ZARGHAR, Tajikistan — Arranged marriages of couples who possess never ever met are typical in rural Tajikistan. Nevertheless the August 27 wedding of town schoolteacher Saidsho Asrorov’s to Marjona Hudoidodova is very uncommon.
Their wedding ended up being arranged within just one week on sales associated with the country’s autocratic ruler.
President Emomali Rahmon ended up being visiting Tajikistan’s southwestern Khatlon region on August 16 whenever Asrorov, a 23-year-old history instructor, offered a speech praising “the first choice associated with country and founder of comfort in Tajikistan.”
Asrorov expressed appreciation to Rahmon for their part in “supporting training in addition to upbringing associated with the young generation” and recited his very own verses of Tajik poetry (see movie below) to honor Rahmon, an old Soviet apparatchik that has governed Tajikistan since 1992.
Duly impressed — and notwithstanding the kowtowing that regularly moves from their hold on tight energy — Rahmon asked Asrorov if he had been hitched.
Asrorov, that would struggle on their paltry teacher’s wage to pay for a”bride that is traditional” towards the moms and dads of the next partner, reacted which he had been solitary.
“I happened to be concerned and excited inside my message,” Asrorov told RFE/RL on August 22. “The president asked me personally about my entire life and household. He asked if I became hitched. We replied ‘no.’ he then instructed the region leadership to select my wedding. As well as in only days, my wedding will happen.”
Rahmon additionally ordered region officials to cover the expenses associated with wedding.
That set off a search that is immediate the district federal government, which formed a committee of matchmakers led by Dilafruz Mahmadalieva, the deputy chairwoman associated with the Bohtar District’s Department of Ideology.
When the matchmaking committee asked Asrorov he said he would like to marry Marjona Hudoidodova — a recent medical-school graduate and daughter of a physical-education teacher in Zarghar if he had a candidate for his spouse.
Asrorov told the matchmakers he previously seen Hudoidodova just once whenever she had been their studies at medical college in Khatlon’s local money, Qurghon-Teppa.
He stated he had been straight away drawn to the 22-year-old Hudoidodova, whom never seen Asrorov.
On August 19, the matchmaking committee visited Hudoidodova’s home within the nearby town of Gulzor.
“The matchmakers communicated with my parents,” Hudoidodova told RFE/RL’s Tajik provider. “My moms and dads consented to let me marry the man from the condition that i will be permitted to continue to work.”
“I would like to carry on being employed as a nurse in a medical center,” Hudoidodova stated, incorporating that she’s got constantly imagined marrying a person who does maybe maybe not interfere together with her expert job.
The bride’s mother, Savlatbi Hudoidodova, told RFE/RL that numerous teenage boys have actually arrived at ask when it comes to young nursing assistant’s turn in wedding.
But she stated that whenever previous suitors heard the problem that the young nursing assistant must be permitted to carry on working following the wedding, the guys “disappeared.”
The mother stated Asrorov could be the very first suitor to accept allow her child continue working.
Mahmadalieva told RFE/RL that her matchmaking committee had been very happy to manage to offer Asrorov “an experienced, educated, and girl that is worthy the town of Gulzor.”
“Asrorov is from the family that is low-income their moms and dads are resigned,” Mahmadalieva stated. “We arranged the original matchmaking we purchased gift suggestions for the bride and her family members. for him and”
“Our company is addressing most of the expenses when it comes to wedding event, and we’ll assist the woman’s family members, ” Mahmadalieva stated, discussing the Tajik tradition when the groom’s family members provides a “bride price” to your moms and dads associated with the girl he’s planning to marry.
Mahmadalieva stated the region administration has offered a lot more than 16,000 somonis — about $1,800 — to Hudoidodova’s family members so that you can “purchase every thing required for the bride.”
Hudoidodova told RFE/RL that she actually is sewing by herself a “national gown” when it comes to marriage ceremony in Qurghon-Teppa, which is the 1st time she sees Asrorov.
Prior to legislation from 2007 that the federal government claims is targeted at discouraging extravagance asiandate, the marriage ceremony and celebration can last not than three hours and can have no more than 150 visitors.
Though it may be the first known marriage arranged by presidential purchase in Tajikistan, brief encounters with Rahmon have already been life-altering for other Tajiks.
In a nation so steeped in poverty that lots of young Tajik men migrate to Russia to locate jobs, Rahmon lords over a fiercely nepotistic system while his extensive household and internal group reap the benefits of decades of entrenched corruption.
It really is a method in which a conversation that is short the ruler has generated instructions securing jobs at state organizations, giving admission to universities, or resolving housing dilemmas.
Increasingly, Tajiks praise and glorify Rahmon at their public appearances into the hope that, by having a casual remark to his henchmen, he can re re re solve their individual dilemmas. ?