A/HRC/23/34/Add.1 92. In Tatarstan, children with disabilities who cannot attend regular schools are catered for through rehabilitation centres. The Special Rapporteur was impressed by the city rehabilitation centre for children with disabilities in Kazan, Gorki district, which will probably become a model for the whole region. In rehabilitation centres, two months of attendance per year are mandatory; two additional months remain at the discretion of the centre. Parents request that centres welcome children for longer periods each year. 93. For the rest of the year, parents try to provide educational and leisure activities to their children on a self-help basis with very limited means. The Special Rapporteur visited the “Light in the Window” centre in Kazan, which provides educational and cultural activities. These structures need more State support, including affordable accommodation. 94. Teachers in private centres and parents described their experience as “accidental”, and would like to receive formal training to benefit from available expertise. They hope that exchanges between pedagogical centres of Kazan and Moscow can be promoted and that a well-resourced centre of pedagogy is established to train teachers and specialists. 95. In all interactions, the attitudes towards persons with disabilities were described as the biggest obstacle to the participation of persons with disabilities in cultural life. 96. Regrettably, discrepancies between the programmes adopted by the authorities and the reality experienced by persons with disabilities still exist. For example, in Kazan, when children with disabilities were invited to a special concert inaugurating the new puppet theatre, the theatre staff refused them entry, as they only had one ticket for both the child and the accompanying parent, who would seat the child on her/his lap. Finally, when allowed entry, they found that the elevators specially installed to facilitate access were not working. After climbing up four floors, they were informed that two people could not occupy one chair. 2. Roma 97. The situation of the Roma, in particular those living in Roma-only settlements, should be addressed more proactively. Roma children reportedly have great difficulty in their access to quality education; they often do not speak Russian fluently, and these difficulties are encountered by Roma who are Russian nationals as well as non-nationals, including those who were born Russian nationals and have difficulties proving their nationality owing to a lack of documents. 33 98. According to interlocutors, access to education is difficult because schools are not suited to the needs of Roma children and are often insensitive to their cultural background. Roma children are usually not welcome in general schools. When special classes or schools are created for Roma children, a practice that seems to amount to segregation, education is of low quality, with no ethno-cultural component. Teachers working with Roma children do not receive special training. The Special Rapporteur encourages the authorities to create materials and textbooks for Roma children that take into account their language and cultural background and to support the publication of bilingual books (Russian / Romani). 99. Roma artistic groups are popular and perform successfully throughout the country. The reality for less renowned Roma may, however, be different. In some cases, Roma children feel unwelcome as participants in cultural events. 33 18 See Memorial, “Discrimination and violation of Roma children‟s rights in schools of the Russian Federation”, update to the 2009 report, submission to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, March 2011.