The elder sons of Timer Tyapkin, vice president of the Chuvash National Congress, do not speak Chuvash.
“In the early 1990s, even our teacher told us, ‘No one needs Chuvash outside the town of Kanash,'” Tyapkin told RFE/RL. “But nonetheless my wife and I gave our younger daughters Chuvash names. My wife spoke to them in Chuvash even before they were born.”
