Ashgabat
pop 650, 000 With its lavish marble palaces, gleaming gold domes and vast expanses of manicured parkland, Ashgabat (‘the city of love’ or Ashkabad in Arabic) has reinvented itself as a showcase city for the newly independent republic.
pop 650, 000 With its lavish marble palaces, gleaming gold domes and vast expanses of manicured parkland, Ashgabat (‘the city of love’ or Ashkabad in Arabic) has reinvented itself as a showcase city for the newly independent republic.
Stalin’s modus operandi in Central Asia sought the division of its people, thus resulting in the split of the Khorezm oasis – the northern bit with Khiva going to Uzbekistan and the southern portion, with Konye-Urgench, going to Turkmenistan.
Tucked below a range of imposing mountains and the only sign of civilisation as far as the eye can see, Balkanabat is the logical stopover on the long haul across western Turkmenistan.
Rather off-the-beaten path, even by Turkmenistan standards, the western part of the country is one of haunting moonscapes, ruined cities and minority tribes such as the mountain-dwelling Nokhurians.
The modern town of Konye-Urgench (from Persian ‘Old Urgench’) is a rural backwater with empty plazas, wandering livestock and back roads that end in agricultural fields.
A Soviet model-town, Dashogus consists of an enormous boulevard lined with concrete buildings separated by vast acres of emptiness.
Lying on the banks of the mighty Amu-Darya, between the Karakum desert and the fertile plains of Uzbekistan, Turkmenabat sits at a crossroads of cultures.
In its heyday it was known as Marv-i-shahjahan, ‘Merv – Queen of the World’, and it stood alongside Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo as one of the great centres of Islam.
The capital of the Mary region is a somewhat spartan Soviet confection of administrative buildings and vast gardens disproportionate to the size of the city.
Subscribe now and receive a 20% discount on your next guidebook purchase
© 2013 Lonely Planet. All rights reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced without our written permission.