Travel Guide Ufa ())

Ufa is the capital of the republic of Bashkiria, or Bashkortostan, a mountainous region in the southern Urals. It has a population of 1,124,226, the majority of whom are Russians (compared with 17.1% of Bashkirs). It is a major industrial centre, mainly concentrated around mechanical engineering and oil, discovered in the 1930s (extraction, refining, petrochemicals and derived chemicals). As a leading university capital, extremely rich, Ufa stands out above all as the first city of the Muslim faith (Sunni, 45% of the population, after Orthodoxy) in Siberia. It abounds in monuments, parks and religious buildings, including some 20 mosques (Lala-Tulip, the most famous, opened in 1998) and centres of Islamic education.