Arkadag: President, Protector and DJ

[topum]

Ok, we are trying to get a visa to visit Turkmenistan this summer on our way to Kamchatka. Oh my, I wonder why everyone keeps talking about North Korea but you never hear about Turkmenistan. I guess it is because they don't have nuclear weapons there. But it is up there with North Korea if not more bizarre. I am fascinated.

The visa is super hard to get though, they have over 90% rejection rate. I will have to write a separate post summarising my research on Turkmenistan now, the place sounds surreal. The president is called Arkadag which means "protector". They renamed the months of the year and they have the names of the (former) president's relatives now I think. I need a separate post for this.

Oh and "The Protector" likes to DJ too. Here he is. You might consider clapping enthusiastically while watching this, they tend to shoot everyone who doesn't.

Comments

[pageeater.livejournal.com]

Goggling Turkmenistan now. How could there be a country somewhere that I've never heard of?

[topum.livejournal.com]

Oh prepare to be amazed. This is not your run of the mill travel destination. I will write a post on it too.

[pageeater.livejournal.com]

That's for sure. But I just read that they won't allow you to photograph even the most mundane... and you have to go on 'tour.' Is that still true, or old news?

[topum.livejournal.com]

You don't have to go on tour but photography is severely restricted indeed, mostly in the very centre where all the ministries are. But I am not interested in that part that much, I want to see how it is where people actually live their day to day lives. It is going to be a challenge but I enjoy a good challenge. I am fascinated by niche isolated societies. I find visiting such places to be very eye opening in a way that is difficult to experience by other means.

[pageeater.livejournal.com]

I agree. And I appreciate the eye-opening you've been giving me here. May it continue.
I hope the visa comes through for you. Sending good juju your way. :-)

[topum.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[beautesauvage13.livejournal.com]

The red dragon is spreading all over the world.

Becareful over there when you go.

Athena

[topum.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think this is not red actually. Apparently they were more modern and way more free and open while under the soviets. And this is them rolling back to pre-soviet times apparently. I am still researching.

[dreamsugar.livejournal.com]

It seems very interesting, and this is my first time hearing about the country. Cool tunes in the video. I'd say be careful when you go. I'm nervous just imagining it. Good luck obtaining your visa.

[topum.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Apparently it is not dangerous for visitors at all. They just restrict you quite a bit at what you can do there. And I am an experienced traveller. I have visited North Korea, a couple of tribal areas, etc.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Turkmenbashi/Nyazov was either mad or so narcissistic it was indistinguishable from crazy. I hope the country's improved a bunch since he died. At one point he had all hospitals and doctor's offices that weren't in the capital itself closed because he didn't think they were adequate, which meant if you didn't live in the capital you had nothing. He also wrote a new alphabet for the country and banned dogs.
However, as best anyone can tell, he didn't have the murderous streak that North Korean dictators have: no concentration camps, no having his political opponents torn to pieces by starving dogs. He was extremely weird, and the suffering of his people came from weirdness rather than cruelty.

[topum.livejournal.com]

I am curious how he can impose all of those extreme and very bizarre restrictions and rules on those people without having to resort to all the usual cruelty.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to talk to someone who lived through it.
Then again, if the dictator passes a law that now Monday is called Dictator-day, what are you going to do about it? I wonder if the weird things he chose to do weren't generally horrible enough to spark widespread unrest.

[topum.livejournal.com]

That's what I would love to do, talk to at least a couple of people there if they let me in.
Some of the things he did were downright crazy, like closing down universities, making people change their dental crowns (he did't like the ones they traditionally used), only allowing blue tinted windows, banning opera, trying to rewrite the constitution so that it is all his poetry, banning most of the internet, mandating what people must and cannot wear, making everyone buy his new official photo twice a year which they had to hang everywhere, etc ,etc. At certain point people must have thought, OK he is just insane, this just cannot go on. And at that stage to stay in power dictators usually have to go the concentration camps route. It does not seem to have happened there.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Wow. I had no idea it was that crazy. I only knew about a few things.