ALLAH WAS WILLING. ELENA, THE GUIDE, AND DRIVER MISHA were waiting when we arrived in Ashgebad and whisked us off to tour Ashgebad. We had a full day ahead despite our 5 AM wakeup. Most of Ashgebad is only three years old and Turkmenistan itself didn’t gain independence until 1992. The city is supposedly home to one million people but we have seen only a handful reminding us of the “ghost cities” in China. The buildings are sparkling white, many with futuristic shapes. Most, it seems, are government owned Ministries of This and That, everything from the Ministry of Textiles to the Pavilion of Happiness. the government wedding center.
Neutrality Arch, another monument to humility
Turkmenbashi, the “First President,” as everyone refers to him, obviously wasn’t shy. Ashgebad is a monument to his life in office, Many of the monuments are named for him or contain his statue and official photos are everywhere. The “Current President” isn’t much more modest and his photos are as common as Mao’s in Beijing. When Mac Davis sang, “Oh, Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way,” he could have been singing about Turkmenbashi.
Old Nisa
Not much remains of Old Nisa’s mudbrick structures, understandable since it was built in the 4th Century BC. We waited in the rain while Elena filled us in on the history which dovetailed with what we heard in Uzbekistan, just across the border. Things are green now, the poppies are in bloom, but everything will be brown in a couple of weeks when the temperatures climb into the 40s Celsius.
