It all started in November 2007, as, while in Uzbekistan, buying train tickets from Urgench to Tashkent, I asked the clerk there whether the train still crisscrossed the Turkmen border (country for which I did not have a visa at the time). Maybe more precisely, it actually started with my frustration of being so close to Konye Urgench, but so far due to political reasons. More than a year passed, I discovered pictures of Dayahatin Caravanserai on a Turkish website and the desert was calling. So, the red tape had to be followed (or broken), a local travel agency's tour had to be booked for the visa to be granted and Easter was the best time to flee woof-woof celebrations of any sort for Central Asia. Colleagues asked me "Ash-gabat? Is there an airport over there?", or simply stared with no reply in hand when I told them where I was going. Turkmenistan seemed to be a country on Planet Mars or stuck somewhere between South America and a Central African outpost for those "in the know". For some, there was no high mountain to climb, for others the word "dictatorship" said it all, while for the rest going to such countries was, like always, an eccentric move, while ignorance was comfy and sweet a blanket to wrap one in. Old Persia, Tamerlane, Margiana, Alexander the Great, these were too remote and irrelevant a reason for anyone to go to a country that was anyway so hard (and expensive for that matter) to get to. I was to travel together with a friend that wanted to see people and the way they lived. I had no plans and expectations, as life is too short and spontaneous, while both thrills and deceptions are plentiful anyway. So I started with ancient stones and sites, put together a tour with the help of a local travel agent that was able to provide the required papers, made sure there was no horse stud farm visit or carpet museum included and off we went.

We began with an aircraft in Istanbul that took off with a 45 minute delay. Passengers consisted of mid-aged women that carried large pieces of parcels of merchandise as hand luggage, a few families that had spent some days in Turkey, some scarce business men and even fewer foreigners. As the pilot put it, we were late due to "luggage issues". Which translated as "we had problems fitting it all on the plane", as we were to see in Ashgabat. Arriving in Turkmenistan at 03.30 AM allowed one to walk out of the airport (i.e. to complete formalities) at 05.00 AM. Every single operation required another clerk (sometimes, even two of them), while every two immigration officers were joined by a supervisor. One was supposed to go through office #1, hand the official, approved letter of invitation and passport, wait for about 10-15 minutes, be handed a paper, go to office #2, wait to be issued the receipt, pay the visa fee, go back to office #1, show the receipt, get the passport, then proceed to office #3 where, a form filled, he / she could have the passport stamped. Then, luggage picked, there were only two more to go through: having luggage X-rayed and the passport checked once again. All in all, with only a handful of foreigners ahead of us, this took a mere hour and a half.

Crossing Ashgabat at dawn had a surreal, dreamy touch: wide, straight avenues were bordered by tall concrete administrative or office buildings covered with white marble. Everything was meant to impress through polish, whiteness and dimension. The city looked "neat" with its being solemn, lack of colour, respectively with those parks that made huge buildings seem even bigger, lacking any sort of life and having wiped off any spark of life. Even though the sun was struggling to rise, Ashgabat was plain dead, in all its whiteness, monumentality and self-assumed love.

Just beyond the city limits, we stopped at the ruins of Anau Mosque. As I was to see later on in Abiverd or other historic sites, and totally opposed to its contemporary development, Turkmenistan allowed the visitor to think, stimulated his imagination and sense of orientation in a way that had been next to impossible in nearby Uzbekistan. With very few exceptions, old monuments, whether this was about shrines, mosques, fortresses or towns, had not been rebuilt, but restored at most. History's downturns had not been swept under the carpet, but rather acknowledged. Unlike sterile Samarkand sporting that "brand new" package, Turkmenistan's Anau Mosque was ruined, but its brickwork play and fine decoration pleased the eye and nevertheless challenged one's thinking. Not much later, the road began to be uneven, there were bumps and cracks, as well as potholes. There was not much traffic in the country (and there would have been considerably less had one cut off Iranian and Turkish trucks), but roads were mostly poor and uneven out of Ashgabat's area and the main cities, the development of which was meant to display a powerful demonstration solely meant to impress.

Upon reaching Mary, the Land Cruiser we had got some problems with the breaking, which allowed a two hour walk across the city. Several brand new, marble plated administrative buildings could hardly balance the striking poverty that lay past the first rows of apartment blocks set during the Soviet era. People had tried many ways of improving or maintaining their apartments, even though one could hardly describe the extremely low quality of these structures raised just some 30 years before. Cracked, uneven walls, windows that seemed to have never properly shut down, frail balconies that had to be reinforced with iron poles and metal plates, leaking roofs, all these talked loudly of the greatness of the Soviet administration. And there was more to come the following days. Life was gleaming however behind the same grey buildings, with children's playing, colourfully dressed women's baking chorek in round brick ovens or with the overwhelming smoke coming from countless shashlik and lyolye (kebab) grills. Technical problems sorted, we continued to Merv. The archaeological site was huge and it taught the visitor its story starting with 500 BC, with every stage in its development that did not deny the existence of its previous one, preferring to develop next to it, rather than on top (or instead) of it. Well beyond its large scale, the site at Merv allowed one to breathe, to feel the dwellings and also to set his mind free. Other than that, the solitude and fine interior painting of Sultan Sanjar's Mausoleum or the sun setting on the Great Kyz Kala's harmonica-like walls are impossible to forget. And so is one of the greatest mutton dishes I had ever had, some shashlik served at a simple stand facing one of the outskirts around Mary, in the air filled with coal smoke, and truck fumes, respectively next to a handful of local men that had got drunk and started to loudly hold toast after toast at one another.

The following day implied an early start, as we were to follow rather bad roads and then a 30 km. desert trail to Gonur. The road was (badly) paved only up to a former Socialist era kolhoz, but it was there that the interesting leg began. As it was springtime, the clay colour desert hosted faded green bushes and vividly red poppies. On the way we met several herds of camels and cattle driven by young or old med riding slim, beautiful horses. Their sunburnt faces full of rides told a different story than that in the city some 50 km. away. Later on, a truckload of school children brought joy to the quiet setting with their singing and playing around. As I was to also see later on, people there did not approach the more or less obvious foreigner; they did not resent him either. Instead, they acknowledged one's presence, respected him, some (rather few) times looked at him, but never stared. Conversation occasionally occurred, but it was not imposed, it did not cling on artificial, pro forma topics. This silence when facing foreigners was unique among the countries I had visited. We eventually reached the site, with its millennia old houses, cisterns, official dwellings and religious settlements dotted with colourful flowers that spread around a dense, overwhelming scent. The site spoke to the profane more through its size and history rather than through what there still was to see and explore, however the setting and the road to it were well worth the very journey to Turkmenistan alone.

Back to the asphalted road, the time to head Northwards had come. Following a mostly straight road that seemed to never end, we reached Turkmenabat in the afternoon and had the time to walk across it in search of the railway station we did not find, as we found yet another city than the marble-plated one along the Bitarap Turkmenistan Avenue. We discovered a city made of 4 floor apartment buildings that looked as if they were about to crumble down, where balconies needed to be reinforced or sustained so as not to collapse, where some people had replaced low quality windows with metal plates, where whole bunches of buildings seemed to have dropped from the sky with no street leading to them, but only with mud-paved alleys where children were playing. People had tried to expand their small apartments by virtually building extra rooms just off their ground floor balcony or window; materials varied from wood to bricks, concrete, metal plates, big industrial tiles, plastic sheets or reed. Others had set small shacks to store tools or the odd aging motorbike. A maze of paths went from place to place and it all looked like a labyrinth, as one rectangular apartment building popped into the next one(s) at a random angle and they all ended with a dirty water channel or in a street that was fenced off. Only along main avenues there was a sort of order, these buildings were slightly better, they were set in rows so as to hide the ones to the back from sight; I was familiar with this policy, as it had been applied in Ceaușescu's Romania as well. The Soviet rule had taken these people from their yurts and villages, had quickly (and at very low costs) raised a city for them and pushed them in. Their world had been shaken and stirred; in this situation, the survival instinct had prevailed while the package, the outer "reality" no longer had any importance whatsoever. Just like in Bucharest, one's life gravitated around himself, his living room and close entourage. Public life had no meaning, other than that imposed by rites and a short list of societal to-dos.

At the same time, by employing either grand designs or history figures, the actual rule wanted to give people the idea of the Turkmen nation unicity and historical importance. The origin of the soap (no, it did not come from Syria or Lebanon, as our guide cut my question short), the world's best steel, such premises were a good point to start. The few local TV channels presented programs where folklore and traditions met the boom of grand new cities. Commercials of the developing Awaza Resort and of some new marble-plated palace were shown between a long speech of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, respectively a show on the great nature and history of the country. One might have argued whether there could have been another way to bring a change from the failure and the desolation left behind by the Soviet rule, other than that of assuring people they belonged to a great nation with a great future ahead. And since former President Saparmurat Niyazov's death they seemed to have started developing other things (especially the infrastructure, such as new roads being built and train stock being renewed etc.), apart from white palaces and golden statues.

As it was Sunday evening, the park in central Turkmenabat was full of people. Women stood and chatted with their dark red or cyan, velvet-like, long dresses bearing stylized traditional embroided patterns. Wearing impeccably, shiny high heel shoes, fancy haircuts or perfectly tied, colourful head scarves, they often walked hand in hand or in small groups. The park seemed to act like a buffer zone between the poor 4 floor residential area and the striking Bitarap Turkmenistan Avenue, which was bordered by some grotesque administrative buildings. Featuring impressive stairways, big glass panel facades, large scale at all (and any) costs, these structures aimed at impressing the passer by. The domed roofs of such buildings wanted to rival that of Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan for some reason I could not figure. The use of marble was omnipresent, with most of it being white, like in "the pure and absolute, grand prospects of our country". The grandest of them all (well, in Turkmenabat only, not in all of Turkmenistan, as there was more to come), the Ruhyet Koshgi - the Palace of Congress and Arts - gave one the impression it had come from the land of Oz. Or that of Kim Ir Sen. The 30 year old apartment building across the street, probably in a bad state like the other similar structures, had been refurbished and its facade had been plated with white, of course, bathroom tiles. While elsewhere in the city people had themselves closed off their balconies to create another room to their small apartments, here it was the rule that closed them all, also covering them with white tiles, so that those visiting the palace could have a nice view from the stairs. At night, the whole avenue looked like a disco, with plastic palm trees and all sorts of designs that were lit in bright colours. Even though deserted at most (if not all) times, this part of the city had been granted the atmosphere of a cheap, tacky horror movie. Meanwhile, there were many people that gathered around a kebab grill or around a pot of chai, listening to the music and chatting the evening away. They were much more interesting a sight than any white marble pyramids, golden statue on top or not.

Morning came with the embarrassed gaze of the receptionist at my asking where breakfast was served. The brand new, imposing, (what else but) white marble plated Jeyhun Hotel had two main problems: balcony and bathroom doors could not be properly closed and there was no breakfast for technical reasons. More precisely, the chef was off. This was to turn in a fortunate happening, as it imposed a visit to the local grocer's run by the typical old lady sporting a healthy smile and a contagious laugh. After a filling breakfast a la russe in the room (consisting of meat paste, sweet pastry, juice and frozen sour cream), we started to the Uzbek border. Villages got ever smaller, just to entirely disappear from sight as we got closer to the Oxus which marked the border in broad lines. The view stretched forever across the barren, flat desert that hosted only scarce vegetation made of dry bushes and rare, but vivid flowers (as it was April); the pouring rain felt so strange in this place. We eventually reached a military checkpoint, had our passports and the visas including the appropriate border access checked and held our breath; there had been situations where, even having all documents and the right visa in hand, people and guides had been turned back because the army official felt foreigners should not be allowed that close to the border. But we were allowed to continue on a dirt road towards a meadow overlooking the river where Dayahatin Caravanserai lay. The building was ruined, but such a treat it was! Even though I had seen much more elaborate similar structures, this one impressed me with its location in this barren area and with its fine vaulted ways, brick work patterns on the facade, respectively - once again - with the lack of restoration that would have turned it into a typical postcard subject. The building's being ruined allowed one to see the vault key stones / bricks and the way the roof structure, as well as if it had been plundered and damaged a short while before... 500 years of neglect hardly showed their presence and that made Dayahatin one of the architectural sites I enjoyed mostly in Turkmenistan.

We continued along the river and then at a few kilometers to the South of it. As we went across the desert, only the telegraph poles and wires following the railway tracks reminded one of any sort of human presence in the silence and solitude of the Karakum. The grey sky above seemed to mingle with the lifeless ground as the horizon line disappeared and that ceaseless drizzle granted the whole place with a strange, out of this world touch. Only the shaking generated by our going at 100 km. / h.  along the ever worse road provided the still image with some beat. A gas pipe, a few trucks, plant and eventually those well-known 4 floor, square apartment buildings: we had reached Gazachak. The town, founded by and for employees of the local gas plant, had no remote history or grand future prospects to refer to or rely on. Instead, it was straight-forward and honest. Common Soviet era apartment buildings once again showed the typical failure and lack of efficiency, but history had loudly laughed at them, with Turkmens' breeding cattle, goats and sheep or their building traditional, round, clay ovens to bake chorek right next to the buildings they lived in. But, out of the whole lot, the market place was the most interesting, with that ad hoc metal kiosks of all shapes, sizes and designs that hosted small shops selling everything from soap to raw meat, with the mid-aged woman cooking manty or samsas always happy and eager to talk to us. More than anything else, a "little touristic interest" place like Gazachak provided more life beat than the high aspiration, but plain dead Samarkand or Bukhara.

After a deliciously fat mutton shorpa for breakfast, we got back to the desert which soon became more and more arid, with even dry bushes eventually vanishing. The road turned particularly bad, full of potholes of the crater kind, respectively covered by small sand dunes from time to time. Our driver had obviously driven a Lada or a sedan for a long time and only recently shifted to a Land Rover, which he appreciated solely for the high ground clearance and for the ease of use in automatic gear. Other than that however, he never used the 4x4 mode or the manual gear shifter, even on the worst of roads or off roads, through sand, bushes or dirt. This resulted in our virtually diving in large potholes in full speed, having no engine break, or in the car's shaking from all joints over craters. To make it even, we almost turned over a few times when he accelerated like crazy in order not to get stuck in sand. Furthermore, when a strenous climb occurred out of the blue, the car could hardly go over it, as the automatic shifter took longer to react, hence the engine's getting steamy a few times. Compared to this situation, Bismillah, the Afghan driver that had taken us from Herat to Jam and back was illiterate, but he knew how to drive an off road vehicle on trails much worse than these.

Eventually, shaken and stirred, we reached Aksaray Ding, an interesting church bell tower-like mausoleum that stood solitarily on an empty plot inside a graveyard. Before heading to Dashoguz, we also stopped at Izmukshir Fortress, an extensive site - virtually untouched by archaeologists - with walls made of unbaked bricks and clay that seemed to have been strengthened with human bones, the fragments of which could be seen mostly everywhere. If it had not been for a white brick-bordered alley crossing the whole fortress, it would have looked like abandoned for centuries and, even as it was, Izmukshir provided a very picturesque place that stimulated one's imagination. In the afternoon we reached Dashoguz, the city of dinosaur and historical golden statues, respectively of 5 tip star memorials and monumental fountains. Trying our luck at the bus station, we found a driver willing to take us to Ismamut Ata, a 16 century madrassa and shrine that were to prove to be some of the most fascinating places I saw in the country. The madrassa bore superb carved wood doors both to its entrance and to the small students' cells. Fine Khiva style, carved wooden pillars sustained the roof of the summer mosque, while the view from the winter mosque roof embraced the oasis flatlands, going well beyond the extreme graveyard, to the point where the late afternoon sun rays melted the sky in the reddish ground. The dashkeche or the long corridor leading to Ismamut Ata's shrine was a magnificent piece of architecture, with its simple lines, gracious domes and mystic light; it reminded me of the great bazaar in Isfahan or Yazd. With the help of a couple of archaeologists from Tashkent, a handful of workers were involved in restoring the site and the local mullah was eager to show us everything around, and invited us for tea that turned into a small feast, with fresh vegetables, chorek and a very kind conversation. Such a happening showed the extent to which man is a survivor, even after a long rule meant to defy and wipe off one's beliefs and roots. But it was nevertheless a pity that the very human communication and contact was very limited for foreigners in Turkmenistan because of the very fact that tourist visas were only granted based on a tour arranged with a travel agency, while transit visas did not get one too far from the respective transit route, with the plentiful police / army checking posts especially near borders, but not only. But, after all, if there is a will, there is way. And the years I remember of my childhood in Communist Romania told me that one can always jump over the fence here and there. And so we did.

Back in the city, a late evening call was meant to inform us that 5 AM was a good time to wake up. The Thursday flight to Turkmenbashi had been rescheduled for Wednesday on week before, fact that had required all of our itinerary to change; now they changed the flight departure time. With hopes that the B717 would not be replaced by an AN24 or a similarly noisy bird, we complied, woke up at 5, had breakfast with the owls and visited Konye Urgench shortly after dawn. One has to go to Konye Urgench after Samarkand, Bukhara or Khiva, to see the other side of the coin, to be allowed to breathe normally and to experience history rather than contemporary plaster or glazed tile replicas. With its old monuments spread across a vast piece of land, it was not hard to get an idea of the area the town occupied in the 12th century, before the Mongol invasion, or in the first half of the 14th century. The blue tile decoration on Nedjmeddin Kubra's shrine were simply stunningly beautiful on the clay facade, while the very state of ruin at Turabeg Khanum's shrine allowed one to see the structure of the double dome. More than anything, the very setting of the historic site, quiet, remote, lacking any sort of commercialism and the very absence of the souvenir sellers or pushy guides allowed one to move freely and feel the place for himself.

Back to Dashoguz, while at a cafe to have some frugal lunch before the flight to Turkmenbashi, I could not ignore our guide's approach to local people, as it was not the first time it happened: he rarely greeted shop or cafe employees, his order was next to always in a loud voice and he often complained just to show he knew better than others. This time it was about the young waiter's being Uzbek and not speaking proper Turkmen or Russian. And then, of course, the shashlik meat was not properly cooked, the whole world seemed to be against him. While this behaviour is quite common (even though not fortunate) with individuals that chose frustration instead of openness to different opinions and people, his case was particularly bad as he sought such means to show the extent to which those he associated himself with according to the point of reference of the moment (people from the capital, Turkmens in general, supporters of the current regime in his country, pro-Russians) were superior and omnipresent beings. While I do not believe in the purism of the "politically correct" theory, I have always preferred the smile or being indifferent of people down the street in a remote village or in an industrial provincial town rather than the superiority complex meant to hide the deep frustrations and ignorance of a capital buff.

But time is short or so we like to think, so we got on the plane to Turkmenbashi, to listen to a more pragmatic opinion from an engineer that worked in the oil industry, a person that allowed himself to see both the good and the bad part of contemporary Turkmenistan, starting with the foreign affairs policy and ending with the nation building, its positive and negative faces. The former referred to developing the country's infrastructure or creating people's trust in the re-emerging state (language, culture, traditions, institutions) following a short-lived birth off tribal dispute and a 70 year long foreign occupation that did its best to change or rather wipe off the local heritage it found. The latter referred to megalomania, the North Korea sort of personality cult, investing in utopian projects and not allowing individuals to develop own ideas and personality. But then, beyond these issues, with or without our fellow passenger's mentioning it, the country lay at a strategic borderland. It could export a lot of gas to Russia via Kazakhstan, but was rather limited towards Iran due to the low flow cross-border pipe. Now it was trying to develop a gas trade relation with China, but that implied transit through other countries as well. Playing Niyazov's neutral party (with or without the well-known arch in Ashgabat) in such an international scenario was worse than playing one's house, mother and daughter at poker.

We landed, had our passports registered, walked a bit on the muddy shore of the turquoise waters of the Caspian and then started across the desert towards the dry, impressive Balkan Mountains and Balkanabat. The oil industry hub city was more pleasant than I would have thought, with streets bordered by many green trees and with the same big (like in "huge") parks hosting the same size of statues and other monuments dedicated to the former president or to former and actual institutions. But they all provided a nice opportunity to walk without a real destination or purpose, to see people, enjoy the day and smile at life without the urge to label people following concrete-built criteria. Rain started falling at around 5 AM. Rain was precisely what I did not want that day, as we were going to Dekhistan and the route implied about 60 km. across hardened dirt and sand soil that turned into impassable mud if wet. After breakfast among the day's oil industry businessmen at our fancy hotel, plastic palm trees complimentary, we headed Southwards and were lucky: the farther we got, the drier it was and when we left the asphalt road, the ground was almost completely dry. Other than an electric line and a few wheel traces in the dust, there was nothing across the incredibly flat desert to remind one of mankind. Some half an hour later we could see some strange figures at the horizon line. They looked like four huge poplars in the middle of the desert: that was Dekhistan. The site impressed one though its remoteness. Had Khorezmshah Mohammed's mosque portal been a simple and plain one, and it would have still been a wonder. But its fine clay, brick and glazed tile patterns were simply astonishing in this particular location. Going all the way up to the top of the mosque minaret, one could see the site in all its size, as the moat that had once surrounded the flourishing city was still visible. One could not but imagine the initial height of the mosque minaret and of the beautifully decorated Abu Jafar Ahmed Minaret, including brick patterns forming Arabic calligraphy. Both minarets seemed to have once reached at least twice of the actual height of about 20 meters. A short car ride away, the graveyard at Mashat was yet another moving site, with its single intact shrine and several ruined ones that looked like some long forgotten era's mysterious evidence. There was no noise other than that of the dry wind, and while still standing or ruined buildings spoke of a glorious past that ended with the extinction of the water supply, rubble, draught and snakes spoke of the present.

We left the site going to the East in an attempt of reaching Garaagach and eventually Magtymguly without having to go back North and all the way around via Serdar; neither our guide, nor the driver, had gone that way before, but they had heard this was possible. In less than an hour we arrived at Madaw Village, a stone house community set in a wide, totally dusty and dry place at the foot of some even drier hills. There was hardly any vegetation around, and the dust or sand seemed to shine in the early afternoon sun. We continued and eventually found ourselves crossing the endless flat area covered with dry bushes and a dwarf grass layer. The trail we were following passed by nomad "settlements" every few kilometers. These ones varied in shape and nature, ranging from traditional yurts the old inhabitants of which were portioning a sheep they had just slaughtered, to the young that preferred a Kamaz truck or motorbikes for transport, and now lived in old, rusty trailers. Losing our way across the vast plain, we eventually got out to the asphalt road by following the compass, map and asking the nomads for guidance. The scenery soon changed completely right after that, with the foothills of the Kopet Dag, respectively with more and more barren hills to the North, which made a great contrast with the green, perfectly flat, dry valley below. At a certain moment, one of those situations occurred: on a dry pasture just off the road, next to his sheep, an old man was standing, his body turned towards Mecca and his head bent down, in deep prayer. Other than omnipresent pilgrimage, it was the only gesture of expressing one's religion in public I witnessed in Turkmenistan. The road was going up and down, often with no visibility ahead, and our driver, obviously tired after over 12 hours of traveling (as he had come from Ashgabad to welcome and pick us up) drove as fast as he could to keep awake and reach Magtymguly as soon as possible. We reached the place shortly after passing by the most thorough and inquisitive checkpoint of the over 20 we had already gone through. Even though we had all papers in order, they kept on asking questions and took a long time to fill in their records. Formalities completed, we reached our destination, a family with several children, some happy small dogs and a great, more than plentiful dinner which ranged from mutton shorpa to stuffed eggs or manty; dinner actually took a couple of hours, as it ended with the typical chatting over politics, religion and next day's itinerary over pots of chai, figs, dried apricots, different sorts of jam, cakes and candy.

In the morning it was cloudy and we went down the Kopet Dag, to meet the main road and go up again, from the flat, barren fields to the impressive, brown and ever drier ridges. However, the change from the rest of the country would be complete when we reached the village of Nokhur, located at the bottom of a valley beaming of greenery, with cultivated gardens and trees in blossom. Farther up, we reached the ridge that soon turned into a plateau covered with scarce grass. On the other side of the mountain, there was the village of Garawul, spread on several foothills and consisting of large houses made of stone, featuring generous glass panel covered verandahs. Despite the fact that we were about 30 km. from the main road, there was a sense of remoteness and solitude that made the whole trip there well worth. After a brief walk to Khur Khuri Waterfall, we drove back down and into Ashgabat, but not before visiting two traps. The first one was the famed underground lake at Kow Ata. No doubt there was the lake and it was indeed one located under the ground, at the bottom of a cave. But that was pretty much all, some water rich in sulphur on top. The following trap referred to a man-made site: the "spiritual" mosque in Gypjak. Even though it featured some interesting patterns, especially as far as minaret and cupola details were concerned, the mosque itself had a ghostly, abandoned movie set atmosphere. Other than ourselves and a busload of German tourists, there was nobody. At prayer time, imam's voice echoed to nobody but the useless vastness of the building, while one of the several guards meant to protect the emptiness discretely asked whether I had some money to spare. Other than that, the whole structure featuring a striking golden dome that could not have matched less the omnipresent white marble below, meant to impress at any costs. It pathetically failed once one got a bit closer, with the very same marble, used in excess, granted it the looks of one's bathroom, while the whole building reminded me of Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, also raised by Bouygues and also meant to impress and nothing else. They both resembled huge malls anchored to one or four lighthouses. And both of them failed miserably if compared, among recent similar structures, to the superb Sultan Qaboos' mosque near Muscat. At Gypjak, even before entering, the visitor was hit by many sayings and teachings of the former president, as well as by a hypocrite parallel between the Ruhnama and the Qu'ran. Once inside, a more homogeneous atmosphere welcomed one, save for the tacky chandeliers which granted the same impression as of those at Bucharest's Palace of the Parliament. The cupola design was nice with golden and light blue patterns, but it was too industrial in achievement. Oriental care to detail, fine lines, or simply that use lightly faded colours that enchanted the eye when looking at a carpet, all had been ignored. Instead, the mosque had an overall message of "look at me, I am big, aren't I?". Other than that however, in the absence of the faithful or of a naturally flowing message and atmosphere, the place was dead, strangled by too high aspirations, low quality achievements and a vast lack of use.

The early evening found us in Ashgabat. Dropping our dusty luggage at the hotel, we headed for the city centre located at a 15 minute walk. The city had been virtually rebuilt after the devastating 1948 earthquake and it provided a pleasant place to cross, with wide avenues and sidewalks, many parks and green areas that brought a sense of normality. All these up to the point where one reached the central area. Slowly, every building of any importance was plated with (of course) white marble and many were also decorated with shiny golden metal designs. Every administrative building of any sort was huge, most of them had imposing frontons supported by big but featureless columns. And all of them were lit. New fancy and tall apartment buildings for the high ranking officials were lined along wide avenues and parks that stretched for kilometers, their marble shone in the gleaming light everywhere. Like the cherry (or rather like 10 kilos of cherries) on the cake, the Arch of Neutrality made me laugh loudly. It was a three leg, concrete version of the Eiffel Tower, lit in changing colours and topped by an of course golden statue of former President Niyazov; statue that seemed to float above the city like an unpolished divine figure, blessing everything around by plating it all in marble. The Earthquake Memorial across the street seemed to have started at the Arch, wanting to hit it until it collapsed. And this theatre of the absurd could have gone on and on, but there was hardly anyone in the audience to clap hands at the end. If the other parts of the city, the suburbs, were lively, there was hardly a soul in the centre. Just like at the mosque we had seen earlier, this part of Ashgabat had a ghostly touch, being inhabited solely by police officers, guards and hurried officials vanishing in black Mercedes limos. Only those brightly lit cranes that resembled Christmas trees in April seemed to liven up the atmosphere a little, but they hardly succeeded doing that. We went all the way back to our quarter, found an ordinary-looking terrace where people were alive, laughing and chatting, had some very tasty mutton kebab and enjoyed a breath of normality with the Russian and Turkish music in the background. This is where the life beat of the city lay, and not in the marble - plated gargantuan structures in the centre.

The rain we had been playing hide-and-seek with for the last days did not give in anymore. So our last day in Ashgabat was filled with a constant drizzle which made the marble-covered high-rises look even gloomier, with their silhouettes surrounded by haze. Even the whiter of white marble turned grey. After a tour to Nissa through the rain, we could make more sense of the site at the National Museum. Once one ignored the glorious donut-like achievements of Niyazov and Berdimuhamedov eras even the museum guide passed through quickly, the place (not necessarily the typical monstrous building though) was a gem, with a fine variation of exhibits, especially from Antiquity, as well as traditional garments and textiles or jewelry from the last two centuries (as the halls covering the Middle Ages were closed). With a wealth of knowledge and also with a great sense of humour, the museum guide proved there was a way, provided there was a will, even next to the plethora of presents received by the former president or next to the second largest carpet in the world. The day was to end with a visit to Painter Allamurat Muhammedov's studio which hosted some interesting works, especially in terms of portraits and representations of feelings.

Then, the time to leave had arrived, but not before a last kebab next to a couple of families that were enjoying the Saturday evening gathered around a couple of tables and cheering over vodka and shishkebabs. Sitting at that terrace sandwiched between two Soviet era apartment buildings, I just hoped they would not demolish that quarter too, to make room for wider avenues, ghostly marble plated buildings and less public life. But I reckon my hope is neither white, nor wrapped up in marble, therefore I worry my wish might not happen.

Waiting for the late night (or early morning) flight out, one wondered where the truth was and if such a truth actually existed. With a very short-lived national identity and tribal union before the coming of the Russians, the country had then been granted Soviet dictated values and Russian language as the official means of expression and communication. After a life-long foreign rule, Niyazov's regime tried hard to give people trust and pride in their being Turkmen, in their country. While this was, of course, also a political weapon, a means of remaining in power and of centralizing it all in one hand sine die, one could not but wonder whether, with such rich natural resources like oil and gas, but also with such a location, democracy could have occurred out of the blue in Turkmenistan. While marble-plated buildings were ugly and most times totally useless, they somehow subdued people and showed them the supposedly powerful presence of the state. With little reference allowed (most of which gravitated around the Soviet era experience), the result was easy to anticipate and I wonder who would have won the elections, assuming there had been open, correct ones and assuming once again there had been options to choose from. As for outsiders' impressions (like my own), one can hardly get a realistic glimpse, not having lived in the country and not being in local people’s shoes. But then, without access to information from the outside, without even access to an email address, lacking a single ATM in the whole country, with huge banks but a cash-based economy, massive propaganda everywhere, great infrastructure in Ashgabat and around the city, but with lousy roads (if ever) in many other parts of the country including those the gas came from, the country's contrasts were all too deep. While these contrasts were picturesque for foreign visitors, they must have been painful for people living in the country, other than the chosen few rolling the dice. But then, it is all a matter of nothing but perspective, as harsh as that might sound, as comprehension, saturation, hunger, ecstasy, frustration, joy, respectively not knowing any better merge to create a term we all like to assume we control: reality. But then, daring look in the mirror, we see there is no eternal truth in this world. None, but one’s own, subjective and abject as it certainly is. And so is the day’s Turkmenistan.