Ashgabat: Day 1

Ok, before we get to today's events, I need to give some background information about Turkmenistan. As one of the former republics of the USSR, Turkmenistan was run by a secretary general of the communist party. The name of this leader at the time of independence was Turkmenbashy, and he became ipso facto the first President of Turkmenistan. No one knew at the time that this would become a perpetual title for life... As it turns out, Turkmenbasy was not his true name, but a name/title he gave himself which means "father of all Turkmens." As you can see, he was a bit of a megalomaniac. This will become apparent as I continue the story... Now, once it became clear that he was going to be "El Presidente for Life", Turkmenbashy did several things. First, he wrote a book called the Ruhnama, which is also known as the Book of Turkmenbashy's Spiritual Guidance, which he then required the entire population of Turkmenistan to purchase and read three times, because once was not enough... He demanded people be quizzed on the subject matter of the book, and if they failed, they lost their job. He also cut several school subjects in secondary school, stating that all one needed to know to be successful in life was the history of Turkmenistan, and the contents of his book, the Ruhnama. Just wait, it gets better...

Another act of Turkmenbashy was to create an 8km wall, called the Road to Health, which is an uphill hike on a wall that is slightly reminiscent of the Great Wall of China. He then required the entire population of Ashgabat (Aşgabat) to make this hike once a week. Upon seeing the "success" of the wall and how popular it had become, he then created another wall which was 24km. One week he made the entire government make the walk. He rode a helicopter to the top (due to a heart condition he, himself, was not able to make the climb) to meet the survivors. Apparently, several of the government officials also had heart conditions but weren't privy to a helicopter, and died along the way.

Another thing Turkmenbashy did was begin to rename most of the cities of Turkmenistan after himself and his family. Should you bust out a map, you will see Turkmenbashy (Türkmenbaşy) on the Caspian Sea. He didn't stop there; however, as no good megalomanic would... He renamed the months of the year (January became Turkmenbashy, April became his mother's name, etc. etc.), the days of the week, buildings (all municipal and government buildings bear his name), and even street names.

Now, one of the most impressive things he did was completely renovate the city of Ashgabat. He covered every building with white marble and gold. Every single building (just wait until you see the pictures - you honestly are not going to believe this). Also, the traffic lights are all silver-plated! Did I mention that Turkmenistan has considerable oil and gas wealth that was completely at Turkmanbashy's disposal?

Turkmenbashy died of a heart attack in 2006, and do you think they got out from under this crazy rule? No. The next person to come to power was the Minister of Health at the time. Interestingly enough, the person in charge of ordering help to Turkmenbashi as he lay dying of a heart attack, kept any help from reaching him, and afterwards became President himself... There are pictures of Second President (his name is too hard to spell) everywhere, and he has continued building white marble and gold buildings all over town. He did however, restore subjects to the secondary schools and return the names of the months and days of the week. But back to Ashgabat...

So, I really could go on and on about the things that these two men have done to this country, but that would take too long, and you probably wouldn't believe me anyway... (or maybe you would after you see some of these pictures...)

But with this background in mind, I will now take up the things we saw today... First, we drove through town during the daylight and verified that I had not been hallucinating or dreaming last night (it was late when we got in last night, after all...), and out of town a bit of ways to a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Fortress of Nessa. It is an archeological site and the former palace of Parthian royalty, dating back from the 3rd century BC (and stayed until the 3rd century AD). These people were fire-worshippers, but really had their shit together, creating a large fortress surrounded by watchtowers and even had decorated gardens and reservoirs. Here are a couple of pics of the site.








We then drove back into town to the Mausoleum of Turkmenbashy. I will wait till the end to show you pictures of the street... His mausoleum, which he built for himself and his family shortly before his death, is (of course) made of white marble and gold. I unfortunately wasn't allowed to take pictures inside, so the outside will just have to suffice.


Right next door is Turkmenbashy's Ritual Mosque. It is the largest enclosed mosque in Central Asia, and cost half a billion dollars to construct. It is called the ritual mosque because instead of verses from the Quran written on it or inside it (as is typical of most mosques), this mosque has quotes from Turkmenbashy's book all over it. It really is something... Unfortunately from the pictures you can't see the extent of the fountains out front...





We then drove to another mosque, which is a copy of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul (see last month's blog). It was built in 1998 as gift from Turkey.





We then had lunch and then visited a carpet museum. Turkmenistan is famous for their carpets (I plan on going shopping for some tomorrow!), and each of the five districts of Turkmenistan as their own traditional design, they are the calendar, boat and reflection, headdress, oasis, and chicken along the river. This means nothing to you, but is written here for my personal recollection. It cost $5 per picture in the museum. Needless to say, I have no pictures from inside. It did, however, house the largest handmade carpet in the world (the had the Guinness Book of World Records certificate to prove it!), which was HUGE and weighed over a ton.

We then visited the Monument to Independence, which was a series of huge statues and a huge white marble and gold needle thing in the center of a huge park (Turkmenbashy was convinced he could change the climate of Turkmenistan by growing pine and fir trees all over the place - so you will see some of those in the pictures even though they have no place here in the desert...).


A solid gold statue of Turkmenbashy (they are surprisingly common here in Ashgabat):








Park filled with fir trees (and white marble apartment buildings in the background, that no one can afford):


We then passed the Monument to Ruhnama, the book of Turkmenbashy's Spiritual Guidance (notice all the white marble on the buildings in the background):


After that we drove back through town to our hotel, where there was a little downtime before dinner. Now I will end today's blog with a couple of pictures from around town:














This pace is so far over the top, you can't even make the top out anymore... It's like something out of a fairy tale, or Disneyland, or a Hollywood movie set or something, or a mix of all three. The pictures and descriptions don't really do it justice... I've never seen anything like this place, and probably never will. It's ridiculous history and amazing beauty is slowly making Ashgabat one of my favorite cities in the world... I will truly be sad when I have to leave tomorrow night!


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