Hotel President Ashgabat

... and creator of lavish palaces and buildings. Turkmenbashi died in 2006 and was replaced by current President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Everything is grand and white in Ashgabat. Even the streets look white and most of the buildings are built from white ...

... to be him.  If that wasn't bad enough, it got worse.  There is a tower with a gold (what else?) statue representing the President on top - nothing odd there you cry, true, but 'he' rotates, wait for it, to follow the path of the sun!!  ...

... city of Turkmenbashi. The water across on the other side in Azerbaijan would have been too oily for swimming. Capital and the President Ashgabat (population 600K) , the capital and by far the largest city, is a unique place. A big part of the ...

... nbsp;                   Ashgabat    Good breakfast at the hotel, hopefully included in the price. Decide to take a taxi to the chairlift, which our guide ...

... and be tested on every 6 months and should they fail they loose their jobs. There are many golden statues of the previous president and his slogan was - People, Nation , Me . A bit Hitleresque. Media is also controlled. Strange city indeed with some odd ...

... white marble buildings stretching into the distance - built at a frantic pace by the great Turkmenbashi and continued by the new president since his death four years ago. My guide showed me the numerous gold-painted statues of the former great leader, as ...

... nearly no restaurants, no cafes, only some people walking on the streets, no „life“. Everywhere statues of the president (in gold), everywhere...and police everywhere, but we were never stopped. Of course there are no internet-cafes in ...

... this enormous sweltering city, making our way around Independence Square and through Independence Park heading out towards our hotel. But Mister Russian President was in town and the local police had other ideas for us. We were continuously waved back no ...

... 2 days transiting from Uzbekistan, through Mary and the ancient city of Merv, we were keen to finally see the quirks of Ashgabat. Late president Niyazov, or Turkmenbashi the Great (Great leader of the Turkmens), as he liked to be known, designed a city to ...

... want by the way) Niyazov simply changed the name of his party to the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan and made himself President, creating a personality cult in a similar fashion to the Kim Dynasty in North Korea. He took the name of Turkmenbashi, ...

... on the same road. It was all very bizarre. We had been told that even now under the new President Berdymukhamedov (Niyazov's former dentist) all hotel rooms are probably bugged and emails, phone calls monitored. As a tour group we were forced to stay in ...

... was an uninspiring Soviet city but since independance 20 years ago it has been almost rebuilt. Most of it orchestrated by former President Niyazov  - and most of it in honour of himself. It is very spaced out, with the hills around also hosting ...

... every street, which are lit up in different colours at night. There are posters that are metres high with pictures of the president. And there are construction sites that are unbelievably huge - you can walk alongside one for 500m - making new hotels and ...

... in a very coy way hehehe she gave us a brief history about Turkmenistan, and its independence from the soviet union, the previous president; who in my opinion was a tyrant that plastered the whole city with his statues, and built a huge mausoleum for his ...

... , a library that stands as grand as the White House, The Palace of Knowledge, an enormous gold statue of the President, did I mention the water fountains, and of course the last president's famous book, The Ruhnama, the inscription underneath stating ...

... and government departments. Almost all appeared to be deserted and empty. Huge posters of the new "President" look down on us everywhere. We checked into our hotel and gratefully stepped into its air conditioned interior. It was almost 50 Deg outside and ...

... of welcome hours sleep before we are on the road again.  Today we will arrive in the theme park city of Ashgabat. The hotel a five star place you can only imagine how we felt. After two days in Baku hanging around in anticipation of sailing then two ...

... hun Iraanse buren.  Turkmenistan... ‘t Is een door petrodollars op hol geslagen dictatuur. Een cultus van de president dat enkel Noord Korea moet voorlaten. Hij en zijn illustere voorganger Nyazov zijn alomtegenwoordig in het straatbeeld. Elke ...

... (into which the secret servise take a sneaky peek), or taking pictures of the massive golden statues of Turkmenbashi Nyrzamof, the ex president (only ex as he is deceased). After four consecutive nights pn trains, I'm finally in Tahkent. I am typing this ...

... back through parts of our walks from the previous days, Gozal was explaining some home truths to us. The previous President, Turkmenistan's first since their declaration of independence in 1991, definitely thought a lot of himself, starting with an order ...