From Grozny with love The hijab-wearing woman who wants to anchor a Russian TV news network

The independent TV station Dozhd has announced a casting call for anchors. One of the first journalists to take part in the open competition was Zabi Gaitukiyeva, a reporter whose resume includes working as an anchor for the Chechen state television channel Grozny. Test footage of Gaitukiyeva—a young woman wearing a bright-pink hijab—has sparked a heated debate on Russian social media. Meduza takes a look at the discussion, as well as Gaitukiyeva's career.

Zabi Gaitukiyeva has worn a hijab for several years. For her audition at Dozhd, she came dressed in a hijab dyed the same shade of pink as the station's logo. Gaitukiyeva told Maria Makeyeva, Dozhd's information director, that she wants to use her appearance to show that “Islam is a very good and positive religion.” After delivering this message, she read a news segment, along with an excerpt from the poet Alexander Pushkin's “Eugene Onegin.” Dozhd promised to call her later with its decision.

Russian social media users have reacted to Gaitukiyeva's audition with a full gamut of emotions. “Why lie? She's gorgeous!” one Facebook user wrote. “Dude, it's Angelina Jolie!” said another person. “She's got excellent diction,” someone else exclaimed. 

While others agree that Gaitukiyeva is attractive and well-spoken, they argue that hiring a hijab-wearing Muslim woman to read the news on Dozhd is still going a “step too far.” “Everything's great, except the headgear,” writes one critic. “Won't her own people go after her for taking this job?” someone worried. “Personally, I've no interest in seeing a news anchor dressed like that,” a Facebook user wrote on Dozhd's page. 

Gaitukiyeva is just 23, but she already has a surprising amount of experience in television. She started working seven years ago, in 2009, while studying at the Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University in the International Relations Department. Ingushetia's local Channel One affiliate was quick to take notice of an attractive university student who spoke English and Arabic, and specialized in Middle Eastern Studies. Back then, Gaitukiyeva covered her head, but in a scarf—not a hijab. “It's common practice among the Ingush and Nakh that a young woman should cover her head,” she told Meduza.

Gaitukiyeva had to quit that first TV job because of final exams. Once she was finished with her tests, she found a job at a school. Working was very important, Gaitukiyeva says, because it was “much more comfortable and interesting and far stabler.” She wanted to return to television, but she says wearing a hijab wasn't welcomed on Ingush TV. 

Ironically, Gaitukiyeva managed to land her second job in television thanks in part to her desire to wear a hijab on air. “It was in 2013, when the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, launched his Instagram account. It was also on Instagram that I was offered the [anchor] job,” she says. “I wrote a post on my friend's page, saying, ‘It's great that over there [in Chechnya] they calmly let women in headscarves read [the news]. It's a shame it's not like that everywhere.’” After this, staff from the Chechen state television channel Grozny contacted her, inviting her to a casting call. The day after that casting call, Gaitukiyeva's first news segment aired. She had been hired to work at a station where, she says, the women anchors wore hijabs on air, even if they didn't cover their heads normally. 

Gaitukiyeva got a basic professional education in television at Grozny, which also exposed her to unexpected opportunities. For example, in one interview she managed to impress a Kuwaiti official with her knowledge of Arabic. Gaitukiyeva says the Kuwaiti man “marveled” to see a young woman her age from the Caucasus with a knowledge of Arabic. That meeting, she says, helped bring new investment to the Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University, where she acted as a mediator for negotiations between the university and the Kuwaiti government. This cooperation between the school and Kuwait continues to this day, Gaitukiyeva says.

Dozhd's Maria Makeyeva told Meduza that Gaitukiyeva first visited the Moscow TV station several years ago, when she still worked on Ingush television. It was during a “big excursion by Ingush TV people,” Makeyeva explained, saying that Dozhd is particularly interested in the North Caucasus. 

Gaitukiyeva says she doesn't remember this trip to Dozhd's studio. She says she left Grozny for family reasons, when she got married and moved to Moscow. She decided to try out for a spot on Dozhd, she says, only after learning that the station would hold an open casting call. “I still miss television—I'm not through with it, yet,” she says.

Gaitukiyeva says she's happy with her audition at Dozhd. “I'm incredibly happy that the audience accepted me,” she told Meduza. “And not just people of my own faith, my own people, but people of absolutely all faiths: Jews, Russians, and all the other peoples. It's really nice that not everyone thinks stereotypically—that not everyone thinks ‘oh, a girl in a hijab, well a hijab is synonymous with terrorism and Wahhabism.’”

To those who say a news anchor can't appear on air wearing a hijab, Gaitukiyeva answers, “Why? It's not like I'm propagating Islam. I'm not forcing anyone to wear a headscarf. I'm wearing it for myself. It's a private matter.” She says she's ready to discuss any professional criticism—about her diction and her Russian fluency—but there hasn't been any. 

National TV networks in Russia have tried to find news anchors with visible ethnic traits. The best known case is Leonid Parfenov's decision more than a decade ago to make Chechen journalist Aset Vatsueva one of the anchors on the show “Nation and the World,”  which aired on NTV between 2003 and 2004.

Initially, Vatsueva's appearance confused television audiences. She became national TV's first news anchor whose ethnicity was discussed more than her professional skills. She admits that Russia perhaps isn't ready to see a TV news anchor wearing a headscarf. “The news about a ‘TV anchor in a hijab’ surprised even me, which is to say nothing about the sensitive Russian viewer,” Vatsueva told Meduza.

“I should be supporting her, and I do support her to a degree. She won't have an easy time. With every terrorist attack, she'll be held personally responsible. The same goes for whatever absurd thing the Chechen authorities do next. It will be on her. She'll be a ‘terrorist’—she'll be another ‘Gyulchekhra’ [Bobokulova, the mentally-ill Muslim nanny who in March 2016 beheaded a 4-year-old girl in Moscow]. So, taking on all this, she's a real trooper,” Vatsueva says, remembering her own anchoring experience. She says she thinks Gaitukiyeva's situation comes down to whether or not her professionalism can “outweigh the fact that she wants to appear on air wearing a hijab.”

Dozhd's casting call is still underway. Makeyeva says they'll stop taking new auditions next week, but the winner won't be announced until April 27.