Russia: 'Wedding police' tackle unruly guests

A special police unit has been set up in southern Russia with the sole purpose of ensuring security at weddings.

The 40-strong detail will patrol in the North Caucasus region of Adygea, making sure that wedding motorcades observe the highway code and that nobody fires weapons from car windows, the Tass news agency reports.

The people of Adygea have a reputation for partying hard, and weddings there often involve celebratory gunfire and driving around in noisy convoys that pay little heed to traffic rules.

"The creation of the 'wedding police' should put an end to uncontrolled expressions of joy by people in wedding motorcades," Adygea's Interior Minister Aleksandr Rechitsky tells Tass. This is the first such unit in Russia, he adds, and its members will be strategically placed along wedding parties' routes. They will also police registry offices and "places frequented by wedding celebrations", such as squares and parks.

Some newlyweds have welcomed the new measures. "Setting up this police unit was the right thing to do because people have been killed by wedding shootings," one bride tells regional TV channel Kuban 24. The latest shooting incident in Adygea occurred on 15 August, when a man discharged his pistol in celebration outside a registry office in Maykop, the region's capital. He was fined 50,000 roubles ($700, £480) and his gun was seized, Tass reports.