“Construction of the Ice Palace in Ashgabat is under completion”

These deadpan words belie the excitement surrounding the construction of what is, in the official Turkmen website’s words, “an atypical object”: an ice palace in one of the world's hottest deserts.

“Let us build a palace of ice,” announced Turkmen President Niyazov in 2004, to which most Turkmens’ understandable reaction was, “Let us not build a palace of ice”. Turkmenistan already has enough to worry about. It’s a country of huge natural resources but minimal opportunities to exploit them. It’s a small, isolated ’stan, allowing free rei(g)n to its ex-Communist leader, once elected, now impossible to shift, and that’s where the fun really starts.

With apologies for any repetition to those who are already gleefully up to date with President Niyazov’s journey from run-of-the-mill Soviet corruptnik to full-blown bulging-eyed dictator, here are a few highlights:

* He long ago assumed the title “Turkmenbashi”, meaning “leader of all Turkmen”. Like Tony Blair, he believes that education is crucial to his country’s future; though—to be fair—unlike Tony Blair, this means that his country’s schoolchildren must increasingly learn only about him.


President Niyazov, the Turkmenbashi. Steady, ladies, he's married—to Turkmenistan!

* On top of a 23-metre building in the centre of Ashgabat, the capital, is a revolving 12-metre statue of the Turkmenbashi. This is but one of many, many statues of the Turkmenbashi.

* The Turkmenbashi’s book, Ruhnama, “a collection of his thoughts on Turkmen identity, history and destiny” and “a spiritual guide for his nation”, as well as being in every home, school and workplace, is also in every mosque in the country, displayed next to the Qu’ran. Particularly spiritual passages from it will adorn the outside of his ongoing pet construction project, the biggest mosque in the world.



* “‘If I was a worker and my president gave me all the things they have here in Turkmenistan, I would not only paint his picture, I would have his picture on my shoulder, or on my clothing,’ Niyazov said... ‘I’m personally against seeing my pictures and statues in the street - but it’s what people want.’” (Observer)

* All recorded music is banned, on TV and radio, at weddings and parties; pretty much everywhere, although this is simply intended to protect the musical traditions of the Turkmen by ensuring all music is performed live. The Turkmenbashi is unimpressed with lipsynching.

* Meetings in his office are televised and broadcast weekly on the three state TV channels. (Observer)

* At a state banquet, Niyazov, “discontented with US foreign policy”, forced the American envoy to Turkmenistan, Steven Mann, to drink a jugful of vodka in one go. “Undaunted, Mann is rumoured to have risen to the task.” (The New Great Game, Lutz Kleveman)

* There is a huge fountain in Ashgabat which includes a large model of Ruhnama that opens every night to reveal a video screen showing the Turkmenbashi reading extracts from it aloud.



* He renamed the months of the year (though they correspond exactly with the Western calendar to avoid confusion):

January: Turkmenbashi (named after him)
February: Baidag (“the month of the banner”)
March: Novruz (a Muslim holiday)
April: Gurbansoltan Edzhe (named after his mother)
May: Makhumtuli (classical medieval Turkmen poem)
June: Oguz (after Oguz Khan, the father of the Turkmen)
July: Gorkut (the hero of another epic Turkmen poem)
August: Alp Arslan (another Turkmen founding father)
September: Ruhnama (there’s that bloody book again)
October: Garashsyzlyk (the month in which they celebrate Turkmenistan’s independence)
November: Sandzhar (yet another celebrated Turkmen ruler)
December: Bitaraplyk (the month in which they celebrate Turkmenistan's neutrality)

* “In 2001 the Humanitarian Association of the World’s Ethnic Turkmens voted to suffix Niyazov’s name with Beyt (‘great’), much to the president’s dismay. ‘I am afraid of ever more titles - some even say I am a prophet,’ he complained.” (Observer)

* When Turkmens take their driving test they also have to take a written exam on their knowledge of Ruhnama.

* He has set out in legislation the official ages of man:

0-13: childhood
14-25: adolescence
25-37: youth
37-49: maturity
49-62: prophet
62-73: inspiration
73-85: white-bearded elder
85-97: old age
97-109: Oguz Khan (father of the Turkmen)(see above)

* A copy of Ruhnama was recently blasted into space. It will orbit the earth in a small satellite containing a Turkmen flag and the presidential standard for 150 years.

* “Niyazov appeared in a 90-minute live broadcast from one of his palaces last September to read from his new poetry collection, The Spring of Inspiration. He also interrupts government meetings to recite his poems, including a session last May when he told his military leadership that he had some verse about the dangers facing the country: ‘Be vigilant and be cautious, that is my request to you / Even when you and your country are facing luck / And you are as mighty as King Solomon / And when you feel yourself strong / Be aware, for there are many traitors with traps to set’ ” (Washington Post)

* Seriously, there’s a lot of statues.



* The Betrayers of the Motherland decree makes it a crime to disagree with the policies of the president.

* Turkmenistan's population is still very poor. On the plus side, the Turkmenbashi is also building a huge aquarium near the Ice Palace.

* He promised in 1992 that all Turkmen families would own a house and a car within 10 years. In 2003 he started to make good on this promise by handing out free Mercedes cars to his top officials. After that the project appears to have stalled a bit.

* Last year the Turkmenbashi closed all the hospitals in the country except those in the capital. This was said to be part of his “radical health plan”, but is almost certainly because the money that should have gone into them has instead been poured into the creation of, for example, statues. (Suspicions had already been raised the previous year when he fired 15,000 health workers nationwide and replaced them with army conscripts.)

* The Turkmenbashi, having previously had himself declared “president for life”, suddenly and unexpectedly announced last year that there would be a presidential election. He said the country’s destiny “should not depend on just one person”, and urged young candidates to come forward and contest the presidency. Critics couldn’t help noticing that (a) this was very shortly after the president of nearby Kyrgyzstan was deposed by a popular uprising, (b) the last opposition leader in Turkmenistan is still in prison, accused of a spurious assassination attempt, and (c) the election is pencilled in for 2009. Breath is not being held.

When you read the words “ice palace”, it’s understandable if your heart leapt; after all, a man so clearly prepared to sacrifice not only his country’s natural wealth but the very wellbeing of his people to his off-the-scale megalomania must be about to build some kind of crystalline mega-fortress, the like of which the world has never, etc. Something that would at least eclipse this 2004 effort in Minnesota (actual ice; click to enlarge):



So, technical achievements notwithstanding—after all, it’s no mean feat to create, among its attractions, a full-size ice rink in the middle of the desert—it still can’t help but be a bit of a disappointment when you discover that the Ice Palace actually looks like this:



That exciting press release in full!
EDIT: The exciting press release is no longer there, quite possibly because the Turkmenbashi has since [SPOILER] died.


Almost all the information here lifted wholesale from the BBC

Profile of the Turkmenbashi from the Observer

EDIT: The Turkmen government website is currently unavailable. I've a horrible feeling our unprecedented interest in its content may have exceeded its bandwidth. If so, I will happily convey my apologies in person to the Turkmen ambassador.

Stop that at once

It is a mortal sin for a husband and wife to have intercourse with the normal position reversed, because it makes the woman active, which, as anyone can see, Nature must abhor. Furthermore, according to certain authorities the Flood was caused by the vile custom of women mounting upon men in the sexual act.

Thomas Sanchez (Jesuit), De Sancto Matrimonia (early 16th century)