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My Big Tajik Wedding
Konstantin Salomatin
Every day an average of three tajiks become victims of racist attacks, police brutality, dangerous working conditions and unsafe housing. Nevertheless they still come to Russia, coping with all hardship for the chance to earn four times more than they would have at home. Surprisingly enough, it’s not always family’s day-to-day living they save for. For thousands it’s a wedding ceremony.
In Tajikistan, live swirls around weddings. In the country, where 47.2% live below the poverty threshold, and 80% of the employable population work abroad as labour migrants, the amount of money spent on weddings per year equals the country’s budget of $2 billion. People save money for weddings for years, put it all in a ceremony of a lifetime leaving the new family’s provider with the need to hit the road again, now to earn the living. Yet despite all odds Tajiks all over the country still throw fabulous celebrations.
Dazzling colours of joyful ceremonies are quite a contrast to the behind-the-scenes reality.
The wedding industry is probably the only one with stable income, and it’s the country’s major industry encompassing entertainers, singers, musicians, restaurants, cameramen, photographers, sellers of wedding dresses and many more.
In 2013 Tajik authorities have issued a law that limits the number of weddings’ guests, wedding budget and even the hours a reception in the restaurant can last. But nothing can change the fact that for Tajiks the wedding celebration has literally become the most important day of their life and weddings last at least 3 days anyway.
Brides change up to 20 dresses that have to shine and sparkle, and a 200$ per meter fabric straight from Emirates is a preferred choice. For Tajiks a wedding is something that you have to do properly, by the tradition. A show that you put up for the neighbourhood and beyond, that makes you look good, like you can afford it. You can hardly tell the difference between a rich family wedding or a very poor one. They will do their best to fit in. Even if the whole family will end up with debts that only several years of work can cover. Even with the legal limits, Tajiks say, to pay for a wedding a total of four people from both sides have to work for at least a year abroad to save the money.
With a wedding being just a ceremony that celebrates marriage, marriage itself raises many more issues. The majority of marriages are still arranged. Men usually leave the country from the age of 16. Then they go back once the parents has chosen a wife, marry her, make kids and leave again. They either work abroad for an average of 10 years and then go back home with the savings, or sometimes just leave forever. Tajikistan has been branded as the country of the missing men.