Owners of wedding saloons in Grozny think to move business to neighbouring republics

Some of the local businessmen, who were selling wedding dresses in Grozny, now plan to leave Chechnya in order to sell their goods and payback the debts; and to close up their business in fear of repressions from local authorities.

"I'm in panic. Either I need to quit Chechnya and restart something elsewhere, or I'll be closed here. They told me: "If you sell at least one open-style dress, or a dress not in the national traditions, we'll close you," an owner of a wedding saloon in Grozny told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent and asked, for fear of consequences, not to mention her name.

According to her story, Chechnya has locally made national-style dresses. "There's a shop, which has its factory. In Gudermes, there is a two-storied big saloon; they made 50 dresses, and, according to its owner, they are not sold. Nobody knows what to do with European-style dresses," said the saloon owner.

According to her version, the ban to sell wedding dresses not in the national style has delivered a blow not only on wedding saloons, since this is a multi-component business. She explained that there is a whole system - people, who take orders, people, who go to purchase the goods, people, engaged in sewing, and also people, who transported the goods. Besides, there are personnel of shops, shop securities and warehouse personnel.

"At the meeting in the Mayoralty we tried to explain that national dresses are not sold here. Two years ago we sewed some dresses in the Emirates, models with the 'tops', but we sold nothing. Therefore, mainly European-style dresses were in fashion in Chechnya. Girls bring them from Moscow and Ukraine. In principle we close them from above, our girls don't go in open dresses. Now they say that both national and European dresses are allowed; the main thing is that the top should be covered. However, we were told that we can sell only national wedding dresses," said the wedding saloon proprietress.

A shop girl in a Grozny store, where wedding dresses are sold, who also asked to keep her anonymous, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that, as far as she knew, there were no instructions or papers as to the ban on non-national dresses. However, her mistress says that they should better refrain from selling other dresses. And if someone asks, she should say "no".