Featured Image Credit: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / Contributor / Getty
Chances are, you probably haven't heard of Ashgabat. In fact, most of you probably don't know it's the capital of Turkmenistan. Despite a population of over 1,000,000 residents, the deserted streets of Ashgabat have led to it being nicknamed the City of the Dead.
Turkmenistan might not seem like a tourist hotspot, but with the Gateway to Hell burning for 50 years, and Ashgabat being a fascinating lure for so-called 'dark tourists', more and more people are trying to get a peek inside this gleaming monument of marble.
Ashgabat is said to be almost as strict as North Korea, with one man who grew up there explaining how leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov demands that people aren't allowed to open their windows when he drives past.
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Speaking to The Guardian in 2017, Stanislav Volkov explained what it was like growing up in Ashgabat and how it changed over the years. According to him, Ashgabat used to be known as the 'garden city', but things changed when it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. He referred to life under the late President Saparmurat Niyazov as a 'cult', describing how he rebuilt the city in his own image by destroying dozens of historical monuments and hundreds of houses. In Volkov's own words: "In their place, high-rise buildings were built, faced with white marble. Almost all the perennial trees were cut down, replaced by coniferous trees unsuited to a dry climate and giving little shadow.
"New highways were laid, and the irrigation system of canals, which created the city’s special microclimate, was almost completely destroyed. In place of the old tea spots are car parks or outright wastelands."
Although he got to leave in 2006, a lack of money meant he had to move back just a year later. Things were even worse under Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, with the new President trying to erase Niyazov and instigating a $2.3 billion airport build for a transportation hub that lies mainly empty. Berdimuhamedov hates animals, while animal advocates who report executions of them to the foreign media are threatened with violence, denied access to the internet, and have criminal cases made up against them.
Independent journalist Saparmamed Nepeskuliyev apparently tried to report the situation on bad road conditions, a lack of drinking water, and problems in the health and education systems, but worringly, he's vanished into the prison system.
After Volkov spoke to another independent journalist and reported on the 'real' story of Ashgabat, he ended up on the radar of the security services. He says he was cut off from the internet and attacked in the street. In 2017, he claims he went to a grocery store and was splashed with diluted acid. Having sold the apartment he inherited from his mother, Volkov eventually managed to leave Turkmenistan but was detained at the airport for 20 minutes.
Unemployment in Ashgabat had supposedly climbed to 60%, with Volkov saying he has no reason to go back because he doesn't recognize any of the place where he grew up. He concludes saying: "There is no justice in Turkmenistan, because the entire judicial system is in the hands of the president and the Ministry of National Security, which he controls.
"State media are a mouthpiece of power, regularly calling the president a 'hero' and describing him as 'respected', and the time of his reign is never anything but an era of power and happiness. And people are afraid to say a word against the authorities."
