Tajiks Quietly Flout Frugality Law
Three years ago this month, Tajikistan’s government issued rules restricting lavish spending on weddings and other ceremonies.
Tajiks Quietly Flout Frugality Law
Three years ago this month, Tajikistan’s government issued rules restricting lavish spending on weddings and other ceremonies.
As reporter Sohibyor Olimpur discovered, many people are carrying on as usual despite the fervour with which officials try to impose the rules,
The intention behind the law was laudable enough – Tajikistan is a poor country, yet people spend huge sums of money on enormous weddings, and lay out elaborate meals not only at funerals but also on subsequent memorial days throughout the next year.
As one Tajik pointed out, the competition to have the best event in the neighbourhood still goes on, it is just that everyone is a bit more circumspect.
Comments by one female interviewee showed why it is such an uphill struggle for the authorities. Family events were private matters and it was not for government to intervene and question how people spent their hard-earned cash. And if one did not hold the proper funeral ceremonies, it would be disrespectful to the dead.
The audio programme, in Russian and Tajik, went out on national radio stations in
