Turkmenistan: the North Korea of Central Asia

The history of Turkmenistan and the post-Soviet nations of Central Asia is a mosaic of mysterious, fascinating, and often unknown events to us Westerners. In this documentary, we will focus on Turkmenistan, one of the world's strangest, most bizarre, and insane dictatorships, whose regime began in 1991 with the rise to power of president Saparmurat Niyazov (and continued today with successor Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow). Why is Turkmenistan considered a despotic isolationist tyranny, forgotten and extravagant? Is it based only on Turkmen gas and oil and international relations with Asian great powers such as Russia and China? Let's discover together the roots and quirks of the personality cult of one of the most enigmatic leaders.

Sources:
1) Abbott (2016), Turkmenistan History: Origins and Early history, Society, Social Structure, the Economy, Government and Politics.
2) Edgar (2004), Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan.
3) Gleason (2018), The Central Asian States: Discovering Independence.
4) Hiro (2009), Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz stan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Iran.
5) Rasizade (2003), Turkmenbashi and his Turkmenistan.
6) Tranum (2010), Daily Life in Turkmenbashy's Golden Age.
7) Zabortseva (2018), Niyazov's Ideology and its Symbolism: The Cult of the Leader, Nationalism and its Suppression of Critical Thinking

[roozbehkhodaverdian]

As an Iranian, Turkmenistan is by far our most invisible neighbor. No news from them. No voice. No nothing. Only Turkmen we know was Niyazov. We read in elementary school they export gas and cotton. But that's about it. It's like being next to a beachless sea. Or a void.

[troodon]

"No rights were ever violated in the country." Technically true; people's rights can't be violated when they don't have any.

[MalikaBurievaAtabeg]

as an american uzbek-turkmen that was born & raised in the U.S., i like to learn more about the country that i’m half of. my dad, who’s turkmen, is the first generation of his family to be born outside of turkmenistan. he was born in samarkand, uzbekistan, so we both like to learn about turkmenistan together since we never had the chance to be exposed to the culture as we’re connected with uzbek culture more. thank you for making this video and educating a fellow turkmen like myself :)

[Tuppoo]

I've met a Turkmen guy, and heard from him that back in the day the Turkmen government made natural gas free. However, apparently almost everything else remained expensive in the isolated country, and the combination created very strange market distortions and failures. For example, people would leave their gas stoves on 24/7, because it was cheaper than using matches to relight the fire.

[denispol]

In Turkmenistan the following sentence makes perfect sense:
In Turkmenbashi, Turkmenbashi returned to Turkmenbashi's Turkmenbashi on Turkmenbashi from Turkmenbashi
Which means in January Niazov returned to Ashabad's Turkmenbashi hotel on Turkmenbashi street from Turkmenbashi airport .

[morsine]

as an Iranian, we've learned and heard about a lot of countries. but Turkmenistan is a country we've only saw on our school textbooks. never heard anything about it, never saw anything of it. this video was recommended and it made me curious, and I thought, what is it like in Turkmenistan? a question I thought about a few times, but never took the time to search for an answer.

[ianmcquestionable]

Central Asia has always been super interesting to me as an overlooked part of the world, but Turkmenistan in particular has always fascinated me the most; how bizarre its government has been while simultaneously being unheard of in many places.

[donquaviuslaquariusdinglen]

Fascinating country. I have a close friend who is Turkmen, and despite not living there now he has occasionally visited the place. I've gotten to hear all of the horrible stuff going on there, the lack of necessities etc. The people really deserve better, but it doesn't help that theyre essentially brainwashed from the birth.

[ngc]

My math teacher is Turkmen, he came to the US at age 15 (currently 27); when I ask him about it he speaks of the country fondly but doesn't go into to much detail

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

While it is an honor to be compared to other nations, it is pretty clear no nation can be as supreme and Chad as the DPRK. No matter how many times he does donuts around a firepit

[fatihakmese]

In Turkey our neighbour has a gardener who was a Turkmen illegal worker since both people are Turkic it was easy to understand each other and While i was curious about our ancient homeland i asked to him regarding Turkmenistan. One thing was really shocking, if you will travel during night time you need a permission from police. I mean if you like to visit your parents or friends, just to go there you need to inform authorities so they will know where you are every minute of the day. The gentlmen was thinking it is still ok but only problem for him about his country of unemployement so he was thinking he will save some money in Turkey and return back to Turkmenistan. He had more serious problems than money but he was not aware.

[RostamBahadur]

I'm from Afghanistan, southern neighbor of Turkmenistan and literally never heard anything about Turkmenistan.

[Alex-zryl]

Thanks for yet another great historical video. I hope this channel grows as the Italian one. You totally deserve it.

[lunar.enigma]

I have a friend who lives in Turkmenistan. I'm not sure if she knows how corrupt the government is there, but I've never brought it up in case either of us get in trouble for it. I also did a report on Turkmenistan and learned lots of stuff about it. Very interesting.

[adlikanahau]

Thank you very much for discussing my country, whether it's in a positive or negative way, this video is very good for introducing my quiet country to the whole world 🇹🇲🇹🇲🇹🇲

[burakcetav]

As a Turk from Turkey. The state of Turkemenistan saddens me deeply.

[krekouzas]

I visited the country back in 2018! I remember that our first try for a VISA for the country was rejected because in our photos for the application we had beard!!! When we tried again for a new VISA with new photos, fresh shaved, out VISA was approved!!! Strange country and very very interesting. But we felt safe, and it was fun to be there and experience many of the details that you said in the video!!!

[galladesamurai]

It's interesting that Ashgabat is like the world's biggest ghost town and the most lavish city in probably the entire world while everyone else is living in huts in the desert in poverty, this is why I love learning about stuff like this, it's interesting and fascinating and sometimes a little too bizzar to be real, yet it is)

[andarara-cp]

-Niyazov forbids having dogs because they smell and is pro-western.
- He owns a frigging dog and builds a golden statue of him.

[ZeroForce]

You said the Karakum desert almost makes up 90% of the country’s land, but the visual representation looks like only about 60%. Other than that, great video! Keep it up.