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For people who lost their belief in love.... if only there wasn't already a first wife involved.
Arab Sheik weds waitress
September 05 2007 at 04:09PM
By Stefan Korshak
Minsk - Less than a month after they laid eyes on one another, the Arab Sheikh was winging his way back to his Persian Gulf kingdom with a teenage bride, a Belarus waitress, at his side.
A member of Dubai's ruling dynasty, Sheikh Said bin Maktoum Al-Maktoum, 30, departed Minsk, the capital of the former Soviet republic, on Wednesday by private jet, accompanied by Natalia Muslimorova, 19, his new wife.
"I feel as if I am in a fairytale," Muslimorova told the RIA Novosti news agency.
'I feel as if I am in a fairytale' Al-Maktoum arrived in the former Soviet republic on August 7 with his mind focused on sport, specifically an international trap shooting competition.
He acquitted himself with some distinction, managing to shatter with his shotgun 144 clay pigeons out of 150 hurled his way, and so capturing second place in the tournament.
But it was back at the Hotel Minsk, where Muslimorova had been employed for less than two months as a waitress at the White Rus' restaurant ("specialising in traditional Belarusian cuisine," according to a hotel advertisement), that Al-Maktoum found love.
Local media are at odds on how Al-Maktoum even managed to meet Muslimorova, the RIA Novosti agency for instance theorising the petite and dark-haired waitress first enchanted her man whilst delivering a meal to the Presidential suite for room service, as Al-Maktoum rarely left his apartments.
A chance encounter in the hotel lift or lobby "is the more likely territory for a successful strike by Cupid's arrow", Belarusskaya Gazeta newspaper argued, pointing out Al-Maktoum routinely travels with four cooks and, as a practising Muslim, eats only food prepared according to the rules of his religion.
'We have had hotel staff marry foreigners before' Muslimorova according to Interfax news agency grew up in a non-denominational family, but her father is an Azeri, an Turkic ethnic group living predominantly on the west coast of the Caspian Sea, and following the Sunni branch of the Muslim faith.
Groom and bride were married in a quiet Muslim ceremony in Minsk attended by a few friends and close family members.
She became the second wife of Al-Maktoum, who remains married to his first wife, with whom he has had five children.
"I really do love him," Muslimorova told Komsomolskaya Gazeta newspaper. "But I can't say anything else to the media because my husband doesn't want any publicity."
Al-Maktoum's proposal, and Muslimorova's acceptance of it, reportedly came less than two weeks into the relationship. While engaged and waiting for legal processing in Minsk, Muslimorova moved into the Hotel Minsk's Presidential suite, becoming in the process a top customer of her former employers.
"We are just delighted for Natalia," Pavel Novakovsky, a Hotel Minsk spokesperson, told the Interfax news agency. "We have had hotel staff marry foreigners before...but never some one of such a high rank."
The newlyweds however are delaying their honeymoon, their next stop is Cyprus, where Al-Maktoum is scheduled to compete in another trap shooting tournament.
Al-Maktoum is one of seven sons of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, and also the ruling monarch of Dubai. The family's wealth is estimated at $14-billion (about R101-billion).
The monthly salary of a waitress in a higher-end Minsk hotel, with tips, averages between $300 and $500.
The Al-Matoums have long supported or participated in a variety of sports, with the senior Al-Maktoum being one of the region's best-known supporters of camel and thoroughbred horse racing. The Dubai World Cup, the world's richest horse race, is sponsored by the Al-Maktoum family.
British media in 2006 identified Al-Maktoum as the leader of a consortium attempting, ultimately unsuccessfully, to purchase the Liverpool football team for some $962-million.
The Hotel Minsk is a Soviet-era building once favoured by provincial Communist party leaders.
Developers renovated the blocky structure in 2002, turning it into modest four star hotel. - Sapa-DPA
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