TAJIKISTAN:If Ireland was the first country to pioneer the smoking ban, then Tajikistan may be leading the way in calling for a ban on debs dances.
The president, Emomalii Rakhmon, has criticised the glamorous parties at the end of secondary school as "pompous" and "excessive". He says they are out of place in a country where most of the population struggles with poverty.
The country's autocratic leader has recently issued a flurry of announcements, which become more eccentric by the day.
Last week he declared he would shorten his own surname, from Rakhmonov to Rakhmon, and seeks to lead a broader campaign to de-Russify the poor central Asian state.
Parents have also been ordered to follow his lead and stop christening their children with names that sound too Russian or which end in "ov". They have also been urged to end the use of patronymics, the middle name ending in 'vich' which men take from their father's first name.
"It's about the spelling of names and surnames of children according to the historic traditions of Tajik culture, and as a comeback to national roots," he said. Instead, he wants traditional, Persian-style names to become compulsory for all new-borns.
He has suggested a series of other bans too, such as preventing wealthy students from carrying mobile phones to school, or driving there in private cars.
He has already criticised lavish weddings and birthday parties, though these haven't been formally banned - yet.
Across Russia and most of the former Soviet Union, weddings and other such celebrations are often an excuse for luxuries such as stretched white Hummers, that drive the inebriated party around town, usually on a Saturday.
Little known outside the former Soviet bloc, Tajikistan was ruined by a civil war in 1991-1997 between the Moscow-backed government and Islamic fundamentalists and remains one of the poorest countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Unlike other countries in the region, the Tajiks haven't been blessed with abundant supplies of oil or gas to develop the country.
The war also saw a substantial number of ethnic Russians flee - only 25,000 remain out of the 400,000 who lived there until the early 1990s.
Mr Rakhmon recently recommended all his countrymen to study the history of their nation through his suggested reading, a six-volume history of his own activities since the country's independence.