belong to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages; they share historical and cultural affinities with the broader Turkic peoples. Bashkirs are mainly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab, or school of jurisprudence, and follow the Jadid doctrine. Previously nomadic and fiercely independent, the Bashkirs gradually came under Russian rule beginning in the 16th century; they have since played a major role through the history of Russia, culminating in their autonomous status within the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.


title: Bashkirs

text: The etymology and indeed meaning of the endonym "Bashqort" has been for a long time under discussion.


title: Bashkirs

text: The name Bashqort has been known since the 10th century, most researchers etymologize the name as "main/leader/head" (bash) + "wolf" (qort being an archaic name for the animal), thus ""wolf-leader"" (from the totemic hero ancestor).


title: Bashkirs

text: This prevailing folk etymology relates to a legend regarding the migration of the first seven Bashkir tribes from the Syr Darya valley to the Volga-Ural region. The legend relates that the Bashkirs were given a green and fertile land by the fertility goddess of Tengrism Umay (known locally also as "Omay-äsa"), protected by the legendary Ural mountains (in alignment with the famous Bashkir epic poem "Ural-Batyr"). A wolf was sent to guide these tribes to their promised land, hence "bash-qort, "leading wolf"". The ethnographers V. N. Tatishchev, P. I. Richkov, and Johann Gottlieb Georgi provided similar etymologies in the 18th century.


title: Bashkirs

text: Although this is the prevailing theory for an etymology of the term "bashqort", other theories have been formulated:


title: Bashkirs

text: The Bashkir group was formed by Turkic tribes of South Siberian and Central Asian origin, who, before migrating to the Southern Urals, wandered for a considerable time in the Aral-Syr Darya steppes (modern day central-southern Kazakhstan), coming into contact with the Pecheneg-Oghuz and Kimak-Kipchak tribes. Therefore, it is possible to note that the Bashkir people originates from the same tribes which compose the modern Kazakhs, Kyrgyzes and Nogais, but there has been a considerable cultural and a small ethnic exchange with Oghuz tribes.


title: Bashkirs

text: The migration to the valley of the Southern Urals took place between the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th century, in parallel to the Kipchak migration to the north.


title: Bashkirs

text: The first report about Bashkirs may have been in the Chinese chronicle Book of Sui (636 AD). Around 40 Turkic Tiele tribes were named in the section "A Narration about the Tiele people"; Bashkirs might have been included within that narration, if the tribal name 比干 (Mandarin "Bǐgān" < Middle Chinese ZS: *"piɪ-kɑn") were read as 比千 ("Bĭqiān" < *"piɪt͡sʰen"), according to Chinese scholar Rui Chuanming.


title: Bashkirs

text: However, these mentions may refer to the precursors of the Kipchak Bashkir tribes who travelled in the Aral-Syr Darya region before the migration. The Book of Sui may have mentioned "Bashkirs" when the Turkic peoples were still travelling through southern Siberia.


title: Bashkirs

text: In the 9th century, during the migration of the Bashkirs to the Volga-Ural region, the first Arab and Persian written reports about Bashkirs are attested. These include reports by Sallam al-Tardjuman who around 850 travelled to the Bashkir territories and outlined their borders.


title: Bashkirs

text: In the 10th century, the Persian historian and polymath Abu Zayd al-Balkhi described Bashkirs as a people divided into two groups: one inhabiting the Southern Urals, the other living on the Danube plain near the boundaries of Byzantium. Ibn Rustah, a contemporary of Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, observed that Bashkirs were an independent people occupying territories on both sides of the Ural mountains ridge between Volga, Kama, and Tobol Rivers and upstream of the Yaik river.


title: Bashkirs

text: Ahmad ibn Fadlan, ambassador of the Baghdad Caliph Al-Muqtadir to the governor of Volga Bulgaria, wrote the first ethnographic description of the Bashkir in 922. The Bashkirs, according to Ibn Fadlan, were a warlike and powerful people, which he and his companions (a total of five thousand people, including military protection) "bewared... with the greatest threat". They were described as engaged in cattle breeding. According to ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs worshipped twelve gods: winter, summer, rain, wind, trees, people, horses, water, night, day, death, heaven and earth, and the most prominent, the sky god. Apparently, Islam had already begun to spread among the Bashkirs, as one of the ambassadors was a Muslim Bashkir. According to the testimony of Ibn Fadlan, the Bashkirs were Turks, living on the southern slopes of the Urals, and occupying a vast territory up to the river Volga. They were bordered by Oghuz Turks on the south, Pechenegs to the south-east and Bulgars on the west.


title: Bashkirs

text: The earliest source to give a geographical description of Bashkir territory, Mahmud al-Kashgari's "Divanu Lugat’it Turk" (1072–1074), includes a map with a charted region called "Fiyafi Bashqyrt" (the Bashkir steppes). Despite a lack of much geographic detail, the sketch map does indicate that the Bashkirs inhabited a territory bordering on the Caspian Sea and the Volga valley in the west, the Ural Mountains in the north-west, and the Irtysh valley in the east, thus giving a rough outline of the area.


title: Bashkirs

text: Said Al-Andalusi and Muhammad al-Idrisi mention the Bashkir in the 12th century. The 13th-century authors Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, Yaqut al-Hamawi and Qazvini and the 14th-century authors Al-Dimashqi and Abu'l-Fida also wrote about Bashkirs.


title: Bashkirs

text: The first European sources to mention the Bashkirs were the works of Joannes de Plano Carpini and William of Rubruquis of the 13th century.


title: Bashkirs

text: By 1226, Genghis Khan had incorporated the lands of Bashkortostan into his empire. During the 13th and 14th centuries, all of Bashkortostan was a component of the Golden Horde. The brother of Batu-Khan, Sheibani, received the Bashkir lands east of the Ural Mountains.


title: Bashkirs

text: After the disintegration of the Mongol Empire, the Bashkirs were divided among the Nogai Horde, the Khanate of Kazan and the Khanate of Sibir, founded in the 15th century.


title: Bashkirs

text: In the middle of the 16th century, Bashkirs were gradually conquered by the Tsardom of Russia. Primary documents pertaining to the Bashkirs during this period have been lost, although some are mentioned in the "shezhere" (family trees) of the Bashkir.


title: Bashkirs

text: During the Russian Imperial period, Russians and Tatars began to migrate to Bashkortostan which led to eventual demographic changes in the region. The recruitment of Bashkirs into the Russian army and having to pay steep taxes pressured many Bashkirs to adopt a more settled lifestyle and to slowly abandon their ancient nomadic pastoralist past.


title: Bashkirs

text: In the late 16th and early 19th centuries, Bashkirs occupied the territory from the river Sylva in the north, to the river heads of Tobol in the east, the mid-stream of the river Yaik (Ural) in the south; in the Middle and Southern Urals, the Cis-Urals including Volga territory and Trans-Uralsto, and the eastern bank of the river Volga on the south-west.


title: Bashkirs

text: The Bashkirs participated in the 1662–64, 1681–84 and 1704–11 Rebellions. In 1676, the Bashkirs rebelled under a leader named Seyid Sadir or 'Seit Sadurov', and the Russian army had great difficulties in ending the rebellion. The Bashkirs rose again in 1707, under Aldar and Kûsyom, due to perceived ill-treatment by Imperial Russian officials.


title: Bashkirs

text: At the founding of Orenburg in 1735, the fourth insurrection occurred in 1735 and lasted six years. Ivan Kirillov formed a plan to build the fort to be called Orenburg at Orsk at the confluence of the Or River and the Ural River, south-east of the Urals where the Bashkir, Kalmyk and Kazakh lands met. Work on Fort Orenburg commenced at Orsk in 1735. However, by 1743 the site of Orenburg was moved a further 250 km west to its current location. The next planned construction was to be a fort on the Aral Sea. The consequence of the Aral Sea fort would involve crossing Bashkir and the Kazakh Lesser Horde lands, some of whom had recently offered a nominal submission to the Russian Crown.


title: Bashkirs

text: The southern side of Bashkiria was partitioned by the Orenburg Line of forts. The forts ran from Samara on the Volga east as far as the Samara River headwaters. It then crossed to the middle of the Ural River and following the river course east and then north on the eastern side of the Urals. It then went east along the Uy River to Ust-Uisk on the Tobol River where it connected to the ill-defined 'Siberian Line' along the forest-steppe boundary.


title: Bashkirs

text: In 1774, the Bashkirs, under the leadership of Salavat Yulayev, supported Pugachev's Rebellion. In 1786, the Bashkirs achieved tax-free status; and in 1798 Russia formed an irregular Bashkir army from among them.


title: Bashkirs

text: During the Napoleonic Wars, many Bashkirs served as mercenaries in the Russian army to defend from the French invaders during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Subsequently, the Bashkir battalions were the most notable fighters during the Napoleonic wars on the north German and Dutch plateau. The Dutch and the Germans called the Bashkirs "Northern Amurs", probably because the population was not aware of who the Bashkirs actually were or where they came from, therefore the usage of "Amurs" in the name may be an approximation; these battalions were considered as the liberators from the French, however modern Russian military sources do not credit the Bashkirs with these accomplishments. These regiments also served in Battle of Paris and the subsequent occupation of France by the coalition forces.


title: Bashkirs

text: After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the All-Bashkir Qoroltays (convention) concluded that it was necessary to form an independent Bashkir republic within Russia. As a result, on 15 November 1917, the Bashkir Regional (central) Shuro (Council), ruled by Äxmätzäki Wälidi Tıwğan proclaimed the establishment of the first independent Bashkir Republic in areas of predominantly Bashkir population: Orenburg, Perm, Samara, Ufa provinces and the autonomous entity Bashkurdistan on November 15, 1917. This effectively made Bashkortostan the first ever democratic Turkic republic in history.


title: Bashkirs

text: In March 1919, the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed based on agreements of the Russian Government.


title: Bashkirs

text: During World War II, Bashkir soldiers served in the Red Army to defend the Soviet Union and fought against the Germans during the German invasion of the Soviet Union.


title: Bashkirs

text: On October 11, 1990, Declaration of State Sovereignty by the Supreme Council of the Republic was proclaimed. On March 31, 1992 Bashkortostan signed a federal agreement on the delimitation of powers and areas of jurisdiction and the nature of contractual relations between the authorities of the Russian Federation and the authorities of the sovereign republics in its composition including the Republic of Bashkortostan.


title: Bashkirs

text: Mitochondrial (mtDNA) analysis of Bashkir populations has shown that approximately 60% of lineages have West Eurasian or European origins, while 40% have a Siberian or East Asian origin.


title: Bashkirs

text: Genetic studies about Y-DNA haplogroups have revealed that the dominant frequency for Bashkir males is the west Eurasian haplogroup R1b (R-M269 and R-M73) which is, on average, 47.6%. The second most dominant haplogroup is haplogroup R1a at an average frequency of 26,5%, and the third is haplogroup N1c at 17%.


title: Bashkirs

text: Haplogroups C, O, D1, were found at low incidences and are associated with Far Eastern Asians. East Asia haplogroup C2 * -M217 (xM48) is 0% to 17%. Haplogroup O-M75 0% to 6%.


title: Bashkirs

text: In some specific regions and clans of ethnic Bashkir, north Asian and eastern Siberian haplogroup range from moderate to high frequencies, with clades or N3 ranging from 29 to 90%.


title: Bashkirs

text: Archeological mtDNA haplogroups show a similarity between Hungarians, whose homeland is around the Ural Mountains, and Bashkirs; analysis of haplogroup N3a4-Z1936 which is still found in very rare frequencies in modern Hungarians, and showed that Hungarian "sub-clade [N-B539/Y13850] splits from its sister-branch N3a4-B535, frequent today among Northeast European Uralic speakers, 4000–5000 ya, which is in the time-frame of the proposed divergence of Ugric languages", while on N-B539/Y13850+ sub-clade level confirmed shared paternal lineages with modern Ugric (Mansis and Khantys via N-B540/L1034) and Turkic speakers (Bashkirs and Volga Tatars via N-B540/L1034 and N-B545/Y24365); these suggest that the Bashkirs are mixture of Turkic, Ugric and Indo-European contributions.


title: Bashkirs

text: According to Suslova, et al. (2012) the Bashkir population shared immune genes with both West and Eastern Eurasian populations. A Finno-Ugric origin of Bashkirs was unsupported by their findings.


title: Bashkirs

text: A 2015 study detected signals of admixture between Western and Eastern Eurasians in several Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, such as the Bashkir and the Kyrgyz. The admixture dates to the 13th century, according to an analysis of the identical-by-descent segments. According to the authors, the admixture thus occurred after the presumed migrations of the ancestral Kipchak Turks from the Irtysh and Ob regions in the 11th century.


title: Bashkirs

text: A genetic study published in "Scientific Reports" in November 2019 examined the remains of 29 Hungarian conquerors of the Carpathian Basin. The majority of them carried Y-DNA of West Eurasian origin, but at least 30% of East Eurasian & broadly Eurasian (N1a-M2004, N1a-Z1936, Q1a and R1a-Z2124). They carried a higher amount of West Eurasian paternal ancestry than West Eurasian maternal ancestry. Among modern populations, their paternal ancestry was the most similar to Bashkirs. Haplogroup I2a1a2b was observed among several conquerors of particularly high rank. This haplogroup is of European origin and is today particularly common among South Slavs. A wide variety of phenotypes were observed, with several individuals having blond hair and blue eyes, and some had East Asian admixture. The study also analyzed three Hunnic samples from the Carpathian Basin in the 5th century, and these displayed genetic similarities to the conquerors. The Hungarian conquerors appeared to be a recently assembled heterogenous group incorporating both European, Asian and Eurasian elements. A group of Bashkirs from the Burzyansky and Abzelilovsky districts of the Republic of Bashkortostan in the Volga-Ural region who belong to the R1a subclade R1a-SUR51 are the closest kin to the Hungarian Árpád dynasty, from which they got separated 2000 years ago.


title: Bashkirs

text: A full genome study by Triska et al. 2017 found that the Bashkirs ""were strongly influenced by Ancient North Eurasians, highlighting a mismatch of their cultural background and genetic ancestry and an intricacy of the historic interface between Turkic and Uralic populations"", and derive slightly more than 20% ancestry from an East Asian source.


title: Bashkirs

text: Bashkir language is a Turkic language of the Kypchak group. It has three main dialects: Southern, Eastern and North-Western located in the territory of historical Bashkortostan.


title: Bashkirs

text: The Russian census of 2010 recorded 1,152,404 Bashkir speakers in the Russian Federation. The Bashkir language is native to 1,133,339 Bashkirs (71.7% of the total number of Bashkirs, reporting mother tongue). The Tatar language was reported as the native tongue of 230,846 Bashkirs (14.6%), and Russian as the native tongue of 216,066 Bashkirs (13.7%). Most Bashkirs are bilingual in Bashkir and Russian.


title: Bashkirs

text: The first appearance of a "Bashkir" language is dated back to the 9th century AD, in the form of stone inscription using a Runic alphabet, most likely, this alphabet derives from the Yenisei variant of the old Turkic runic script. This archaic version of a Bashkir language would be more or less a dialect of the proto-Kipchak language, however, since then, the Bashkir language has been through a series of vowel and consonant shifts, which are a result of a common literary history shared with the Idel Tatar language since the formation of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation, when the Oghuric Volga Bulgars started to receive Kipchak Turkic influence and became the Idel Tatars, most likely between the 10th and 11th centuries.


title: Bashkirs

text: The Nogai and Karachay-Balkar languages are most likely the closest-sounding extant languages to the extinct Proto-Kipchak Bashkir language.


title: Bashkirs

text: From an arc of time of roughly 900 years, the Bashkir language and Idel Tatar language, previously being completely different languages, "melded" into a series of dialects of a common "Volga Kipchak" or "Volga Turki" language. The Idel Tatars and Bashkirs are and always were two peoples of completely different origins, cultures and identities, but because of a shared common literary history in an arc of 900 years, the two languages ended up in a common language, spoken in different dialects with features depending on the people which spoke them.


title: Bashkirs

text: For example, the dialects spoken by Bashkirs, tend to have an accent which mostly resembles other Kipchak languages, like Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Nogai, Karakalpak, and many other languages of the Kipchak sub-group, while the dialects spoken by Idel Tatars, have accents more resembling the original Oghuric Volga-Bulgar language spoken before the Cuman invasion.


title: Bashkirs

text: At the beginning of the 20th century, most notably during the Russian revolution, when Bashkortostan and Tatarstan became two different republics, the Bashkir and Idel Tatar language were defined as two separate literary languages, each of them based on the most distinct dialects of the Volga Kipchak language spoken by the Bashkir and Idel Tatar people.


title: Bashkirs

text: The ethnic Bashkir population is estimated at 2 million people (2009 SIL Ethnologue). The 2010 Russian census recorded 1,584,554 ethnic Bashkirs in Russia, of which 1,172,287 Bashkirs live in Bashkortostan (29.5% of the total population of the republic).


title: Bashkirs

text: The Bashkirs traditionally practiced agriculture, cattle-rearing and bee-keeping. The half-nomadic Bashkirs travelled through either the mountains or the steppes, herding cattle. Wild-hive beekeeping is another attested tradition, which is practiced in the same Burzyansky District near the Kapova Cave.


title: Bashkirs

text: Traditional Bashkir dish bishbarmaq is prepared from boiled meat and halma (a type of noodle), sprinkled with herbs and flavored with onions and some qorot (young dry cheese). Dairy is another notable feature of the Bashkir cuisine: dishes are often served with dairy products, and few celebrations occur without the serving of qorot or qaymaq (sour cream).


title: Bashkirs

text: The Bashkirs have a rich folklore referencing the genesis and early history of the people. Through the works of their oral folk art, the views of ancient Bashkirs on nature, their wisdom, psychology, and moral ideals are preserved. The genre composition of the Bashkir oral tradition is diverse: epic and fairy tales, legends and traditions, riddles, songs (ritual, epic or lyrical), etc.


title: Bashkirs

text: The Bashkir poems, like the epic creations of other peoples, find origin in the ancient Turkic mythology, in fact the Bashkir epic tale culture can be considered a more developed and expanded version of old Turkic epic culture. Majority of the poems of Bashkir mythology have been written down and published as books at the beginning of the 20th century, these poems compose a great part of the literature of the Bashkir people and are important examples of further-developed Turkic culture.


title: Bashkirs

text: Some of these poems became important on a continental level, for example the epic poem the "Ural Batyr", which tells the tale of the legendary hero Ural, is the origin of the name of the Ural mountains, the natural border between Europe and Asia. Other poems constitute a great part of the Bashkir national identity, other tales apart from the Ural Batyr include "Aqbuzat", "Qara yurga", "Aqhaq qola", "Kongur buga", "Uzaq Tuzaq", and many others.


title: Bashkirs

text: The poem "Ural Batyr" is an epic which includes deities of the Tengrist pantheon. It takes basis on the pre-Islamic Bashkir conception of the world. In the "Ural Batyr" the world is three-tiered. It includes a heavenly, earthly and undergroundly (underwater) trinity: in the sky, the heavenly king Samrau resides, his wives are the Sun and the Moon, he has two daughters, Umay and Aikhylu, who are incarnated either in the form of birds or beautiful girls. In the "Ural Batyr", Umay is incarnated into a swan and later assumes the aspect of a beautiful girl as the story proceeds.


title: Bashkirs

text: People live on the earth, the best of whom pledge honor and respect to the existence of nature. The third world is the underground world, where the "Devas" (also singular "Deva" or "Div") live, incarnated as a snake, the incarnation of the dark forces, who live underground. Through the actions and divisions of the world related in the Ural Batyr, the Bashkirs express a manichaean view of good and evil. The legendary hero Ural, possessing titanic power, overcoming incredible difficulties, destroys the "deva", and obtains "living water" (the idea of water in nature, in the pre-Islamic Bashkir pantheon of the Turkic mythology, is considered a spirit of life).


title: Bashkirs

text: Ural thus obtains the "living water" in order to defeat death in the name of the eternal existence of man and nature. Ural does not drink the "living water" to live eternally. Instead, he decides to sparkle it around himself, to die and donate eternity to the world, the withered earth turning green. Ural dies and from his body emerge the Ural Mountains; the name of the Ural mountain range comes from this poem.


title: Bashkirs

text: The Bashkirs have a style of overtone singing called "özläü" (sometimes spelled "uzlyau"; Bashkort Өзләү), which has nearly died out. In addition, Bashkorts also sing "uzlyau" while playing the kurai, a national instrument. This technique of vocalizing into a flute can also be found in folk music as far west as the Balkans and Hungary.


title: Bashkirs

text: In the pre-Islamic period the Bashkirs practised animism and shamanism, and incorporated the cosmogony of Tengrism.


title: Bashkirs

text: Bashkirs began converting to Islam in the 10th century. Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan in 921 met some of the Bashkirs, who were already Muslims. The final assertion of Islam among the Bashkirs occurred in the 1320s and 1330s during the Golden Horde period. The Mausoleum of Hussein-Bek, burial place of the first Imam of historical Bashkortostan, is preserved in contemporary Bashkortostan. The mausoleum is a 14th-century building. Catherine the Great established the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly in 1788 in Ufa, which was the first Muslim administrative center in Russia.


title: Bashkirs

text: Religious revival among the Bashkirs began in the early 1990s. According to Talgat Tadzhuddin there were more than 1,000 mosques in Bashkortostan in 2010.


title: Striking Vipers

text: "Striking Vipers" is the first episode of the fifth series of the anthology series "Black Mirror". It was written by series creator Charlie Brooker and directed by Owen Harris. The episode was released on Netflix, along with the rest of series five, on 5 June 2019.


title: Striking Vipers

text: The episode follows two old friends, Danny Parker (Anthony Mackie) and Karl Houghton (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), reconnecting over a virtual reality fighting game. They begin having virtual sex in the game, which affects Danny's marriage with Theo (Nicole Beharie). The episode has an all-black main cast and was filmed in Brazil. Its storyline arose from an idea about a workplace affair in virtual reality where neither co-worker knew the other's identity.


title: Striking Vipers

text: Critics identified fluidity of sexuality and gender, infidelity, love and friendship as major themes; the episode raises questions about whether Danny and Karl are gay and whether their relationship is infidelity. Reviewers were divided over whether it addressed these themes in an interesting way, and some found it inferior to series three's "San Junipero", which also shows a queer relationship in virtual reality. The acting and directing was mostly praised, though some critics found the characterisation lacking.


title: Striking Vipers

text: Twenty-seven-year-old Danny Parker (Anthony Mackie) and his girlfriend Theo (Nicole Beharie) go to a bar and pretend to be strangers. After they return home and have sex, Danny loudly plays the fictional fighting game "Striking Vipers" with his friend Karl Houghton (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) as their preferred characters Lance and Roxette, respectively. This wakes Theo up.


title: Striking Vipers

text: Eleven years later, Danny hosts a barbecue at his house with Theo, to whom he is married and has a five-year-old child. He has fallen out of contact with Karl, who is currently seeing a younger woman named Mariella. At the party, Karl gives Danny a birthday present: "Striking Vipers X", the series' newest installment, and the virtual reality kit needed to play it. That night, the pair play the game in their respective homes, falling motionless in real life as they fully experience all sensations of Lance (Ludi Lin) and Roxette (Pom Klementieff). After a bout of fighting, which induces real pain, they fall onto each other. Karl (as Roxette) kisses Danny (as Lance), but Danny pulls away after a few seconds and they exit the game.


title: Striking Vipers

text: Over the next few weeks, Danny and Karl regularly have sex in the game in the characters' bodies, and Theo notices that Danny is becoming withdrawn and no longer has sex with her, even though they have been trying to have a baby. Theo confronts him on their wedding anniversary and asks if he is having an affair. Danny says he is not and tells Karl they need to stop playing the game.


title: Striking Vipers

text: At Danny's next birthday, Theo invites Karl to dinner as a surprise. Karl reveals to Danny that he has been unable to recreate the emotions or experiences with computer-controlled characters or other players. That night, the pair enter the game and have passionate sex. Afterwards, Karl says "I love you". Danny arranges for them to meet in real life and kiss in their normal bodies, but both of them say that there is no feeling there. Karl argues they should continue seeing each other in the game but Danny disagrees, and an ensuing fight is broken up by the police. Theo picks up Danny from the police station and is enraged at his silence about what caused the fight. Danny finally starts to admit the truth.


title: Striking Vipers

text: On July 14, as the three have agreed, Danny plays "Striking Vipers X" with Karl while Theo goes to the bar without her wedding ring to meet a stranger.


title: Striking Vipers

text: A fifth series of "Black Mirror" was commissioned by Netflix in March 2018, three months after the release of series four. Initially part of series five's production, the interactive work "" increased in scope to the point where it was separated from the series and released as a standalone film; it premiered on 28 December 2018. Although previous series of the programme produced under Netflix contained six episodes, series five comprises three episodes, as the series creator Charlie Brooker viewed this as preferable to making viewers wait longer for the next series. The three episodes—"Striking Vipers", "Smithereens" and "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too"—were released on Netflix simultaneously on 5 June 2019. As "Black Mirror" is an anthology series, each instalment can be watched in any order. "Striking Vipers" was filmed before "Bandersnatch".


title: Striking Vipers

text: The episode was written by Brooker, alongside the executive producer Annabel Jones. The initial concept was for an office cohort to spend time in a virtual reality simulation as part of a team-building exercise, where they would prepare to perform the musical "Grease". As part of the exercise, each employee's identity within the simulation would be unknown. The idea was conceived for two of the employees to have an affair within the simulation. This story changed over time, and was informed by another source of inspiration: Brooker was reflecting on his days of playing the fighting game "Tekken" with flatmates in the 1990s, and thought there was something interesting in the "homoerotic" and "weirdly primal" nature of the situation. He thought that neighbours could confuse their gaming sessions for a sex dungeon based on the noises they made. During the writing of "Striking Vipers", a variety of fighting games were used for reference, including "Dead or Alive", a series where the characters have sexually provocative appearances.


title: Striking Vipers

text: Pornography was a theme discussed by the writers. Jones said the episode relates to the question of "when porn stops being a healthy distraction and actually becomes an affair". The name "Striking Vipers", which alludes to snakes and perhaps sexual imagery, was chosen by Brooker to sound like a plausible game title. During the writing process, he nicknamed it "Man Junipero", in reference to the series three episode "San Junipero". Brooker was conflicted as to whether the relationship between Danny and Karl is accurately described as a gay relationship, saying that it is also about male friendship and the barriers to communication between men. Jones noted that Danny's character regains a younger physique by entering the game, saying that there was a broader theme about ageing and "finding your identity when you don't have those staples that you've grown up with".


title: Striking Vipers

text: In regards to the real-life kiss Danny and Karl share, Brooker thought the characters were telling the truth about experiencing a lack of excitement, but that it was different within the virtual reality game. Jones said that Danny feels relieved by the information he gets from the kiss, as he may be able to retain a stability in his marriage, but Karl feels worried over what implications it has for their virtual reality relationship. The final arrangement Theo, Danny and Karl have occurs once per year. Brooker and Jones saw this ending as both pragmatic and romantic. Jones said that Theo needs "to feel excited and loved", Danny needs "escapism and wish-fulfilment" and that Karl is "quite isolated", though the arrangement is "enough to sustain him". Brooker similarly commented that Karl's predicament is "the most bleak", while Danny and Theo's marriage "has actually been strengthened" by the arrangement—specifically, by their newfound communication about "their fantasies and needs". He saw the ending as ambiguous, rather than unreservedly happy.