In a 2008 interview with "USA Today", Safin identified himself as a Muslim, stating, "I'm Russian, but I'm 100% Muslim. All the Muslim people are passionate, stubborn. We have hot blood." However, ten years later in an interview for Alexander Golovin of Sports.Ru he stated that though he believes in something that had created the world but doesn't really believe in personal God. Since the dissolution of the USSR, all the people of Russia have been encouraged to list themselves in accordance with the dominant religion of their ethnic group before the Soviet regime, as a sign of respect to the heritage — with all the Tatars being "ethnic Muslims" and ethnic Slavs being "Orthodoxes" by default, etc.