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The musicians have arrived – drummers, trumpeters and accordionists. The
bride's family have spent years scraping together an acceptable dowry. Over
five hundred guests sit patiently at long tables, waiting to tuck into a
lavish feast, painstakingly prepared over several days. And finally, the
bride and groom arrive at the front of a long, snaking motorcade, fresh from
saying their vows. They enter triumphantly, and the festivities can begin –
the first of many days of parties, rituals and gatherings make up the
traditional wedding in Tajikistan.
But this year, brides and grooms in the mountainous former-Soviet country
that borders Afghanistan and China will have to bid farewell to such
opulence. In 2008, less is more. As the start of the Tajik wedding season
looms, loved-up couples find themselves juggling a raft of new government
restrictions. No more than 150 revellers at the wedding, no more than four
cars in the convoy that collects the bride, no more than two hot dishes
served at the reception, and a strict three-hour time-limit on the
festivities.
Troubled by the fact that Tajiks spend ?750m a year on private ceremonies he
deemed "unnecessary and unaffordable", President Emomali Rahmon brought in
legislation to curb his country's excesses. Government officials have been
empowered to carry out spot checks on nuptials and anyone found to be
breaking the new rules could find themselves facing a ?1,500 fine.
The legislation, introduced last year, has split Tajik society, with some
bemoaning it as an outrageous state intrusion into the private lives of
individuals, and others saying that it is exactly what's needed to stop ordi
nary Tajiks building up giant debts because they are scared of putting on a
poor show and getting a bad reputation among their peers.
Poverty is endemic in Tajikistan, where the average wage is around ?10 a
month. When the Soviet Union broke up, the country was plunged into a brutal
civil war, and though a peace accord was reached in 1997, the country is
still the poorest of all the former Soviet states. The International
Organisation for Migration estimates that more than 600,000 Tajiks –
one-fifth of the adult population – leaves the country each year to work in
Russia, usually to do low-paid manual labour. The money they send back from
Russia is a fortune compared to salaries inside Tajikistan, but there's a
problem. The money, earned by working long hours in difficult conditions
with few safety or labour rights, doesn't get spent on setting up small
businesses, or on furthering educational opportunities for children in the
family. It gets spent on weddings.
"Many people I know come here to earn money so that they can afford to marry
off their children or siblings," said one Tajik citizen working in Moscow,
who didn't want to be named. "I myself gave a month's salary to my cousin
last year because his brother was getting married but couldn't afford it."
Weddings are taken very seriously all across Tajikistan, from the dusty
capital of Dushanbe to the most remote villages in the Pamir Mountains near
the border with China. The wedding season runs from March to October, and
the whole process lasts over a month and can cost thousands of pounds. There
are the local equivalents of stag and hen nights, a ceremony where
well-wishers come and "view" the bride, and then further celebrations to
mark 7 and 40 days after the wedding vows.
The centrepiece is the wedding ceremony itself, which can last up to three
days and involve extended family, friends, acquaintances and neighbours. In
smaller towns and villages, the entire population can turn up.
Ordinary Tajiks are divided over the new wedding laws. "So much is forbidden
now," Mavdzhuda Samiyeva told Russian television. "My friend's wedding was a
very sorry affair. Before it was much more fun – we had a hen night, we had
a ceremony to view the bride.Now the parents don't want to do any of this,
because they're worried they could get found out and fined, or fired from
their jobs."
But for other citizens, it's a big relief. "I've already had to marry off
three daughters and I know how difficult and expensive it can be," another
mother, Gulbanshi Rizoyeva, told a Russian broadcaster. "If it wasn't for
this new law, my son would have had to wait at least five years before I'd
let him get married."
The marriage restrictions are part of a raft of legislation that has come
into effect in Tajikistan over the past year. After the president complained
about overspending on public celebrations, a limit of 80 people could attend
a funeral, which reduced to strictly no more than 60 circumcision parties.
"On the face of it, it's not a bad idea," says Muhiddin Kabiri, the leader
of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, a moderate political
opposition force. "Such big spending on weddings is pointless. But it's not
something you should do with laws. The government should be increasing
educational work to improve knowledge among the population."
Mr Kabiri says that evidence shows that the better educated people are, the
less money they spend trying to keep up with their peers in the wedding
stakes. "A lot of people in the villages think that the seven- and 40-day
parties are Islamic traditions, when actually they have nothing to do with
Islam."
In fact, these traditions predate Islam and come from the distant past when
Zoroastrianism was practised in Tajikistan. The small communities of
Zoroastrians that still practise the religion today – mainly in Iran and
Mumbai, India, partake in similar rituals.
"We need to explain to people that spending so much money is unnecessary,"
says Mr Kabiri. "But at funerals, for example, people usually come without
an invitation. They just arrive to pay their respects and offer their
condolences to the family. What are the family supposed to say to the 81st
or 82nd person who turns up?"
Many put the new laws down to the personal whim of Tajikistan's eccentric
president, Emomali Rahmon. A short man with a puffy face and a swept-back
shock of dyed black hair, he is a Communist turned nationalist, like most of
the hardman rulers of the Central Asian republics. He became president in
1994, and has won a number of elections that were condemned by international
organisations as unfair. After the September 11 attacks, he was courted by
the United States because of the country's proximity to Afghanistan, but his
democratic credentials are thin to say the least.
Over the past year, Mr Rahmon has introduced a whole range of laws limiting
what Tajiks can and can't do, as part of a drive for Tajiks to rediscover
their roots. Although their Soviet past means that almost all Tajiks speak
Russian, and even write their own language using the Cyrillic alphabet, they
have a distinct, Persian culture and their language is very similar to
Farsi. Mr Rahmon, although keen to keep a strategic alliance with Russia,
has long advocated that Russian cultural influence should be minimised.
One of the most striking manifestations of this was the ban on Russified
surnames ending in –ov or –ev. Since Soviet times, most Tajiks have used
Russian versions of their names, but last year Mr Rahmon decided it was time
they went back to their Tajik roots, and made it illegal for newborn babies
to have surnames with Russian endings. Mr Rahmon led by example – until last
March his surname was Rahmonov.
Other legislation has placed restrictions on school and university
students – during the past year they have been banned from driving cars to
university, using mobile phones and having graduation parties. "Teachers and
students sit together and drink alcohol. What kind of behaviour is that?"
asked Mr Rahmon last year. Female students in the mostly Muslim country have
been banned from dressing both conservatively and in a more racy fashion –
the authorities outlawed both headscarves and mini-skirts on university
campuses.
Mr Rahmon has also attacked teachers, saying: "Teachers complain about their
salaries, but they all have gold teeth." Average salaries for teachers in
Tajikistan are around ?10 per month. Witchcraft and fortune- telling have
also been banned.
Government critics say the authorities should concentrate their energies on
more pressing issues. The country's proximity to Afghanistan means there is
a huge problem with heroin trafficking and drug addiction, and most of the
country only receives electricity at sporadic intervals. The more sceptical
say that the government's focus on petty issues is a ploy designed to
distract attention from weightier and harder-to-solve dilemmas.
"Of course these things are now law, so we have to follow them," says Mr
Kabiri. "But when you start regulating this stuff it's absurd."
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