Turkmenistan. Part IV. Turkmenbashi, Balkanabat

Map

May 26...31, 2014

A plane ticket from the capital to Turkmenbashi costs , but “there are no more seats available.” An additional changes the sales agent’s response to “How many tickets do you need?” The flight is actually half empty.

Turkmenbashi

Map

This passage was hewn through the cliffs by Japanese prisoners of war.

There’s an oil terminal situated here.

Many of the houses are of the type found only in Turkmenistan—with open outdoor stairwells.

The city isn’t much to look at.

Then again, there are surprising exceptions. Our previous sighting of an old building with a roof painted in a diamond pattern was in Perm.

The first president and the second president.

I stopped by the post office to buy stamps and mail some postcards. The only kind of stamps they seem to sell here are ones depicting the president. I glued one sideways onto one of my postcards, which made the postal clerks’ brains practically explode: how dare I put the president down on his side? It took a lot of arguing before they finally agreed to put it in the mail.

A gate.

A bus stop.

Graffiti.

All the courtyards are crammed with satellite dishes. But the facades on the central streets are kept mostly dish-free.

They’re not bothering anyone.

A bookstore. The interior, staff and inventory haven’t changed since the store first opened some thirty years ago.

A giant resort, Avaza, is situated on the Caspian Sea coast a few kilometers away from the city’s historical center.

It has luxurious hotels (the rooms are very decent, the restaurants are provincial), an amusement park, beaches, nightclubs, nightly laser light shows and so on.

The trees have just been planted, ten hotels are up and running, the rest will be built over the next few years.

Avaza is the resort of choice for the top brass and the elite. This is where visiting dignitaries are hosted and where government ministers vacation. You can’t just show up and stay at a Turkmen resort.