A Russian businessman wanted to auction off a mosque for 600 million rubles ($20 million) to pay off a tax debt, state television reported. The unidentified businessman, who got rich in the gambling industry, was having trouble paying 105 million rubles in taxes after the government banned casinos and slot machines, Vesti-24 news channel reported today. A sale would violate neither religious rules nor the law, according to the channel.The red mosque in the village of Medyany was one of the largest in the Nizhny Novgorod region and the center of religious life for local Tatars, Vesti said. The majority of mosques in Russia are built and supported by private citizens, according to the channel.
Islam is RussiaÂ’s second most popular religion after Orthodox Christianity. Up to 20 million practicing Muslims live in the Volga region and North Caucasus. During the 70-year Soviet period, many mosques, churches and synagogues were turned into warehouses and factories.
Perhaps Putin would consider converting the mosque into a factory for processing Iranian uranium into fuel rods (wink, wink).