Neither for love nor money

The strategic use of marriage in the court of Kadyrov

Happy Friday!

I’m dropping into your inbox for a second time this week, which I hope you don’t mind! Adam Kadyrov, the son of Chechen leader Ramzan, just got married in a lavish three-day ceremony, so I thought I’d mark the occasion with some reflection on the Kadyrovs’ strategic use of marriage.

With that in mind, here’s what you can expect in this issue:

• Adam Kadyrov takes centre stage
• The mystery bride
• Marriage as political strategy
• Interpreting network consolidation in Chechnya

Adam Kadyrov takes centre stage

The wedding served as an opportunity for the Kadyrov regime to demonstrate its wealth — both literally and in terms of connections. Notable attendees included Anarbek Belkharoyev, a member of the influential Batalkhadzhintsy brotherhood; Apti Alaudinov, taking a breaking from self-publicising his role in Russia’s war on Ukraine; and Mohamed Ahmed Al Jaber, the United Arab Emirate’s ambassador to Russia, who interrupted his holiday to be there.

Media coverage has largely focused on the extravagance of the occasion, as well as the law-breaking that occurred within it. You’ve probably seen the pictures. Adam Kadyrov wore a watch with a value estimated anywhere between $2 mn and $27 mn (Anticorruption Foundation Head Maria Pevkich punted at $7 mn, or 1,500+ years of work for the average Chechen, so long as they don’t spend a penny during that period). Alaudinov had a watch worth a modest $200,000-$300,000. Adam also appeared in a limited-edition Mercedes offroader, valued at a few hundred thousand dollars more — despite both its import and Adam’s driving of it being illegal. And he was filmed firing a gold-plated pistol into the air in celebration, which is also illegal.

The Kadyrovs also secured a PR victory in the run-up to the event, with Adam meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Expect to see that photo reused many times for the foreseeable future. Putin, out of decency, didn’t wear one of his own expensive watches, though it did look like he’d just bought a painting from Adam…

The publicity around the wedding contrasted markedly with the secrecy over the wedding of Adam’s brother, Eli, last year, and had more in common with that of Ramzan’s eldest son, Akhmat, the year before.

Male-ordered bride

That the wedding was a political event rather than a romantic one was underlined by the confusion over who the bride was. Adam’s sister, Ayshat, shared the first details of the event and identified her as Medni, from the Kadyrovs’ hometown of Tsentoroy (Akhmat-Yurt). But media reports were divided as to whether she was the daughter of Federation Council Senator for Chechnya Suleyman Geremeyev or the grandaughter of State Duma Deputy for Chechnya Adam Delimkhanov.

The purported relationship to Geremeyev would align with reports last year that Adam had married in a secret ceremony at the same time as brother Eli (there’s some suggestion that there was a Muslim ceremony last year and a legal one this time around). But publicly available information on the extended Geremeyev and Delimkhanov clans offers little clarity either way: none of their descendants had previously been identified as Medni (though the Chechen tradition of having two names always complicates matters).

Never mind: It wasn’t her big day anyway.

Marriage as political strategy

The marriages of Adam and Eli serve three clear purposes, irrespective of which clan Medni hails from. The first is to bind the Delimkhanovs and Geremeyevs closer to the Kadyrovs. Both are key allies of the Kadyrov regime, but it is a political alliance rather than a familial one. Adam Delimkhanov is often erroneously referred to as Ramzan’s cousin, but the tie is too remote to be meaningful, and the Geremeyevs are related to the Delimkhanovs, not the Kadyrovs. In so far as they are bound by blood, it is of the spilt, not kin, variety: They are all deeply implicated in each others’ crimes. Yet the marriage works to strengthen the ties between the clans further, closing off the possibility of network collapse after Ramzan’s death. Medni being a Geremeyev would make marginally more sense in this regard, since the blood tie with the Delimkhanovs was already forged through Eli’s marriage.

The second goal of the marriage is to secure the Delimkhanovs’ and Geremeyevs’ acquiescence in Adam’s ascent to the throne before Ramzan dies. By consenting to these marriages, they signal their support for what one colleague has named Project Adam — following much the same logic as the first goal. Dissent from this project after Ramzan dies will carry even greater costs.

Of course, their fates are already deeply intertwined: If the current regime fall, the hunt for revenge will target all three clans, and not even a Damascene conversion will save their main representatives. Therefore, the third goals is to send a signal to everyone else. The aim here is to dissuade future dissent through public demonstrations that the united front will stay united.

Interpreting network consolidation in Chechnya

It is tempting to dismiss the use of marriage as a political tool as a strategy as old as time. People love to describe the Kadyrov regime in feudal terms — sometimes justified, sometimes with more than a dash of racism. It is certainly true that royal marriages have been used to cement political alliances for centuries.

But I think this requires further reflection, because even the strategic use of marriage can vary significantly. For example, the work of Padgett and Ansell shows that, in the early fifteenth century, the Medici family under Cosimo de’ Medici used marriage to expand their networks, not consolidate them. The Medicis neither did business with those they married nor married those they did business with. Marriage ties were largely separate, both geographically and in terms of overlapping with other types of ties. This shows how, even though marriage can serve as a strategic tool, the underlying strategy can vary considerably (something I want to delve deeper into the literature on).

What is underappreciated, though, is Ramzan’s talent as a strategist and network builder — a talent that matters given his goal is to bequeath his network to Adam. Marriage should probably be viewed through the prism of his overall approach to network building. Ramzan is undoubtedly a thug, but he’s also a skilled political animal. It’s the only thing that’s kept him alive for so long in the cut-throat world of Chechen politics.