There is an interesting piece posted recently on Foreign Policy’s website that highlights how authoritarian-minded leaders in Eurasia are becoming adept at leveraging thuggish behavior.
The article, titled “The League of Authoritarian Gentlemen,” is written by Alex Cooley, a Central Asia specialist at Columbia University. It examines the ways in which Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have used the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to stifle dissent.
Turkmenistan’s largest gas field Galkynysh (also known as South Yolotan), according to a much disputed report from Gaffney, Cline & Associates, is the world's second-largest, with gas reserves of between 13.1 trillion and 21.2 trillion cubic metres.
Turkmenistan’s largest gas field Galkynysh (also known as South Yolotan), according to a much disputed report from Gaffney, Cline & Associates, is the world's second-largest, with gas reserves of between 13.1 trillion and 21.2 trillion cubic metres.
A wedding is usually a special day for two people in love. But in the land of The Protector, three’s the charm.
Couples tying the knot in the famously overbearing state are now being forced to pose for their keepsake photo before a portrait of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the Chronicles of Turkmenistan reported this week.
The website, run by Turkmen exiles in Vienna, says couples who want to register their marriage have to pay photographers at registry offices – known as Palaces of Happiness – for a photo album containing at least three photos of the newlyweds taken with a portrait of The Protector, as Berdymukhamedov likes to be known.
It is unknown whether the gimmick was dreamed up by registrars and photographers as a money-making scam or whether orders were received from on high to insert The Protector into every couple’s married life. But the report says the new requirement has appeared not only in the capital, Ashgabat, but also in other major towns.
Berdymukhamedov has slightly less of a reputation for eccentricity than his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, whose antics included building a giant golden statue of himself, which rotated with the sun, and renaming months after himself and his family. Yet Berdymukhamedov is no shrinking violet: Like his predecessor, who went by the title Turkmenbashi (“Head of the Turkmens”), all over the country The Protector has plastered photos of himself staring down upon his subjects. He even appears as a dashboard good-luck charm in taxicabs.
For almost two decades, Turkmenistan took steps to seal itself off from outside influences and tightened the state’s grip over all aspects of the economy.
Last week the US State Department Senior Advisor, Office of the Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, Daniel Stein, visited Ashgabat to discuss cooperation in the energy sector, saying that the US values Turkmenistan’s energy strategy and the country’s initiatives to ensure global energy security.
