Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
I'm often asked how much I earn in Australia. I usually lie a little but to someone earning maybe $50 a month anything I say will seem like a huge sum.
I try to put this in perspective by explaining that costs are much higher in Australia also. A good example is bus fares. Here a local bus costs a phenomenally low 500 manat. That's about two cents. Compared to that the US$2.50 (about 60000 manat) I used to pay for the bus in Sydney seems ludicrously high.
I'm paying less than that at my hotel, a pleasantly decrepit establishment. 53000 manat a night actually. They initially wanted to charge me $30 for a dirt-encrusted coffin but I held out and now have a dirt-encrusted four-bed dorm all to myself for a princely $2. Although I won't be showering in the shared bathroom anytime soon. The locals pay just $1. All of which makes the Sydney bus look pretty expensive.
Konye-Urgench and Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan. What a place!
There was some doubt if I could even get here. Getting a regular tourist visa is pretty difficult, you need to have a fully booked itinerary. Transport, hotels, the works. But I managed to get a transit visa in Tashkent. A whole five days! Would I even use it all?
There are no real restrictions on the transit visa but I knew this would be no ordinary country when, after listing on my immigration form a random hotel in Konye-Urgench I was advised in a quiet voice by a nice guard at the immigration post that I need to really stay there, and not at some unofficial homestay. Sure enough, on my arrival at the hotel they not only take my passport details for the local registery, but then immediately phone it through to some official. Looks like they're definitely checking up on me.
It became even more bizarre when I went to a local museum. Just a small place with a handful of rooms showing the usual broken pottery and slightly scary diaramas of life in the olden days. As I asked for a ticket the attendant asked for my passport. She proceded to copy down my passport and visa details. It's just a museum!
All around are posters of President Turkmenbashi, alongside his ubiquitous slogan: "Halk. Watan. Bekir Turkmenbashi". "People. Nation. Great Turkmenbashi". He models himself as a nation builder, in the mold of Kemal Ataturk of Turkey but seems to have replaced vision and foresight with meglomania.
Nowhere was this more evident than in Ashgabat, the country's capital. I had long anticipated seeing live the fabulous rotating golden statue of the god-like Turkmenbashi and I was not disappointed. It sits atop the tall Arch of Neutrality. Arms outstretched high it greets the sun as it rises in the morning. It then majestically follows, or perhaps guides, the sun through the course of the day before bidding farewell at sunset. A more moving sight can not be imagined.
Other delights in Ashgabat include the enormous speaking book. At 9pm precisely this huge tome majestically opens to stirring music, a deep sonorous voice narrating as the glorious Turkmen history is projected on to the pages of the book. Liberal images of Turkmenbashi abound through the presentation but the highlight is at the end when we are given, not some stirring national symbol or maybe the flag, but the face of Turkmenbashi proudly emerging from the rays of the sun. I had tears in my eyes.
Ashgabat is a worthy capital for such a strange country. It's the weirdest city I have ever seen. And I've been to Las Vegas. With all the oil and gas wealth of the country Turkmenbashi is frantically building Ashgabat in to a truly world-class city. Tree-lined boulevards, gleaming marble and glass apartment blocks and offices, extensive parks and fountains. Everything meticulously neat. But there are no people. The new buildings are empty. The streets are deserted. The fountains play to no-one. It has the surreal effect of looking exactly, and I mean exactly, like one of those little plastic architectural models of a new development. Right down to the perfect trees and a complete absence of people.
The old city still lives on, particularly at the marvellous Tolkuchka Bazar, with everything from carpets to camels. But Turkmenbashi seems to be living in a completely different world to all his people. They still crowd in to the hustle and bustle of the buses and the market whilst he has the main Turkmenistan motorway closed for one hour in the morning and afternoon so that he can drive from his villa to parliament without disruption.
If it ever all comes together, if the population grows in numbers and wealth to match the monuments, Turkmenistan may one day have the finest capital in the world. But right now it just seems like mis-spent folly. It is a city of a few hundred thousand struggling people and one man with grand illusions.