Word: ashgabat
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...position just north of Afghanistan could be hugely beneficial to NATO as it seeks more reliable supply routes to its troops on the ground there. But the West isn't being welcomed with open arms. "They just don't understand us," one businessman tells TIME in the capital, Ashgabat...
...Turkmenistan is open for business like never before. After falling out with its close ally Russia earlier this year, the country has taken unprecedented steps to encourage foreign investment. Last month, the government hosted a landmark investment conference in Ashgabat, inviting hundreds of representatives from oil, gas and other companies to meet with government officials to discuss possible business ventures. It was also the first time in a decade that foreign journalists were permitted to travel freely in the country. (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory...
...West has other problems to contend with, too. At the October investment conference in Ashgabat, several businessmen said a major obstacle was the fact the Turkmen have little time for Western values of democracy and free-market economics. Berdymukhamedov's regime is one of the most dictatorial in the world, keeping tight reins on the media and political opposition and allowing only the barest beginnings of private enterprise. "The reaction to our proposals is always, 'Thanks but no thanks,'" says one Western diplomat, who requested anonymity for fear of hurting his operations in the country. "It comes down to trust...
...most policy makers in the U.S. When not the illusory realm of Borat or an exotic waypoint of horse markets and mutton skewers, the region has been cast off as a dysfunctional Russian annex, easily manipulated by a Kremlin that still views these young republics as satellite states. From Ashgabat to Astana, the ruling elites are all holdovers from the Soviet era, and sometimes more fluent in Russian than their national tongues. "Their regimes operate," says Eric McGlinchey, a Central Asia specialist and professor of politics and government at George Mason University, "along almost pathological networks of patronage" - and ones...
BANNED. RECORDED MUSIC AT PUBLIC EVENTS; by Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov; in Ashgabat. Niyazov, the former Soviet republic's famously autocratic leader?he has named the months of January and April after himself and his mother?said the decree was necessary to stem the tide of foreign influence in Turkmenistan. This follows his similar outlawing of opera and ballet in 2001 (currently, much of the music broadcast on Turkmenistan's airwaves are Niyazov's own words set to music). "Don't kill our talents by lip synching," he warned his cabinet. "Create our new culture...