David Remnick
Not many years ago, a ruthless man with an uneasy mind took power in his country and created a cult of personality. In the center of the capital, he erected a gold statue of himself that rotated with the sun. He stashed billions in a foreign bank. He closed the academy of sciences, the ballet, the philharmonic, the circus, and all provincial libraries. His autobiography became the nation’s spiritual guide. He banned dogs from the capital for their “unappealing odor.” He renamed the months: January for himself, April for his mother.
He was fond of melons. The second Sunday of August became National Melon Day. Such was the world of Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s leader from 1985 until his death, by cardiac arrest, in 2006. For the Turkmen people, there was nothing comical about life under his dictatorship. He barred dissent and packed his jails with prisoners of conscience. The only consolation was that he could not impose his grandiosity on the globe.
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