MOSCOW, November 19 (RIA Novosti) – An outdoor performance of a rowdy ethnic dancing ended in expulsion for 18 students at a medical college in southern Russia, local police said.
The students were busted for dancing the lezginka, a traditional Caucasus dance, in the streets of Kislovodsk in the Stavropol Region in early October, police said on their website.
The dance was accompanied by shouts and loud whistling, police said late Monday.
Dancing in the streets is a stereotypical criticism of residents of the North Caucasus outside their home turf in Russia, where relations between residents of the predominantly Muslim and traditionalist southern region and the rest of the country are plagued by tensions caused by ethnic, religious and cultural differences and widespread prejudice against natives of the Caucasus.
The predominantly Christian Stavropol Region is part of the North Caucasus, but is mainly populated by ethnic Russians.
The Kislovodsk performance led to fines of 1,000 rubles ($30) per dancer for disorderly conduct, Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said Monday.
Police also reported the revelers to their college, which expelled them all by last week, the police report said.
