The madness of Turkmenbashi

Tearing down the statue of a megalomaniac dictator is usually a joy reserved for the citizens of a newly liberated country. But when, last month, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan ordered the removal of his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov’s Neutrality Arch, he was probably the only Turkman with any illusions of freedom. 

For more than ten years this extraordinary monument — a giant, futuristic tripod, topped by a gold figure of Niyazov in a superman cape, which rotates to face the sun — has hovered menacingly above the skyline of the Turkmenistan capital Ashgabat. Niyazov called himself Turkmenbashi, ‘leader of the Turkmen’. The demolition of his monument, of course, will not mean that his people are rid of their chains.

Niyazov’s rule was mind-bendingly weird. He disliked gold teeth, the circus and the opera, so he banned them. He renamed the month of January after himself, and April after his mother, Gurbansoltan eje.