Day 19 - Turkmenistan

Toured Ashgabat today. What an interesting city! The most impressive capital you've never heard of by far I bet. It has, apparently, 654 marble built buildings as of six months ago, it's now up to about 680 my guide estimated. Which is a lot of marble buildings when you consider they're all massive office/apartment blocks. All of the marble is imported from Turkey, Iran and China, which can't be cheap. It's got a bit of Dubai about it without quite the standout statement buildings or reputation. The standard of living in the city appears extremely high and it has civic amenities ago-go. It's clean, its massive, it's basically empty (700k population) I honestly have no idea why this place (the city and the country as a whole) isn't on the tourist radar. It needs to pep up its nightlife a bit but other than that, it's pretty much the complete package as far as I can see. 

Turkmenistan had 10000 tourists this year versus 6000 last year according to my guide yesterday. 

Which is as good as saying, 'we had pretty much no tourism this year and nothing last year'. Frankly, I'd come again just to see the flaming pit thing from yesterday on its own.

Today I visited the national museum, the largest mosque in Central Asia, a mud fort that I've forgotten the name of, numerous national/international/galactic monuments and the Russian Bazaar. Not bad for a short day exploring. I reckon I'm literally the only tourist in town at the moment. There was no one in the museum, my hotel is dead and I've not seen another tourist since..... Well since Tbilisi I think. 

Here's another interesting fact about Turkmenistan that I found out yesterday;

Question: How do you get rid of several thousand unwelcome Russian soldiers within your borders who simply refuse to budge following independence? 

Answer: Declare yourself a neutral country in perpetuity at the UN. 

It's very bad form, diplomatically, to have your troops stationed in a permanently neutral country. The Russians packed up and left in a huff apparently. Neat huh?

Took a short flight to Mary in the afternoon for an overnight stay before moving on again towards Uzbekistan. 

The first president of Turkmenistan (they're only on their second, the first one got voted in with a 99% majority twice, then got voted in for life and then died 12 months later.) Apart from having gold statues of him up the ying-yang, he created his own Turkmen bible, banned ballet (too saucy) and humming. Well banning ballet would get my vote anyway. 

The largest mosque in Central Asia. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take photos inside. But did anyway. Very impressive! 

The Ministry of Defence building. Just one example of many many many buildings out of the same-ish mold. Tall, marble, new, striking. World domination anyone?