Turkmenistan has some weird and wonderful places to visit, but with it being one of the least-visited countries of the world and only receiving between 10,000 and 20,000 foreign tourists a year, many of you are missing out on its sights and sounds.
Alongside the so-called Gateway to Hell that's been burning for 50 years, Turkmenistan is also home to the 'City of the Dead', officially named Ashgabat. The world got a peek inside Turkmenistan's capital during an episode of Netflix's Dark Tourist, with documentarian David Farrier heading there for the 2018 miniseries. Despite spending $14 billion to bring this shining city to life, a 2022 census claims that only 1,030,063 people live there.
Even then, it seems hard to find any of them, with Ashgabat earning its 'City of the Dead' name due to its streets being eerily empty. A 1948 earthquake killed two-third of Ashgabat's population and flattened much of the city, but under the rule of the late Saparmurat Niyazov's, his "White City" urban renewal project saw Ashgabat grow into a dystopian city that has the record for the world's highest concentration of white marble buildings. After founding 'new Ashgabat' in the early noughties, Niyazov said: "We shall only build with white marble. Greedy people don’t get it, they seek for other materials, we have to give orders."
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In a 2017 article from The Guardian, Stanislav Volkov explained what it was like living Ashgabat, and while it's a seemingly idyllic place that also houses the world's biggest indoor Ferris wheel, that doesn't seem to be the full story.
After the death of Niyazov, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov took power and apparently unleashed "a new wave of destruction in the city." Saying how Berdimuhamedov wanted to remove the memory of Niyazov, Volkov said: "He initiated ‘reconstruction’ of the central avenue, named after Niyazov, meaning it was entirely torn up. He built his new palace there, demolishing dozens of houses for the purpose, and blocked an entire street to the public, turning it into his personal boulevard."
Ashgabat has been dubbed the 'new' North Korea due to its strict rules, censorship, and lack of access to outside news, and apparently that has made its way into the homes of its people. Volkov confirmed: "Along any central street through which the president might pass, it is forbidden to open windows, install air conditioners or satellite dishes and hang clothes."
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Even though authorities invested heavily in infrastructure, hot summer months led to some people spending days without water or electricity, all while "the centre of the city fountains flow around the clock and lights burn brightly for no one."
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There's an international bus terminal that didn't serve an international route for its first five years, while a bird-shaped airport cost $2.3 billion and is supposed to handle 1,600 passengers an hour, only operating at 10% capacity.
To make the airport, around 50,000 people lost their homes as 10,000 buildings were destroyed. Apparently, the President was worried that visitors would see the 'unattractive' houses of everyday people as they arrived on planes.
Journalists are jailed, and Volkov claims he once had acid thrown on him. As Farrier noted in Dark Tourist, those in power want to portray Ashgabat as a very different place from what it actually is.