MOSCOW—Chechen leader and Putin buddy Ramzan Kadyrov has taken up multiple wives, including one woman, Fatima Khazuyeva, whom he first met when she was only 15, according to a report published Wednesday.
Released by the independent outlet Project, the investigative report was focused on Russia tolerating “its own sultanate” within its borders, governed under separate rules. It featured a video and images of a villa that it says belongs to one of Kadyrov’s wives, Khazuyeva, who was a teenager when Kadyrov first met her at a Chechen beauty contest.
Along with Khazuyeva, the Chechen leader is known to be married to a now 35-year-old dancer and singer, Aminat Akhmadova. Counting his public-facing 42-year-old first wife, Medni Kadyrova—that makes at least three wives.
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That Kadyrov maintains a harem of multiple wives, some of whom are quite wealthy, has been a subject of local gossip throughout his rule. Now, there is substantive evidence backing up those rumors in major Russian media reports.
The report set off a flurry of outraged commentary about Russia’s “state-within-the state,” Chechnya. The Russian republic of Chechnya has become infamous in human rights circles in recent years for its systematic and brutal repression of gay men. But polygamy—while formally outlawed under Russian law—is a different story, and the Kremlin has exempted Chechnya from its ban on the practice.
After two post-Soviet wars with Russia, the republic was granted broad de facto autonomy in exchange for loyalty to Moscow, allowing it to function under its own laws enforced by Kadyrov, the 44-year-old Chechen leader known as “Putin’s soldier” for his close allyship with the Russian president.
Putin had served as somewhat of a mentor to Kadyrov when he was thrust into leading Chechnya at age 29, a year after his father, the former Chechen President Akhmat Kadyrov, was assassinated in a 2004 bombing attack. In a sit-down interview in one of Kadyrov’s palaces in the city of Gudermes more than a decade ago, the Chechen leader told this correspondent: “As long as Putin backs me up, I can do everything—God is great!”
Along with the world’s most expensive vehicles, marble palaces, a private zoo, and family holidays in Dubai and Jordan, the Chechen leader is often photographed with young singers and models. He has openly promoted polygamy but has not publicly acknowledged having multiple wives.
There is no independent media in Chechnya’s mountain region, so there’s little to no reporting that has confirmed exactly how many women Kadyrov is married to. But thanks to the internet, street journalism, and folk culture, those details have gradually emerged in the public sphere.
In 2014, a Chechen singer, Tamila Sagaipova, listed all of Kadyrov’s reputed lovers in a lively song called “My Nanak,” named after Kadyrov’s family nickname. Nobody in Chechnya would dare to play the song in a public place, but the entire republic knows the lyrics of the underground song and the stories of the 12 women mentioned by their first names and respective qualities.
“Kadyrov’s police shut down a gas station in Grozny once after the owner played the song loudly,” a local human rights activist who declined to be named for her own safety, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
Experts agree that the Russian legal system is no match for Chechnya’s deeply entrenched “traditions.” So the Kremlin lets certain practices—including polygamy—slide, even if it’s at odds with Russia’s own policies.
“The Kremlin makes exclusions for the Chechen society traumatized by a decade-long war. Polygamy is traditional there. Besides, every Moscow oligarch has three or four lovers in secret, while Kadyrov, who is young and has a lot of energy, marries his women,” Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-aligned political commentator based in Chechnya, told The Daily Beast in a phone interview.
“We don’t know how many wives he has. Of course we should correct some extremes, such as marriage to teen girls. In a way, his treatment of young women could be seen as a philanthropic activity, done out of fatherly feelings,” he said.
There has been a growing trend among the wives of Middle Eastern rulers to push for reforms and fight for women’s rights. But more often than not, Chechen women are silenced.
“Nobody in Chechnya dares to criticize Kadyrov for his harem. On the contrary, some mothers would wish for their daughters to fall in his favor and grow rich,” a Chechen advocate of women’s rights told The Daily Beast.
“It is important to understand that every Chechen family is still hurting after two wars with the Russian military. Heartbroken people hope to find their missing relatives and struggle to provide for their families. They have no time to count Kadyrov’s wives,” she added.
The Chechen leader and his circle do not tolerate any criticism from journalists or human rights defenders who speak out against the violent purge of local gay men, who are frequently condemned as the “people’s enemies.” Kadyrov’s faithful guards regularly threaten and attack reporters and independent cultural figures.
The film director Vitaly Mansky, founder of Russia’s biggest independent documentary festival Artdocfest, says that to avoid attacks, the festival had to screen Daimokh—a documentary about Kadyrov’s third wife, the dancer Amina Akhmadova—outside of Russia, in Latvia.
The filmmaker told The Daily Beast about the threats he received on Sunday before screening another one of his films, Quiet Voice, about a Chechen gay man.
“A man introducing himself as Sulim,” who showed up at a movie theater during the festival, “told me there were no LGBT people in Chechnya and that our film would insult the entire nation,” Mansky told The Daily Beast. As a result of continued threats and pressure, Artdocfest had to cancel the screening of the film.
“Chechnya already dictates its own rules in Moscow,” added Mansky. “The pressure on public freedom is constantly increasing.”
