The Monuments. . .

Turkmenistan has a few monuments. . . okay, a lot. A couple of us decided to spend a day exploring the monuments of Turkmenistan and taking pictures of as many as we could. There are more than we thought.

Our first stop was the Arch of Neutrality, which is perhaps the most infamous monument in Ashgabat. It is a giant, three legged arch that is topped by a gold statue of the former President, Niyazov. The statue rotates to always face the sun, though it sometimes seems like it's not working too properly. The latest word is that it will be taken down, but so far, the government doesn't seem to have figured out how to do so.

The Arch is in the center of the city and is surrounded by white marble government buildings and a monument dedicated to the devastating 1948 earthquake. It depicts a giant bull shaking the earth and the city falling down, but a golden baby is being presented from the cracks in the earth. The story I heard is that the former President stated that the earthquake happened in order to allow him to emerge from the devastation as a great leader (I think to physically emerge from the earth, but am not positive). Anyway, it's very strange and backs right up to the Arch of Neutrality. The other buildings include the Presidential Palace and a couple of museums and the World Trade Center in Ashgabat.

My group took the elevators to the top of the monument and got a true birds' eye view of the city. It's really beautiful with all the greenery and marble, and you are able to see for miles. You can go out multiple exits to see different parts of the city. A traffic circle goes under the arch, so I often passed it while going around town.

After the bull and the arch, we saw the monument dedicated to those lost in World War II. It's a circle of tall arching stones that have the years of the war at the base. It's very modern and one of the few monuments I saw without white marble. It leads up through a green field to the base of the bull.

The next thing we went to see, foreigners affectionately call "Forty Legs" as it's sometimes difficult to figure out the real names of the different monuments. This is perhaps my favorite monument. It is made out of ten horses (hence the name "Forty Legs) that are half rearing. They are modeled after the famous Akal Teke (I think that's the name) horses that are famously bred in Turkmenistan and are considered a national treasure. They are at the top of a fountain that has two manmade waterfalls cascading down the path leading up to it. It's quite beautiful and regal, especially as the flowers that border the walkway were in full bloom.

The next monument was the GINORMOUS Ruhnama. This is a book that was written by the former president. It's enormous. I'm not even really sure how to relate just how big it is. Apparently it used to open up and there used to be passages from the Ruhnama that scrolled on a giant screen TV but I haven't seen it, and I believe that the book no longer opens. Anyway, it's kind of insane.

So then we took a picture of the building that was built to look like an open Ruhnama and moved on to the last monuments of our tour, which are part of the Independence Day monument. There are two separate monuments that face a large, golden domed Presidential Museum. The first is shaped like a plunger, but has a golden crescent moon on top. The second has five fountains, one on each side, and has a restaurant in it. Both are made of white marble.

There are many other monuments, especially fountains and golden statues of the former President, that can be seen everywhere in the country, but these were the major monuments that I visited. It's quite the experience.