lit a candle 17h agoNot someone I grew up with, honestly only found his name through a translated anthology of Bashkir fairy tales our library had. The one about honesty over winning stuck with my daughter more than half the stuff we own. 78.
Their story
Mars Agliullovich Akhmetshin was a Bashkir writer, editor and literary administrator from the Republic of Bashkortostan in Russia. Over half a century he worked on children's newspapers, a women's magazine and state broadcasting, ran the Bashkir branch of the Literary Fund of the Russian Federation, and wrote stories and fairy…
Mars Agliullovich Akhmetshin was a Bashkir writer, editor and literary administrator from the Republic of Bashkortostan in Russia. Over half a century he worked on children's newspapers, a women's magazine and state broadcasting, ran the Bashkir branch of the Literary Fund of the Russian Federation, and wrote stories and fairy tales for children alongside novellas for adults.
He was born on 21 February 1948 in the village of Safarovo in the Miyakinsky District of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He graduated from Bashkir State University in 1976, by which time he had already begun working in journalism.
His working life started in 1970 at Pioneer of Bashkortostan, the republic's newspaper for children and young people, where he spent ten years as a department head and executive secretary. In 1980 he became deputy editor in chief of Bashkortostan Kyzy (Daughter of Bashkortostan), the republic's literary and arts magazine for women and the family. From 1986 he was chief editor at the State Committee of the Bashkir ASSR for Television and Radio Broadcasting, and from 1991 he was director of the Bashkir branch of the Literary Fund of the Russian Federation and a member of the International Literary Fund.
Akhmetshin's own writing came to the fore in the 1990s. He wrote entertaining and original stories for children and teenagers and warm, lyrical fairy tales for the youngest readers, aiming to nurture kindness, honesty and selflessness. Folk approaches to upbringing and the relationships between generations were central themes, while his novellas and stories for adults took on moral questions of modern life and the concerns of young people. His books, mostly in Bashkir, included We Will Meet, Ringo! (1990), Come Out to Meet Me, Gulsira! (1993), Fire (2000), The Fall (2005), The Fourth Table (2008) and Beside the Fathers (2010).
He joined the Union of Writers of Russia and of Bashkortostan in 1993. He was named an Honoured Worker of Culture of the Republic of Bashkortostan in 1997 and of the Russian Federation in 2008.
Mars Akhmetshin died on 26 October 2026 at the age of 78. The Union of Writers of Bashkortostan announced his death, which was reported by the Bashinform news agency. A farewell was held in Ufa on 27 October, followed by burial at the city's Southern Cemetery. The cause of death was not made public.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Bashinform news agency.
Photos
1Mars Akhmetshin
by People Forever
