Ashgabat apparently means city of love in Turkmen, but more rececntly it has been renamed the white city and I am told has an entry in the Guinness book of records for the number of white marble buildings. In contrast to yesterday the sun shone brightly lifting my mood. Overnight I have also rejigged my itinerary to accommodate the blip in the Uzbek visa. It does, though, mean that I will cross into Afghanistan. I must admit to having second thoughts lately but I will literally day trip across and not stay a night. I am comfortable with this plan.
Today was a long walking day and after 7 hours non stop I have seen and photographed all there is to see here including a couple of surreptitious ones of the parliament and presidential palace which are no go zones.
The buildings here are really mindblowing. They are massive and ostentatious in size and design and the white marble with gold trim means everything literally sparkles. The only problem is they look so out of place here recalling more Europe than central Asia. As I can’t put my photos up at this time have a look online yourself, this site has a good collection: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/06/the-city-of-white-marble-ashgabat-turkmenistan/100528/.
As I wander from building to monumental buildings the amazing thing is that there is no sign of life in any of them. Apart from the occasional gardener working outside there is noone. The ticket office to the Palace of fine arts is empty there are no punters here nor at the museum at the monument of Independence. The surrounding car parks are empty. The parklands are also devoid of peolple enjoying them and weeds are in the ascendant in many of them. The parks also reveal Turkmenbashi’s other fixation apart from marble and gold namely fountains and in many areas it looks a bit like waterworld!
The large amusement park lies empty and pathetic in the heart of town and judging by the weed overgrowth it has not been used for years. The giant white marble gates stand empty, the ticket offices closed. The car park around the white marble pyramid shaped shopping centre is almost empty. There are anly three shops inside the complex, one is closed. Most of Turkmenbashi,s magnificent creations are sterile.
As an overview of this ex Soviet nation I am happy to report that despite the millions that have been wasted on the folly of these buildings to satisfy the ego of a dictator, the people here seem happy and enjoy a good standard of living. everything is westernised, there is plenty of food and almost no beggars here. The economy should be strong on the back of massive reserves of natural gas. While they are all state owned and are used to support the lavish lifestyle and the massive marble palace that belongs to the president, some must trickle down to the people.
The locals are also very curious of tourists and are friendly and accommodating. Yesterday a guy drove me to the bank for my payment for the Uzbek visa. I assumed he was a taxi (they are completely unmarked here) but when I went to pay he refused and shook my hand. The restaurant owner 2 nights ago shouted me a beer just because I am a tourist. He speaks no English and I speak neither Russian nor Turkmen so I still don’t know why. Speaking of restaurants, the food is also a surprise, lots of BBG meat, shashlyks etc but also great Russian food, not at all what I expected.
I may be offline for a few days as I am heading out into the desert. The feature here is the Darvaza gas crater where I will be camping out overnight. Now if you didn’t look at the Asgabat link, please do have a look at this one, its awsome: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/06/the-city-of-white-marble-ashgabat-turkmenistan/100528/