First impression of Ashgabat and Turkmenistan is a feeling of certain unreality. When I stood on the balcony of a multi-storey Hotel President (gold-plated interiour, barocco room decor but cash only) and viewed the panorame of the city I had to keep reminding myself that I am on this planet and not on some Dalek-land. It is as if a certain magician created a city in a desert so clean and so white that it is enchanting to the beholder, but was jealous enough not to populate it with messy humans. Rarely a car passed below on a great night-lit avenue going towards the rotating Niyazov monument.
Situated between the Kara Kum Desert and the Kopet Dag mountain range, Ashgabat has a population of about 400,000. It is a relatively new town, carved out of an aul (Turkmen village) of the same name in 1818. Its original founding fathers were Russian troops who landed in Krasnovodsk (present-day Turkmenbashy) in 1869 and who built a fortress on a high hill to accommodate their administation. Today it is so unreal that nothing reminds us of the past.
First of all everything was demolished in the earthquake of 1948, and secondly - it was rebuild according to a grand plan. The Grand Plan of Turkmenbashi The Great.
People
People are very friendly and warm- our ethnic cousins on the other side of the Caspian, whose language and customs are familiar. But theirs is definetely more Asian lifestyle - reserved, quiet and intravert. We - hot tempered Caucasians exist on a different frequency with our closest kin. While ours are unceasing European ambitions and chaotic Middle Eastern reality, theirs is Asian despotism, hierarchy and tradition. They look towards us, Azeris and see their wayward, chaotic relatives that are intriguing and exotic to them. We see opulence and hierarchy we wish we had.
But in addition Ashgabat is also very Soviet and Stalinist in ways Baku just can not be. Monumental public spaces, libraries, gardens, theatres, huge apartment blocks and mosques (his is the biggest mosque in Central Asia) leave nothing to imagination - they are staggering.
There is general feeling of change in the air, i had not seen fear in people's eyes and was able to communicate relatively freely with anyone I wanted.
Observations
Generally, there is an exceptional amount of beauracracy, but everyone I have met was courteous, polite and helpful to degree they could. Soldiers man grounds, but they polite and never ask for favours or a bribe. There is a very limited internet dial-up service at some hotels, bu recently a first internet cafe has opened in town, with people flocking to read uncensored news.
Mobile network is well developed locally, but our phones were only accepting incoming calls. Public transport (buses) is clean and spaceous and generally on time. Bread, electricity and gas are free, fuel prices are subsidized, so I have no doubt that majority of ethnically Turkmen population is more or less content.
