What kind of love do Tajik migrants seek and find? Seven habits of Tajik wives that any man will like

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"During these four years I have turned gray"

Lena is 15, Sasha is 14, Mile is 11, Aziz is 4.

Tajik families are filled with children. There are as many of them as God gives. God gave Sadiridin Ermatov (everyone calls him Sabir) four. True, the two eldest are not relatives, but adopted ones. These are the children of his Russian wife Marina. So Sabir became the father of many children.

Marina died in childbirth when she gave birth to the youngest - their common son Aziz.

For the sake of having his stepchildren with him, Sabir gave everything.

Five-story building without an elevator. The apartment is at the very top. I climb the stairs and think: how many kilometers of steps did Sabir measure out, going up and down with baby strollers an infinite number of times?

He was born in Tajikistan, in the city of Tursunzade, in big family. He has five brothers and sisters. Then in Soviet times, about which he recalls with nostalgia, their house was full: “Parents kept cows, rams, geese, chickens - everything except piglets. Religion does not allow. My father is a mullah. A holy man!”

In ninety he was drafted into the army. Served in the Far Eastern Military District. In ninety-two, Sabir mobilized, but didn’t even get home: there was a war going on there.

People were running in all directions. And Sabir also ran. First to Uzbekistan, then to Turkmenistan. His agronomist diploma was no longer needed in his homeland. And then he boarded the train on which thousands of his compatriots were traveling to Russia. Sabir got off in Krasnogorsk.

He was never without work - he worked at a construction site and renovated apartments. I worked hard without days off. Every month I sent money to my relatives. We need to support the family - that's the way it is.

He met Marina by chance. That day he was taken to the police station - a routine incident for a migrant worker with a non-Slavic appearance. An hour later they released me: the documents were in perfect order.

Sabir was walking along Mira Avenue in the evening and saw a fair-haired girl who smiled back at him. He did not yet know that this meeting would change his entire destiny.

He spoke, she answered. They exchanged phone numbers and began dating. She is 26, he is 28. Marina was married, but family life didn't work out. The husband drank and did not show up at home.

Sabir left for Tajikistan for a while. When he returned, Marina gave birth to Lena. And soon she admitted that she was expecting another child. Not from Sabir.

The biological father of Sasha and Lena will give them his last name and disappear from the life of the family forever. Sabir will meet Marina from the maternity hospital. He will pick up a bundle tied with ribbons. From birth, children will call Sabir dad.

Marina lived on the Lenin state farm, just outside the district. When Sabir first came to her home, he was speechless: he had never seen such devastation. Torn wallpaper, cracked frames, broken doors. For two rooms there are three families: Marina with her children, her parents, her brother and her partner. Behind public utilities Of course they didn't pay. The debt was cosmic - 204 thousand rubles. They lived poorly, but cheerfully: alcohol was of no use.

In 2004, Sabir married Marina, and two years later they had a common daughter, Milya.

He still worked on construction sites: he had to support big family. When the opportunity arose, I made repairs, changing everything that was possible. I hung new wallpaper, installed double-glazed windows, and insulated the balcony. The “killed” apartment began to shine.

In small villages, life is visible. Everyone here knows each other. The neighbors, who at first greeted Sabir warily, now repeated: “Marina is lucky, what a husband she found! He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, everyone goes into the house!”

We all fell in love with him,” Nadezhda Petrovna, whom Sabir’s children call Baba Nadya, tells me. - Modest, neat, polite, greets everyone, treats everyone with respect. Something needs to be fixed, someone needs to be taken to the city - everything needs to go to him. Doesn't refuse anyone. When Marina's parents died one after another, he buried them properly. He still goes to the cemetery, looks after the grave, paints the fence...

We've never had anything like this before! - another neighbor at the entrance, Natalya Nikolaevna, echoes her. - What else can you say about him? He comes home from work and always goes for a walk with the children. They adore him.

...In 2012, Marina became pregnant again. When Sabir found out that they would have a fourth child, he was confused: essentially, there was nowhere to live, little money, and his job was temporary. But since Allah gave, his father taught him, he must be grateful and accept the child with joy.

“God gave, God took,” they say in Russia. Sabir doesn’t know what happened there, in the maternity hospital; no one really explained anything to him. They only said that the birth was very difficult, Marina’s blood pressure was off the charts. Aziz was born ahead of schedule, seven months old.

My wife died in the evening, they told me only in the morning,” Sabir looks away. - At nine o’clock, representatives of the administration already came to the apartment: “You are nobody here! The children are not yours, they have a different last name. You have no citizenship, no registration. We are taking the children!” My vision went dark. These are my children, I raised them from birth. They call me dad. How can I give them away?..

The heartbroken father rushed to the maternity hospital. He was told that his wife was in the morgue and his child was in the incubator. He has increased intracranial pressure. The boy is premature, very weak, weighing only 1600 grams. We need to take care of it.

At the maternity hospital, Sabir was immediately asked to write a refusal from the child. He said: “I just lost my wife - do you want to take my child away?! I’m still alive.”

They told him: “You don’t have enough money to treat him.” "You name the amount - I'm ready!" - answered Sabir. “They won’t give you a birth certificate!” - “Why won’t they give it to me? My mother is a citizen of Russia, we are registered.”

From the maternity hospital, he immediately went to the registry office and received Aziz’s birth certificate. Then Sabir found out that they wanted to adopt his child. The baby, in whose veins Russian and Tajik blood were mixed, turned out to be a sight for sore eyes: soft blond hair, Persian eyes...

Then a call at three o’clock in the morning from the maternity hospital: “Come, we called a specialist doctor for your son. We have to pay 4 thousand.” “I gave 4 and a half,” he adds after a pause.

He buried his Marina and hid his grief very deeply, to the very bottom. It was impossible to suffer and cry, it was necessary to act, because at any moment his older children could be taken away.

When Aziz was finally discharged home, he weighed only 1800 grams. So small, he fit on a tiny mattress and cried incessantly. Looking at his son, Sabir felt helpless. He has golden hands, he can do everything in the world and is not afraid of any work, but will he be able to leave this creature?

He called younger sister Bibi from Tajikistan: "Save!" And then all the neighbors, the entire entrance, rushed to help. Someone brought children's things, someone helped bathe the child, someone ironed the diapers... Ordinary Russian women came and took turns on duty, and Sabir does not remember a day when he was left alone with trouble. He understood: he can handle it!

All this time he was constantly thinking about Sasha and Lena, who could be taken away at any moment. Orphanage. Sabir did not yet have Russian citizenship, only a residence permit, and he would never have been allowed to become the adoptive father of children who also had a nominal father.

Sabir found ex-husband Marina and directly suggested: “Let’s resolve the issue with the children. You don’t need them anyway!” He promised to come in a week and write a waiver of the children. He promised - and disappeared. He didn’t answer the phone and didn’t call himself. Sabir filed an application to the court, which deprived the negligent father of parental rights.

Sabir took the children to Maloyaroslavets, to Olesya’s family - cousin Marina, who obtained temporary guardianship. He was torn between his children - his own and his adopted ones. Every week he went to visit Sasha and Lena and returned with a heavy heart: they felt bad there.

My brother and I slept together on an air mattress on the floor,” Lena recalls. “Our things were put in the barn, and every day in the cold we ran for clothes. And our relatives separated us from their children. They all sit at the table, and they give us a plate, and we eat standing up. Once dad brought us home for the weekend, and we put five spoons of sugar in our tea. Dad asked: “Don’t they feed you there?..” And one day Aunt Olesya said to me: “Lena, there is a woman in Odessa, she has two boys, they are already adults, and she really wants a girl. Will you go there?” I call my dad in tears: “They are giving me to another family! Take us away from here!” We were kicked out the door with our things...

That same day, Sabir took his elders home. I immediately took their documents to school so that they would not miss classes.

During the three months that the children lived in Maloyaroslavets, the guardianship never took an interest in them. But as soon as I brought them home and they went to school, representatives of the department arrived. They came to pick up Sasha and Lena - everything is bubbling up with him even now. - I rushed to my neighbor Natalya Nikolaevna: “Take temporary guardianship while I get Russian citizenship!”

Registration of guardianship is not an easy process; it requires time to collect documents, examine the health of the guardian, living conditions. If the future guardian is not a close relative, he must also undergo training at the School of Foster Parents. This has become a mandatory requirement since the fall of 2012.

Probably not everyone would agree to take on such a burden. But Natalya Nikolaevna did not hesitate for a minute. Without further ado, I began to collect Required documents and enrolled in the School of Foster Parents. The closest one was in Podolsk.

Sabir abandoned all his affairs so that the children could live with him. Twice a week I took the future adoptive mother to classes in Podolsk and worked on obtaining a Russian passport.

During these four years I turned gray. They drove me like soccer ball. It's scary to remember what I went through. They tortured me a little,” he adds after a pause. - As soon as I became a citizen of Russia, I immediately formalized guardianship for my older children. Marina’s parents did not pay the rent, I had to pay off the debt for utilities - 204 thousand rubles. If I had not found the money, the apartment would have been taken away and the children would have been sent to an orphanage.

He gave away all his savings in twelve years. His family doesn't owe anyone anything anymore.

Recently he took Lena and Milya to his homeland in Tajikistan. Two sisters, one fair, the other dark, daughters.

Lena shows me photographs. Here she is in national Tajik attire.

In Tajikistan we were received like family! - the girl admires. - Grandma hugged me: “My beloved, my golden one!” They showed us the city and treated us to national food. I understand Tajik, but you didn’t need many words to feel surrounded by your loved ones...

Lena herself learned to cook Tajik pilaf. Almost as tasty and picturesque as dad.

Recently Aunt Bibi showed me how to bake their traditional flatbreads. “Dad doesn’t have a wife, but he should have female support,” the fifteen-year-old daughter thinks in an adult way.

While my sister cooks for everyone. I made so many preparations for the winter! - he points to the rows of cans of adjika, eggplant caviar, pickled cucumbers and tomatoes. “But if Bibishka goes home, Lena will have to cook,” Sabir laughs. - And I will help her.

He is not registered in this apartment. If the apartment had been privatized, he would have inherited the share after his wife’s death. You need to know Sabir: he was embarrassed to ask Marina to register him in his parents’ crowded living space. He lived with a temporary registration, which he renewed every six months.

Now the situation has changed, but the Department of Guardianship and Trusteeship for the Leninsky District of the Moscow Region is not on the side father of many children. Sabir lives like a bird. Permanent registration is persistently denied to him, because formally he will infringe on the rights of his children. They ask him: “What is your intention?”

What is my intention? - Sabir smiles bitterly. - I have been living here with my children for sixteen years. Buy new apartment I can't, she's worth millions. But I need to feed my family. I'm the only one with them.

I look at Sabir. He is only forty-three. Not age for a man. It's been four years since he was widowed. All periods of mourning had long passed, and, probably, he could arrange his life.

“I thought about it,” he says honestly. - You can find a woman, but for me the most important thing is that she loves my children, and then me.

About 800 thousand Tajik migrants live and work in Russia, but little is known about their personal lives. For the last 12 years, sociologist, RIAC expert, and head of the SHARK research center in Tajikistan, Saodat Olimova, has been studying the sexual behavior of Tajiks working in Russia and its connection with the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the republic. She told how migrants buy cheap love in Russia, why newcomers commit sexual crimes, and what to do if you work in a logging camp for a year and a half, surrounded only by men.

Sexual infections transmitted in the absence of wives

"Lenta.ru" How diverse is the sexual life of Tajik migrants in Russia?

Olimova: About 90 percent of the migrants surveyed were married, but only 5 percent took their wife with them to Russia. Another 3 percent take their wife with them for some time.

When talking about their sex life, 38 percent of respondents reported that they had not engaged in outcall sex at all; another 22 percent had sex with casual partners; 11.5 percent - with regular partners (girlfriends); 10 percent - with sex workers; 8 percent - with his wife; 6.5 percent - with kept women.

Of those who had not had sex, about five percent reported masturbation as a solution to the problem. About one percent of respondents admitted to homosexual contacts. Perhaps not everyone answered this question frankly, but I think the level of homosexual relations is still no higher than the standard four to five percent.

Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov / Kommersant

What did those who admitted to homosexual relationships say in interviews?

There may be several options for such connections. Firstly, these may be forced contacts - like in prison. For example, in logging crews, when there are no women for a long time. We were told about a case where 62 people worked at a logging site for a year and a half, and two of them became a couple. Another option is that in large Russian cities, young guys get involved with Russian homosexuals. There are times when they are offered good conditions life, Russian citizenship, money.

Such stories are kept in the strictest confidence, since Tajiks have a very negative attitude towards homosexuality, and migrants often come to work in teams consisting of relatives and neighbors.

Why did you decide to address the topic of migrants’ sexual lives?

The fact is that previously in Tajikistan the problem of HIV and STDs was not acute. HIV was circulating in a relatively small group drug users and was transmitted mainly by injection. But since 2002, along with the rise of labor migration to Russia, the number of registered cases of sexually transmitted infection among migrants returning from abroad has sharply increased. Practitioners began to sound the alarm, contacted the IOM and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and they decided to conduct a study to clarify the situation. In 2010 and 2014, we did the same work again to track the dynamics.

Is the current sexual behavior of Tajik men different from what it was 15-20 years ago?

The number of people who take their wives with them has decreased slightly - from seven to five percent. Secondly, over 12 years the number of people entering into casual relationships has almost doubled. At the same time, it is surprising that the number of those who use sex services does not change over time: they are always about ten percent.

The number of marriages and long-term relationships with Russian women has decreased. In 2002, there were quite a lot of them, because people, to some extent, continued to feel like citizens of the USSR. Now Tajik migrants find themselves at the bottom of the social ladder, so it is difficult for them to find a partner for a long-term relationship. Tajik is almost a social status.

Rape is considered casual relationships

What form of commercial sex do migrants prefer?

Different. Most often, they turn to the services of “call girls” whom they invite to their place: in 2010, 52 percent of migrants who used sex services reported this. 16.4 percent of people in this group are sent to the home of a sex worker; 9 percent visit brothels; 7 percent - massage rooms; 5 percent paid female employees for sex at their workplace. The rest named saunas, “special apartments,” and cars.

I saw two examples of how sex services were organized. In one case, this happened in the center of Moscow at a construction site. There was a small trailer there, where three or four women worked - one of them was for the local management.

Usually pimps negotiate with the foreman and bring several women to the sites. Apparently, this scheme is well organized and has been in use for a long time. They change girls often - they have a lot of clients, and the working conditions are very difficult.

The second time I observed how there was a minibus at a construction site, in which girls were serving the builders. Most likely, such services are inexpensive.

Migrants who work in the transport sector pick up "shoulders" on the highways - these are girls who provide sex services to truck drivers.

What then is meant by random connections?

They are very diverse. This could be sex in the workplace, most often with the same migrant workers - Moldovans, Ukrainians, Russians, that is, internal migrants, one-day girlfriends - sex for the night. These could be female workers hired for a day or two to perform certain work in the construction and finishing of a house. Casual relationships can also happen in workshops, for example, furniture production. Migrants spend the night right at work - both women and men. That's where everything happens.

For example, Tajiks repair country houses and dachas, and local girls come to them. People may know each other for a day or two.

Casual relationships are more typical for workers in the transport sector. These are taxi drivers, truck drivers. Among them, the proportion of those who enter into casual relationships is much higher than in other areas.

Why has this become a common occurrence?

The flow of migrants has partly changed. After the 2008 crisis, the proportion of very young people - under 25 years old - increased noticeably. They do not always think through their actions and sometimes act impulsively. Although now the share of young people is declining along with a decrease in the number of labor migrants in Russia.

Are sexual crimes included in these casual relationships?

Most likely, of this 22 percent, some may be rape. But I don’t think this is a common occurrence. Such crimes are committed - including by Tajiks - for several reasons. Firstly, these are young men without wives. They have no opportunity to find a partner, as they are often isolated from society. This marginalizes them. In the army, for example, they used to give bromine. And then all this turns into aggression.

Secondly, there are cultural differences. What is normal for Russian women is read by Tajiks as a signal of availability or even as a call. In Tajikistan, girls do not go to open clothes, do not engage in conversation with men, and - most importantly - do not drink with them. It takes quite a lot of time, especially for young people, for them to understand what and how is customary in Russia.

There are cases when Russian women entered into sexual relations with migrants under the influence of alcohol, or it was spontaneous sex, and the next morning she accused him of sexual violence.

Mutually beneficial sexual relationships

You have also studied the phenomenon of migrant cohabitation. What does this relationship look like?

More than 11 percent of our respondents said that they live with a friend and have a common household with her. Such stories most often begin with business relations: At first they work together, and then somehow it turns out naturally that people rent an apartment and start living together.

Usually several couples live in one apartment - it can be three or four couples per two-room apartment.

That is, relationships with Russian women rarely happen?

They also happen with Russian girls, but most often the “friends” of Tajik migrants are migrant women working next to them from other countries - from Ukraine, Moldova or Kazakhstan, or Russian women who come from the regions. All of them are united by a joint migrant business - construction or trade.

Is their relationship like a family relationship?

Tajiks treat these women not as wives who need to be provided for, but as equal partners and companions. Therefore, they often share the budget and treat their partner with respect. At the same time, they are not responsible for this woman. Initially, cohabitation is temporary and does not provide for the birth of children.

Condom is a shame

How do migrants feel about contraception?

70 percent of all migrants who come into contact with irregular partners (casual relationships, sex workers) use contraception. Problems arise in relationships with regular partners, because when a migrant begins to live with a girlfriend, he gradually begins to perceive her as a wife and stops using condoms. However, these unions are temporary for both him and her: the situation changes, someone leaves, a new partner appears. In such short-term relationships, the likelihood of infection increases dramatically.
Also, I'm not sure that migrants who use condoms always do so.

It turns out that women are to blame?

The connection between HIV/AIDS and migration is a common problem for the whole world. Mobility always entails an expansion of sexual relationships and their short-term duration. At the same time, people do not understand that a condom is important and not at all shameful, they do not have safe sex skills, no one taught them this. Therefore, both partners are most likely to blame, as well as states that must inform their citizens.

The work of Natalia Zotova and Victor Agadzhanyan states that among the representatives Central Asia Tajik women use protection more often than others and are less likely to get sexually transmitted infections. This is true?

In principle, I agree with their conclusions. The fact is that among Tajik women, women over 35 - either widows or divorced - almost always go to work. These are grown women - they understand what they are doing.

Of course, they try to establish long-term relationships. 40-year-old women don’t do spontaneous stupid things. But they are not always able to force their partner to use a condom and agree to its terms.

It's better not to ask your wife anything.

Among your respondents were there men who had children in Russia?

Not often, but they do happen. In this case, a whole tangle of problems appears. The migrant needs to somehow legalize this child so that he bears his last name. For example, through marriage. As a result, difficulties begin with my wife in Tajikistan, divorces and at the same time attempts to keep both families together. different types marriages - official and Sharia.

Photo: Dmitry Lebedev / Kommersant

They come home and simply present their wife with a fait accompli?

They may not say. But more often they inform parents about grandchildren who have appeared in Russia, and then the information will reach the wife. Nevertheless, wives often put up with the appearance of another family.

My husband's departure to work abroad for Tajik woman- this is a real tragedy. He is not there all the time, it is impossible to have a lover, his mother-in-law, sister-in-law and other relatives are always nearby. Wives wait for their husbands for years. If only my husband would return, at least some kind, that would be good.

He will come with children and illnesses, but will he still be welcome?

Certainly. She works from morning to evening in the field, looks after the children, and takes care of his parents. But she knows that her husband went to another country to work long and hard to provide her and her children with everything they need.

Is there some kind of male solidarity among migrants when they return home? For example, does the wife hear rumors about her husband's sexual exploits?

As far as I know, they are all silent, like partisans. Men are in approximately the same position and do not talk too much about life in migration.

At the same time, in Russian migrant groups there is usually an older, authoritative migrant who is responsible for everyone. If someone gets into trouble, gets infected with HIV or an STI, then in Tajikistan they believe that the elder is to blame for not paying attention.

When a man returns to Tajikistan, does he still have some sexual habits established in Russia?

They bring home not only money, but also new experience sexual relations, new ideas about what is permitted and forbidden, but the majority of them - 78 percent - return to the sociocultural norms accepted in their homeland. What happened in Russia remains in Russia. The rest, upon their return, implement the behavior patterns that have developed in Russia.

How do mothers feel about the fact that their son might cheat on his wife?

Mothers send their sons on a very dangerous and difficult journey, so all is forgiven. Extramarital affairs are something that comes with making money in another country. The general opinion is this: returning alive and with money is already good. And it’s better not to ask anything else.

It turns out that over the past 15 years, the only thing that migrants in Russia have borrowed in the intimate sphere is sexually transmitted infections?

Our research shows how sexual practices change over the years - the “rules of the game” and ethical standards that legalize previously “unacceptable” (extramarital sexual relations, consumption of forbidden foods, violations of marital behavior).

At the same time, new stable models of sexual and marital behavior of migrants are being formed as part of adaptation to Russian reality. Gradually, implicit social recognition of second marriages outside the country and a neutral attitude towards cohabitation and temporary partnerships are being formed. Thus, the boundaries of what is permitted expand and become mobile, but the orientation toward the sociocultural norms in force in the homeland remains.

Nevertheless, under the influence of large-scale labor migration, there is an implicit expansion of the range of sexual practices and relationships in Tajik society as a whole. This process is viewed by society as the destruction of traditions and a decline in morality, which is why discussions arise about polygamy, abandoned wives and children, telephone divorces, and guest marriage. From my point of view, this reflects the process of changing sexual and family and marriage ethics. It should be recognized that the sexual practices of Tajik migrants in Russia are part of the mechanism of adaptation to the conditions of migration and to the host society.

Lenta.ru expresses gratitude to the Russian International Affairs Council for its assistance in preparing the interview

DUSHANBE, April 17 - Sputnik, Andrey Zakhvatov. Currently in Tajikistan, as it was in the Soviet period, the trend toward an increase in the number of interethnic marriages does not change.

As Tajik sociologist Sofia Kasymova notes, in the early years Soviet power interethnic and interfaith marriages were even welcomed and encouraged by the authorities, especially since the majority of Tajiks did not interfere with international marriages.

Two waves

First a big wave interethnic marriages in Tajikistan occurred in the second half of the 40s of the 20th century. Tens of thousands of participants of the Great Patriotic War returned to Tajikistan Patriotic War and labor front participants.

Thousands of Muslim fighters came home with Christian wives. In almost every regional center and in many villages one could meet natives of European countries - they successfully worked in hospitals, schools, taught Tajik children the Russian language and raised their light-eyed and fair-haired children.

The second and also quite significant wave of interethnic marriages was noted in the 50s and 60s last century, when aimed at studying in Largest cities Russian Tajik students married Russian women. This was especially noticeable among large Soviet party and economic workers in Tajikistan - a significant part of them had Russian wives.

In this regard, the legend-like love story of a Tajik man and a Russian woman is very interesting - a story that half a century later I can already tell in the press, and exactly as it was told to me by a veteran of Tajikistan’s foreign intelligence service 40 years ago.

History-legend

In the 50s, a young Tajik officer, married to a young Russian woman, served in foreign intelligence. The wife and child lived with her husband’s parents in a village near Dushanbe and was waiting for her husband to return from another long business trip.

But the circumstances turned out to be such that while working abroad he was, for unknown reasons, arrested and went to prison strict regime one of the Central Asian Muslim countries. Passed long years, but there was no news from the officer. Without waiting for their son, the parents left for another world, but managed to tell their Russian daughter-in-law not to wait for their son and to get married.

And so it happened. IN new family two children were already growing up, and her legal, living husband, imprisoned in a foreign country, somehow managed to pass a note to the Soviet embassy. And the then head Soviet government Alexey Kosygin was able to negotiate the release of the intelligence officer.

The officer returned to Tajikistan sick, with seriously compromised health, and learned that his wife had obeyed his parents, remarried and was raising children. Having heard about the return of her loved one, the Russian woman said to her new husband: “It would be more correct as a human being if I return to him.” And he did not dare to object to her.

They did not live long - the scout soon died of illness. But everyone who knew this case treated the heroes of this story with great respect, first of all, the Russian woman who fell in love with the Tajik.

Alexandra from the village of Khur

In August 2011, when I was visiting my friend Amirali, the headman of the Khur village in Gorny Karategin, located 10 kilometers from Tavildara, the owner of the house who warmly received me said: “Andrey, today you are not the only guest from Russia. There are others, tomorrow I'll introduce you!"

While we were having dinner, young guys came up who had come on vacation to their parents from earning money in Russia: they had worked at a construction site on Russky Island on Far East. They said that more than 15 people are working on the construction of the unique bridge and other objects from the village of Khur. I asked them if their families also live in Russia? The young people laughed it off: they said that almost everyone there has a girlfriend.

Young people could be trusted - in the early 2000s, when labor migration from Tajikistan grew year by year, an alarming process, according to demographers, began in the country. The massive emigration of young men to work has significantly complicated the process of creating families - in 2010, approximately half a million young girls in the republic experienced difficulties in finding a life partner. Meanwhile, in Russia, the number of interethnic marriages of Tajiks with Russian women, legal and civil, has noticeably increased.

The choice of young Russian women in favor of guest workers who came to work was explained simply: the vast majority of Tajiks are hardworking, work honestly, practically do not drink alcohol, do not use foul language, and quickly learn the Russian language.

There are no accurate statistics on interethnic marriages of Tajiks in Russia. However, according to expert assessments, among several hundred thousand citizens of Tajikistan who received Russian citizenship after 2000, to date, from 40 to 60 thousand Tajiks have married Russian women.

By 2013, the situation had become so complicated that Tajik parliament member Saodat Amirshoeva said that religiously mixed marriages could destroy the gene pool of the Tajik nation.

But marriages in Russia and in Tajik diasporas abroad continue to be concluded not only by Tajik men. Over the past 15-20 years, demographers have noted an increase in the number of Tajik women marrying foreigners, not only from Asian countries, but also from European and American countries. In Tajikistan, for example, a recent case is widely known when Russian TV presenter Alexander Gordon married a 20-year-old student from Tajikistan.

The next morning, my friend Amirali, as promised, took me to introduce me to other guests from Russia. It turned out that one of the young men, who had been living and working in St. Petersburg for 6 years, brought his wife to the village for the first time and introduced him to his parents. legal wife Alexandra and children.

The young woman readily said that she met her future husband in the dining room. Family relationships are excellent, two sons are growing up. She admitted that her husband’s parents and relatives greeted her and her children hospitably and kindly, looked at photographs from St. Petersburg with interest, and asked about the plans of the young family.

Alexandra allowed her to be photographed, but not for the press. And she gave the go-ahead for the publication of a photograph of her husband and children. The Tajik chose his burnt-out car as the background for the photo.

"I was only able to drive it for one day - the car was blown up during civil war in the 90s,” he explained, adding that heavy fighting took place in these places of Gorny Karategin.

Will Tajikistan continue to grow interethnic marriages? In all likelihood, yes, they will. And not only with foreigners from Europe and America, but also from China. How this will affect the structure of the population of Tajikistan - demographers have not yet made such forecasts. However, according to the famous Tajik scientist Rakhmon Ulmasov, mixed marriages Tajiks should treat foreigners calmly and with understanding.