The North Korea of Central Asia

Oct 10, 2023

Boy, do I have the weirdest country to write about this week: Turkmenistan.

And here’s Turkmenistan’s former president introducing his country…by rapping about it. Eminem better watch out 👇

3 things to know before we get started

The country came into existence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union having been a Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic As Part of The Great Socialist Soviet Union (It’s a mouthful) since 1925.
This had a new president Saparmurat Niyazov come into power. He was a totalitarian and despotic dictator who started a personality cult (more on that later). For simplicity, let’s call him Samurai.
When Samurai died from a heart attack in 2006, another ‘President’ Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov became the dictator of Turkmenistan until 2022. Let’s call him Burgundy.

He decided he had a direct line with God which manifested in Ruhnama (The Book of The Soul). Think a watered-down version of Mein Kampf + the Bible.
Ruhnama was a mandatory read for school children, students and those holding state employment. Oh, if you wanted to get a driver’s licence, you had to have read it too.
There even was a social study field called Rahmana Studies (creative, I know). Half of the exam questions for the 2006 University Entry revolved around themes set in Ruhnama.
Ruhnama has been translated into 50 languages though. Go figure 🤷‍♀️ Samurai said that God told him whoever reads it thrice, will go to heaven. I’d say go on Amazon right now!

Banned the use of lip-syncing at public concerts.
Abolished the Turkmen word for bread and replaced it with Gurbansoltan, his mother's name.
Made the second Sunday of August "Melon Day" in honour of melons as he thought they were delicious - finally something I could sign up for.
Ordered that all mountains and places in Turkmenistan + months and days of the week be named after Turkmen heroes, poets and leaders.
In 1997, when he tried to quit smoking, he passed a law that banned it in public to eliminate the temptation.
Gold teeth were discouraged as he thought everyone was better off chewing on bones to strengthen their teeth and lessen the rate at which they fall out.

That’s not all, there are many more.

Oh yeah, he also built a golden statue of himself that was rotating to face the Sun at all times.

He was a bit more chill and reversed lots of eccentric laws Samurai brought into existence. He was still an authoritarian dictator though.
Black cars were banned in favour of white because it “brings good luck.”
He was obsessed with Akhal-Teke horses. So much so his entire office only had one prominent motif all over the furniture - horses.
He’s a former dentist, turned rapping president as we witnessed earlier.

But he also clearly doesn’t know how to hold a dog. Imagine being a guy who is so bad at holding dogs that Putin has to save it.

Let us not forget the time when he tried to kill the rumours he was dead by driving around a BURNING HOLE IN THE GROUND (everything’s normal, nothing to look at)👇

Have you ever wondered why there’s a carpet in their flag? You probably didn’t but I’ll tell you anyway: because they LOVE carpets.
There’s a Ministry of Carpets, a National Carpet Museum and a public holiday to honour carpets. They even used to have the world’s largest hand-woven carpet record until Iran beat them in 2019.
If you want to purchase a carpet, you need a receipt with your age, origin and date of purchase. This must be certified by the Ministry of Carpets or else the carpet can’t leave the country. I’ll say it one more time: carpet.
It’s one of the least visited countries in the World - the top 10 least visited countries in fact.
Locals used to have state-subsidised gas, water, petrol and electricity between 1993 and 2019.
Turkmenistan is the only country officially recognized by the United Nations as a neutral nation. Eat that, Switzerland.
It has a burning hole that’s been on fire since 1971 dubbed Gates of Hell. It was a man-made disaster - a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern. This caused the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. So they thought: Why don’t we set this on fire maybe that’ll solve this? - it did not.

That’s all this week. Took me 3 hours to research this but it was worth it 😂

Have a great week, maybe get a carpet?

Random fact, when I was very young there was a trend in Lithuania to have a carpet hanging on the wall (seriously).

You’d walk into someone’s living room and there’d be a proudly displayed carpet, hanging on the wall. It looked something like this 👇

Love ya,

Rima 💖

If you enjoyed it, share it with someone you like (or don’t like so they suffer through this just like you did).