Ashgabat, Turkmenistan - Thursday Sept 23, 2010

 One of thousands of marble buildings...

 Our hotel

 Women washing while soldiers and guards watch

 Camel bazaar

Women selling dried fish

 Jewelry array; jewelry used in wedding ceremonies

 "Space capsule" where we ate lunch

 Rows and rows of fir trees...

 Folklore presentation; note Turkmen textiles

Palomino horse...


Today is the last day of our Five 'Stans trip.  It promises to be a long one since our flight home leaves at 4am tomorrow.  More about that later.  Let’s enjoy today.

Spent the morning at a colorful, delightful bazaar – the Tolkuchka Bazaar.  The guidebook says “the sight of withered men haggling for shaggy sheepskin hats, a braying camel suspended in midair by a crane or sheep being driven away in a sidecar are a few of the oddities you can expect from the Tolkuchka Bazaar, one of Central Asia’s most spectacular sights.  The enormous market sprawls across acres of desert on the outskirts of Ashgabat, with corrals of camels and goats, avenues of red-clothed women squatting before silver jewelry, and villages of trucks from which Turkmen hawk everything from pistachios to car parts.  Whatever you want, it’s sold at Tolkuchka.”  I think that accurately describes what we saw and experienced.  We went first to the animal market that is on one side of the market, driving distance from the main market.  Indeed women were there in abundance selling every conceivable item.  This is a locals market – not a tourist one – which made it fascinating for us all. 

Our guide was invaluable as she helped me to haggle over the price of jewelry and hats, my main areas of interest.  Hard to bring a camel home in my suitcase. There were only a few women selling jewelry and our guide explained that these pieces would be purchased by local people and used for wedding ceremonies.  She said that brides would wear heavy amounts of jewelry for 40 days after the wedding and then wear almost none during the rest of their lives.  I bought a couple of small pieces and one larger one which she assured me was quite old, older than the 50-year limit that Turkmenistan customs allows to be taken out of the country. This resulted in a very funny sequence of events where she disappeared for a long time and returned with what she described as “special paper” that I should use to wrap my jewelry in to prevent the x-ray scanners at the airport from detecting them.  The “special paper” turned out to be aluminum foil.  Heaven help us all if aluminum foil will “foil” our international security system.  More about this later!

Stayed all morning at the market in the blazing sun.  Afterward had lunch inside a building we’d all been curious about that looks rather like a giant space capsule that has fountains running down all sides.  Very difficult to describe.  Had excellent views of the fantasy fur tree plantings and marble buildings.  Our guide arranged for a group of traditional musicians and folk dancers to perform for us. 

After lunch many opted out of the day but Scott and I continued on.  We drove half and hour to the outskirts of the city to a hippodrome to see famous Turkmen akhalteke horses (http://www.turkmenistanembassy.org/turkmen/history/horses.html).  I don’t know the first thing about horses (although many in our group did) but I was dazzled by their beauty.  We saw a simmering golden palomino, a white horse with black trimmed that Scott said made it look like a zebra without stripes and several others.  I have pictures of each one. 

At around 3:30 we drove to a private home to see (new) Turkmenistan rugs.  The prices were so reasonable that we bought a small one that will be shipped to us.  Hope to receive it in a month.  Returned to the hotel at about 5:15 and needed to be at a “special surprise event” at 5:50.

Our surprise was a visit and Q&A session with Will Stevens, the Director of Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Ashgabat.  It was a very interesting session and we had the chance to ask all sorts of questions which he (the walls have ears) gingerly and diplomatically answered.  But meanings were clear.  He explained that the primary purpose of the any US Embassy is to assist Americans traveling overseas in that country.  In terms of diplomacy, the US has three major interests relating to Turkmenistan:
- helping in the war in Afghanistan
- helping Turkmenistan to expand supply routes for its natural resources (and hopefully to help the US gain access to these resources which today it does not have)
- helping Turkmenistan to further democratize by providing assistance in such areas as election monitoring and education programs
He said that Turkmenistan has made great strides at "opening up" over the past three years.  The internet, for example, was banned until three years ago. We were shocked to learn that, due to political shenanigans in Washington, there has been no Ambassador to Turkmenistan for the past four years.  Everyone had lots of questions and came away with a greater understanding of the political situation been the US and Turkmenistan as well as the situation within Turkmenistan itself.

Afterward we moved to the dinning room for our farewell dinner.  This hotel serves excellent pizza and Italian food and we can’t seem to get our fill after the largely bland meals we’ve been eating for the past couple of weeks. 

We had the super-delux opportunity to keep our rooms until 2am, our departure time for the airport.  I went back up at 8:30 to pack, shower and try to get some sleep.  Bags out at 1am.  The porter got mixed up and knocked at our door at midnight.  It didn’t matter; I was awake for most of the time but it was wonderful to have a chance to lie down and rest. 

The security screening check in process at the airport is a trip in and of itself.  Our bags were screened and passports checked three times before we even got to the airline check-in counter.  I got through the screeners just fine; no red alarms set off by my aluminum-foil-wrapped jewelry.  But another fellow who bought a dagger (also wrapped in aluminum foil) wasn’t so lucky.  They saw it, checked it, but it wasn’t confiscated.  I was pretty relieved that aluminum foil couldn’t completely undermine airport security, particularly in Central Asian countries where almost nothing would surprise me.

Flew Turkish Airlines from Ashgabat for Istanbul at 4am.  This is about a 4-hour flight.   Arrived at 7am Istanbul time.  Had coffee in the very nice (it looks like a dazzling shopping mall after the modern-but-no frills Ashgabat airport) Istanbul terminal with Larry and Renee.  They headed off for the second of four legs of flights to get them back to Albuquerque.  They should arrive in Santa Fe at midnight tonight.  Scott and I departed Istanbul at 11am.  Turkish Airlines, btw, is a very nice airline.  Had a great bulkhead seat in coach on an enormous plane; very comfortable for our 10-hour flight to JFK.  Arrived New York at 3pm and were back in our apartment at 4. 

It was amazing but we slept only on the Ashgabat to Istanbul (comatose would be a more accurate way of describing my condition) and didn’t sleep for one minute on the 10-hour flight.  Stayed up until 9pm and slept wonderfully all night so we’re hoping for minimal side effects from let-lag. 

Closing thoughts about our trip in general:  I'm sure I’ll change my feelings about the trip as I get farther away from it, but here are few comments.  I adored the time we spent in Samarkand and Bukhara.  I could have stayed there longer to have more time to explore (there are more sights we didn’t see) and time to wander and photograph.  I would have liked to visit other sites in Uzbekistan like Khiva and Shahr-i-Siyabz but to do so would have meant adding a significant amount of time to the itinerary and accommodations would be rugged.  I'm not sure that spending one day going to Tajikistan was worth it.  It was a difficult day given the amount of time required for border crossing and the time spent to get there was not worth it given the small amount we were able to see in Pendjikent.  I would have liked to find antique textiles for purchase.  I should have done advance work on this topic and possibly tried to make appointments with textile dealers.  But I'm not sure this would have been practical given our busy itinerary or worth it given restrictions on export of antiquities (50 years old +).  A major disappointment was the realization that people no longer wear ikat or embroidered clothing.  Or if they do, they do not live in or come to a city.  This tradition must have been wiped out during Soviet years.  People wear store-bought printed cotton or velvet clothing, or modern jeans and high heels, depending upon the country. I don’t think that visiting Kazakhstan is necessary unless you love to hike.  A visit to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan is worth a detour. 

But looking back over the whole, I do feel I have a much greater understanding of what Central Asia is all about.  I know there are no commonalities across the countries; despite in many cases having a common ethnic heritage (i.e. Turkmen), each country is completely different from the other and must be seen as having different needs and political issues. I'm glad to have had the chance to see and experience these little snippets and put my toe in each of the Five ‘Stans.

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Tuesday September 22

 Cityscape from hotel balcony

 Rows and rows of fir trees designed to create "climate change"

 Nissa Parthian ruins

 Turkmenbashi's mosque

 School girls in their uniforms

 The current president

Transforming the desert into a gleaming white marble city

 Monument to the Ruhnama

The "golden man" himself

City at night, from our balcony


Landing in Ashgabat is like landing on another planet, particularly after coming from the other 'Stans that have either gray crumbling Soviet-style buildings or from Samarkand and Bukhara that are ancient towns with mud houses and tin roofs.  Here the old has been eliminated completely.  Here, all buildings are new and faced in gleaming white marble.  As we drove into the city last night, bleary-eyed and exhausted, we sat at the edge of our seats marveling (read stunned) at what we saw.  Lining huge boulevards are white marble buildings that house a plethora of ministries (agriculture, mining, army, etc.) and lighted with spotlights.  The last time I thought a city had showcased its buildings so well at night was in London the last time I was there.  We passed many 10 story white marble apartment buildings and wondered who could possibly have enough money to live in them…  How did all of this come to exist?

Today we learned quite a lot from our wonderful guide, whose name I won’t mention for fear of getting her into trouble.  Turkmenistan is not an open country for its people in any sense of that word.  About the only freedom they seem to have is freedom of religion, or at least up to now the government has not seen fit to meddle in it.  There is no freedom of speech, no ownership of land, the government can order you to do whatever it wants and you must do it or you will either wind up in jail or be punished in some other way.  Everything and everyone is controlled by the state.  Turkmenistan calls itself a democracy but there is only one political party and whatever “elections” do occur are rigged and the outcome a forgone conclusion. 

Turkmenistan achieved independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and since that time has had only two leaders, both tyrannical dictators.  The first called himself “Turkmenbashi”. 

It was Turkmenbashi’s idea create a marble city.  He built gold statues to himself all over town (which we toured this afternoon; I could hardly bring myself to glorify them by taking a photo).  Another inspired idea of his was to change the climate of Ashgabat from desert to temperate by planting fir trees, yes fir trees, everywhere the eye can see. He ordered millions of trees to the planted across acres and acres of desert land and ordered all the citizens of the city to water them and keep them healthy (or they would be punished).  Some were so desperate given how difficult it is to make a fir tree grow in a hot desert, that they substituted artificial trees for real ones so when the president flew over the city in his helicopter for inspection the trees would appear to thrive.

Turkmenbashi built a 25-kilometer long “health walk” (that looks rather like the great wall of china stretching over the mountains; you can see it from anywhere in the city) that everyone was ordered to walk on Sunday regardless of whether or not they were physically able.  One man notified the government that he was too ill to walk; was ordered to walk and indeed died.

Our own guide’s family personally experienced the hardship of living under such a regime.  Her husband at one time worked for the government but after being forced out was subsequently blacklisted.  As a result, she and her daughters were at significant disadvantage relative to those in government favor.  The daughters were no longer able to get into good schools in Turkmenistan and had to leave the country to continue their education.  Our guide works mostly as an English teacher and part-time as a guide.   She is supports her family because her husband is no longer able to find work. 

We heard shocking story after story as we drove through what she called “a fantasies (sic) world”.  I’ll never forget that phrase.

Ashgabat is probably the cleanest city I've ever been in.  The poorest women in society, faces wrapped in cloth to keep out the dust, spend all day in the sun sweeping with twig brooms to keep the streets clean.  I saw many without dustpans simply collecting leaves by hand, picking them up one by one.  I saw many scrubbing the ground (particularly around monuments dedicated to Turkmenbashi) with soap and rags.  (Not once did I see a man doing such menial manual labor.)  

The country is currently ruled by another (crazy) megalomaniac named Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, who is only slightly less oppressive than Turkmenbashi.   None of the palaces That Turkmenbashi built for himself meet the needs of Berdymukhammedov, so a new white marble palace is being built and the city center is being moved to the location around his new palace.  Huge red cranes work furiously all over the city building more and more and more. 

Where does all the money come from?  Oil and natural gas!  The country is sitting on vast reserves of oil and natural gas and the government is making a killing yet is not passing much on to citizens.  How it explains this (apparently the president loves to make speeches on television including one where he explained that it is bad for people to be paid too much money) and gets away with it I’ll never understand.  Except that the country is run by the military and the government has and probably still does exert a form of mind-control over the citizens. 

Turkmenbashi wrote a book called the Ruhnama that’s a bit like Mao’s little red book.  It laid out “the rules for living” and all citizens were required to memorize it.  In fact he eventually banned all other books than the Ruhnama from being taught in schools.  This policy has now been changed, but our guide pointed out that there’s an entire generation that learned nothing in school but the Ruhnama.  No math, science, history – nothing.  So they are completely ignorant.  It’s all quite horrible and unbelievable.

So putting the current world aside for moment, we drove to the outskirts of town to visit an ancient Parthian ruin called Nissa.  Nissa was founded as the capital of the Parthians in the 3^rd century BC.  I was surrounded by a commercial city that was inhabited until the 13^th c when the Mongols arrived, laid siege to the city and razed it to the ground.  We walked around inside the fortress walls and saw lovely rooms made of mud bricks.  The center is believed to have housed a Zoroastrian temple. 

Then back into the city for a stop at a huge white marble mosque that Turkmenbashi built to honor himself (Turkmenbashi Ruhy Mosque) and a mausoleum next door built to honor his mother.  Inside the Turkmenbashi mosque, instead of quotations from the Qur’an there are (surprise) quotations from the Ruhnama! 

There are many Turks working in Ashgabat in the construction business so their companies got together and built the Azadi mosque, a replica of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque.  We stopped by for a visit; Ok, but nowhere near the magnificence of the real thing. 

Had lunch in a high-rise business restaurant with views of marble buildings and row after row of Xmas trees. 

In the afternoon did more driving around and stopped to see a huge pink (why pink, no one knows) statue of the Ruhnama, plus many GOLD statues placed all over the city of “the golden man” Turkmenbashi.

The best stop of the day was at a marvelous Carpet Museum with superb examples of Turkmen weavings from all around the country.  Had a Ph. D. in Turkmen textiles to give us a tour.  She took us downstairs to see women weaving carpets that will become part of the museum’s collection.  We were able to see how the wool is wound around the warp and cut off; different colors wound around different threads to form the eventual pattern.  We saw the bits of graph paper they were working from and I cannot fathom how they translate what I saw into such magnificent and intricate designs.  Both the weavers and our expert guide seemed delighted in our interest and allowed us to take photos.  Unfortunately we’d been told not to bring our cameras into the museum and I’d left mine on the bus.  Why I obeyed such an instruction this time I don’t know since I usually do not.  So I'm relying on Larry to send me the photos and videos he took on my behalf.  We left the museum energized and thrilled by our good fortune to have had such a knowledgeable guide. 

Dinner at our hotel, another “fantasies-world” experience.  We’re staying in the Hotel President, the poshest of posh hotel in the city yet it has no Wi-Fi, you can’t get more than one room key (the card-key variety), and when you return to your room at the end of the day you have no towels or other vital amenities and have to call to the front desk to get them.  The veneer of modernity is there, but not the reality.   Oh yes, almost forgot to add that Internet was only introduced into the country three years ago.  And I am sure that very few people have access to it; probably only government workers and business travelers. 

I do want to quote something from Lonely Planet:  “Be aware that all top-range hotel rooms are bugged, as are many offices, restaurants and anywhere foreigners meet.  Reserve sensitive conversations, especially any with Turkmen citizens (who are far more likely to get into trouble than you) for safe places, preferably outside.“

To Ashgabat, September 21st

Today is all about traveling.  Apparently there is no direct way to get from Bukhara (UZ) to Ashgabat (TM).  It's either a 20-hour drive itinerary or the bus to walking to vans to plane itinerary that we have today.  Bags were due out at 6:30 this morning for a 7:30 departure.  The program is to drive to the Turkmenistan border and have lunch in Turkmenabat.  The problem is that every time the tour leader does this trip he has different experiences crossing the border; sometimes the group has to walk with their luggage for one mile along a hot, barren road; sometimes the wait for the officials to review and OK passports is endless.  Gary had us prepared for a long, miserable ordeal. 

What we actually experienced, relatively speaking, was not too bad.  We arrived at the first booth to leave UZ at 9am and completed the immigration process into TM about two miles down the road around noon.  You would NEVER want to attempt to make this crossing by yourself or without an experienced guide.  Much candy and chocolate was distributed (along with much cash I'm sure) to the guards and customs officials behind the scenes to get us through without hassle.

Then drove 1 hour in smaller vans to Turkmenabat where we had lunch at little cafe with yurts for us to rest in.  Really nothing to do there except wait from 2 to 5 for departure to the airport.  Our flight is scheduled to depart at 7:30 pm and we expect to arrive in Ashgabat around 10pm. 

Finally got to airport and after much buildup about max 20 kilo limit for checked plus hand carry luggage out local guide Gozul was able to negotiate a group check in so my very much overweight three pieces of baggage (one hand carry and two checked) went through without problem or extra charge.  I had been concerned about this weight limit and many others sent boxes (at great expense) yesterday via Fed Ex to avoid issues. One of the reasons we got through so easily might have been a carefully arranged lineup of Butterfingers and other candy bars on the check in counter as our bags were weighed. 

Everywhere we go, our guide says “money talks but candy sings”! I'm sure that money is liberally dispensed behind the scenes.  Candy is distributed openly to all.  Our guide carried five pieces of luggage; we now know that four of them were full of either snacks for us or candy and chocolate for border guards and airline agents.