Take respect, ego, respect and add a lot more ego – and maybe you will understand some of the cult of personality of the dictator who loved himself so much and was so cruel.
In the seventh chapter of the ‘Leaders’ series of articles, we will focus on the character of the dictator from Turkmenistan, the non-Spermort Niazov who also later changed his name to Turkmen – but we’ll get to that later.
The fall of communism
After 100 years without independence – in 1991, communism fell, and Niazov, who had served as the leader of communist Turkmenistan as the puppet governor of the Soviet regime since 1985, became the most realistic candidate to lead the new state.
In 1992 (1952), elections were held in Turkmenistan in which Niazov won surprisingly – after no one else dared to run against him.
Nyazov in 1991 – The days of the collapse of communism
Political candidates often ask what will be the first things they do. The humble Niazov, decided to start developing an endless cult of personality when he changed his name to Turkmenbashi – after the country he led until his death.
In addition, during his tenure, he passed a referendum in which 99 percent of the people “chose” him to remain president for a decade without elections. But later all this was not enough for him, and he worked for the parliament to approve that Turkmenbashi would become president for life. In parliamentary elections, the president carefully selects each candidate.
Horses, melons and hallucinations
Turkmenbashi is considered one of the strangest dictators in history. For example, he banned the breeding of horses for the private population and those who insisted were arrested and imprisoned in particularly cruel conditions.
In addition, he decided that every July 10, Turkmenistan will celebrate a special day, a real holiday; “Hotel Day” – and another month was also ‘Horse Month’. Yes, he really liked horses.
And if for months, President Turkmenbashi has ruled that from now on there will be no more in the country January. The new name is not Kislev in case you thought, but Turkmenbashi. Surprising given the modesty of the cruel dictator.
Later, he decided he did not like opera, circus and ballet performances, and announced a legal ban on performing any of these shows.
The hallucinations of Turkmenbashi have gone as far as almost every possible field. In 1997, Turkmenbashi decided that he was trying to quit cigarettes. This led to a new law – a ban on smoking in all of Turkmenistan, and many were forced to smoke in secret.
Another initiative that really benefited his people – the construction of a huge gold statue at a height of over 75 meters, with the highlight – the statue of Turkmenbashi rotates according to the location of the sun, because it is stronger than the sun …
Later, Turkmenbashi created a serious navigation problem, and we would only be happy for the Wise who had not been active in those years. Turkmenbashi changed the names of streets, airports, government buildings and more to his name. This caused a problem. When there are several Turkmenbashi streets in the same neighborhood – how do you know where to send basic things like mail?
Finally – in 1998, a meteorite arrived near Turkmenistan that amazed the citizens of the oppressed country – which of course led to the meteorite’s name immediately becoming ‘Turkmenbashi’.
Torture and imprisonment of dissidents
According to testimonies from prison survivors – many of whom are still there on the orders of Turkmenbashi’s heirs, “they would not have electrified us and nothing like that.”
The survivor, who is accused of raising horses privately, told the media years ago that “they just put six inmates in a room of two and prevented food.”
“People would just lose weight, and look at each other in silence like a bunch of monkeys,” the survivor testified. “Occasionally the guards would come and let us eat a piece of bread with a little millet porridge next to it. Of course the bread was regularly baked with sand and stones, which made it difficult to eat.”
Tell me who your friends are? Nyazov with his friend Vladimir Putin (Photo: Величкин Сергей; Родионов Владим)
He added that “sometimes we would also get a soup consisting of onion peels and at best we would get a small piece of onion or potato in the boiling water night.”
The released prisoner, miraculously released, when the prison is considered a place from which only the dead come out. “They would let us out of the cell only once a week – and then we would see sky. When they would take us out, we would get a cold shower and sometimes even a shave.”
Many would have died in prison from weight loss when that was Turkmenbashi’s goal.
Either way, in 2006 Turkmenbashi died, and his successor tries to continue him and his dubious path.