06.03.2021

Akhal-Teke

Turkmen authorities go to great lengths to persecute wayward citizens abroad.

Not that it stops them from trying. And often succeeding.

On February 18, Myalikberdy Allamuradov, a young Turkmen man studying at the Kalmyk State University in the southern Russian city of Elista went onto a main square to hold a one-person picket. As a fellow student filmed, he held up a sign reading “The Turkmen dictator has robbed us of our money!” Police detained him, fined him, and handed his case to prosecutors.

Allamuradov’s solitary demonstration was in response to the difficulties Turkmen students abroad have faced in receiving money from their relatives back… >> подробнее

20.02.2021

Akhal-Teke

The dauphin of Turkmenistan has valuable new purse-monitoring duties

While Serdar Berdymukhamedov’s Supreme Control Chamber gig will give him valuable purse-monitoring duties, his appointment to the State Security Council feels more consequential in succession terms.

With Turkmenistan and bogus statistics, it’s a case of go big or go bust.

In that spirit, Deputy Prime Minister Gadyrgeldy Mushshikov declared at a February 12 Cabinet meeting devoted to summarizing achievements in 2020 that the economy had grown by 5.9 percent.

For the sake of context, the figure for 2019 was 6.3 percent. So only a 0.4 percent slowdown in growth despite the country being closed off to the world for the best part of the year.

Such ludicrous dissembling puts the likes of the International Monetary Fund in an awkward bind. In its April 2020 report… >> подробнее

05.02.2021

Akhal-Teke

Cover-ups are the norm. Result: more corruption, higher costs of living and a still-uncontrolled pandemic.

Tragedies do not happen in Turkmenistan. Or rather, they do, but nobody should know of them.

The crash of a military helicopter in the Ahal province on January 13 that claimed the lives of three men is a neat illustration of this principle.

Amsterdam-based website Turkmen.news has followed the story closely from the outset. No media inside the country has alluded to the incident.

A clue that something was awry was detectable on January 27, when President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov used a meeting of the national State Security Council to dismiss Shadurdy… >> подробнее