Travel Guide

Places To See

Karakum Desert

In the heart of Central Asia's hottest desert, Turkmen villages such as Jerbent get by on rural agriculture, livestock breeding and pluck. Here you can see you can see nomadic people, experience their customs, see handicrafts, watch carpet making and taste their food while staying in an ak oi (Turkmen yurt) or chaikhana. It's the real, traditional Turkmen experience.

At the heart of the desert lie the Darvaza Gas Craters, one of Turkmenistan's most unusual sights. Remnants of the Soviet-era, one of the craters has been set alight and blazes with an incredible strength that's visible from miles away. There are acres of free camping sites nearby and the fire crater is best seen at night, when it also becomes an attraction for huge and largely harmless spiders that run into the fire for reasons best known to themselves. This is a serious off-road ride in the middle of the night and drivers frequently get lost or get stuck in the dunes. The best way to do the trip is to travel with an experienced driver from Ashgabat.

Kugitang Nature Reserve

Kugitang is the most impressive and pristine of Turkmenistan's nature reserves. Set up in 1986 to protect the Kugitang Mountain Range, its unique ecosystem and in particular the rare markhor mountain goat, it includes the nation's highest peak, several huge canyons, rich forests, mountain streams, caves and the unique Dinosaur Plateau.

Dinosaur Plateau is presumed to be the bottom of a lake that dried up, leaving dinosaur prints baking in the sun, after which a volcanic eruption sealed them in lava. Visiting the Karlyuk Caves is equally impressive. You'll need to arrange a special permit from a travel agency in order to visit here.

Tolkuchka Bazaar

With its teeming cast of colourful thousands, this bazaar is Central Asia, Cecil B. De Mille-style. It sprawls across acres of desert on the outskirts of town, with corrals of camels and goats, avenues of red-clothed women squatting before silver jewellery, and countless trucks from which vendors hawk everything from pistachios to car parts. Expect to haggle.

Above all, Tolkuchka is the place for carpets. Predominantly deep red, hundreds are laid out in a large sandy compound or draped over racks and walls.

Pre-Departure Information

When to go?

As summers are ferociously hot and winters bitterly cold, spring (April to June) and autumn (September to November) are the best seasons to visit Turkmenistan. In April the desert blooms briefly and the monotonous ochre landscapes explode in reds, oranges and yellows. Autumn is harvest time, when market tables heave with freshly picked fruit. If you do decide to battle the winter, be aware that many domestic flights are grounded and finding food can be a problem since lots of eateries close for the season.

Travel Visa Overview

You must obtain both a visa and a letter of invitation prior to arrival. Failure to have, at the very least, a personal statement and itinerary, means that your experience will be limited to what you can see as you fly straight back out of there.

Travellers also need special permission to visit areas close to the Afghan, Uzbek and Iranian borders. Tourist attractions that fall inside restricted areas include Ashgabat, Merv, Konye-Urgench, Nokur and Kugitang Nature Reserve, among others. Check with your travel agent to make sure restricted areas are included on your invitation.

Electricity

220V

50Hz

Electrical Plugs

European plug with two circular metal pins

American-style plug with two parallel flat blades above a circular grounding pin

Health Information

Hepatitis

Hepatitis

Several different viruses cause hepatitis; they differ in the way that they are transmitted. The symptoms in all forms of the illness include fever, chills, headache, fatigue, feelings of weakness and aches and pains, followed by loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, light-coloured faeces, jaundiced (yellow) skin and yellowing of the whites of the eyes. Hepatitis A is transmitted by contaminated food and drinking water. Seek medical advice, but there is not much you can do apart from resting, drinking lots of fluids, eating lightly and avoiding fatty foods. Hepatitis E is transmitted in the same way as hepatitis A; it can be particularly serious in pregnant women.

Hepatitis B is spread through contact with infected blood, blood products or body fluids, for example through sexual contact, unsterilised needles (and shaving equipment) and blood transfusions, or contact with blood via small breaks in the skin. The symptoms of hepatitis B may be more severe than type A and the disease can lead to long-term problems such as chronic liver damage, liver cancer or a long-term carrier state. Hepatitis C and D are spread in the same way as hepatitis B and can also lead to long-term complications.

There are vaccines against hepatitis A and B, but there are currently no vaccines against the other types. Following the basic rules about food and water (hepatitis A and E) and avoiding risk situations (hepatitis B, C and D) are important preventative measures.

Diphtheria

Diptheria

Vaccination against this serious bacterial disease is very effective, so you don't need to worry if you've been properly immunised against it. It mainly affects children and causes a cold-like illness that is associated with a severe sore throat. A thick white membrane forms at the back of the throat which can suffocate you, but what makes this a really nasty disease is that the diphtheria bug produces a very powerful poison which can cause paralysis and affect the heart. Otherwise healthy people can carry the bug in their throats, and it's transmitted by sneezing and coughing. It can also cause a skin ulcer known as a veldt sore. Vaccination protects against this form too. Treatment is with penicillin and a diphtheria antitoxin, if necessary.

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

TB is a bacterial infection usually transmitted from person to person by coughing or spitting, but it can also be transmitted through consumption of unpasteurised milk. Milk that has been boiled is safe to drink, and the souring of milk to make yogurt or cheese also kills the bacilli. Travellers are usually not at great risk, as close household contact with the infected person is usually required before the disease is passed on.

Weather Information

Turkmenistan is by far the hottest of the Central Asian countries, although its dry desert climate and low humidity means that despite the soaring temperatures, it's not always uncomfortably warm. That said, only the insane or deeply unfortunate find themselves in Ashgabat in July and August, when the temperature can push 50°C (122°F). Winter days see highs of just 3°C (38°F) in January, but as the hours of sunlight are about a third of that in summer, nights make little difference, usually averaging around -4°C (25°F). Proximity to the Caspian Sea blunts conditions along coastal Turkmenistan, with cooler summers and warmer winters. Rainfall is infrequent over the country and only mild in southcentral regions outside of summer. The major area affected by the weather is Dekhistan, in the south-west, which is virtually unreachable after rain because of impassable road conditions.

History and Culture

Pre-20th Centure History

Though never a goal in itself, the sun-scorched, barren land between the Caspian Sea and the Amu-Darya passed in ancient times from one empire to another as armies decamped on the way to richer territories. Alexander the Great established a city on his way to India, the Romans set up near present-day Ashgabat and, in the 11th century the Seljuq Turks used Alexander's old city, Merv, as a base from which to expand their empire into Afghanistan. Two centuries later, the heart of the Seljuq empire was torn out as Jenghiz Khan stormed down from the steppes into Trans-Caspia (the region east of the Caspian Sea), ruining the great cities of Merv and Konye-Urgench. Neither ever fully recovered.

While the empire-builders tussled, nomadic horsebreeding tribes of Turkmen drifted in through the cracks, possibly from the Altay mountains, and grazed from oasis to oasis along the fringes of the Karakum desert and in Persia, Syria and Anatolia. With the decline in the 16th century of the Timurid empire, the region became a backwater dotted with feudal Turkmen islands. From their oasis strongholds, the Turkmen preyed on straggling caravans, pillaging and stealing slaves or skirmishing with other tribes. It was only when they started kidnapping Russians from the strengthening tsarist empire that the Turkmen fell into trouble. Military forces were sent to Trans-Caspia to rout the by now wildly uncontrollable tribes: in 1881 the Russians marched on the fortress of Geok-Tepe and massacred an estimated 7000 Turkmen. A further 8000 were cut down as they fled across the desert. Not surprisingly, the Russians met little more resistance and by 1894 had secured all Trans-Caspia for the tsar.

Modern History

A group of counter-revolutionaries briefly held sway in Ashgabat when WWI and the Bolshevik revolution distracted the Russians. A small British force, dispatched from northern Persia to back up the provisional Ashgabat government, skirmished with the Bolsheviks but withdrew in 1919 and the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was formed in 1924. Soviet attempts to settle the tribes, collectivise farming and ban religion inflamed the nomadic Turkmen and a guerilla war raged until 1936. More than a million Turkmen fled into the desert or into northern Afghanistan and a steady stream of Russian immigrants began settling in their stead to undertake the modernisation of the SSR. A big part of the plan was cotton: massive irrigation works bled the Amu-Darya and the Aral Sea.

Turkmenistan was slow to pick up on the political changes in the other Soviet republics during the 1980s. The first challenge to the Communist Party (CPT) came in 1989 when a group of intellectuals formed Agzybirlik (Unity), a socially and environmentally progressive party. Agzybirlik was banned when it showed signs of garnering too much support, though the CPT did declare sovereignty in August 1990. In October 1990 Saparmurad Niyazov, unopposed and supposedly with the blessing of 98% of voters, was elected to the newly created post of president. One year later, upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan became an independent country.

Recent History

The post-independent period belonged to President Niyazov, head of the Democratic Party (DPT), the new name of the old (and otherwise unchanged) Communists.

With his statue on every available pedestal, a clutch of towns renamed after him and enough public portraits to fill the world's galleries, Niyazov is the focus of a personality cult that makes Lenin look shy. He adopted the title of Turkmenbashi (Head of all Turkmen); parliament has named him president for life, although he has said he will step down after his 70th birthday in 2010.

An attempt on Niyazov's life in 2002 led to a crackdown on the last remaining elements of political opposition. Since then his grip on power has tightened and in order to keep his underlings off-balance he frequently fires and replaces ministers and others in prominent functionaries. The public is kept satisfied with promises of an 'Alttyn Asyr' (Golden Age) which for now is maintained with government subsidised living - just about everyone receives gas, electricity and water at almost no cost. This is provided courtesy of Turkmenistan's wealth of natural gas and oil.