Turkmenistan                                          2015

From Houston to Sydney 2013

The last time I visited Turkmenistan was almost a decade ago – in July 2006 to be precise.

At that time, Turkmenistan’s first post-Soviet President was still in power.  In fact, his power was almost total, having created a fawning self-styled personality cult around himself that resulted in a new park being built in his honour in the country’s capital city, Ashgabat, every year.  Each park, like many government buildings and monuments, featured golden statues of the President, whose name was Saparmurat Niyazov, but he also re-named himself Turkmenbashy (which means Father of the Turkmen people).  Two volumes of his writings, known as ‘Ruhnama’ (or ‘The Book of the Soul’) became required material to memorise for school examinations, to get a driving licence, to form the basis for employment interviews, and indeed September was re-named Ruhnama in honour of the book (he had already re-named other months after himself and his mother).  He banned makeup on women on television, banished dogs from Ashgabat because of their bad odour, banned smoking anywhere outside or in any indoor public area after he quit smoking himself, and personally supervised the reconstruction of Ashgabat as a city of high rise white marble buildings.

Niyazov died suddenly of a heart attack in December 2006, five months after my last visit.  He was replaced by his former physician and dentist (and former Deputy Prime Minister), Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.  Berdimuhamedow immediately curbed some of the more excessive elements of Niyazov’s personality cult by revoking his right to re-name landmarks, cities and months of the year, allowing uncensored internet access (when it worked at all), reintroducing foreign language study in schools, and relocating several of the more confronting statues of Niyazov to less conspicuous locations.

When I travelled to Turkmenistan in 2006, it was overland with my youngest son, Andrew, who was then 15 years old.  It was part of a wider trip through Central Asia, and we entered Turkmenistan from Nukus in Uzbekistan near Konye-Urgench.  Nine days later, we left Turkmenistan to go to Bukhara in Uzbekistan through the border crossing near Turkmenabad.  You can read about our travels in 2006 at www.stephencodrington.com/Central_Asia/Intro.html (follow the links for days 11 to 19 inclusive).  A gallery of photos that I took in Turkmenistan in 2006 can be seen at www.stephencodrington.com/Central_Asia/Turkmenistan.html.

This time, I was travelling with a group of 16 people under the leadership of Simon Cockerell from Koryo Tours, and my entry and exit were by air through Ashgabat Airport.  Logistically, this brought an immediate benefit, which was being able to obtain a visa upon arrival – last time, I had to send our passports away to Washington DC from our home in Hong Kong for several weeks to obtain visas.

To say I was tired when I arrived at Ashgabat Airport this morning would be an understatement.  I had been doing some field research in Cairo (Egypt) for the previous five days, and my flights from Cairo to Ashgabat involved a long, seven hour transit between 12:30 am and 7:30 am at Dubai Airport’s Terminal 2 – which is the one with uncomfortable seats that is used by low-cost budget airlines such as FlyDubai, the airline I was using to fly into Ashgabat.

I managed to doze for an hour or so on my flight from Dubai, and so I was sufficiently refreshed to appreciate the wonderful views of Ashgabat as we descended from the Kopet Dag Mountains that form the border between Iran and Turkmenistan just a few kilometres south of Ashgabat.  It was a familiar landscape with immediately recognisable landmarks, such as the huge 140 hectare Independence Park and the more intimately scaled buildings of the old Soviet city centre.  But it was also obvious that the expansion of ‘new’ Ashgabat’s high rise white marble buildings had continued at great pace since my previous visit, as vast areas that had been derelict land or demolished buildings in 2006 now gleamed in the sun with shiny, white high rises.

Upon arrival at the airport, I bought my visa (just a shade under US$100!), cleared immigration, waited for my luggage (which was the second last suitcase off the plane), had all my bags x-rayed and emerged into the waiting area – suitably named because several other people in the group had been on the same flight from Dubai and they were waiting for me.

The drive to our hotel, the Ak-Altyn Hotel in suburban Ashgabat, took only ten minutes or so.  The hotel was a partially remodelled Soviet-era hotel with orange-tinted windows, a large display in the lobby beside the elevators glorifying the President, hot running water, and claims of internet access (mostly false).

Unfortunately, our rooms were not ready for us when we arrived, so a group of us decided to take up a suggestion and walk to a nearby open-air eatery called ‘Iceberg’, where we enjoyed some assorted shashliks while getting to know each other.  While some ordered beers to drink, I ordered ‘a Coke’, and was quite impressed when a one litre bottle was placed on the table for me.  I could see that Turkmenistan would be a country I could enjoy visiting.

After a couple of hours at Iceberg, we returned to the hotel and collected our room keys.  Upon entering my room my eyes were immediately drawn to the hot shower and reasonably comfortable if somewhat firm bed.  Having been awake for some 30 hours apart from an hour’s dozing on the plane, I made great use of the bed by closing the curtains, lying down and spending the rest of the afternoon sleeping.

It was great to have arrived in Turkmenistan.

Day 1 - Arrival in Ashgabat

Saturday

9 May 2015