Why Ashgabat, Turkmenistan is the World's Most Expensive City

Video written by Ben Doyle

[christophegaudreau]

Canadians don't have to pay for maple syrup at the grocery store. We usually get it in weird cans from an obscur member of our familly who owns a maple grove and who runs a mini cartel of sugary water.

[TrolledBy]

I once got Ashgabat in Geoguessr, and thought it was Pyongyang because everything was gold and there were no people

[isa-mfvq]

Favorite quote: "But much like a puzzle with only one piece placed, that's only one piece of the puzzle"

[ShortHax]

I swear Ashgabat is like singleplayer Minecraft world with a pro builder

[JonathonV]

As a Canadian I can confirm that the free maple syrup in Canada isn’t an accurate picture. However, paying the $186/month for Internet service … you’ve got a bargain there, Turkmenistan!

[jrzy.r]

I lived in Ashgabat around ten years ago when I was still a child. I don't remember much but it was s surreal experience. Most of the cities were empty, and I often heard the rumor that the highrise apartment cleaners turned on the lights in uninhabited units to make it seem like someone lived in them. The entire city seemed abandoned on most days.

[davideisenberg]

It is worth noting that there is no need to use the official exchange rate. I remember that when I got off the boat in Turkmenistan, even the information woman at the port, a government employee, told me to go to the local bazaar and ask around to find a black market money changer. If you do that, things are very affordable. You can have a good meal in Ashgabat for ~US$1 and an overnight train in a 2nd class sleeper ran ~US$5. IIRC a taxi from place to place in the city was something like $0.50~2.00 depending on distance and a bus was much less than that.

Hotel prices for foreigners are fixed at a rate ~10x higher than for locals, at least at budget establishments. I stayed at what seemed to be the cheapest hotel in the city that was allowed to accept foreigners and it was $10/night for a pretty small and bare bones room with one single bed.

[markhenley]

Because you have to buy 100 portraits of Turkmenistan's President with everything you buy.

[chraman]

The people who I know that fled Turkmenistan told me about the situation. It is not as bad as protrayed as no one uses the official exchange rate. It hat always been fixed as far as I know, but at a lower rate.


Turkmenistan suffers from its location. It has lots of gas but nowhere to sell to. To the south there is no ocean, there is only Iran which is not really willing to let Turkmen gas shipped through its ports as that would be competition for Iran, which is a major natural gas producing nation itself. There is a pipeline structure to Russia from soviet times, but Russia also does not want competition and is not willing to sell Turkmen gas. After the independence they were buying it at basically production cost and selling to Europe at market prices but they stopped since ties with Turkmenistab worsened. China has emerged as a customer, but as they are the only real customer left they can dictate prices; everybody wants to sell gas to China as it is a big and rapidly growing market. China lended Turkmenistan money for the pipeline construction and is profiting off of that, the earnings are barely enough to pay back that loan + interest.

The only real hope was a pipeline to India and Pakistan through Afghanistan which is under construction. There have been countless delays and all that and now that the Afghan government has been replaced we have to see what is happening. May god help these people and this country!

[marc-andreservant]

As a Canadian, I can confirm that our maple syrup is quite expensive. The supply is limited due to provincial regulations, we export quite a lot, and it's a lot harder to make than say corn syrup. Maple syrup is a delicacy, not a staple.

[JouvaMoufette]

Morshu be all "Come back to Ashgabat when you're a little, mmm, richer"

[TheGIGACapitalist]

When you make your mom mad at you so you have to rename a month after her to try and make it up to her...

[heichan]

Me seeing my well developed city between Ashgabat and Beirut: Sweat nervously

[shafo]

I have been to Ashgabat on a mission to visit all the Asian countries in 2016, and I'll tell you this, visiting Turkmenistan is like visiting a whole new world. Its literally a ghost town with giant marble buildings gazing right down at you, at first it looks like another Dubai, but once you visit the outskirts of the municipal city, you'll see rundown houses where majority people live. Hard to watch...however not even close to how hard it was to getting the visa 😂😂😂

[Yamezzzz]

I live in Ashgabat and got really excited when I saw the notification with the first couple words but now I see the full title of the video I'm sad :(

I pay nearly £300 a month for internet (350€ or 500 USD)
This last weekend I got a small bottle of Heineken for about a tenner (12€ or 16 USD)

Petrol and transport is extremely cheap though, but I don't really go anywhere domestically. A lot of places take pound sterling or roubles too despite the price being in manat

Edit: lol the video said a month of internet is $186, that might be true if you only ever want to watch YouTube in 144p. That internet is absolutely useless. Good broadband is about $500, where I get around 50-80mb/s

[SpiralNuggets]

"the "cat runs an airforce" part was a joke"

we actually had an airforce general who is a dog here in thailand

[buraksimsek]

I feel sorry for the suffering Turkmen people living under the mindless dictators rule.

[ArmyFrog]

Hopefully this video will finally make me stop mixing up Ashgabat and Dushanbe as the capitals of Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and allow me to finally associate one capital with its respective country. You know, a problem every normal person has.

[platurt]

At least you can listen to some good music produced by supreme leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow

[yayotron]

Lol we had the same problem in Venezuela with the exchange rate control. What's funny is that it ended up benefitting me once, when I was going to leave the country I found a job with a relocation package which will cover everything I'd spend to get a visa, I ended up spending like 80$ but they had to pay it back to me at the official rate, ended up being 4500$ 😂😂