A wedding feast is in full swing in the imam’s office of Kazan’s Qolsharif mosque, a gleaming white, blue-domed landmark atop the city’s citadel. As my interpreter Olga Kassimova and I tuck into round duck pies, called belish, and achpochmak, triangles of pastry stuffed with chopped meat and potatoes, Rustem Zinnurov, the 34-year-old imam, spells out the Russian city’s well-deserved reputation for religious tolerance.
