Turkmenistan Quotes

The most pleasant and pure feeling is to live with a sense of being part of the Motherland, because exactly this feeling spares [us] from loneliness.

America of the 1920s had the same real per-capita GDP as Turkmenistan does today.

most of the portraits of Niyazov all over Turkmenistan showed him smiling, though he never looked less reliable, or less amused, than when he was smiling. His smile – and this may be true of all political leaders – was his most sinister feature.

At the moment of my betrayal to my motherland, to her sacred banner, to Saparmurat Turkmenbashy, let my breath stop.

They can be divided three ways: those that are neutral, the pro-Western group and the pro-Russian camp. The neutral countries – Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan – are those with fewer reasons to ally themselves with Russia or the West. This is because all three produce their own energy and are not beholden to either side for their security or trade. In the pro-Russian camp are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus and Armenia. Their economies are tied to Russia in the way that much of eastern Ukraine’s economy is (another reason for the rebellion there).

The Ottomans had taken much of the Christian Orthodox Balkans although they only ruled a small territory in Asia – and this shaped the nascent state. Recruiting his infantry from among these Christian Slavs, Murad annually bought or kidnapped a quota of Christian boys, aged eight to twelve, a practice known as the devshirme, to serve as courtiers and soldiers in his Jeni Ceri – new army – the Janissary corps; the cavalry was still drawn from Turkish levies under Anatolian beys. Those enslaved would number uncountable millions. His harem was simultaneously drawn from girls stolen from Slavic villages or Greek islands, often sold via Mongol khans and Italian slave traders. While Ottomans were Turks from Turkmenistan, Murad’s system meant that the Ottomans were often the sons of Slavic concubines, and viziers were often Slavs too.

In less than fifteen minutes, one of the missiles exploded over Tehran, while the other one released an electromagnetic pulse thirty miles above the country of Iran. Tehran ceased to exist in minutes, while the power went out and electronics were fried in the rest of Iran, Kuwait, half of Iraq, and in parts of Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan (not that it mattered there), Azerbaijan, Armenia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some of the even smaller Persian Gulf countries. The EMP affected the regions by throwing them back to the nineteenth century as far as technology goes, while Afghanistan pretty much remained in the Stone Age.

When agents of the Turkmen secret police came up short in arrests of counterrevolutionaries in 1937-38, they filled their quota by going to the Ashgabat marketplace and rounding up all men who wore beards, on theory that they were likely to be mullahs.

The next day, 13 January, murderous anti-Armenian violence overwhelmed Baku. A vast crowd filled Lenin Square for a rally, and by early evening men had broken away from it to attack Armenians. As in Sumgait, the savagery was appalling and the center of the city around the Armenian quarter became a killing ground. People were thrown to their deaths from the balconies of upper-story apartments. Crowds set upon and beat Armenians to death. Thousands of terrified Armenians took shelter in police stations or in the vast Shafag Cinema, under the protection of troops. From there they were taken to the cold and windy quayside, put on ferries, and transported across the Caspian Sea. Over the next few days, the port of Krasnovodsk in Turkmenistan received thousands of beaten and frightened refugees. Airplanes were on hand to fly them to Yerevan.

The geography of the land described in the Vedas extended from as far west as the Oxus river in Afghanistan (Vakshu in Sanskrit) to the Ganga (Ganges) river in India in its easternmost extent. The area was frequently referred to as Sapta-Sindhu which means “seven rivers”. In the Vedic period people who lived in modern-day Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and eastern Iran were all considered to be known tribes living in areas called Balkh, Gandhara (5.01) and Madra. In the lands beyond the Oxus river were the Scythians known to the Vedic people as Sakas.

The kingdom’s territory covered parts of modern-day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran,

Here is a perfectly grotesque example of such compromise. US senator Alan Cranston reportedly said, after a visit to Turkmenistan, sounding like Türkmenbaşy himself, ‘Of course, you don’t build a democratic state in a day. In America, we’ve been at it 200 years, and even here it isn’t perfect. In my opinion, Turkmenistan is slowly but surely walking a path toward a democratic society and economic transition’.

We’re old men now, it’s obvious. Most of us are gone and few remain. That's justice anyway: You ate, you lived, you saw good and evil, you suffered what you had to suffer, and you had your children. Then, all at once and before you know it, you're sent on your way. As for you lot though, this is what I'm trying to say: It's better to be ignorant and useful than learned and useless.

It’s nice to think that leaders who provide peace and plenty rule for long, happy years, beloved by the people and content to do good for them day and night. But in fact those who want to run a country for a long time are ill advised to go around promoting peace and prosperity. Not that making people well off is inherently bad for leaders; it isn’t. It’s just that promoting corruption and misery is better. That was well understood by Leopold and Mobutu in the Congo, and is clearly understood today by the governments in places like North Korea, Zimbabwe, Turkmenistan, Chad, Syria … sadly, the list goes on. It so happens that leaders who are really good at giving their people life, liberty, and happiness are, overwhelmingly, democratically elected and therefore face organized political competition.

I wish I could send everyone in America to live under the dictatorship in Turkmenistan. Or to spend a little time in a New Delhi slum. Maybe they’d gain a little perspective about how good they have it. But I can’t. So instead, they’ll listen to politicians tell them how they’re getting screwed. Or the media telling them about all the things that can kill them. Or some YouTube influencer showing off their fake idyllic life.

Nearly half the Turkmens in central Asia live outside of Turkmenistan, many of them in Afghanistan and Iran. there are more Tajiks in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan. In Samarkand and Bukhara, both in Uzbekistan, the main language is Tajik. The Uzbeks for their part, account for a sixth of the population of Kyrgyzstan and at least a fifth of the population of Tajikistan.

The Soviet cartographers did not have an easy task of creating order out of the Central Asian patchwork of different peoples, languages and clans. Until 1924, the Russians treated Central Asia as one big region which they called Turkestan - the land of the Turks - as most people who lived there spoke Turkic languages.

People did often not know which nationality they were. In the 1926 consensus, people could name their tribe and family, but could not always answer if they were Uzbek, Kyrgyz or Tajik.

He shook his head and waved me on to his colleague, who was responsible for moral checks. "Do you have any porn with you miss?" The customs officer looked at me with interest.

There are very few lazy people in Uzbekistan now" he said. "I describe as lazy those who go to Moscow and sweep its streets and squares." - President of Uzbekistan

In 1941, a group of Soviet archeologists opened the grave to inspect Timur Lenk's remains. His coffin bore the following inscription: "When I rise from the dead the world shall tremble". It is said that they found another inscription inside the coffin: Whosoever opens my tomb shall unleash an army more terrible than I". Two days after the archeologists opened the tomb, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

Stone, rock god. Now up on his rotation: “Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry. Jon jerked and whirled to the beat pounding his home above the Sunset Strip like a one-man boy band wrecking crew, every cell in his body a pulsing celebration. Jon Stone, naked as a jaybird, sixteen days back from a security stint in Turkmenistan on the northern Iranian border, had banked so much cash in the past twenty-four hours he buzzed with a burning energy. And play that funky music ’Til you die! Jon Stone sold death. Jon, who had spent thirteen years with the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, six of which as a Delta Force officer, was a private military contractor. As such, he sold the services of those who could deliver death and those who could defend against death. Business was booming.

Anger in men is generally a default emotion, when what they are really feeling is embarrassment or fear.

The Soviet cartographers did not have an easy task creating order out of the Central Asian patchwork of different peoples, languages and clans. Until 1924, the Russians treated Central Asia as one big region which they called Turkestan – Land of the Turks – as most people who lived there spoke Turkic languages. The Russians knew perfectly well that the people of Central Asia belonged to different clans and cultures, but saw no reason to complicate things further. It was difficult enough as it was. People often did not know which nationality they were. In the 1926 consensus, people could name their tribe and family, but could not always

…the Quds terrorist network has experienced a secret expansion in Latin America, the Gulf states, Palestine, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and other Muslim former-Soviet republics.

A knowledge of Persian will aid a traveler in these countries [Turkmenistan]; but the Toorkey [Turkish] is of infinitely greater consequence.

Eight months [after 9/11], after the most intensive international investigation in history, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation informed the press that they still didn't know who did it. He said they had suspicions. The suspicions were that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan but implemented in Germany and the United Arab Emirates, and, of course, in the United States. After 9/11, Bush II essentially ordered the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, and they temporized. They might have handed him over, actually. They asked for evidence that he was involved in the attacks of 9/11. And, of course, the government, first of all, couldn't given them any evidence because they didn't have any. But secondly, they reacted with total contempt. How can you ask us for evidence if we want you to hand somebody over? What lèse-majesté is this? So Bush simply informed the people of Afghanistan that we're going to bomb you until the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. He said nothing about overthrowing the Taliban. That came three weeks later, when British admiral Michael Boyce, the head of the British Defense Staff, announced to the Afghans that we're going to continue bombing you until you overthrow your government. This fits the definition of terrorism exactly, but it's much worse. It's aggression. How did the Afghans feel about it? We actually don't know. There were leading Afghan anti-Taliban activists who were bitterly opposed to the bombing. In fact, a couple of weeks after the bombing started, the U.S. favorite, Abdul Haq, considered a great martyr in Afghanistan, was interviewed about this. He said that the Americans are carrying out the bombing only because they want to show their muscle. They're undermining our efforts to overthrow the Taliban from within, which we can do. If, instead of killing innocent Afghans, they help us, that's what will happen. Soon after that, there was a meeting in Peshawar in Pakistan of a thousand tribal leaders, some from Afghanistan who trekked across the border, some from Pakistan. They disagreed on a lot of things, but they were unanimous on one thing: stop the bombing. That was after about a month. Could the Taliban have been overthrown from within? It's very likely. There were strong anti-Taliban forces. But the United States didn't want that. It wanted to invade and conquer Afghanistan and impose its own rule. ...There are geostrategic reasons. They're not small. How dominant they are in the thinking of planners we can only speculate. But there is a reason why everybody has been invading Afghanistan since Alexander the Great. The country is in a highly strategic position relative to Central Asian, South Asia, and the Middle East. There are specific reasons in the present case having to do with pipeline projects, which are in the background. We don't know how important these considerations are, but since the 1990s the United States has been trying hard to establish the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAPI)from Turkmenistan, which has a huge amount of natural gas, to India. It has to go through Kandahar, in fact. So Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India are all involved. The United States wants the pipeline for two reasons. One reason is to try to prevent Russia from having control of natural gas. That's the new "great game": Who controls Central Asian resources? The other reason has to do with isolating Iran. The natural way to get the energy resources India needs is from Iran, a pipeline right from Iran to Pakistan to India. The United States wants to block this from happening in the worst way. It's a complicated business. Pakistan has just agreed to let the pipeline run from Iran to Pakistan. The question is whether India will try to join in. The TAPI pipeline would be a good weapon to try to undercut that.

could send everyone in America to live under the dictatorship in Turkmenistan. Or to spend a little time in a New Delhi slum. Maybe they’d gain a little perspective about how good they have it. But I can’t. So instead, they’ll listen to politicians tell them how they’re getting

Turkmenistan

(...) a kiedy się śmiał, czynił to na ten lekko zrezygnowany, ironiczny sposób, który przyswoili sobie obrońcy praw człowieka na całym świecie.

Some people approached me saying they would like to raise a monument to me like they do in Turkmenistan for Turkmenbashy, I asked, what for? Astana is my memorial.

Nie do wiary, ale dzięki oddanym współpracownikom Wawiłowa jego bank nasion przetrwał ponad dwadzieścia osiem miesięcy oblężenia Leningradu. Władze nie zatroszczyły się o zabezpieczenie dwustu pięćdziesięciu tysięcy nasion, jednak pracownicy Instytutu zajęli się tą sprawą. Wyselekcjonowane nasiona przenieśli do dużej skrzyni i ukryli w piwnicy, gdzie na zmianę trzymali straż. Ani jeden z pilnujących nie uległ pokusie zjedzenia nasion, chociaż dziewięciu z nich zmarło z głodu przed zakończeniem oblężenia w 1944 roku.

W gruncie rzeczy nie wyobrażam sobie lepszej ilustracji szczytu melancholii niż pesymista czytający Schopenhauera w Pamirze.

It is impossible to hide any more of his (Turkmenbashy) pure hypocrisy, the absence of elementary norms of political and diplomatic behavior, the insidiousness and cruelty in relation to the people and the spreading of an atmosphere of fear.

All this will pass in a few years, when the people no longer depend on me. The Turkmens have always bowed to something; once it was fire, then Islam, then Marx... the people have to believe in something.

Let me hit you with one other local legend, one that might seem particularly pertinent to the moment. Right next door to Turkmenistan is Uzbekistan, where, in 1940, Western scholars discovered the oral history of the Karakalpak people. They shared an epic, 20,000-line poem about a legendary group of warriors, called the Kirk Kuz, who would have been active in the early 1700s. There were forty of these warriors, and they were unparalleled in everything: horse-riding, marksmanship with a bow and arrow, throwing axes and knives, sword-fighting and every martial art imaginable. Strength, agility, cunning, nerves of steel—the DNA of these warriors had to be a double helix of sheer concentrated lethality. They repelled invading hordes and every man in every direction feared the ruthless, silent efficiency of the Kirk Kuz warriors. What makes the Kirk Kuz different is that they were all women, yet another group that may have inspired the legend of the Amazons. They only left their sisters in death or marriage.