Christmas in Turkmenistan

by Helen Matthews

The Christmas trees were a bit of a surprise.

New Year display in Ashgabat

I have been on anti-Christmas trips before, only to find that seasonal kitsch is harder to escape that you might imagine. In Marrakech we found inflatable Santas in the souk and complimentary chocolate yule log in our hotel room. The lift in our Cairo hotel played a falsetto version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. This time, though, I thought I had finally cracked it. Turkmenistan is a former Soviet republic in Central Asia with a predominantly Muslim population, a Presidential personality cult and very few western tourists. Surely there would be no reminders of the seasonal festivities here?

It wasn’t long before I discovered how wrong I was. The road from the airport was practically lined with Christmas trees, adorned with giant bows and baubles. In the city centre, some of the public buildings even had tableaux with Santa and reindeer. It turned out that although Christmas isn’t celebrated in Turkmenistan, New Year is a major festival, and they just happen to celebrate it with decorated trees and St Nicholas (in both his Russian and western incarnations). The state television service even broadcast continuous footage of smiling children dancing round these trees, often in front of a smiling President.

Fortunately, I hadn’t come simply to escape Christmas. I had been intrigued by this most bizarre of the former Soviet Central Asian republics since I heard about President Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenbashi) erecting a revolving gold statue of himself, renaming a month after his mother and building a 37 km staircase into the mountains to exercise his civil servants. Turkmenbashi had died in 2006 and I wondered whether his successor, Kurbanguly Berdimukhamedov would have undone some of the worst excesses of the regime. I had heard rumours that the revolving gold statue was no more. Since summer temperatures are in the 40s and my Lonely Planet guide to Central Asia said that the December temperature in the capital, Ashgabat, was ‘above freezing’, the Christmas holiday seemed like a good time to go and find out.

The first clue that President Berdimukhamedov had not entirely erased the tradition of the Presidential personality cult came when we boarded our (delayed) Turkmenistan Airways flight to Ashgabat, and noticed that in the cabin was a large portrait – of President Berdimukhamedov. We were to see a great many more portraits of the President before the week was out. They were to be found in all public buildings, including the lobby of our hotel. The museums had a ‘Hall of President’ where photographs of the President in a series of poses could be admired: playing football and tennis; cooking outside a traditional Turkmen yurt; riding a horse; wearing academic robes etc.

The idolisation of the President seems strange to us, but there are reasons for it. Under the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan had been something of a backwater, even among the Central Asian republics, with neighbouring Uzbekistan and its tourist attractions of Samarkand and Bukhara getting more attention. Turkmenistan had only primary industries, producing oil, gas and cotton. Its reliance on imported foodstuffs meant that the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90s led to food rationing. In the opinion of our guide (or minder?) Murat, Mikhail Gorbachev wasn’t a hero, merely another politician who enriched himself at the expense of the people. But President Niyazov, a former Communist party official, developed the economy and saved the nation. Turkmenistan now grows its own wheat and rice, and every family has at least one car. The country’s oil and gas resources mean that the inhabitants get a free petrol allowance and cheap electricity. President Niyazov also had the task of forming a modern nation and national identity from a former Soviet republic that had previously been populated by nomadic tribes. He did this by writing an idiosyncratic national myth or history, The Ruhnama, a book which was required reading in every school. The Ruhmama now has its own monument in the centre of Ashgabat. But then there are many monuments in Ashgabat.

Ruhnama Monument

The city was flattened by an earthquake in 1948, and is therefore very new. On the way from the airport, we drove first through the ‘old’ part, built in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, with low houses and tall trees, then past the later Soviet-style blocks, until we reached the 21st century post-independence zone in which the government seems intent on converting a major chunk of their oil revenue into huge, white marble buildings and monuments. Many of the new buildings in Ashgabat have a symbolic design: the Education ministry is an open book, the Gas ministry a lighter, the Health Ministry a hypodermic. It is a good place to be an architect. One of the stranger buildings is a giant ferris wheel: Ashgabat’s answer to the London Eye, but with the centre enclosed in white marble. We didn’t venture inside, but Murat told us that the view is rather restricted. The area outside this wheel was a forest of New Year trees - a prime location for the dancing children. Even the old Tochulka Bazaar, Turkmenistan’s equivalent of the Sunday market at Kashgar, has been rebuilt with gleaming marble pavilions; a shopping centre selling everything from traditional Turkmen clothing and disgruntled camels to fridges.

The only variation from white marble is gold leaf. Rumours of the demise of the Arch of Neutrality, with its rotating gold statue of Turkmenbashi, turned out to be exaggerated. The entire edifice had merely been relocated from the city centre to a park on the southern side of the city. Its gold statue might be large, but it turned out not to be that unusual. The Monument to the Independence of Turkmenistan (also known as ‘The Plunger’) is surrounded by fountains and large gilded statues of Turkmen figures. From there it is but a short walk to another gold statue of Turkmenbashi.

Monument to the Independence of Turkmenistan

Aside from Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan’s two claims to fame are the Akhal-Teke breed of horses and carpets, both relics of the nomadic past. The Akhal-Teke horses naturally have their own white marble and gold monument, and are a source of national pride. Turkmenbashi once sent one to John Major as a gift - it ended up on a stud farm in Wales. Carpets, which provided the ‘furniture’ of the traditional felt tents or yurts, are if anything more important. Each of the five regions of Turkmenistan has its own traditional design, and these five patterns appear on the national flag and many government buildings. The Carpet Museum in Ashgabat contains the largest hand-woven carpet in the world, complete with a certificate from the Guinness Book of Records. Turkmenbashi’s signature is of course woven in to the design.

We were told that mobile phones would not work in Turkmenistan, that internet access was restricted and that hotel rooms were routinely bugged. Online reviews of our hotel mention men in suits hovering in the corridors, presumably spying on the guests. Well, my smartphone worked perfectly well – soon after arrival I received a ‘Welcome to Turkmenistan’ message with details about roaming fees. I was able to call home and send and receive texts with no problems. We were able to use an internet café in the Yimpaş shopping centre. We had to register by depositing our passports, and access to Facebook was blocked, but there were no problems with checking email or accessing the BBC website. I have no idea whether our hotel room was bugged, but I saw no suspicious men in the corridor. [If it was bugged, I hope the 'buggers' enjoyed the Dalek Empire audio we were listening to.]

On Christmas Day we had a free day on our own, and I saw no signs of our being followed. Of course this might have been because so many buildings had policemen stationed outside them to stop passers-by from doing anything alarming, such as taking photographs or walking on the wrong side of the pavement. (Photography in Ashgabat is fine, as long as you are not taking a picture of the Presidential Palace or a Ministry Building. You may walk past the Presidential Palace, as long as you cross the road first.) We were probably within sight of an official of some sort the whole time we were exploring, not least when we dropped into a café for elevenses only to find that every other customer was a policeman. They appeared to be too interested in their games of chess to pay us much attention, however, as we drank our cups of Earl Grey and ate our complimentary fun-size Bounty bars.

Nissa, Boxing Day 2012

On Boxing Day, we discovered that the ‘above freezing’ temperatures in Ashgabat might also have been something of an exaggeration. We awoke to find it was snowing heavily, but we set off for the Parthian city of Nissa regardless. It was an interesting new experience to visit an archaeological site in the snow. It was treacherously slippery, particularly because we couldn’t see what was under the snow. Nissa is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it was quite difficult to appreciate that what looked like heaps of snow were actually column bases in the throne room of a Parthian palace.
 

 After Nissa, we went to the Niyazov family mausoleum and the neighbouring mosque, built on the epicentre of the 1948 earthquake, and discovered in the process that snow on polished marble is even more treacherously slippery. We later discovered that Turkmen carpet has its uses as a non-slip all-weather surface.

That afternoon we were due to fly to Mary, in order to visit the Silk Road city of Merv. At the airport, we were able to go through security, but were then told that Mary airport was closed owing to the bad weather. It was at around this point that I discovered that average winter temperatures in Mary were considerably colder than in Ashgabat. After an announcement that the flight was delayed until 10.00 p.m. Murat decided not to wait at the airport, but our car had already left and, to his disgust, the taxis wanted three times the usual fare, despite being Government-run. He had previously told us that in Turkmenistan you could flag down any car if you couldn’t find a taxi. This gave him an opportunity to demonstrate. We therefore got into a private car and returned slowly, as the roads were by now quite treacherous, to our hotel, where we had dinner and prepared for a long wait. Murat called us later to say that he hadn’t been able to get any information from the airport, but his contact in Mary said the weather was improving so he suggested we go back to the airport in the hope that the flight would depart. I was not that keen on leaving a nice warm safe hotel for a dangerous drive to the airport and a possibly non-existent flight, but off we went. There was quite a bit of confusion at the airport about when or if the flight would depart, and we nearly returned to the hotel again, but we were finally allowed to board the plane at 12.15 a.m. Or at least that is what we thought. We trekked carefully down the stairs (whilst carpet is a very good anti-slip covering in the snow, it can be a tripping hazard if it slips down) and then had to stand shivering at the bottom of the stairs whilst there was some talk of a bus. Eventually we were told to walk across the icy tarmac to the plane, where we faced another chilly wait until we were actually allowed on board.

On safe arrival in Mary we had another slippery, snowy trudge to the terminal. The luggage arrived promptly and we were taken to our hotel in a Russian 4WD reeking of petrol. We awoke to find that there was no power, heating or water in our room, or, it transpired, the hotel in general. Or the whole city, for that matter. Over a cold breakfast, Murat told us that three of the five regions of Turkmenistan were without power, as one of the country’s two power stations had failed. However, he assured us that this was unheard of and that as the job of the minister responsible would be on the line, he would be giving it his personal attention, so we were not to worry. I thought in the circumstances it was unlikely that we would be going anywhere that day, but shortly after 10.30 a.m. we set off for Merv in a nice warm Land Rover. I was greatly reassured when Murat told us that the café where we were due to have lunch cooked on a barbecue, so there was a prospect of hot food later. As it turned out there was no need to worry as the power was restored by the time we returned. I don’t know whether the minister kept his job.

 Merv


Snowy sightseeing at Merv was slightly easier than at Nissa. Partly because as a medieval city, more of it survives above the ground, and partly because the size of the historical area meant that we travelled round it in the Land Rover. The only thing we were unable to do was to go up onto the ramparts. We had no difficulty in seeing the other sights, including the Mausoleum of Seljuk Sultan Sanjar, the city walls, the mausolea of two Ashkabs (standard-bearers of the prophet) and the house of the forty women (supposedly so-named because the eponymous women leapt from the windows to escape a fate worse than death at the hands of the Mongol hordes.)

House of the Forty Women, Merv

Maybe in retrospect midwinter in Central Asia wasn’t such a good idea from a sightseeing point of view, but it was certainly an adventure, and if I had come at another time of year I would have missed the Christmas, sorry, New Year trees.


First published in Visa 110