You embassy wires: A wedding meal, the Caucasus method

Thursday, , C O Letter F We D Elizabeth N T We Good L Section 01 Out of 05 MOSCOW 009533 SIPDIS SIPDIS EO 129 Tags PGOV, ECON, PINR, RS Subject: A good CAUCASUS Marriage Classified By: Deputy Captain away from Purpose Daniel An excellent. Russell. Reasoning 1.cuatro ( b, d)

step 1. (C) Wedding events was tricky from inside the Dagestan, the greatest independence about Northern Caucasus. Brand new luxurious monitor and you can heavy-drinking concealed the newest fatal really serious Northern Caucasus politics of property, ethnicity, clan, and alliance. The brand new guest record spanned the latest Caucasus electricity framework — visitor featuring Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov — and you can underlined just how individual the newest region’s government are. Avoid Summation.

Within the receptions the brand new groom guides good delegation on the bride’s lobby and you can escorts her back to his or her own reception, of which part she formally gets a person in new groom’s relatives, forsaking their unique dated family unit members and you will clan

2. (C) Dagestani wedding parties is actually big organization: an online forum for indicating value, fealty and alliance one of parents; the fresh bride and groom are little more than showpieces. Wedding receptions take place in distinct pieces more than three days. Towards the first-day the newest groom’s household members therefore the bride’s relatives additionally keep separate receptions. 24 hours later, the latest groom’s mothers keep various other lobby, this time into bride’s friends and family, that will “inspect” the family he has got considering their dily keeps a lobby getting the groom’s parents and you may loved ones.

3. (C) For the August 22, Gadzhi Makhachev hitched away from their 19 season-old young buck Dalgat in order to Aida Sharipova. The marriage inside Makhachkala, and that i attended, are a microcosm of one’s social and you will political interactions of Northern Caucasus, starting with Gadzhi’s individual bio. Gadzhi started out because an enthusiastic Avar clan commander. Enver Kisriyev, a respected college student away from Dagestani community, informed you you to while the Soviet strength receded off Dagestan about later mid-eighties, the fresh complex neighborhood dropped to the pre-Russian framework. The essential structural device ‘s the monoethnic “jamaat,” in this use top interpreted because “canton” otherwise “commune.” The newest ethnic teams themselves are a Russian make: up against countless jamaats, brand new nineteenth century Russian conquerors lumped cantons talking related languages together and you can named him or her “Avar,” “Dargin,” an such like. to reduce the number of “nationalities” within the Dagestan so you’re able to 38. Ever since then, jamaats within this for each ethnic class had been fighting with each other to lead this new cultural group. So it competition is specially ong this new Avars, the most significant nationality into the Dagestan.

cuatro. (C) Since Russian electricity faded, for each canton fielded a beneficial troops to guard their somebody both in brand new slopes additionally the financing Makhachkala. Gadzhi turned the best choice regarding their household canton from Burtunay, inside Kazbek Rayon. The guy afterwards asserted pan-Avar ambitions, beginning the brand new Imam Shamil Well-known Side — entitled adopting the higher Avar frontrunner regarding mountaineer resistance to the latest Russians — to market the latest passions of the Avars as well as Burtunay’s role in the ethnic class. Among their exploits are a job in the army defense of Dagestan up against the 1999 attack of Chechnya of the Shamil Basayev and al-Khattab, with his political shelter from Avar villages under great pressure for the Chechnya, Georgia and you may Azerbaijan.

Toward August 22 i went to a wedding inside the Makhachkala, Dagestan’s financing: Duma affiliate and you may Dagestan Oil Organization captain Gadzhi Makhachev’s young buck partnered a beneficial classmate

5. (C) Gadzhi enjoys cashed on the social funding he made from nationalism, translating it with the economic and you may governmental investment — while the lead out-of Dagestan’s condition oils team so when the new unmarried-mandate representative to possess Makhachkala during the Russia’s State Duma. Their dealings in the oils providers — along with romantic collaboration having U.S. companies — have remaining him well off sufficient to pay for luxurious properties within the Makhachkala, Kaspiysk, Moscow, Paris and you will North park; and you will a big type of luxury cars, including the Rolls Royce Silver Phantom in which Dalgat fetched Aida off her parents’ reception. (Gadzhi gave us an elevator on the Moves shortly after inside Moscow, although legroom is actually slightly constricted of the visibility out-of a great Kalashnikov carbine from the the feet. Gadzhi has live numerous assassination initiatives, as has actually every nevertheless-living frontrunners from Dagestan. From inside the Dagestan he usually travels into the a keen armored BMW that have one to, often one or two go after automobiles full of uniformed armed shields.)