I woke up as the car we’d been in for seven hours came off the rough desert road, glided round a roundabout and turned onto a brand-new 4 lane highway with green verges and palm trees.  We were the only car on the road.  To our right there was a range of dry barren brown mountains and the Iranian border, to our left the Karakum desert spread for hundreds of miles, the land not rising again until it reached the Ural mountains in Russia. Ahead, down the pristine black tarmac a white city gleamed in the 50 degree heat.

 

As we got closer to the city the patches of green became more frequent, on roundabouts planted with hibiscus and palmtrees, women balaclava-ed against the heat in shawls picked up fallen leaves and cleared the desert sand from the drains. A gleaming gated residential complex appeared on our right “That’s the Palace of Orphans, it houses all of the orphans in Turkmenistan.  They received 5 star treatment and have access to some of the best education in the country... but they are not allowed out of the orphanage unaccompanied. They’re trained to be government officials” That was Alan, a 27 year old Tehran University graduate/ex-world Judo champion - our government guide.  He adjusted his Ray-Bans ‘Oh and that’s the “walk of health,”’ He pointed to a white marble staircase which had been built into the side of the mountains.  ‘It’s 25 kilometers in length, or former president was very keen to improve the health of the citizens of Turkmenistan.’  

 

We drive past a line of gated properties facing huge white tower blocks.  ‘These blocks are for the workers of the state ministry of justice and information, on the other side of the road are hotels’ Our car, still the only one on the road pulled up into a driveway.  ‘This is your hotel.’  The heat hit us in the face as we hopped from the air-conditioned car into the cool hotel lobby. ‘I will see you in the morning - have a good night.’

 

Once the heat had subsided we went out for a walk.  There was still no one around.  The tens of hotels seemed to be virtually empty.  We really good Chinese food in a hotel restaurant filled with French businessmen.  (It was a French construction company, Bouygues, the court builder for Niyazov, that started most of the weird new building projects.)

 

The next day we went to the National Museum. We filed round the three floors with another guide who told us about the former President’s Education system - ‘He wrote the main text that the national curriculum is based on.’  It was all pretty strange, but not half as strange as the view out of the mirrored glass windows.  Rows and rows of pristine fountains, white apartment blocks and golden statues in empty squares spread as far as the eye could see, Why do dictators have to have such a tacky sense of style?

 

We then went round the city to see the different “historical” monuments.  The highlight was  the “Arch of Neutrality” a three legged white tower that looked like it had fallen of Captain Kirk’s Starship Enterprise. Atop this thing was a 20ft high statue of Niyazov plated in gold.  Alan looked rather embarrassed as we were taking photos: “The statue follows the sun during the day, so at all times the former president’s face is in the light... some people have said that it is in fact the sun that follows Niyazov - I think you can read between the lines.”  

 

That evening we asked Alan for a recommendation of somewhere where we might see some of the residents of Ashgabat, we ended up and in a relaxed little restaurant called “Berk” (as in “Iceberk”).  For the first time in two days we saw other people around. The restaurant was not made from marble and there were no bloody fountains in sight.

 

Other cracks in Niyazov’s legacy began to show as we were leaving the city: both Alan and our driver couldn’t stop giggling when a poster which the previous day had been Niyazov had miraculously been changed overnight to the face of the new President. ‘Are they going to build golden statues of him?’ I asked. ‘Definitely not’ said Alan.

 

HA