The near-empty streets of Ashgabat add to the eerie silence of the memorial to the 7.3 magnitude earthquake in 1948 that leveled the city and killed tens of thousands. Raising from the ashes of destruction on the back of a bull (traditional symbol of strength) comes a Golden Child (the future president, Saparmurat Niyazov).
Monthly Archives: March 2013
A Visit to the Marble “City of Love”
What do you get when you combine Riad, Pyongyang and Las Vegas? Welcome to Ashgabat and the “City of Love”. The only thing french here are the architects who designed the palace Turkmenistan’s current leader President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. Ashgabat or Ashgabat translated into Farsi literally means “City of Love”. This is what I have learnedContinue reading “A Visit to the Marble “City of Love””