Qualla: Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gilad Rom, CC BY 2.5. The golden statue used to rotate to face the sun. Twelve meters tall, erected atop an arch in Ashgabat, it depicted President Saparmurat Niyazov, who had renamed himself Turkmenbashi, "Father of All Turkmen." He also renamed the months of the year, banned ballet and lip-syncing, closed hospitals outside the capital, and required every citizen to study his self-authored book, the Ruhnama, to obtain a driver's license. Niyazov died of a heart attack in 2006. The statue was eventually moved. But the country he shaped remains one of the strangest and most impenetrable on the planet, a Central Asian nation where only ten to twenty thousand tourists are permitted entry each year.

Read more: Turkmenistan on Qualla

Image: Gilad Rom | CC BY 2.5

Turkmenistan: The Land Beneath the Sand

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit flydime, CC BY 2.0. Eighty percent of Turkmenistan is desert. The Karakum, meaning "Black Sand," covers roughly 350,000 square kilometers, making it the largest desert in Central Asia and, combined with the neighboring Kyzylkum in Uzbekistan, the fourth-largest desert system in the world. The countr...

Read more: Turkmenistan on Qualla

Image: flydime | CC BY 2.0

Turkmenistan: Ruins Along the Road

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hans Birger Nilsen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Turkmenistan's cities were once major nodes on the Silk Road, and the ruins prove it. Merv, thirty kilometers from modern Mary, was among the largest cities in the world before the Mongol devastation of the thirteenth century. Three sites in Turkmenistan hold UNESCO World Heritag...

Read more: Turkmenistan on Qualla

Image: Hans Birger Nilsen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Turkmenistan: Ashgabat, City of White Marble

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gulzar Nurlyyeva, CC BY-SA 4.0. The capital was completely leveled by a massive earthquake in 1948, an event so catastrophic that the Soviet government suppressed information about the death toll for decades. What rose in its place, especially after independence, is a city unlike any other in Central Asia. Glea...

Read more: Turkmenistan on Qualla

Image: Gulzar Nurlyyeva | CC BY-SA 4.0

Turkmenistan: The Dynasty Continues

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cabinet Public Relations Office of the Cabinet Secretariat, CC BY 4.0. After Niyazov's death, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, a dentist by profession, became the country's second president. He rolled back some of his predecessor's most extreme decrees but maintained the authoritarian system and developed his own personality cult, adopting the title Arkad...

Read more: Turkmenistan on Qualla

Image: Cabinet Public Relations Office of the Cabinet Secretariat | CC BY 4.0

Turkmenistan: The Traveler's Dilemma

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kerri-Jo Stewart from Vancouver, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Visiting Turkmenistan requires navigating one of the world's most restrictive visa regimes. Tourist visas are available only through guided tours that cover the entire duration of a stay. Independent travelers typically rely on transit visas, usually granted for three to seven da...

Read more: Turkmenistan on Qualla

Image: Kerri-Jo Stewart from Vancouver, Canada | CC BY 2.0