Ashgabad at the age of Ruhnama. Turkmenistan travel experience

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Sunday, March 5, three in the morning, we come to Ashgabat, and not as the old passenger after months of travel because of the unspeakable dangers escaped and thousand vicissitudes overcome, but with a comfortable flight party first seven hours from Milan. However some 'apprehension we have, when carrying out customs operations. Obtain the entry visa from Italy is impossible given the lack of Turkmen diplomatic missions in our country. We introduce ourselves as having only a letter of invitation completely incomprehensible because written in Cyrillic. A customs official asks us and sending your passport. We see our documents passed from hand to hand and from an office to another, we hope for more than an hour that is all right. Fortunately it is: we enter in Turkmenistan!
The impact Ashgabat by night is amazing. At the airport the night surrounds us, the sky is black background, but it becomes streaked with white after a few kilometers, the emergence of the city, and a galaxy of lights when we are in the center. These are not stars, but of powerful lights that illuminate to day Pharaonic monuments buildings and imaginative. The unexpected spectacle fascinates us and disenchantment, which is difficult to understand, maybe tomorrow ... in the light of day. Let's go to bed and, with even the hum of aircraft engines in your ears, we ask ourselves: what can one expect from the capital of this central Asian republic forgotten, located in the middle of the desert? Nothing would be the obvious answer, if it were not for the personality of its first citizen, as we will discover the next day.
Ashgabat reflects the temperament of the eccentric President Niyazov, father and master of the nation, hero of the people appointed by the Turkmen Parliament. Next to the sumptuous, as unnecessary, palaces and monuments scattered throughout the city, you can read characters left cubical enrollment, memories of Hitler, "Halk, Watan, Turkemenbashi" or "People, Nation and I". The portraits of Niyazov led everywhere as the advertising propaganda of the Ruhnama, "the spirit of the book" written by Niyazov himself, whose introduction is more than enough to frame the character.
"My dear Turkmen nation!
You are the meaning of my life and the source of my strength. I wish you a healthy life and strong.
This book, "Ruhnama", written with the help of inspiration to my heart sent by the God who created this wonderful universe, I write. "
After the dreadful earthquake of 6 October 1948 which claimed the lives of 110,000 people and the dark years of the Soviet regime, now lives Ashgabat and day after day looking for a new identity, at least in the eyes of foreigners, to the detriment, however, of the population. The city changing face because of the many works were built. Areas demolished to make room for these great works have cost the destruction of hundreds of homes and the consequent eviction of thousands of people. Today, housing nearly ruined alternate or new buildings under construction, some of which also have a certain allure, as can be "the Arch of Neutrality." On top is a statue of Niyazov coated in gold, 12 meters high and with his arms stretched toward the sun, it runs under the path of abstraction. What to say of the buildings of Independence Square which stands between that of "Turkmenbashi", with the golden dome, and the "Azadi mosque" in imitation of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul? The set so this is something of an anachronism. The cliché of the city in the desert resisting despite the endless fountains were built and the many green gardens, now an indelible mark on the city landscape. For Ashgabat is the largest fountain in the world a true pyramid 70 meters high on the flanks which rushed roaring waterfalls. Who then will for the first time in Ashgabat will be forced to think as they do not find a town in the middle of the desert. In certain periods you may even see the snowy peaks of the Kopet Dag to the border with Iran. A real gem, just behind the new National Theater, on a plinth typically Central Asia still dominates in the center of the square, one of the last remaining statue of Lenin standing after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. ... Until when? Who knows?
Before leaving Ashgabat try in vain to change, but the banks closed, forcing us to make use of the exchange rate in black. We find in a young, smart look and the bold, the man who does for us. He entered the courtyard of a palace and a simple whistle we fly from a balcony a bag chock full of bunch of manat. In the suburbs, finally, the buildings are all equal and alike in so many hives, given the plethora of satellite dishes mounted on the balconies or windows. The reason is simple: to Ashgabat the cinemas do not exist when Niyazov said the films are not part of the Turkmen. Nightlife is almost nonexistent. Pubs trend can be counted on the fingers of one hand and are brightened only on rare occasions, when he plays some complex local, but everything to the eleven. The premises are closed. For those who want to continue the evening, let it putting in one of three clubs in the city that have special licenses to get by until dawn.
Here is the skin, in our opinion, this megalomaniac capital emphatically that we could define a failure to modernity, and retaining to a certain extent many aspects of its Soviet past.
At the northern outskirts of the capital, after only a few kilometers, it was already in the desert. At a clearing, recognizable because of the hundreds of cars, vans and buses parked, is held every Sunday morning market Tolkuchka defined - the last corner of a bustling Asian world that was -. Thousands of faces the travel, endless liven the merchandise and a multitude of colors the color.
We arrive around nine, when the intense commercial activity is in the midst of its fervor. The abundance of products is' is that the market is a meeting place very animated. We parked the Nissan Terrano, a true jewel in the midst of old Lada 2107, and then up the road that leads to the arch of the door of entry. And if the crowd is here that we do not walk past the entrance is even worse. Outside the fenced dell'immenso air bazaar crouching meet women who sell their merchandise on the floor supports, on sheets of newspaper. Follow improvised stalls, most of which consist of large piles of onions, which in Turkmenistan are of all colors, white, green, red, then the eye can see vendors carrots, tomatoes, vegetables, spices and true and its expanses of car spare parts.
Behind the door, left, is the area reserved for rugs s'aggira where a colorful crowd that together with the prevailing red carpets all around creates a harmony of colors which has the charming. Carpet there are thousands: large and small, on the ground or hung in appropriate supports, rolled and unrolled. The harmony of the colors of silk comes in: wires, shawls, dresses.
Walking to the market men are recognizable because of the hats that lead: the colbacchi. The elderly, especially, still wearing the telpek, a large black hat sheepskin leather, along with khalat a dark-colored tunic. The women wear brightly colored shawls and long sweaters.