This radio commentary by RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service's former director Ferit Agi (Idelle) discusses the establishing of the Union of Tatar Youth in Kazan in 1990, amid perestroika times in late USSR when ethnic minorities started to raise their demands for greater autonomy and independence. The commentary was aired in October 1990 and was recorded on a shortwave radio receiver in the area. Some signal motion can still be heard in the recording. Ferid Agi (Idelle) started his journalistic career with RFE/RL in 1969, and was service director from 1989-2006 until his retirement. He passed away in 2018 in Munich.
RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service is the only major international news provider reporting in the Tatar and Bashkir languages to audiences in the Russian Federation’s multiethnic, Muslim-majority Volga-Ural region. Since 1953, the Service, known locally as Radio Azatliq, has provided an important and innovative alternative to government-controlled media that promote a nationalist and isolationist agenda.