Turkmenistan 2: In which I feel chastened

So, I really only started paying attention to Turkmenistan when I first saw John Oliver’s feature in 2019.  His comedy beats include: the sports fetish, the horse fetish, and all the big white marble buildings.  All these things seem to be true.  But as I’ve spent some time with Turkmen people—at community centers and mosques, in airports and yurts, I’ve heard something of their perspective.

Which perspective might be compared to the litter runt’s. They feel sneered at by the international community, physically precarious between Iran and Russia, and edged out of the global oil market by the predatory maneuverings of Russia, which kneecaps the economic potential of their one natural resource.  And when you get to know the country a little, some of those comedy beats gain some context.  All the white marble buildings and white cars?: well, it was 109F one day last week, and all that glossy white helps reflect some of the heat.  You don’t see the people walking around because it’s 109 degrees and they’re inside, in the A/C, or using cool tunnels rather than broiling sidewalks. The horses?: hey listen, they’re really beautiful horses and the whole country is horse-crazy, treating them like family, giving them full burials in a special cemetery, etc.  The Ahal-teke is the war horse of ancient Turkmen, and has become a symbol of courage and resilience and loyalty.  And those melons?: the country grows 200 varieties across its five regions, and they are splendid.  

 

Maiden's Castle at the ancient city of Merv (6^th C BCE) 

 

                                    Nissa, the first seat of the Parthians (2^nd-1^st C BCE)

 Listen, it’s still a tough place to be.  It’s a dictatorship with pretty much zero press freedom.  (See Doug Staker’s comment on the last post re: dictator aesthetics.)  There’s serious poverty, the roads outside of Ashgabat are ridiculously unmaintained (most folks just off-road it in parallel to the actual “paved” part), it’s a closed economy and money is hard to deal with, there’s an overwhelming police presence. There’s pretty much no infrastructure to support tourists/temporary travelers, and the internet is blocked in ways that make it very hard to function as a visitor--which means that people just don't visit (I was one of three tourists I saw during my time there).  Which means that their hot-rocking UNESCO site antiquities don't get any tourist love. 

And that deprives the Turkmen people of the chance to love visitors back. My guide told me that his religion teaches that the guest is a gift from God. On this point, the administrative state seems to be obstructing both sides of that gift exchange. 

Konya (Old) Urgench (10^th-13^th CE) 

Also, they have hedgehogs.