It is supposed to be The North Korea of the Central Asia. In the area of human rights it might be, but in terms of wealth it certainly is not. Its huge wealth resulting from its massive oil and gas fields seems to follow the Dubai model spewing out its own mega(lomaniac) projects full of gold and white marble.
Sometimes, as we travel through the Central Asia, I have to put aside all my logic, all my reasoning and just go with the flow. In Turkmenistan I had to do it more than in other countries; way, way more. What else can you do in a country where they outlawed smoking on the streets and in your car, playing music in your car, where the former president re-named the days of the week according to the names of his children (now reversed) and where they outlawed import of black cars as they would not blend well with the white marble of almost all of Asghabat buildings. Good thing I do not live there because smoking in my black car while listening to modern music and calling Monday to be Monday might be the least of my rebellious ways...
The whole "out of this world" experience started in Biskek where we asked for the visa that have been already approved by the Turkmen ministry. Four times we visited the Embassy and waited the required hour in a totally empty waiting area in order to appreciate the importance of The Institution and its employees. Three times we were told that something was not exactly right, that we should fix it and come back the next day. Every time, while prostrating to the almighty state of Turkmenistan, I was sitting in a room with two employees. One of them I called a "passer," as his function was nothing else than to take the documents from me and pass it to the other one. No checking of the documents, no shuffling of them, just passing each one of them to the other employee. There was a huge picture of the current president on the wall behind the embassy employee. Frankly, it would have felt more appropriate if a huge picture of Franz Kafka replaced it. But let us not dwell on it; in the end, we got the visas and that was no small luck. Apparently, only about 50% or less of visa applicants are so lucky.
The visas were transit visas with exact date and place of border crossings. And so, on the determined date and at the determined border crossing, after a very detailed examination of all our stuff, we entered into Turkmenistan. We drove to a beautiful old city of Kone Urgentch (first picture at the bottom) and later on the full 500 km through the center of the Karakum desert. The road was bad at the beginning, but as we were getting closer to the capital Asghabat, the road was getting better and better. Ultimately, we entered Asghabant through a four line highway. Since we could only enter Iran in three days, we stayed in Asghabat long enough to see all the nooks and crannies of the city.
Umm, if there still are nooks and crannies. Most of the little old brick and mud houses were bulldozed out of existence and replaced by the ivory towers of white marble covered apartments, white marble covered office buildings, white marble covered ministries, white marble covered presidential palace, etc. The city is one huge white marble blur. To be fair, the people who used to live in the little brick and mud houses were reallocated into modern marble clad apartment buildings with all the modern amenities.
The country is still very much in the communist mode: there were no hotels throughout our 500-km-long Karakum trip, the gas stations were relatively rare, and the customer service is almost unknown, but the flip side of this semi-communist approach is that the oil wealth is not only invested into the white marble covered buildings of Asghabat, but also converted into subsidies to all the citizens. They get subsidized gasoline and subsidized electricity to let them forget the abysmal human rights record and the extremely restricted web access and internet availability (among other restrictions).
The whiteness of Asghabat is probably impressive to many. But to me it looked a bit artificial. The huge boulevards are mostly empty of pedestrians and the whiteness of the buildings overwhelms you in a few sunny hours. The city has a lot of grandeur with its many monuments and golden statues including the gigantic golden statues of the former and the current presidents. But as I was leaving Asghabat I had some uneasy feeling. Like something was missing. Something very important. But, perhaps, it was only me. Perhaps I do not like white.
Sometimes, as we travel through the Central Asia, I have to put aside all my logic, all my reasoning and just go with the flow. In Turkmenistan I had to do it more than in other countries; way, way more. What else can you do in a country where they outlawed smoking on the streets and in your car, playing music in your car, where the former president re-named the days of the week according to the names of his children (now reversed) and where they outlawed import of black cars as they would not blend well with the white marble of almost all of Asghabat buildings. Good thing I do not live there because smoking in my black car while listening to modern music and calling Monday to be Monday might be the least of my rebellious ways...
The whole "out of this world" experience started in Biskek where we asked for the visa that have been already approved by the Turkmen ministry. Four times we visited the Embassy and waited the required hour in a totally empty waiting area in order to appreciate the importance of The Institution and its employees. Three times we were told that something was not exactly right, that we should fix it and come back the next day. Every time, while prostrating to the almighty state of Turkmenistan, I was sitting in a room with two employees. One of them I called a "passer," as his function was nothing else than to take the documents from me and pass it to the other one. No checking of the documents, no shuffling of them, just passing each one of them to the other employee. There was a huge picture of the current president on the wall behind the embassy employee. Frankly, it would have felt more appropriate if a huge picture of Franz Kafka replaced it. But let us not dwell on it; in the end, we got the visas and that was no small luck. Apparently, only about 50% or less of visa applicants are so lucky.
The visas were transit visas with exact date and place of border crossings. And so, on the determined date and at the determined border crossing, after a very detailed examination of all our stuff, we entered into Turkmenistan. We drove to a beautiful old city of Kone Urgentch (first picture at the bottom) and later on the full 500 km through the center of the Karakum desert. The road was bad at the beginning, but as we were getting closer to the capital Asghabat, the road was getting better and better. Ultimately, we entered Asghabant through a four line highway. Since we could only enter Iran in three days, we stayed in Asghabat long enough to see all the nooks and crannies of the city.
Umm, if there still are nooks and crannies. Most of the little old brick and mud houses were bulldozed out of existence and replaced by the ivory towers of white marble covered apartments, white marble covered office buildings, white marble covered ministries, white marble covered presidential palace, etc. The city is one huge white marble blur. To be fair, the people who used to live in the little brick and mud houses were reallocated into modern marble clad apartment buildings with all the modern amenities.
The country is still very much in the communist mode: there were no hotels throughout our 500-km-long Karakum trip, the gas stations were relatively rare, and the customer service is almost unknown, but the flip side of this semi-communist approach is that the oil wealth is not only invested into the white marble covered buildings of Asghabat, but also converted into subsidies to all the citizens. They get subsidized gasoline and subsidized electricity to let them forget the abysmal human rights record and the extremely restricted web access and internet availability (among other restrictions).
The whiteness of Asghabat is probably impressive to many. But to me it looked a bit artificial. The huge boulevards are mostly empty of pedestrians and the whiteness of the buildings overwhelms you in a few sunny hours. The city has a lot of grandeur with its many monuments and golden statues including the gigantic golden statues of the former and the current presidents. But as I was leaving Asghabat I had some uneasy feeling. Like something was missing. Something very important. But, perhaps, it was only me. Perhaps I do not like white.