Ramzan Kadyrov, the brutish 34-year-old ruler of Chechnya, is on the lookout for a second wife. Ladies, you have been warned.
“If there is love, it's OK to have four wives,” Kadyrov told Komsomolskaya Pravda, a popular Russian tabloid. “It is much fairer than keeping one or two mistresses while your children starve at home.”
The paper asked Kadyrov why he only had one wife: "Currently, I am on the look out, but I can not find a beautiful one. If there was, I would marry her immediately. I am always on the look out for a worthy bride."
Kadyrov likes to keep up a veneer of strict adherence to Islam, and its tenets of modest and peace. He is known for interrupting interviews at prayer time and requiring women to wear headscarves when they enter government buildings. He has praised the unknown gangs who have been driving around Grozny for the past few months, shooting paintballs at women who they think are dressing immodestly.
Yet, in practice, he lives another life entirely – videos regularly surface on YouTube of Kadyrov showering wedding parties with cash and gunshots. A few years ago, he was embroiled in scandal when photos of him frolicking with prostitutes surfaced (he denied it was him). During a recent interview with Tina Kandelaki, a presenter on Russian TV, Kadyrov criticized her for dressing too provocatively.
"If women go to work half-naked, then men won't be able to work,” Kadyrov said. "I'll look at you, and day and night I'll be thinking about how to say salaam alaikum [hello] to you. Work will be the last thing on my mind.”
Kadyrov rules the republic on the basis of fear. Any future wife of his can at least take comfort that maybe she can lose herself in this blinged-out mansion, reportedly belonging to Kadyrov.
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