August 10 was Turkmenistan Melon Day, a time of gushing state propaganda and presidential encomiums to the "Era of Great Revival" as Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has dubbed his own administration. As the Turkmen leader said in a speech to mark the occasion:
Today our country, confidently achieving high levels of economic and cultural development, is moving toward the bright future with a purposeful stride. Reinforcing the foundations of state independence, Turkmenistan is following the path of cardinal reforms, the successful implementation of which is made possible by the unity, solidarity, and love of work of our people, which reflects the deep essence of the era of new Revival and great transformation.
The president said Turkmen melons had "gained worldwide fame and had amazed the world with their sweetness and were part of the great heritage of the Turkmen people". He promised that the government would "continue to provide every support to rural workers whose selfless labor contributed to improving the welfare of the Motherland and ensuring the food security of the country.
It would be hard to find something more to say after these homages to the great gourds, but the sharp-eyed folks at the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR) who maintain the website Chronicles of Turkmenistan did notice something different about the photos in the state media this year -- all the melons looked the same.
Photo after photo shows pale oblong-shaped melons of the type known as "Vakharman" (which is apparently made up from a phrase that translates as "Oh! I could eat more but I'm full!), or more obviously, "torpedos". These melons differ from the photos you can see on Flickr of even a few years ago with piles of various shapes and sizes and colors.
TIHR says out of 400 types of melons once known in Turkmenistan, only a dozen remain. Some have grown rare and expensive and are doled out only in slices at some provincial markets.
A number of factors combined to reduce the varieties, says TIHR: the dismantling after independence of state-owned farms where the specialized melons were once cultivated; conversion of crops to cotton and wheat; and the loss of the science of melon-breeding when the entire Academy of Sciences was closed down under past dictator Saparmurat Niyazov. Niyazov in fact was the leader who established Melon Day in 1994, and even named a melon "Turkmenbashi" after his own title, which means "head of all Turkmen".
Also blamed for the reduction in strains are pests which spread particularly in the seasons of 2003-2005, and while killed off somewhat during the record cold winter of 2007-2008, still did a lot of damage.
Now the Academy of Sciences has been restored, and there is hope that eventually the lost art of melon-growing will be recovered.
Turkmen farmers are caught on a hard road somewhere between the Soviet collective farm past and the agribusiness future. Farmers rent parcels, and have to grow what the state tells them, and sell at state prices. A common story told on Chronicles of Turkmenistan is about the long-suffering mother who has to take the family's meager crops on long train rides to sell them in the big city.
You're late by a day -- but it's still possible to share your feeling of "cucurbitaceous abundance" by sending a greeting card to your friends to celebrate Turkmen Melon Day -- and set your calendar for next year.
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