A Day in Southwestern Turkmenistan
The day started with about a two and a half hour drive to Köw-Ata Cave. This cave is famous for its thermal lake about 120 steps down into the cave. There are a number of legends about who found the lake, including one where a young man from a local village suddenly had skin lesions all over his body. As he was “unclean” he was exiled from the village and wandered around looking for shelter. He came across an opening in the rock and went in. After awhile he realized there was water that smelled bad, but felt good on his sores. He swam in the water off and on for a few weeks, while trying to survive away from family and friends. Slowly the lesions began to heal, and once they were all gone he went back to the village. The villagers were amazed at his recovery and wanted to know what magic he had used. He showed them the cave and the lake within, and people have been coming to it ever since.
The lake doesn’t appear to be that large, but it is big enough to swim in; if one wants to. When we were there, there were at least three rather large families who were in various stages of getting in and out of the water. I did notice that when I went to the water’s very smelly sulphuric edge the men in the lake all left. I don’t know whether or not this was because I was a woman or a foreigner, but it was noticeable. The water didn’t feel good; it was too warm and heavy. In the thermal baths in Hungary the water buoyed one up, but here it just felt muggy. The others didn’t like it either, so we didn’t stay very long.
We then continued on to the rural mountain village of Nokur (sometimes spelled Nokhur). When we arrived in the village we first stopped at a tree that is said to be 2,000 yrs. old. I haven’t a clue whether there is any accuracy to this date, but it is clear that the tree is very old. It was fun to go crawl around in the inside and look at the sky from inside the trunk where a hole had developed from a branch that must have fallen off. The tree is beside a 100 year old house, whose originally Iranian owners left when the Soviets took over. No one has lived in the house since then, but some of the villagers do use the outer rooms as a warehouse for medicinal herbs they gather in the mountains and sell. Many of these herbs are from plants most of us call weeds. The fellow selling the dried herbs explained which one was for diabetes, which for kidney problems, and which one was for a sore throat. There is no need for a doctor as the local herbalist knows what to use and how much to use.
One of the rather unique features of the house was the rams’ head shaped capitals on the wooden porch columns. It seems that the rams’ head is still a protective sign in this region. This pre-Islamic belief is most clearly seen in the local cemetery where almost all of the gravesites have a post topped with rams’ horns. On the back of the post is a design of diamonds and crosses that I later saw repeated on the dining tables for sale at the Ashgabat Bazaar. No one could tell me what the significance of the design was, but it was used consistently.
From the tree we went to another cave, this one a ‘pilgrimage’ cave as a woman’s spirit protects the cave and those who honor her. On the way up the few steps to the mountain cave, we came across a family in a room off to the side where they rent the pots and dishes for the sacrifices that are performed at the site. There was a very friendly man who was sitting in the room with three seated women. He invited, and indeed insisted, we join them for tea and a pastry-like dough that came straight from the oven and was very good. It was like a donut, but not sweet. He talked and laughed and tried to pick up Elena, offering to marry her. He introduced the women as his sister, his daughter-in-law and I’m sure that really quiet one was his wife. When we came in, -our driver Rushtan, Paul, Elena and me - the women put the ‘veil of silence’ over their mouths. This is when they take part of their scarves and place it across their mouths so that they don’t communicate with a) men and b) strangers. By the end of the tea, the veils of silence had come off from the sister and daughter-in-law and they were laughing with us. They were a wonderful family and we thoroughly enjoyed our tea and time with them. As we once again started up to Qyz Bibi’s Cave, the sister insisted on accompanying us. When we got to the cave, which is a little bigger than the size of a foxhole, I was amazed to see cloth wishing strips tied to branches of bushes at the entrance. Down at the bottom of the stairs was a large wishing tree with cradles like we had seen in Merv, but here by the side of the cave they were reminiscent of Tibetan prayer flags. It seems Qyz Bibi was a young girl who wanted to live a spiritual life, but her father insisted that she marry. Rather than do so, she ran away to the mountains. Her father came after her so she prayed for the mountain to open, which it did. She now lives in the mountain, blessing and granting wishes to those who ask for her assistance.
Outside the cave there were a number of loose stones about the size of one’s palm. I was curious about one of them as it almost looked like it had a fossil in it. Once I had picked up the stone, the sister took it from me and taking my hand placed the index and middle finger together, then placed the stone on top, trying to balance it. That didn’t happen with the first stone, so the daughter-in-law chose a second, which then worked (I think my nails were too long for this procedure). Once the stone was balanced it was supposed to rotate on its own to the left and this was supposed to happen three times. It did, but I do think there was a little bit of help from my new friend. After I had been blessed, Elena was up. She had an easier time with the rotation (and she also doesn’t have long nails). We were then allowed to build small rock piles to send our wishes to Allah with Qyz Bibi’s blessings. It was a wonderful experience especially as it was done with such good will. & no, for the skeptics out there, they didn’t expect to be paid. This was done out of pure faith and generosity of spirit.
Leaving our new friends and the cave, we went on to the host family’s house where we were to have lunch. Originally, we were supposed to spend the night there, but I really wanted to get some research articles from the internet and needed to be back in town to get them, so we settled for just the lunch. It was quite a feast on the floor, and we were joined by an Italian couple from Milan who were on a 10-day journey throughout Turkmenistan. They were in Uzbekistan two years ago and loved it, so they thought they would try Turkmenistan this year. The lunch included soup, vegetables, plov (the Central Asian staple of rice and cooked vegetables – each region does it slightly differently, but so far all have been very good), barbecued beef chunks and fresh melon.
After such a feast, I needed to walk, so Paul & I went for a hike in mountains behind the house. The trail wasn’t more than a goat trail, but it was enough to walk on. From above the mountains take on a more mysterious character. It was easy to envision getting lost in them and had we been 20 km. to the south and doing the same thing, I could well imagine not knowing where the border to Iran began. The mountains seem endless and, while the borders are politically definitive, they seem irrelevant to the life that struggles to survive in this barren landscape. I still think the four young people who were taken prisoner in Iran for hiking over the border a few years ago were stupid for being that close to it, but now do have a better understanding of how they could lose sight of where they were.
The time we spent in Nokur was filled with fabulous events, each one a gem and put together it was simply an amazing bouquet of sensory experiences. (but when we were pulling out of town I tried to take a picture of a young boy selling his fruit on the street and he gave us the universal finger – it was actually quite funny & he was laughing as well.)
On the way back to Ashgabat, we broke the three and a half hour drive at Turkmenbashi’s Mosque. Turkmenbashi was the first President of Independent Turkmenistan and considered himself (and expected to be called) the Father of his people. As I mentioned in the Ashgabat entry, he wrote a book called Ruhnama, and sayings from that book are now in this mosque and on the minaret. I have to say I was amazed at the audacity of this, as normally the places he has his sayings, are reserved for those from Mohammad. On the entrance arch to the mosque he has “Ruhmana is the holy book” “Koran is the word of Allah” Hmmm. & inside above the minrab is another of his sayings and his name. Despite his hubris, the building is stunning. Pictures weren’t allowed inside, but Paul took a couple that I’ve included in the gallery. It is called Turkmenbashi’s Mosque as he designed it as well as his mausoleum that is off to the right side of the Mosque.
A Morning at the Bazaar, An Evening at the Crater
Another of the Presidential projects, this time of the current President, to move the bazaars in each of the major towns from the sandy desert to newly constructed white marble complexes. The Ashgabat Bazaar is the biggest. There is no way to drive into the bazaar, you have to drive around this huge area consisting of finished and unfinished buildings. The first part we came to was the car bazaar, and it was the second part, and the third part and the…. It was as if all the car dealers in Salt Lake City were lined up one after another… and they were busy! People were buying cars. There is no import tax on cars and everyone gets 120 liters free (yep, it’s from the oil and gas money the state earns), and if one needs more it is just 20 cents a liter. We filled a very large SUV with 60 liters for about $8.
The cars seem to have overtaken the animal market as it was tiny in comparison; which may be a good thing, given the way the animals were treated. I doubt that any of the pens or trading practices would be allowed in any of the Western countries. While the Turkmeni cherish their horses, that doesn’t necessarily translate to other species. The goat the guy has by the horns in one of the pictures in the gallery had just been sold for the equivalent of about $85.
The rest of the bazaar had all the things one expects, carpets, toys, nicknacks, household goods, clothes – including bikinis, which amazed me – and low and behold, lots and lots of fabric. This was where the women who were on the plane with us from Turkey were selling all that cloth they had wound around their bodies. And so the story from the city comes full circle, like the cloth.
In the afternoon we left the marble wonder and drove across the Karakum Desert to the country’s three major craters. The first is of water and is like Montezuma’s Well without the Native American ruins, the second is of bubbling mud, and the third is the famous Darwaza gas crater. The gas crater isn’t natural. In 1971 a Russian team was drilling for gas, when they got stuck on a hard sheet of rock. Not wanting to give up, they simply blew up the rock and opps, created a crater filled with gas. They then thought they could burn it off rather than release the toxins continually into the atmosphere. It’s still burning. The President has supposedly asked for it to be stopped and the gas diverted, but who knows when that will happen. The flames are lower and smaller than the National Geographic pictures of the site taken a few years ago, but there is still enough to keep a Dantesque imagination on overload for a very long time.
Last Day in Turkmenistan
After a night in the middle of the desert in a tent, we drove on to Konya Urgench in the morning. The road was fine for the first two hundred km or so, but the last 70 were on a “Soviet Road,” meaning it was built well before the collapse of the Soviet Union and hadn’t been repaired since. To say it was a terrible road is to be very kind. There are lots of other terms one could use and none of them positive. But we got there. In between there are communities that Pres. Turkmenbashi created with the stroke of a pen (he refused to allow the internet into the country) in the middle of the desert. He arranged for canals to be dug from the Amu Darya (ancient Oxus) river and then built houses, & made deals to entice people to leave their homes and move to the desert to make it bloom. I was told that the houses are now fully occupied and the crops do well.
Konya Urgench, however, is still in the desert. This is an ancient site that was a capital of the Parthian Empire. We don’t know how old the site is because the oldest section hasn’t been excavated, but the ceramics that were found near the top layer stem from about the 4th C BCE. There are only a few buildings that remain standing after civilization after civilization flourished and floundered here, subject to conquest and earthquakes. The main ones come from the Seljuk Turks in the the 14th C, such as Tura Beg’s complex with it’s fabulous all-the-colors-of-the-rainbow ceiling and triple dome. A few mausoleums, including those for Al Aslan, El Tekesh and most importantly Sultan Sanjar. There is also a “Portal to an Unknown Complex” and the tallest baked-brick minaret in Central Asia. Most of the buildings that remain standing were part of larger complexes that have disappeared over time. This was the place where learning flourished in the Middle Ages. Al Ma’mun’s Academy of Science was supposedly here, there were a number of medressas in the city and scholars from all over came to study in Sultan Sanjar’s libraries. When the Mongols arrived almost everything, including the books, was destroyed. When Tamberlane took control, he tried to rebuild the site, but wasn’t terribly successful. By the end of 16th C Konya Urgench was left to the desert sands, until Russian archeologists started to dig in the early 20th C.
We didn’t have as much time as I would have liked at the archeological site as we needed to get to the border by 4pm in order to cross without problems. We were told that there wouldn’t be any problem exiting the country as we had all our documents and that there would be a shuttle bus to take us the 800 meters to the Uzbekistan border through the no man’s land crossing the Amu Darya. Well, it didn’t quite happen that way. It was a rather hot day and we were the only people at the border and the guards were obviously quite bored. We were the entertainment. They looked at everything, including all the pictures we had on our cameras. After going through four checkpoints with our passports in the space of about 30 meters, we finally got through the Turkmenistan controls. We had been told to wait at the gate for the shuttle, but the guards at the gate indicated there was no shuttle. L This meant we had to roll the luggage (& remember I’ve got stuff for 7 months, winter, summer, desert and mountain with me + all the electronics) in the hot sun to the Uzbek side. Amazingly there was only one control on that side and when we got through our driver and guide were waiting for us with cold bottles of iced tea in hand. It bodes well for the next leg of the journey.
