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[MUSIC PLAYING] (gentle music) [ Music ] Uzbekistan, one of the Soviet Union's five Asian republics

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strung out along its borders with China, Iran and Afghanistan Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan were once conquerors here on his travels Marco Polo crossed these mountains and Omar Khayyam drew inspiration from their barren beauty

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today beyond the mountains the Soviet Union is fighting a war to maintain its influence in Afghanistan For the mountain people, life has changed little since the ancient silk route passed this way. As the caravans of camels with their silks and spices made their way from China to the Roman

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Empire, the local people tended their animals and scratched out a living from the unhelpful soil. For outsiders, warriors, traders, poets, the trails all led to one place, for this was the Golden Road to Samarkand. [Music]

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Once they called it the center of the universe. Now, under Lenin's watchful eye, modern Samarkand is a dusty outpost of the Soviet Empire. But to Muslims, it's still special. There are about 50 million Muslims in the Soviet Union and though only a small proportion practice openly many thousands still make the pilgrimage to Samarkand

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Away from the traffic in the old part of town lives a master craftsman called Abdul Ghaffar Khakulov He's 54 and his job is restoring mosques His home has a large and shaded courtyard where his family and friends take refuge from the heat of the Uzbek summer Uzbeks are descended from the Mongol armies that swept through the area in the Middle Ages

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They're proud of that heritage and make a point of doing things in the traditional Uzbek way. One tradition in Abdul Ghaffar's home is that the women of his family sit with their guests at a separate table. He says they like it better that way. (people chattering)

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There are no Russians at Abdulkhafar's lunch party. (speaking in foreign language) He speaks poor Russian, like a foreigner, and seems to take pride in sticking to Uzbek friends,

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Uzbek customs, and Uzbek superstitions. (speaking in foreign language) [ Foreign Language ] Abdou Gaffa's daughters-in-law don't share his devotion to old customs.

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Out of respect, they sit with the old women of the family, but they no longer wear veils, nor hide themselves away from men. They have bright silk dresses and jobs in the city. (Speaking in the local language)

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All over Samarkand you can see the way that modern communism rubs along with ancient Islam. Restoring the mosques and monuments is part of a delicate balance. If the Soviet authorities suppress Islam, they might produce the fundamentalist resurgence they've watched with trepidation in Iran. Rebuilding the mosques is a harmless concession.

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It satisfies the Uzbeks love for their history without encouraging the practice of their religion Once Islamic priests were trained here now under Abdul Gaffar's guidance It's being restored to its original design, but not its original purpose. It may look like a mosque. It'll be a museum I can't imagine what it would be like if we didn't have these buildings

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[ Foreign Language ] [ Foreign Language ] >> The site dates back to the 17th Century when Islamic art and religion thrived.

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But after decades of neglect under the Russian czars and in the early days of Soviet rule, it had deteriorated to the point of collapse. Abd al-Ghaffar tackled this danger first, getting his apprentices to dig out the old foundations and lay down new ones.

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But what really fascinates him are the intricate mosaics on the doors and arches. The men who created them wove inscriptions from the Koran into their elaborate designs. They wanted the spirit of Islam to live on

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through their patterns and colors, which Abd al-Ghaffar now faithfully copies. In his workshop on the site, he redesigns whole walls from fragments

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of the original mosaic. It's like reconstructing a dinosaur from a few surviving bones. (speaking in foreign language)

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(speaking in foreign language) The master should organize his work well. He should arrange his work well, and he should be able to give the right color and the right color to the paintings.

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If a person doesn't know how to do this, he will be in trouble when he starts working. "I am the head of the mosque." Abdughafar and his team have been working here for six years

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and most of the mosaic is finished. On the mosque itself, only one panel is still missing. The original medieval craftsmen made each ceramic piece separately. Every master had his own secret formula for the colored glaze on his tiles.

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It would be the hallmark of his work. Even now the tiles are still made by hand but they're mass-produced in one style for all Samarkand's restorers in a small factory run by the state. The tiles made here reach Abdughafar in rough irregular slabs. His own craftsmen then grind them into the exact shapes

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he needs using patterns he's worked out on paper. The numbers on each bit of paper show what color tile to use. Once the papers are pasted on his assistants use them as guides as they grind the tiles down. (sewing machine whirring)

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[Machine noise] Once all the individual pieces of the mosaic are ready, Abd al-Ghaffar gets his senior apprentices, who are in fact his sons, to place them all face down on the floor in the shape and pattern of the panel

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that will eventually go on the wall of the mosque. "I'm not going to be able to go to the city" "I'm afraid of the city" "I'm afraid of the city"

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When he's got time, Abdughafar brings his protégés here to Shah-i Zinda, the mausoleum of the living kings It's where Samarkand's rulers built tombs for themselves

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while they waited to die. Abdou Ghaffar feels at home. More than 30 years ago he started out here as an apprentice. Another craftsman, a friend of his father's,

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had seen talent in his schoolboy drawings and took him under his wing. It took nearly 20 years of learning ancient skills from his teacher before he qualified as a master in his own right.

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"Did you write it down?" "No, I only wrote it down." In those days, everything was passed down by word of mouth. It's still largely true today,

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though Abdughafar has recently written a training manual and persuaded the authorities to publish it. It was one way of ensuring that his skills won't die with him. "This is a pen. I'll write it down."

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"This is a pen." "I wrote it down with a pen, but I didn't cut it with a knife." "This is a pencil." "I'm not interested in the art of the trade"

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"I'm just interested in the conditions of the trade" When the Silk Route caravans passed through Samarkand the Oriental Bazaar thronged with people from all over the world Now it's more like any other provincial market

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a place to buy the food that's not in the state shops a place to gossip, to trade or just to hang about But other traditions are still thriving, like the corruption among local government officials

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that has long been part of Uzbek life. It's grown up around the old family mafias that have run the place for generations, handing out top jobs and state contracts

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to favored friends and relations. The last two years have seen a determined, if optimistic effort to eradicate it. Hundreds of officials have been sacked in a purge that involved several Uzbek party leaders

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who'd been cooking the books on the valuable cotton harvest. Uzbeks may have been under Russian rule for a hundred years, but they're still proud of their separate identity. So much so that the Soviet authorities have to tread carefully.

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The usual formula is to put a cooperative Uzbek in charge with a Russian as his deputy. And the people seem to have made a tacit deal with their rulers. We'll accept your overall control if you don't interfere with our day-to-day life It takes tact but many Uzbeks have turned this to their own advantage

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This is the place where in his own cunning way Abd al-Ghaffar did just that Bibi Khanum designed by Emperor Tamburlain to be the greatest mosque that Allah had ever seen Legend has it that 600 years ago the Emperor told his architects to build him a dome which would eclipse the sky itself. But it was not to be.

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Tamburlaine discovered the chief architect had, in the delicate words of the legend, kissed the cheek of his beautiful bride. The architect was executed and the great dome started to crumble. Since then all efforts to rebuild it have failed. Earthquakes and controversy have plagued the work,

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as if the architect's curse still hangs over it. Back in the 60s, Abdugafar spent several years working here with a team of restorers. [ Foreign Language ]

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"I'm not going to be able to do it." But those other craftsmen upset him. In Abdughafar's view, they were sacrificing authenticity to please the tourists with modern designs.

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When he pointed out their mistakes, they refused to correct them. There was a row, and he left the project. I think that whoever makes a mistake, the principal is over for us.

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"I'm not going to blame him for this. "He's just making up the mistakes he's made. "I don't blame him for this. "I'm not going to blame him for this.

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"He's just making up the mistakes he's made. "I'm not going to blame him for this. "I'm not going to blame him for this. "I'm not going to blame him for this.

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"I'm not going to blame him for this. He took plans of his own for rebuilding it to the Uzbek Ministry of Culture and asked them for money and materials outside the official restorer scheme. In the Soviet Union, setting up on your own like that is extremely difficult. Individual enterprise is suspect, but finally they agreed and he became an independent restorer.

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When he started, the mosque and other buildings were in poor repair. Since the work would obviously take several years and cost many thousands of rubles, the Ministry of Culture imposed one condition. Abdughafar had to agree to report to a committee of inspection

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which would meet every week at the site. "The chairman of the collective farm on his farmland, Mr. Suleyman, is a very good man. The land is not enough for the whole family. We have to pay for the old and new houses.

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We have to pay for the old and new houses. We have to pay for the old and new houses. We have to pay for the old and new houses. The chairman of the collective farm,

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on whose land the buildings stand, apologizes for the mix-up over bricks and the Communist Party. Abdu Ghaffar's gentle criticisms have the desired result.

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The right bricks were delivered the very next day. The inspection continues outside. - We can't do this. - Because we have enough material. - Of course we have enough. - We have all the means.

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But the water is too deep. We have a hole in the wall. We can't get water in there. - We've already started the project. - Yes, we've already started it. But we need the help of the head of the village.

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But Abdou Ghaffar is not a man to be hurried by the politicians' deadlines. Only when the last panel is ready will he move on to the next stage in the restoration. And it'll be done by the book, not by the clock. The plaster his three sons are pouring into the cracks between the mosaic pieces

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will hold the panel together. [Noise of water and crickets] When the plaster in the cracks are set, a second, thicker layer can be added. [Noise of plaster being placed]

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It looks primitive, but the methods of the old masters are still as reliable as ever. The metal wires are to help the boys lever the panel up when it's finally set. The next day, life starts up before dawn. Life starts up before dawn.

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[ Foreign Language ] Small rooms for cooking and sleeping, large rooms for eating and entertaining. That's the traditional shape of a Nusbeck house. Men in charge of the courtyard, women at work in the kitchen.

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The roles don't change much either. [ Foreign Language ] (speaking in foreign language) We are eight people.

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But my family, my wife, is not working because of the disease. She is sick. My grandson, three sons, two daughters, and a daughter-in-law.

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"We are working, we are living well" The birth of Abdughafar's first grandchild makes it a family of four generations under one roof We have a custom.

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If a girl is born, she is a lucky girl. She is a lucky girl. I think that a girl is the first thing we should give. Of course, I don't say that because we are poor.

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We don't have money. We have no home. At breakfast everyone's together Abdughafa's mother says a prayer from the Quran it's a blessing for the day ahead

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ahead. Like many Uzbeks, the Hakulovs consider themselves a Muslim family, but they don't go to mosque. In Samarkand, you no longer hear the call to prayer from the minarets. Islam is only practiced openly by the old.

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But in many parts of Soviet Asia, another unofficial form of Islam is still very much alive. In the countryside especially, there are pilgrimages, illegal publications, unofficial priests, and many children are still brought up as practicing Muslims.

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But now, for example, there is a mosque. Now, people are not doing their job. For example, a family has a father or a mother. They pray, they read.

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Or their sons study, or they work, or they work. "We have no other choice. "We can't do anything about it. "We can't do anything about it.

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"We can't do anything about it. "We can't do anything about it. "We can't do anything about it. "We can't do anything about it.

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"We can't do anything about it. "We can't do anything about it. "We can't do anything about it. "We can't do anything about it.

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"We can't do anything about it. "We can't do anything about it. The mosque is a symbol of the state. It is a symbol of the state.

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It is a symbol of the state. It is a symbol of the state. It is a symbol of the state. It is a symbol of the state.

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It is a symbol of the state. The mosque is a magnificent site, but to devout Muslims it's a reproach. They say that by turning it into a museum,

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the state has killed off the religion. Abdu Ghaffar sees it differently. No, the mosque is the most important thing for us. It's the highest place for us to study.

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It's our university. We believe that if you look at every wall and every light, you will find a beautiful sea. A university to him maybe, but most of its customers are not students, they're tourists.

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I am the Registan, the heart of Samarkand. It is from Mother History I have received command. Whatever the destruction, whatever brings you woe, remember, from the ashes, the tree of life will grow.

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Three nights a week, the package tours are treated to a sound and light spectacular in English, German, French or Russian. The only language they don't use is Uzbek. Then history made its final choice. I heard the Russian people's voice.

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The call to march with banners red made every Uzbek raise his head. I laugh, I dance, for joy I cry as Lenin's flag is raised on high. Oh, Registan, speak from the heart as you have spoken from the start. [Music]

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Traditionally it's through his sons that an Uzbek father keeps the family profession alive. [ Foreign Language ] "Muhammad" - it's not "Muhammad" anymore. It's "Muhammad". "Muhammad" and "Muhammad" - they're the same.

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It's "Muhammad" now. "Muhammad". Is this "Allah"? Yes, it's "Ya Allah".

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This is our style of work. We have a window for ourselves. That's how we do it. (speaking in foreign language)

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I have a diploma in English. I'm an architect and a restorer. I worked with the mayor of the village. I'm a master restorer. I'm a teacher of the Abdul Razzaq Abdugan family. They have been teaching me since I was a child.

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I've been teaching them since I was a child. I can't afford to finish this part of the mask. [Sound of plaster being placed on the floor] The plaster has taken 24 hours to set.

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The final sections are hacked apart, the paper is removed, and the mosaic emerges. [Sound of plaster being placed on the floor]

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[ Erasing Board ] [ Water Dripping ] [hammering] Throughout the Soviet Union this sort of work receives official encouragement.

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Elsewhere magnificent Russian Orthodox churches are being restored with equal enthusiasm, but the policy is selective. What's being restored are the ones that will be turned into museums. What's often left rotting are the ones,

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churches and mosques alike, where the people might actually worship. It was, after all, Karl Marx who said that religion is the opium of the masses.

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The ever-increasing Muslim population is a problem for the Soviet authorities. Women don't become master craftsmen in these communities. Their prime function is to bear children.

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Not one or two, as in the overcrowded cities in the European parts of the Soviet Union, but seven, eight, or even more. As part of the drive to produce workers for the motherland,

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the Soviet government awards prizes to women who produce more than four children. In Uzbekistan, they need no state incentive. Children are a sign of a family's wealth

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and a father's virility. What the Kremlin has to face is that the number of Asians is rising much faster than any other section of the population.

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Non-Slavs in the Soviet Union, like the Uzbeks, will outnumber the Russians within 15 years. [Music] A joint birthday party for two of Abu Ghaffar's great-nephews.

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The family have taken over the local tea house for the occasion. (singing) By Uzbek tradition, the birthday boys are specially dressed for the occasion

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by the oldest men in the family. (singing) [ Music ] Whatever else was a problem for the authorities, you wouldn't think parties were, but they are.

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This is a relatively modest affair, but some Uzbek celebrations, like country weddings, go on for days, and people travel miles to get to them. There are occasions for powerful clan leaders to hold court, with lavish parties to repay old debts and do new business.

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but the elaborate gatherings were no good for the state productivity figures and they're now officially discouraged the music goes on regardless few people here openly defy the soviet system

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this far from Moscow the cleverest Uzbeks put all their energies into achieving what they want within the system If I don't have a job, I will be a bit depressed. I don't have a job. If you suggest he might want to retire one day, he scoffs.

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When I was young, everyone wanted to retire. I have a program for this. I have a program for this system. When the time comes, I will make a name for myself.

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I will sit with my good partners and make a good living. When the time comes, I will work with my colleagues. Because if I quit my job, I will not be able to relax. [Sounds of machinery]

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The last stage of restoring the mosaic panel is to winch it up the building and fix it to the wall section by section. Abdu Ghaffar's technology may be rudimentary, but it does the job. (door opens) (door closes)

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(door opens) (door closes) (door opens) (door closes)

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(door opens) (train chugging) (speaking in foreign language) [ Foreign Language ]

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[ Foreign Language ] (speaking in foreign language) [ Foreign Language Spoken ] [Speaking in foreign language]

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With the edges of the panel cemented and a final polish, the wall of the mosque is complete. Abdughafa's next project is even more ambitious. It's a 16th century teaching institute just outside the city called Israt Khuna. It'll be an enormous job. The site is little more than a ruin and it'll probably take him the rest of his life to complete.

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"The master creates a vessel, and the child is responsible for its construction, and the child is responsible for its construction, and the child is responsible for its construction,

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and the child is responsible for its construction, and the child is responsible for its construction, and the child is responsible for its construction, The Soviet authorities are generous to the craftsmen of Islam.

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Abdu'l-Ghaffar's devotion to his job and his skillful use of the system will ensure that in years to come, another magnificent mosque will stand on this site. It may never ring out with the call to prayer, but nonetheless, the spirit of Islam shows no sign of being stifled.

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[Music plays] Communism throughout the world. [ Music ] Karl Marx said that in the new socialist order, religion would wither away.

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Today, one third of the world's population lives under Marxist rule. But at least 250 million Christians live in the same societies. Two systems of belief apparently at odds. In the world's first communist state, the Soviet Union, the party began by trying to exterminate religion.

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The church has survived, but at a cost. In the latest Marxist inspired revolution, Nicaragua, the government has encouraged Christians to join with it, a unique experiment which has split the church. In the first of a four-part series,

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every man looks at how Christians have adapted to the world's oldest and newest Marxist revolutions. [ Music ] [singing in Russian] These novice priests belong to a Russian Orthodox monastery.

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The ritual prayers and language have hardly changed in the church's thousand year history. Yet none of these young men has ever seen Russia. They belong to the Russian church abroad. Holy Trinity Monastery lies in the heart of the American countryside in upstate New York.

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It was started by two monks who fled Russia after the revolution. Now it's the largest Russian Orthodox monastery outside the Soviet Union. Father Theodosius teaches church history. The Russian Orthodox Church will celebrate its millennium in 1988.

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For over 900 years of that history, it embodied the spirituality of the Russian people. But for the last 70 years, matters have been more complicated. For these exiles, the partnership between their mother church and the Soviet state is

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heresy. But we regard the church in Russia now, in the Soviet Union, as a puppet church and not free to express the voice of the Russian church. And so for that reason we have no relations with it.

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The task of the Church is to preserve it from anti-Christian and communistic forces. And that is what we see then abroad as our major role. In fact there are some people here in the monastery, mostly of the older generation, who see the role of the Church abroad solely as preserving the past.

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and after all these hardships they all gave their souls to the Lord. Finally, St. Epimachus was given a severe punishment for not only believing in Christ,

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but also for breaking their fast. As the monks eat, they listen to readings from the lives of the saints. These hundred monks and seminarians

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call themselves the guardians of the forgotten past. Every day they say prayers for Tsar Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor, whom they canonized four years ago.

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Father Kiprian is the monastery's chief painter of icons. He grew up in St. Petersburg, but left Russia after fighting with a white army against the Bolshevik revolutionaries. October was a terrible time.

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They killed men, officers, soldiers, anyone. The soldiers were mean. They shot one after the other. (speaking in foreign language) - There are a lot of people and a lot of younger monks

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who have a conviction that we are not far from the end of the world, and before the end will actually take place, there will be a return to Russia.

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So in that sense, we all look forward to a return, because it will be a resurrection of the old Russia. (singing in foreign language) Marx said religion is the opium of the people,

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the sigh of the oppressed creature, a heart of a heartless world. Throughout the 19th century, anti-clerical feeling had been growing.

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For Marx, the need for religion is the symptom of the disease, capitalism. Religion would disappear once the disease had been cured. Freed from material deprivation,

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man would also be free from the clutches of the church. Russia, October 1917. the storming of the Winter Palace, and the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution.

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Lenin leads the world's first communist state. Everything from the past, everything which stands in the way of change, is under attack, and that includes the church.

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Lenin detested religion, that unutterable vileness, he called it. Church leaders were paraded through the streets, and anti-religious demonstrations encouraged.

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The new Soviet constitution separated church from state. Church property was confiscated. All legal rights were denied. Priests opposing the Bolsheviks were imprisoned or shot.

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And within a decade, the bulk of the church hierarchy had declared support for the new Soviet government. Under Lenin's successor, Stalin, the anti-church campaign was even more vigorous.

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Under Stalinism, Russia was to be transformed in 20 years. There was no room for the church and its spirituality in the world of new communist man. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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(dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) [Music]

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In the 1920s, and especially in the 1930s, the Russian Orthodox Church and all religious bodies, it has to be said, in the Soviet Union, in the 1930s especially, were under extreme pressure.

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In fact, it was hoped that they would simply be exterminated as bodies, that religious belief would cease to be an active force, that believers would, in fact, not be noticed, and that, indeed, religious belief would be abandoned by all and sundry

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since it hindered progress, so it was said, since it hindered clarity of thought, since it hindered industrial performance. All sorts of phrases were used to justify combating religion, and combated it was in various ways.

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The closing down of churches, the multiple arrests of bishops, priests, and lay people. By the time the Second World War began, which in various parts of the Soviet Union was either '39 or '41, there was only a minimal quantity of churches open and of clergy active. For example, the Russian Orthodox Church, it is reckoned, had only four bishops who

00:48:07.740 - 00:48:24.820

were openly active. The rest were in concentration camps or had been killed off. [explosion] The Russians were unprepared for war.

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The invasion by Hitler's forces took them by surprise. And as the Germans marched deeper and deeper into Soviet territory, laying siege to key cities, defeat seemed inevitable. With the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941,

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there was a crisis in the establishment. Really the question was, would the Soviet Union survive as a Soviet Union? Anything that could be used to sustain the war effort was important, even religion. Stalin permitted a sort of mini-council to elect a patriarch, the first one since 1925.

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he allowed the church to bless the war effort really in terms of making it a holy war to save Russian civilization. The word "Russian" was being used now with new relish

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as compared to "Soviet" merely. That concordat between the Orthodox Church and the Communist Party continues to this day. In essence, the state claims authority

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over everything political and material and confines the church to religious ceremonies within its own buildings. The church must stay out of politics and its leaders must swear loyalty to a government

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which is constitutionally committed to the building of an entirely communist state. (singing in foreign language) - Communist Party rules say that it is the duty of each member to lead a resolute struggle

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against the survivals of religion. Militant atheism is encouraged throughout society. For many believers, the restrictions demanded by the state are too great. Those who can get visas leave the country.

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On New York's Brighton Beach, you'll find hundreds of Russians who say that only in exile are they able to practice their beliefs without restriction. "The block is easy" Vadim Sheglov and his family

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came to the United States two years ago In Moscow, he belonged to a group of Christians who agitated for religious rights and publicized the harassment and imprisonment of believers

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[ Speaking Russian ] My wife taught drawing at school. She was directly accused of being fired for religious propaganda. I was demoted to a position.

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I was summoned to the prosecutor's office three times and warned that if I didn't stop, as they called the activities of the Christian Committee, anti-Soviet activities, I would be put in prison.

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A network of underground churches exists for those religious dissidents who stay behind in Russia. Services are held in secret and participants face imprisonment for taking part in the activities of an unregistered church. This secret orthodox service was led by Father Gleb Yakunin, now serving a 10-year jail sentence. These dissidents believe that their church is prostituting itself by its silence in the face of violations of religious

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and human rights. The situation of the Russian Orthodox Church is very difficult. But I think that the duty of the pastor is to guard his flock, the flock of believers, and, accordingly, to protect them.

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It is not necessarily with weapons or physically, but to protect them somehow spiritually. The Church is often accused of being silent when it should speak out. Silence is not in itself an evil thing. When it's keeping silence in order to safeguard treasures which are but the property of millions,

00:52:55.700 - 00:53:23.980

which therefore is a silence for pastoral reasons, I think there is a justification for it. if in the process the reputation of the silent one is reduced, this can't be helped. The justification is called into question, but what is beyond question is a desire for religion which 70 years of communism has failed to eradicate. There are still at least 50 million

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Christians in the Soviet Union. the struggle for the soul of the Communist Party has been completely lost moreover, we can say that now the interest of people and youth in religion is increasing

00:53:37.920 - 00:53:56.600

because the communist ideology is completely spiritual and even the propagandists themselves do not take it seriously Marxism may have failed as a spiritual belief in the Soviet Union the most successful revolutionary faith of the century.

00:53:56.600 - 00:54:05.340

Outside the Soviet Union, 1,500 million people live in Marxist-inspired societies. And here, different models for church-state relations are being worked out.

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As Marxism has spread and developed in different countries, the church has had to work out its own response. After the war, the Vatican confronted the largest communist party in the Western world

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on its own doorstep. (crowd chanting) The success of the Italian Communist Party would have been impossible without its pragmatic acceptance

00:54:28.380 - 00:54:39.640

of the influence of the Catholic Church. Christians were encouraged to join the party. And the church's attitude also changed. Pope John XXIII's ambition was to confront the church

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with the realities of the 20th century. In 1963, he summoned over 3,000 bishops from around the world for the confrontation. Vatican II.

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They included priests from Russia with a lifetime's experience of Marxism and from Latin America, whose encounter was about to begin. It didn't see itself directly as a response to Marxism, no.

00:55:06.180 - 00:55:15.260

But it was in the sense that it picked up a lot of the themes that were in the air. And there's a very remarkable text which says that he who neglects his duties

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towards his neighbor neglects God and so on. So there's a change in the attitude from fleeing the world to working within it for the kingdom. In Latin America, the church's poorest and fastest

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growing territory, this new concern for the material as well as the spiritual well-being of the flock met with the greatest response. Here, the church has a history of neglecting the poor

00:55:41.260 - 00:55:53.300

and siding with the rich and the powerful. In 1968, at Medellin, the Latin American bishops met. This was a very important meeting because it was for them the application of the council

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to the special conditions of Latin America. And they discovered that they were an oppressed continent. And so the message would have to be preached differently there. And they particularly liked the phrase in the council text,

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which said that the church shares in the joys and hopes of all peoples, especially those who are poor or afflicted in any way. For some priests, this new liberation theology

00:56:17.400 - 00:56:25.600

has meant using the tools of Marxist analysis to achieve what's called an option for the poor. Parishioners are taught Marxist as well as Christian principles.

00:56:25.600 - 00:56:37.720

But others believe liberation theology has gone too far. Leading the opposition has been Cardinal Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It says that Marxist analysis

00:56:37.720 - 00:56:51.040

has no part to play in true liberation. Any commitments to Marxist ideas can only lead to totalitarianism and atheism. Liberation itself is an extremely ambiguous word.

00:56:51.040 - 00:57:10.840

I saw the other day, a friend of mine had an invitation, and it was to an embassy here in Rome to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the People's Republic of Albania. So they're using that word, and so you had the problem, at least the fact, that there

00:57:10.840 - 00:57:40.960

There were people who have highly political, if you will, Marxist solutions to people's problems and you had the Catholic Church in the person of many bishops and priests and religious using the same language. When Pope John Paul II called his Extraordinary Synod last year

00:57:40.960 - 00:57:51.480

to determine the future direction of the Catholic Church, many saw it as an attempt to discredit liberation theology and undermine its influence. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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