00:00Today we are looking at the incredibly complex nation of Turkmenistan.
00:04Often compared to an enigmatic, tightly controlled fortress,
00:07this landlocked country is bordered by Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, and the Caspian Sea.
00:13It's a place of bizarre extremes, deep historical roots, and some truly surreal modern realities.
00:19To really understand how this nation arrived at its current highly secretive state,
00:24we're going to walk through five main areas today.
00:26Empires of the Past, The Road to Independence, Ashkabod the Marble City,
00:30Wealth, Gas, and Fire, and we'll wrap up with Modern Culture and Lifestyle.
00:35Let's get to it.
00:36Starting off with Section 1, Empires of the Past, The Crossroads of Civilizations.
00:42Looking way back, it's wild to think that this highly isolated modern nation
00:46used to be the bustling, fiercely contested center of the ancient world.
00:50You honestly couldn't ask for a more dramatic history.
00:52In 569 BC, Cyrus the Great and the mighty Achaemenid Empire claimed this land.
00:57Then, around 330 BC, Alexander the Great actually swept through,
01:01burning great cities to the ground, ruins that you can still literally see today.
01:05After that, the region saw the rise of the Parthian Empire in 247 BC,
01:09followed by the Sassanians in 226 AD.
01:11And then, huge cultural shift here.
01:13In 651 AD, under Umar ibn al-Khattab, the Islamic Caliphate integrated the territory,
01:18sparking a profound religious shift that absolutely defines the nation to this day.
01:23It's honestly a fascinating juxtaposition.
01:26For centuries, this very soil was a vital artery of the ancient Silk Road.
01:30Picture a chaotic, thriving hub of global trade where empires were constantly colliding.
01:36Yet today, as our source material highlights,
01:38it stands as an eerily quiet, locked-down state
01:41with an incredibly strict grip on who comes in and who goes out.
01:45Moving right along to Section 2, the road to independence, from Khans to Soviets.
01:51So, jumping into the second millennium,
01:53how did this constantly conquered territory become a sovereign state?
01:56Well, the land was ruled by the Seljuk Empire, a massive Turkic-Islamic powerhouse.
02:01Fast forward to 1511, and the Kineit of Kiva takes hold,
02:05weathering some brief Persian conquests until the turbulent 20th century hit.
02:08Between 1918 and 1924, the whole territory got absorbed right into the Soviet Union.
02:15It wasn't until the Soviet collapse in late 1991
02:17that Turkmenistan finally achieved modern independence.
02:21Oh, and an amazing historical footnote here,
02:23Pakistan was actually the very first country in the world to officially recognize them.
02:27So, what does the country look like today?
02:29Well, we've got just over 7.7 million people living there now.
02:33It's a relatively homogeneous society.
02:35About 85% of the population are ethnic Turkmen,
02:38along with some smaller minorities of Uzbeks, Russians, and others.
02:41And religion plays a massive role, with 89% of the population practicing Islam.
02:45But here is a number that will blow your mind.
02:4812.
02:49That is the number of people per square kilometer.
02:52To put that into perspective,
02:54Turkmenistan is the 52nd largest country on the entire planet by landmass,
02:58but it has the absolute lowest population density in all of Central Asia.
03:03The sheer emptiness is staggering.
03:05We're talking vast, endless deserts,
03:07wide highways, and seemingly nobody around.
03:10And nowhere is that feeling of emptiness more profound than in Section 3,
03:14Ashgabat, the Marble City.
03:17Ashgabat is known as the City of Love.
03:19And they basically had to rebuild the whole thing from scratch
03:22after a tragic earthquake in 1948
03:24that actually claimed the lives of their first president's parents.
03:27And how did they rebuild it?
03:28With marble.
03:30Ashgabat actually holds a Guinness World Record
03:32for the highest concentration of white marble buildings on Earth,
03:35and all of it is imported straight from Italy.
03:37Lit up at night, it looks like absolute magic.
03:40It has malls that rival Dubai.
03:42But the wild catch?
03:43The streets are largely deserted.
03:45Strict government controls on public gatherings mean people just don't wander around.
03:49It creates this totally surreal movie-set feeling
03:51where this breathtaking city looks like it was built just for show.
03:55Take their airport, for example.
03:57The government spent $5 billion building this unbelievable international airport
04:01shaped exactly like a giant flying falcon.
04:04It is a total architectural marvel.
04:07Yet it sits practically empty,
04:08serving a tourism industry that sees maybe 2,000 foreign tourists a whole year.
04:13$5 billion for 2,000 tourists?
04:16And the strict aesthetics of the city definitely extend to the laws governing the people.
04:21Back in 2016, they rolled out some incredibly specific regulations.
04:25Gold teeth?
04:26Banned.
04:27News anchors wearing makeup?
04:29Also banned.
04:30Young guys were actually banned from having long hair or beards.
04:33Private libraries and hospitals were shut down,
04:36but my personal favorite,
04:37they banned all non-white cars from the capital.
04:41The government literally views white as a symbol of purity and good luck.
04:44Oh, and dogs?
04:46Considered unclean,
04:47so they are totally banned from the pristine streets of Ashgabat too.
04:51So, how exactly does a country afford $5 billion airports
04:55and all that imported Italian marble?
04:57Let's check out section 4.
04:59Wealth, gas, and fire.
05:01It all comes down to the sprawling Karakom Desert,
05:05a place where temperatures swing from well over 50 degrees Celsius in the summer
05:09to freezing snow in the winter.
05:11Underneath all that sand, Turkmenistan is sitting on the fourth largest natural gas reserves
05:16in the entire world.
05:17Gas and oil absolutely run the economy.
05:20But surprisingly, almost half the population, about 48%, actually works in agriculture.
05:25They're a massive producer of cotton,
05:27coming in as the ninth largest exporter on the globe.
05:30Now, you can't talk about their gas reserves
05:32without mentioning their most infamous tourist attraction.
05:34Back in 1971, a natural gas field collapsed into this massive crater in the village of Darvaza.
05:41To prevent poisonous gas from spreading,
05:43scientists just set it on fire, thinking,
05:45hey, it'll burn out in a few weeks.
05:47Well, guess what?
05:48It is still burning today.
05:50Locals call it the door to hell.
05:51And it is this terrifying, completely mesmerizing sight
05:55that draws the few tourists who actually do make it into the country.
05:58So, the crucial point here is how all this wealth and control is viewed.
06:03On the international stage, watchdog organizations consistently rank Turkmenistan's government
06:08as the sixth most corrupt in the world.
06:11However, if you look inside the country,
06:13many locals and government supporters argue that these accusations
06:17are actually Western-funded conspiracies designed to destabilize a peaceful Islamic state.
06:22Regardless of which side you lean toward,
06:24it's clear the current system is heavily entrenched.
06:27All right, bringing us to our file segment,
06:30Section 5, Modern Culture and Lifestyle.
06:33Everyday life here is heavily shaped by the legacy of the country's leaders.
06:36The first president, Saper Marat Yazov,
06:39who literally called himself father of all Turkmen,
06:42instituted free water, gas, and electricity for the public,
06:45a perk the current leadership says is guaranteed until at least 2030.
06:49But Yazov also did some pretty eccentric things,
06:51like banning smoking in public,
06:53outlawing car radios,
06:54and building a massive, solid gold statue of himself
06:57that physically rotated so as always facing the sun.
07:00And his successor continued the tradition of Grand Monuments,
07:03even commissioning a solid gold statue in the capital,
07:06dedicated to his absolute favorite breed of dog.
07:09But beyond the quirky laws and the leadership,
07:11there is a really deep, genuine cultural pride here.
07:14The Turkmen people are incredibly hospitable and fiercely proud of their heritage.
07:19They're master carpet weavers.
07:20And then there are the Akal Teke horses.
07:22These ancient horses have these unbelievable shimmering golden coats,
07:26and they are deeply revered.
07:27They have their own National Horse Day,
07:29you'll find them on the National Currency,
07:31and they're a massive point of pride for a culture that survived in the desert for millennia.
07:34And this brilliantly illustrates a striking paradox about the population.
07:3999.6%.
07:41That is the literacy rate for anyone over 15.
07:44The population is remarkably well-educated.
07:47Yet, contrast that massive education metric with this.
07:51Only about 81,000 people, roughly 10% of the country,
07:54actually have access to the internet.
07:56While the government is slowly building digital infrastructure
07:59and new seaports to increase global trade,
08:01the flow of information remains super-restricted.
08:04Which leaves us with a profound final thought.
08:07Turkmenistan is a place where ancient Silk Road history
08:10literally bumps into futuristic empty marble cities,
08:14where vast natural gas wealth exists alongside intense isolation.
08:18As they slowly build massive new international seaports
08:21and start looking to the future,
08:23we have to ask, what happens next?
08:25Will it remain a tightly closed fortress,
08:27or will the door to hell eventually open up to the rest of the world?
08:30It is definitely a fascinating question.
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