Real Dictators - Turkmenbashy Part 2: Putin, Taliban, Internet Shutdown

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

As the new Turkmen leader, Saparmurat Niyazov has absolute power. He uses it to construct one of history’s most surreal regimes. Rebuilding the capital city in white marble, he puts his own mother at the forefront of public life. A series of absurd policies begins. Even as the War on Terror lands on his doorstep, the tyrant seems unstoppable. But, somehow, opposition will emerge, culminating in a dramatic attempt on his life. A Noiser production, written by Dan Smith. Research by Derek Henry Flood. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. It's 7 o'clock in the morning on November the 25th, 2002. A chauffeur-driven car wends its way through the outskirts of Ashgabat, the capital city of Turkmenistan. The passenger reclining on the back seat is none other than the president, Sapomurat Niyatsov. He's en route to town from his private residence at Arshabil, some

twenty miles away. Head in a pile of official papers, Niyazov seems set for a normal day at the office. As normal as possible, when you head up one of the world's most comprehensive totalitarian regimes. All seems quiet in this corner of Central Asia. Outside the car, the air is crisp, dry, autumnal. Exactly what happens next is uncertain. Eyewitness reports differ in the detail.

In essence, it's an ambush. A truck appears in the rearview mirror of the presidential car. It is joined by several smaller vehicles. They screech to a halt, blocking the intersection and forcing the motorcade to a stern still. Masked gunmen leap out. They open fire on the president. His security detail draw their own weapons and shoot back. As the gunfight subsides, remarkably, amid the carnage on the highway, Niyatsov's car has emerged unscathed. Indeed, the president will later insist, rather unconvincingly, that he was completely unaware of the attack until he arrived at the office and officials briefed him as to what had taken place.

He was, he says, completely engrossed in his paperwork. Others are not so lucky. There are several casualties, and at least two of the assailants have been killed at the scene yet soft maybe shrugging it off but behind a composed exterior he's furious and surely terrified this is not the sort of thing that is supposed to happen in Turkmenistan a country which is his plaything. He's held power here since the mid-1980s, first as Moscow's henchman in the last years of the Soviet Union, and then in his own right as leader of an independent state.

On reflection, however, yes, the dissenting voices have been increasing in recent years. The number of dissidents who've managed to get out of the country seems to grow by the day. The morning's debacle is proof to Nyatsov that he has gone too easy on his rivals. Having enjoyed a lucky escape, he is determined to wreak havoc on those responsible, to stamp down on his critics, both real and imagined, without mercy. This is the second and final part of the Turkmenbashi story. And this is Real Dictators.

At the time of the attempted assassination in 2002, it's almost 11 years since Turkmenistan's birth as an independent, sovereign nation. In this time, Sapomirat Niyazov too has changed a great deal. No longer merely a communist functionary, he's imposed himself upon the fledgling country completely. He's not so much a politician as a deity. Every day in Turkmenistan there is a process of indoctrination, on television, on the radio. Niyazov is not merely the best man for the job, he is the only man. Nor is this tyrant content to dominate the public sphere. He wants to infiltrate the homes and control the private lives, the subconscious even, of his people. In the earliest days, Niyatsov's first task is to secure his grip on power at the ballot box.

Democracy may be a foreign eccentricity here, but it still serves a PR purpose. The Politburo in Russia no longer guarantees Niyazov's right to rule, so instead he must win the consent of his people, or at least be seen to do so. On June 21, 1992, millions of voters trudged dutifully to polling stations to play their part in an extravagant act of rubber stamping. Niyazov heads up the old Soviet Communist Party, recently rebranded as the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan. But peculiarly for an election, his is the only name on the ballot paper.

According to official data, Niyazov wins 99.5% of the vote on a turnout of 99.8%, because 100% would be implausible. The new Turkmen constitution states that no person can run for the presidency for more than two five-year terms. But in 1993, the parliament seeks to amend that clause so that Niyazov can be awarded a 10-year term. Predictably enough, this move wins almost unanimous support in a 1994 referendum. In 1999, Parliament goes even further, voting to dub him President for Life. In the end, he insists, with faux modesty, on a compromise. The presidency is a young man's game, Yatsov chuckles. It would be unseemly to stay in post

beyond his 70th birthday. But up until that point, he will answer Turkmenistan's call. From a Western perspective, it can be difficult to grasp the lack of public rancour amongst the Turkmen people in the face of each new lurch towards despotism. Journalist Hugh Pope When Yusuf took power as head of an independent state and became Turkmen Pashi, there was no real resistance from the people. There was no sense of people coming together to ask for anything in Turkmenistan. It was quite unlike, say, Azerbaijan on the other side of the Caspian Sea. To get anything in your life, you always had to go through the official procedures. People were very submissive to what was happening. In theory, at least, Turkmenistan has a political system in which the executive

branch, i.e. the president, the legislative branch, parliament, and the judiciary are set up to counterbalance each other's powers. But parliament is packed with Niyazov's supporters. He is also chairman for life over the so-called People's Council, which has the power to dissolve parliament. On top of that, he is the one with the authority to appoint judges. He does not consider power sharing to be in any sense a viable option. Our society, he declares, is not mature enough for a civilised multi-party system. Democracy can only come when, in his words, not one Turkmen is left complaining about going without sausage and bread for a day.

Now that the age of Soviet largesse, if that's not too generous a phrase, is over, it makes no sense for this new nation to cling to its Soviet identity. Historically, the Turkmens was a tribal culture, in which distinct, traditional groups vied for dominance. But Niyazov can see the dangers of this model. Such divided loyalties lead too easily to unrest. His Central Asian neighbours are already suffering the political infighting that will plague

them for years, while to Turkmenistan's south, Afghanistan is a case study in prolonged internecine conflict. Niyatsov himself comes from the Teke tribe, but his upbringing in a Soviet orphanage perhaps means that he does not feel his tribal ties too strongly. Another personality might have sought to lead the Teke to dominance, but Niyatsov wants to bring all the Turkmen tribes together. He sets out to unite them behind a storybook, a mythical history going back to an age long before the Russians took over.

He tells how, back in the mists of time, the likes of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane all competed for pre-eminence in this part of the world. Niyatsov develops the idea that he himself is the next in line in this roll call of strongmen leaders. Professor Adrienne Edgar. What I would give him credit for is promoting unity and preventing conflict, ethnic and tribal conflict in the post-Soviet period. Tajikistan in particular, you know, had this massive civil war and there've been other ethnic conflicts as well in Uzbekistan and, you know, Kyrgyzstan. There is a lot of kind of

inter-group hostility and suspicion. Even in the Soviet era, for example, members of some tribes and groups got more access to government positions and so forth than others and i do think the stress on turkmen nationhood is partly an effort to address that problem from the director of the greatest showman comes the most original musical ever i want to prove i can make it prove to who everyone so the story starts. Better Man, now playing in select theaters. One day, early on in his tenure, a secretary approaches the president with an idea. What if official government communications were to refer to the office of leader

not as that of the president, but as the Turkmenbashi, the leader of the Turkmen? Niyazov likes this idea. He develops it further. He begins to sign his documents as Sapomura Turkmenbashi. He's taking his title as his own surname, melding his personal identity and the office he holds into one.

The freshly anointed Turkmenbhi now begins to build on his burgeoning cult of personality. It's a task he will carry on for the rest of his life. With millions of dollars flooding into the country from oil and gas, he opts to use much of it for self-aggrandizement. This takes the form of large-scale public works, virtually all of which are centered on Ashgabat. It is turned into a glorious oasis in the desert land. Grand, wide boulevards are laid out, bringing to mind central Paris more than central Asia. But these boulevards do not bustle

like the great cities of Europe. They are largely unpeopled and devoid of the volume of vehicles that might have justified the financial outlay. As for the buildings that line them, no expense is spared. Opulence is the watchword, and white marble the favoured material. Stark white apartment blocks spring up, alongside hotels, public buildings and squares, and grand government ministries totally out of scale with the need they fulfil. Large swathes of the city lie empty. It's reminiscent of a giant film set, or perhaps a Bond villain's dreamscape. escape. In his rush to rebuild, Turkmenbashi orders whole neighborhoods flattened. Thousands of displaced inhabitants are forced to the edges of the city. Here, they erect shanty towns as they wait for news of their rehousing or financial compensation. News that never arrives.

The capital is fast becoming a personal monument to the leader. The capital is fast becoming a personal monument to the leader. On virtually every street corner and public building, the image of the nation's father beams out. The act of smiling, Turkmenbashi declares, is an essential part of life. It's something his people should endeavour to do at all times. I admit it, he tells a journalist on one occasion, There are too many portraits, pictures and monuments of me. I don't find any pleasure in it. But the people demand it because of their mentality.

And then, the pièce de résistance. Right in the middle of Ashgabat, he constructs an extraordinary memorial to the 1948 earthquake. The disaster that claimed the lives of his own loved ones. It consists of a bull set atop a marble plinth. Perched on the bull's horns is a likeness of planet Earth, and at the apex of this globe, a woman, none other than Turkmenbashi's beloved late mother. Cast in bronze, she lifts her gold-cast child, Turkmenbashi himself, above the rumination.

Derek Henry Flood was a photojournalist, covering the war in Afghanistan in 2001, when he entered Turkmenistan disguised as an aid worker. when he entered Turkmenistan disguised as an aid worker. Walking around in the very end of the autumn in Ashgabat was absolutely surreal. I'm in this very kind of weirdly modern place. And although Turkmenistan is nominally a Muslim-majority nation-state, it doesn't resemble any of the other societies in that region. It in no way resembles Shia majority Iran or Taliban dominated Afghanistan. It's very, very secular. His personality cult, it hits you in the face. You're like, what is going on? As I got to meet some locals, I quickly realized it was a society of sort of whispering

everything was hushed and turkman bashi was someone who was although omnipresent he was someone who was not spoken about by the end of turkman bashi's rule there will be an estimated 2 000 monuments to him across the country even a trip to a local store monuments to him across the country. Even a trip to a local store, where stocks are often low and limited, results in seeing the leader's face plastered over the labels of assorted goods. His birthday is designated a national holiday. Streets bear his name, and the port city of Krasnovodsk becomes Turkmenbashi. If renaming settlements was good enough for Lenin and Stalin, why should he miss out? The Turkmen calendar is adjusted so that days and months are renamed in his honor, or to honor members of his family. January becomes, you guessed it,

Turkmenbashi. April is now Goebbelsultan, after his mother. Confusingly, Goebbelsultan is also the new official word for bread. Friday becomes Anagun, Mother Day. When a huge meteorite, weighing some 670 pounds, lands in the country, even that gets named after him. He appears on the airwaves virtually every day to address his public. Seemingly oft-off comments on the news are taken to be the announcement of new laws. This is how policy is done here. The self-promotion is utterly unrelenting.

Opera and ballet are outlawed. Circuses and the Philharmonic Orchestra suffer similar fates, as does the Academy of Science. Anything deemed not to be promoting Turkmen culture and the Turkmen leader is considered disposable. In a purported attempt to boost indigenous music, lip-syncing is banned at all manner of public events. Turkmenbashi doesn't like the smell of dogs, so he expels them from the capital. After he himself kicks the habit, all government employees are ordered to cease smoking immediately.

If he can do it, why can't they? Turkmenbashi is especially interested in dentistry. He appoints his own dentist as the country's health minister. We'll hear plenty from him later. During one televised ceremony, Turkmenbashi makes a beeline for a young woman with gold-capped dentures. He tots disprovingly. She must have them replaced with white ones, he decrees. Forget brushing your teeth. Turkmenbashi has discovered the cause of the nation's poor dental hygiene. I watched young dogs when I was young, he proclaims.

They were given bones to gnaw. Those of you whose teeth have fallen out did not gnaw on bones. This is my advice. On another occasion, Turkmenbashi mentions his fondness for traditional fur hats and braided hair. They swiftly become compulsory for all Turkmen schoolgirls. Next, he heaps praise upon a particular foodstuff.

Do celebrate Muskmelon Day, he says, announcing a new public holiday in honour of the fruit. Make sure that all associations and enterprises take part in it, he tells his officials. TV commentators fawn over Turkmenbashi's homage to the muskmelon. The new holiday, one of them says, has made the love towards one's dear homeland, the great leader and kind nation grow even stronger. Incidentally, such TV reporters wear no makeup at all. Not out of personal choice, but because Turkmenbashi has outlawed it, demanding that presenters always appear natural on screen.

The advent of electronic communications proves a new challenge. But he shows himself equal even to that. Turkmenbashi's power over his citizens was absolute. If he smelled a whiff of opposition, he could shut down mobile phones, he could shut down the internet just on a whim. And so, of course, when I arrived in Ashgabat, the internet cafes had been shut.

I'd met an aid worker in a bar. She sort of told me in hushed tones that unbeknownst to Turkmenbashi, under his nose, the U.S. embassy had working internet. And that if I showed up there with my passport, I could send an email back to my family. Turkmenbashi realizes that his brand of tyranny can only work North Korea-style when the influences of the outside world are shut out. Among his methods of isolating his people is to demand a hefty fee if they wish to exit the country for any reason at all. It also costs an eye-watering $60,000,

more than a Turkmen's average lifetime earnings, to marry a foreigner. This is a particularly prickly subject for Turkmenbashi, since he himself married a Russian Jew in the Soviet era and has two children with her. But of course he lives separately from his wife, and even talking about his family is regarded as a dangerous game. separately from his wife, and even talking about his family is regarded as a dangerous game. He will not permit his own children's mixed heritage to obstruct his message of national purity. In 2001, he decides to write and publish a book.

It will consist of two volumes entitled Runama, or Book of the Soul. Part memoir, part national history, part spiritual guide, this is Turkmenbashi's attempt to elevate himself to the level of sage, philosopher and prophet. He's long taken inspiration from Kemal Ataturk, the legendary leader responsible for modernizing Turkey into a secular state in the 1920s and 30s. Just as Ataturk became much more than a mere statesman, so now Turkmenbashi hopes that Runama will help him achieve similar status. Up and down the country, in every school and university, students study the text at their desks,

learning passages to recite as proof of their devotion to its author. Hopeful candidates for the civil service are tested on their knowledge too, nervous of making any career-ending slip-ups. Even those getting behind the wheels of beaten-up cars to take their driving tests are quizzed on the great leader's literary ruminations. The text comes with a gaudy, purple, green and gold cover, emblazoned, of course, with the leader's face. In the capital, a huge sculpture of the book mechanically opens each evening to reveal the words of its author. Crowds gather to watch the peculiar spectacle, played out behind a row of fountains,

shooting celebratory spurts of water into the air. Strange as this sight is, it's no more bizarre than the contents of the book. Turkmenbashi has made no efforts to moderate his prose. There are extensive, boastful passages. The narrative detours at various points into musings on good dietary discipline, bursts of verse, and knowing advice on how to develop your soul. The writing describes how thousands of years earlier, after the flood of Noah,

Oghuz Khan, his sons and their sons, founded the Turkmen clans. Now in a dream, Khan has visited Turkmenbashi and spoken to him. Today, he says, the happiness of your nation is in your hands. Sapamurat, show the way of the golden life to the Turkmen nation. This will be your task. This will be your task. This will be your way. There are several passages too that reiterate, for good measure, the incredible power of smiling,

how it will keep your face young, make a friend out of an enemy, and even stare down death. The Runama is also a testament to his mother, and to mothers in general. Turkmenbashi writes that when he closes his eyes at night, he sees in the dark the smile of his beloved Gurbansultan. If Freud were around to read it, he would have a field day.

Although the population of Turkmenistan is predominantly Muslim Turkmenbashi promotes his own work as being on a par with the Quran. Copies are displayed prominently in mosques despite the fact that this is just the sort of idolatry that Islam forbids. Turkmenbashi is hardly a paragon of Islamic virtue. He is well known for his love of alcohol, for instance. And while the Taliban down in Afghanistan demand that all men grow beards, Turkmenbashi issues an edict outlawing facial hair, seemingly on the grounds of its connotations of radicalism.

The unspoken message is clear. Nothing, not even religion, is bigger than him. Professor Luca Anceschi. I'm going to give you a story which I heard. There is no better way

to be a good Muslim than to go to Mecca and take a picture with the king of Saudi Arabia. And the odds of did go there, but for what I'm told,

two and a half hours between Ashgabat and Jeddah, where you land, he got completely drunk on the plane, which is not something as a good Muslim you would do. And then he got off the plane, obviously visibly intoxicated.

And one of the first things he does, he asks for a billion US dollars each to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Whether or not it is true, I heard it, he tells you that it's all about opportunism. The only thing that matters, it is power. But what do people really make of Turkmenbashi's rabid self-promotion? His blasphemy, even? This is a very difficult question to answer. Such is the fear inspired by Turkmenbashi and his state. Citizens will remain understandably

reticent, if not terrified, to speak of him. Some people believe the grandiose rhetoric. And I did see, for example, in the countryside, when I went to visit people on collective farms and so forth, I did see his portrait in people's homes. Now it's possible they felt they had to do that because people would come and look, but these were pretty remote places. Apolitical people, not very educated people, might have felt some pride in him, but the educated elite despised him. They laughed at him, you know, behind his back. There were all these ridiculous things on TV all the time, like for example, people presenting posthumous awards to Turkmenbashi's parents for having raised such a glorious man. And we would watch stuff like this on TV, and we would literally be lying

on the floor laughing. A lot of people told me he was just a non-entity, just this, you know, ordinary communist hack. And now he, you know, puts himself up on this pedestal. It's just ridiculous. However, the same people who said that, you got them out in public and they were walking the walk and talking the talk because he was scary. If you didn't follow along in public, if you didn't pay homage to him the way you were supposed to in public at least, then you obviously could get in real trouble. And the people who were dissidents and opponents of the regime who were vocal paid very high prices, either in exile or imprisonment. While Turkmenbashi seeks to be the centre of attention within his own country,

his approach to foreign affairs is markedly different. His interests, he realises, are best served by attracting as little international attention as possible. At a banquet that I saw him give for the Turkish president, where I was sort of guest number 1,233, sitting in the back row, one thing that Turkmenbashi did was to call up ambassador after ambassador and get them to say something to him. And when the great power ones came up, like the Russian and Chinese,

he would just tease them. He'd say to the Chinese one, oh, come on up. Let's hear about human rights. And you've got them all in order. And he called up the Russian and says, in those days, Russia was broke. And he said, ah, you need a few billion dollars, don't you? Going deep into the night, he was just playing with everybody, just sitting and enjoying being in power. The Turkish president was getting more and more irritated

looking at his watch and so forth. For all the bravado, Turkmenbashi makes sure not to incur the ire of anyone who can make life difficult for him. The billion or so barrels of gas that lie beneath the Turkmen soil guarantee the country wealth. But he can only monetize it if foreign powers agree to buy and transport it. Business isn't exactly booming in other areas.

While a bit of light-hearted banter at a banquet is fine, he still, reluctantly, needs the goodwill of Russia. Even to this day, Moscow is Ashkabat's indispensable economic partner. Even to this day, Moscow is Ashgabat's indispensable economic partner. Turkmenbashi wanted to create a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan. And then the more fully fleshed out idea was the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. He definitely wanted to turn towards Islamabad and New Delhi to at best diversify his economy so that Turkmenistan was not entirely dependent on the woes of the Russian ruble, the chaos in sort of late 90s and early 2000s Russian financial markets. He said, I want to turn Turkmenistan into a second

Kuwait. What Turkmenistan essentially became was sort of a hybrid between sort of a hermetic North Korea-like state and Ashgabat became like sort of a Dubai or an Abu Dhabi or a Doha. Turkmenistan's immediate neighbors have a tendency to find themselves in the international spotlight, Iran and Afghanistan most notably. Turkmenbashi hits upon a foreign policy masterpiece. He decides that Turkmenistan will adopt a policy of almost total neutrality in international affairs. On December 12, 1995 in New York City, the General Assembly of the United Nations convenes and unanimously passes a resolution recognizing Turkmenistan's status.

Turkmenistan, like Switzerland, is special, granted the right to rise above the political fray. For most of their existence, the Turkmen people have found themselves embroiled in the international rivalries of others. But now, no less an organ than the UN has said that the country cannot be used as a pawn, neither by the West, by Russia, nor by China, which is fast emerging as the third superpower. It gives them free hand not to do anything. It becomes a very recessive policy, a straitjacket for Turkmenistan not to get involved into anything, into any kind of alliance organization. It's a point of isolation, of insulation, that allows the regime to shield itself, its own power, from international pressures. It doesn't commit to do anything, so they can be enjoying this kind of self-isolation for the rest of their independent life.

of cocoon or self-isolation for the rest of the independent life. In the immediate aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan joined with the other former members to establish the Commonwealth of Independent States. But Turkmenbashi studiously did not attend any of their meetings. In 1994, inflation reaches four digits. The streets fill with people desperately trying to exchange their manats, introduced to replace the Russian ruble for a stronger currency. But Turkmenbashi is unmoved.

He ignores calls to seek a bailout from the IMF or the World Bank, knowing that they will demand curbs on his autocratic rule in return. This does not mean that he is entirely an economic isolationist. Rather, he seeks to do business with international partners on a one-to-one basis. As part of a way of accruing even more power and keeping his power absolute, he only believed in bilateralism. So Turkmenbashi wanted to deal with Presidents Putin and Bush as an equal, as a leader of an equal nation state. He wanted Turkmenistan to have a sort of stature in the international community. In some ways, he was quite clever

at holding on to that. The Taliban regime, in its first inception from 1996 to 2001, was only recognized by Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Turkmenbashi didn't want to kind of make waves internationally by recognizing the Taliban regime. But at the same time, he was actually happy to deal with them in terms of his own pipeline politics and the idea of diversifying Turkmen gas exports through Afghanistan to South Asia.

In Ashgabat, the Taliban were welcome to visit and have meetings. His relationship to Afghanistan, complicated as it was, was basically based on his business perspective, that he wanted to make Turkmenistan this kind of this gas-rich modern state. And he was willing to deal with whoever he had to, to make that happen. Turkmenbashi dominates the foreground at home, while fading into the background abroad. But his strict code of neutrality is about to be put to its sternest test. Halfway across the world, on September 11th, 2001,

two hijacked United Airlines aer Airlines airplanes crash into the Twin Towers in New York City. Another hijacked plane smashes into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A fourth is brought down over Pennsylvania. In every corner of the planet, people watch the scenes unfold live on their TV screens, dumbfounded. In a moment, the world has changed. Even Turkmenbashi might have to respond to the changing winds. Personally, he has no involvement in the attacks. But his neighbor, Afghanistan, does.

Many of those considered foes of the United States Rush to offer support Not least Russia Turkmenbashi wonders if his sly dealings with the Taliban will cost him It does But he manages to negotiate the price down He offers condolences to the US And grants permission for America to use his airspace Principally for the provision of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

There are rumours of under-the-table deals too. It's said, for example, that he agrees to allow American forces to use his airports for refuelling. But that's never confirmed officially. Turkmenbashi has adjusted his policy of neutrality just slightly, but it's enough to get him off the hook. With the Taliban out of power, for now at least, once again the focus of the world is anywhere but on his country.

By this time, in the early 2000s, Vladimir Putin has succeeded Boris Yeltsin as Russia's leader. Turkmenbashi flies to Moscow and meets Putin in a gilded room in the Kremlin. This is a face-off between two hard men, street fighters, albeit ones dressed in expensively tailored suits. In front of the official photographers, they stare at each other as if it's the weigh-in before a championship title bag. Despite the abundant testosterone, they do come to agreement on a number of thorny issues. A deal is done whereby Russia will buy natural gas over the coming years at a favourable price for Moscow.

A security cooperation agreement has also struck, and there is progress on the question of dual citizenship. Turkmenbashi wants his residents to decide which nation's passport they hold, as part of his ongoing policy of Turkmenization. He does not much like the idea that you can be a Turkmen and a Russian at the same time. The result of the Kremlin summit is that both sides come away with what they wanted. As far as Turkmen and a Russian at the same time. The result of the Kremlin's summit is that both sides come away with what they wanted. As far as Turkmenbashi is concerned, he can take a hit on the gas price if it will keep Moscow off his back. The opening years of the 21st century have been a potential banana skin for Turkmenbashi. The war on terror has landed on his doorstep, but he's dealt with that.

Russia's tough new president? He's placated him as well. Now it's time to refocus and tighten up on domestic affairs. The few dissenting voices that do exist have largely been chased out of Turkmenistan and are forced to speak from afar, holed up in Russia and Sweden.

But Turkmenbashi Khan shrug off his paranoia. He sees everyone as an enemy in waiting, a potential challenger to his authority. The attempted assassination in November 2002 then represents a stern test test but also an opportunity. The gunfight on the Ashgabat highway is by far the most blatant and visible instance of opposition since the country came into being but Turkmenbashi is still here unscathed and now he can strike back at his enemies. We should know if a fly quietly buzzes past, says the president, as he orders the installation of closed-circuit television cameras in public offices, factories, and on the streets. He also deploys soldiers on street corners across the land.

This is not due to a lack of trust, he reassures, but to avoid disorder. That's the stick. Now here are the carrots. First, an announcement that the government is to hand out free Mercedes-Benz cars to the general public. Back in 1992, President Nyatsov, as he was then, promised that all Turkmen families would own a house and a vehicle within ten years. Now, Turkmenbashi is redeeming that promise, or so he says. On the quiet, the mass handout stalls, after only a raft of top officials are gifted free motors.

In 2002, Turkmenbashi is 62 years old. Hardly elderly, but in a country where the average life expectancy for women is 65 and for men is just 60, the president for life is in danger of being viewed as a geriatric, no matter how regularly he dyes his white hair black. There's only one thing to be done. Turkmenbashi must adjust the Turkmen concept of time. He issues a decree whereby adolescence is officially extended up to the age of 25.

Now, by law, old age only begins at 85, a full 25 years after most Turkmen males have passed. Life is divided into 12 official stages resembling something like levels of difficulty on a computer game. Childhood takes you to the age of 12. Youth officially ends at 37. Maturity runs until the age of 49. If somehow you make it beyond 97

you will enter the hallowed territory of the Oghuz Khan period. until the age of 49. If somehow you make it beyond 97, you will enter the hallowed territory of the Oghuz Khan period, named after the mythical founder of the Turkmen clans. As for Turkmen Bashi himself, as a sprightly 62-year-old, he's just embarked on the stage of life titled inspirational.

All citizens who make it inspirational can now expect to receive a three-day holiday and a government salary. After all, as Tegmenbashi puts it himself, a person reaching 62 largely retains physical courage and an active lifestyle and simultaneously achieves a spiritual maturity, rich life experience and wisdom. After this series of eccentric handouts, Turkmenbashi turns his mind back to the Soviet way of doing things. If the purge of the system was good enough for Stalin, might it not be just as effective and relieving for him?

In the hours after the attack on his motorcade, Turkmenbashi calls an emergency cabinet meeting. He is already sure in his own mind who is ultimately responsible. He names four political rivals, each of them in exile abroad. They include the former foreign minister Boris Shikmuradov, the former chief of the National Bank, the former ambassador to Turkey, and another former cabinet minister. Turkmenbashi ramps up construction of a custom-made prison in the desert. It's called Awadendepi, or Beautiful Hill in the Turkmen language. But don't let the name deceive you. This grossly overcrowded jail will be designated exclusively for political prisoners.

Over the next few weeks, there is a wave of arrests, over a hundred, many of them foreigners. Security agents sweep suspects out of their homes and off the streets, strong-arming them into cars and speeding them off for secret interrogations. One of the suspected would-be assassins is a businessman and former government official called Guvansh Dumayev. He's the owner of a string of pharmaceutical stores. At a cabinet meeting, one televised live, Turkmenbashi is relentless in attacking his character. Where does he get the medicine to sell? He asks at one point. He sells medicines intended for humanitarian aid,

and he doesn't care about their quality. Everyone knew he was dishonest, but nobody stopped him. Not as he held back in blaming foreign powers for backing the plot. Moscow is accused of being part of the conspiracy, as are Turkey and Uzbekistan. At a stroke, Turkmenbashi consolidates his international isolation. On Christmas Day, one of the four that Turkmenbashi had named, Sheikh Muradov,

the one-time foreign minister, is arrested at an apartment in Ashgabat. Three days later, he's put before the television cameras. in Ashgabat. Three days later he's put before the television cameras. Positioned in front of a blank wall, Shikhmuradov says he's speaking of his own free will. He is a traitor, he says, as he stares at the ground. He admits to excessive drinking and serious drug abuse. Shikhmuradov confesses to other serious crimes, including the theft of five military jets, 9,000 Kalashnikovs, and 1.5 million bullets. Turkmenbashi, he concedes, must punish him however he sees fit. Outside observers wonder if this confession isn't the product of torture. Within a few days, Shikhmuradov's trial, conducted in secret, is over.

He, along with alleged co-conspirators, is sentenced to 25 years in jail. This is the maximum allowed under the law. But then the People's Council intervenes, adopting a legal amendment that allows for a full life sentence for treachery. They won't have death, but they won't get forgiveness either, Turkmenbashi says in yet another TV appearance. Let them experience all the harshness of prison. Over the next few weeks, dozens more defendants face trial behind closed doors.

The president himself updates viewers almost daily on the running tally of punishments. His all-commanding power reasserted, Turkmenbashi starts to hand out prizes. The Prosecutor General and dozens of serving police officers receive special awards. Ministers of the Interior and State Security are promoted to the military rank of Major General. But for some, it's all a little convenient. Details about the attack have been hazy. Even Turkmenbashi says he didn't realise it was happening. Yet, just a few weeks later,

anyone considered somebody in the opposition circles has been taken out of the game for years to come. The rumour mill turns. Might Turkmenbashi have orchestrated the whole thing? Was the assault manufactured to provide a pretext to pave the way for this purge? One line of thinking holds that Turkmenbashi could not be behind it, as he would never permit himself to be seen as vulnerable. But doesn't he in fact seem stronger now than ever before? He even calls for a book to be published about the affair. He wants a certain memory of the event to be cemented in the collective imagination. The truth is, to this day, no one really seems to know what was real

and what was illusory about the attempt on his life. In the final act of the theatrical production that is Turkmenbashi's premiership, his reign becomes ever more eccentric. He announces plans to plant a forest in the Karakum Desert that will last a thousand years. He also orders construction of a huge freshwater lake amidst the sands.

Such projects don't come for free. In a drive to cut government spending, Turkmenbashi commands that all medical facilities outside of Ashgabat be closed. I think he was a dictator, first of all, very much in the Soviet playbook. I mean, he learned what he knew from growing up in the Soviet Union. He knew how the secret police worked and he knew how to run the levers of the secret police, having been, you know,

head of the Communist Party in his republic. He knew how censorship and suppression of dissent and everything worked in the Soviet Union. And I think that people who see him as some kind of mad or even as some kind of, you know, oriental despot and so forth, I think that's very much off the mark. I see him as very much of mad or even as some kind of you know oriental despot and so forth i think that's very much off the mark i see him as very much a creation of the soviet union it's rumored that turkman bashi has siphoned off several billion dollars of gas money for his own

use meanwhile life expectancy in the country falls languishing a full decade and a half below the european average not that the average average Turkmen citizen is aware of such statistics. First-generation leaders have got a special clout. People tend to respect the leader. There is a regional resilience towards harshness, so they are happy to survive, endure difficult situations. You pay with the gas revenues a lot of free things, free electricity, free water, free sugar, free flour. And by the time that they realized this is not the best,

the regime had become brutal enough not to allow any kind of dissent. As the year 2006 arrives, Turkmenbashi has perhaps his most eccentric idea of all, the possibility of genuine democratic elections, although not for several more years at least. Then, at 11am on December 21st, a newscaster on Turkmen state television makes a solemn announcement. The Turkmen people and their many friends are mourning the death of their beloved leader. To many watching, the news is simply unfathomable.

Turkmenbashi is a demigod. He's been around seemingly forever. Certainly for the country's entire lifespan, how can he be dead? It happened a few hours earlier in his private palace. At around ten past one in the morning, the great leader clutched his chest and fell to the floor, in the grip of a huge heart attack. The years of drinking, smoking, and living the high life have caught up with him. Just a month ago he had revealed that he was suffering from heart disease,

but few expected the end to come so quickly. While the political establishment considers the void left by his death, the state apparatus swings into action. On television, musicians gloomily soar away at their violins as a week of mourning is announced. Planned celebrations for the new year are cancelled. In the coming days, his body, lying in a flag-draped open coffin, is put on display in the presidential palace in Ashgabat. Thousands shuffle past his corpse to pay their last respects. No one says anything publicly other than that they loved and respected Turkmenbashi. Doleful music plays all the while and everything is captured on camera to be relayed endlessly to the grieving country. For 10 miles the funeral procession wends its way out to Kipchak,

his hometown. Security is tight everywhere you look. The mosque at Kipchak will be Turpinbashi's final resting place. But this is not the humble old place of worship he visited as a child. Kipchak now boasts the largest mosque in Central Asia, a huge edifice, marble of course, with golden domes, towering minarets, and elaborate ponds. Constructed by a French company, it rises like a vision out of the desert sands. Worshippers are greeted by yet another golden statue of the leader as they arrive. Inside, the walls are inscribed with passages from the Runama, alongside those from the Quran.

It doesn't matter that the mosque's design seems to contravene the teachings of the very religion it espouses. Turkmenbashi simply considers himself a case apart. The cameras continue to roll as his coffin is lowered into the ground. He's had a family mausoleum built so that he can lie next to his mother, father and siblings. His wife, son and daughter, so long kept from the public eye, sit close by, watching on and shielded by soldiers. Some have assumed that the son, Murat, would take over from his father.

Some have assumed that the son, Murat, would take over from his father. But it's not quite as simple as that. Murat is part Russian and part Jewish, and the people expect a so-called pure Turkman, like his father. In the end, it's the vice-president, Turkmenbashi's former dentist. Kurbanguli Berdimukhamedov, who is appointed acting leader. In February 2007 he wins the presidential election with nearly 90% of the vote. He initially talks a good game, suggesting he will roll back the excesses of his predecessor's

reign. He orders the Arch of Neutrality, the rotating golden monument to Tokmabashi, to be pulled down and relocated to Ashgabat's suburbs. But this supposed new beginning does not last long. There were those who were kind of hopeful that there might be this perestroika moment for Turkmenistan, that Turkmenistan might open up to the world and it might kind of unshackle itself from this canard as being known as the north korea of

central asia but turkman bashi's successor birdie muhammadov he basically became supper marat niyazov 2.0 before he became ill turkman bashi had demanded the construction of an indoor ice skating rink near ashkabar in 2008 the project comes. It's a surreal sight, a palace of ice in the middle of the desert. Men, women and children skate up and down this umpteenth monument of their departed leader, in a country that remains one of the most tightly controlled and repressive places on the globe. How then do we sum up Turkmenbashi's legacy? How deep the marks left by his authoritarianism and his cult of personality? Unfortunately, most of the Central Asian countries do have some form of one-person government.

Turkmenbashi was perhaps the most extreme form of this, but this does seem to be kind of a post-Soviet problem to some extent. It's impossible to predict what will happen in the future. I mean, certainly there is a desire among some, you know, educated Turkmen people for a change, a different kind of leadership. But I would say they're probably in the minority. The majority of people are still living in the countryside and mostly preoccupied with their own concerns.

Turkmenistan has had some really big problems with its health care system, its educational The majority of people are still living in the countryside and mostly preoccupied with their own concerns. Turkmenistan has had some really big problems with its healthcare system, its educational system. I mean, self-inflicted problems. Turkmenbashi dismantled much of the social safety net that the Soviet Union offered to people and leaving people without access to healthcare, without access to education and so forth.

I think there's a lot of dissatisfaction, but at the same time, I think most people are not willing to risk their lives. They're willing to just kind of tune it out and try to go on living their lives as best they can. In the next episode of Real Dictators, we make our return to Germany to pick up the story of one Adolf Hitler. to pick up the story of one Adolf Hitler. At the point we left off in Season 2 of Real Dictators, it was November 1923.

Hitler and his Nazi party had just launched an audacious and treasonous assault on power. But with the Munich Putsch in tatters, our protagonist now finds himself on the run from the law. This is perhaps Hitler's lowest ebb. Yet, in just over nine years' time, this fugitive, this criminal, will defy the odds to become not only leader of Germany, but the nation's all-powerful Fuhrer.

In so doing, he will go down quite simply as one of the most evil and murderous men in the entire history of our planet. Hitler's rise to power. That's next time on Real Dictators.