A young couple pose for a photo at Naryn-Kala fortress in Derbent, Dagestan, 2015. (c) Vladimir Vyatkin / RIA Novosti. All rights reserved.Many members of Russia’s older generation associate love and romance in the Caucasus with the 1967 Soviet comedy “Kidnapping, Caucasian Style”, a film full of wild passions and fine age-old traditions and customs. But for the younger generation, the phrase is more likely to evoke issues around infringements of women’s rights, abduction trials and so-called honour killings.
Generational differences in gender relations and ways of life are easy enough to see in the region itself. Arranged marriages used to be the norm here, with families deciding who should marry whom and the young couple meeting for the first time on their wedding day.
Many of the people I’ve talked to in the Caucasus tell jokes about how their parents got married. Muhammed, from Ingushetia, recalls his father’s story about coming back from the fields one evening and bumping into his mates, who told him that his family had found him a bride and set their wedding day. The lad was totally shaken by the news: who was the girl and would he like her? When he got home, he was delighted to discover that he knew her - they were neighbours; but Muhammed never got round to asking his father whether they actually hit it off together.
