MOSCOW — With a prayer hall, an ablution room and snack bar of halal foods, Russia's first Muslim clinic has opened in the capital city of Moscow to especially cater for the needs of the growing Muslim minority.

"I would say that this was very much needed for the Muslim community," Syrian doctor Kadir Makhmud told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Friday, December 7.

"What's important here is the atmosphere."

Run by some 50 doctors and nurses, the Muslim clinic, which opened Thursday, December 6, occupies one floor of the Price Quality (Tsena Kachetsvo) private health care centre in southeast Moscow.

Inside the gleaming modern clinic, hijab-clad female doctors are carrying out examinations on women. Men are treated by male staff in a separate section.

Nurses, dressed in white headscarves and loose-fitting tunics and trousers, are standing by to offer help.

"As you can see the women dress modestly, there is a place to pray, this is all important for Muslims," said Makhmud, who has worked in several foreign-run clinics in Moscow since he moved to Russia from Syria two years ago.

Medical visits to the clinic cost on average 800 rubles (33 dollars, 22 euros) each, within affordable reach of the average Muscovite.

The Muslim clinic was opened with support from Moscow authorities and the Russian Health Ministry.

Open to All

Though the clinic has been initiated to cater for the Muslim minority in Moscow, estimated at some two million, it also receives people of all faiths and backgrounds.

"The international community can now see that in multinational and multi-faith Russia every citizen has the right to health services," Grand Mufti Sheikh Ravil Gainutdin said after opening the clinic.

"We, Muslims of Russia, are native citizens of this country and should live comfortably and peacefully in our state."

Arslan Sadriyev, a member of the Mufti Council, said Russian Muslims want to set an example.

"We hope that the government will see this clinic as a successful experience and use it as an example," he said.

The clinic also targets the diplomatic community from the Middle East and Gulf countries who have been returning home for medical care.

Viktor Kisin, head of the Price Quality chain of clinics, said there were plans to open Muslim health facilities elsewhere in Russia, possibly in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, and Kazan in Tatarstan.

Islam is Russia's second-largest religion behind Russian Orthodoxy.

There are some 23 million Muslims in the Russian Federation concentrated in the north of the Caucasus, representing roughly 15 percent of its 145 million population.

IslamOnline.net & News Agencies