Nathan's Insights

Friday 02 June 2023
Highlights: Monument of Neutrality, Indoor Ferris wheel, Old Nisa, Gurbansoltan Eje Memorial and Turkmenbashi Mosque, Halk Hakydasy Memorial Complex, National Museum of Turkmenistan, Independence Monument, Food poisoning

The last full day of the Five Stans tour before my flight back to Türkiye at 3.30 am tomorrow. Today we our small group would explore the marble city of Ashgabat in more detail building on last night’s exploration.

We started with a visit to Monument of Neutrality. Turkmenistan takes great pride in now being a neutral country. Turkmenistan does not participate in military blocs and alliances, does not allow the creation of military bases on its territory or its use by other countries for military purposes. This status was confirmed by the UN in 1995. We got to watch up close as the Military Guard was changed, no photos are allowed however of military activities in this country.

After a mention of the world’s biggest indoor ferris wheel Amy asked if we could visit it and Eziz quickly organised. This included getting them to open the ferris wheel and operate it just for us! Before COVID Turkmenistan only received 20,000 tourists (or guests as they call them) annually. Having only reopened their country in March 2023 it’s very possible we are in the first thousand visitors, and it tells in how eager locals are to welcome us and do things like open attractions.

We then headed out around 20 kilometres to visit Old Nisa. Nisa was an ancient settlement of the Parthians, it isalso believed to have been the first seat of the Arsacid Empire. It is believe to have been founded by Arsaces I (reigned c. 250 BC–211 BC). It was abandoned around 100 BC and made an UNESCO site in 2007. The nearby mountains are a natural border with Iran which is about 60 kilometres away.

Next up we visited the Gurbansoltan Eje Memorial and the Turkmenbashi Mosque. These complexes where created by Turkmenistan’s first president Saparmurat Niyazov and the Gurbansoltan Eje Memorial is named after Niyazov’s mother.

We then moved onto the Halk Hakydasy Memorial Complex which commemorates of those killed in the Battle of Geok Tepe in 1881, in World War II, and in the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake which basically destroyed the entire city.

A quick 1 hour visit to the National Museum of Turkmenistan allowed a museum guide to explain the history of this area and Turkmenistan from the bronze age to Middle Ages. Learning that various empires in this area covers parts of Afghanistan and Iran bought home how close I was to these volatile countries are.

The last major site visit was to Independence Monument. By chance we were there when a wedding party showed up. The crowd wanted us to be part of the fun with kids mobbing us and the bride and groom getting us into photos with them, this highlights to lack of guests coming to Turkmenistan. By tradition, significant foreign guests plant a young tree on the Alley of Honorary Guests near the Independence Monument (so not me!).

We then had a late lunch and went back to our hotel for some free time before our final group dinner. It was at this time I started feeling unwell. I pulled out of the dinner hoping to get better sleeping before the 3.30 am flight. Around 10 pm I vomited badly indicating I had food poisoning. This was not fun, but I was hoping it would impact my flight to Istanbul Türkiye. I’m rarely unwell on overseas trips and I’ve never been unwell before or during a flight, but that record has been broken.

Ashgabat is a unique city in a very unique country. Almost every building is built using Italian marble and they light up almost every building highlighting cheap local energy that this country has and the rich fortunes they get from selling it.