Achgabat | Traveling Turkmenistan with a smile

Visiting Turkmenistan was short - 3 day travel to its capital Achgabat, where I stayed with the Vatican Ambassador. I will describe this country to you a bit with a blink of an eye.

First worth to mention are the Turkmenistan's natural resources and their effect on the politics and the population. This oil and natural gas rich country is not much different with this respect to other resource rich countries - government spends and takes, but local population rarely sees the benefits of the oil money.

Not so fast Ludo, one could say - because electricity is free in Turkmenistan and the tank of gas costs between $1 and $2. Other commodities like vodka is cheaper than the Coke in any western country. Yet, majority of people live in very poor conditions and the liberties are heavily limited. With this respect, I have to say Turkmenistan's freedom can equal that of North Korea that I will write about later. That's being said, please see the photos of internet cafe and satellite dishes, which are tolerated in Turkmenistan.

I traveled to Turkmenistan from Uzbekistan and have to say that the experience at the border wasn't a pleasant one. Turkmenistani customs had to inspect the contents of my digital camera and laptop as well as analyze my personal medications. Oh well, ..

There is more 'madness' than this in Turkmenistan though. I'd like to focus on the deification of it's recently departed leader - Saparmurat Niyazov, who was a president of Turkmenistan from 1990 to 2006. Literally you cannot move anywhere not to come across pictures, paintings of statues of him. Same goes for Niyazov's book Ruhnama, which the dictator heavily promoted throughout his time in the office. Just see the pictures. This indoctrination of the society is typical of many other dictators or great leaders I guess.

One Niyazov's accomplishment that can be admired is definitely the capital of Turkmenistan - Achgabat. The oil money bought quite impressive architecture with it's characteristic white marble towers that glow at night similar to Manhattan in New York. Please see for yourself.