Turkmenistan is dominated by a pervasive cult of personality extolling the late president as Türkmenbaşy (" Leader of all Turkmen "), a title he assumed in 1993.

Ashgabat was also home to the Arch of Neutrality, a 250-foot-tall tripod crowned by a golden statue of late president Saparmurat Niyazov ( also known as Turkmenbashi, or leader of all Turkmen ).

While he was president, Niyazov controlled all Turkmen media outlets and personally appointed journalists.

Berdimuhamedow repealed some of Niyazov's most idiosyncratic policies, including banning opera and the circus for being " insufficiently Turkmen ".

Afghanistan's sovereignty has been held during the Anglo-Afghan Wars, the 1980s Soviet war, and the 2001-present war by the country's many and diverse people: the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Aimak, Baloch, and others.

Independence came in 1991, as Saparmurat Niyazov, a former local communist party boss, declared himself absolute ruler for life as Turkmenbashi or Leader of the Turkmen and transitioned the newly independent Turkmenistan into an authoritarian state under his absolute control and has thus far resisted the democratization that has influenced many of the other former Soviet Republics.

in recent years the unofficial rate has hovered around 24, 000 to 25, 000 Turkmen manats to the dollar.

Ashgabat has a primarily Turkmen population, with ethnic minorities of Russians, Armenians, and Azeris.

By 1738 the Mughal Empire has been defeated by forces of a new Turkmen ruler from Greater Khorasan, Nader Shah.

Gorgan ( as well as the whole Golestan province ) has a world-famous carpet and rug industry, made by Turkmen.

Tuzhurmati has been one of the historical Turkmen settlement in Iraq.

Turkmen has vowel harmony, is agglutinative, and has no grammatical gender or irregular verbs.

His father's family has a decorated military past as war heroes that fought in the Ottoman armies in the Russo-Turkish Wars, while his mother's family comes from a long line of talented Turkmen folk singers.

" Due to increasing instability, the project has essentially stalled ; construction of the Turkmen part was supposed to start in 2006, but the overall feasibility is questionable since the southern part of the Afghan section runs through territory which continues to be under de facto Taliban control.

Citizen Board: Appointed by U. S., 25 members face uphill battle for legitimacy ," SF Gate, July 14, 2003: " A noteable inclusion in the council were three women -- Songgul Chapouk, a member of the Turkish-speaking Turkmen minority in the north, Dr. Raja Habib Khuzai, the head of a maternity hospital in the southern city of Diwaniya, and Akila al-Hashimi, who was a top Iraqi diplomat until the fall of Hussein's regime and now has been named by U. S. officials to be Iraq's representative to the United Nations.

It is largely populated by Kurds but has minority populations of Assyrians, Iraqi Arabs, and Iraqi Turkmen

Turkmenabat has one state-owned University ' Seyitnazar Seydi adyndaky Turkmen Dowlet Universiteti ', medical college, carrier schools, public schools and Tutkmenabat Turkmen-Turkish High School.

It is deduced that Hemşin has been governed by local lords under the umbrella of the greater regional powers changing by the time namely the Bagratid Armenian kingdom, the Byzantine Empire, its successor the Empire of Trebizond, the Georgian Kingdom, the Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koyunlu Turkmen Confederations until it was annexed by the Ottoman Empire which collapsed as a result of the WW1 and gave birth to the Republic of Turkey.

Bozlak, which is a form of uzun hava ( long tune ) in Turkish Folk Music, has been a form of music starting from Central Anatolia and an expression of the cultures of the Yoruk / Turkmen and Avshar tribes which pursue a way of life based on yaylak ( summer highland pasture )- and kislak ( winter pasture ).

To achieve its ends, it has formed a coalition with like-minded parties representing Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, Turkmen, Bakhtiaris and Lurs, some of which have been in armed conflict with the Iranian state.

When using ə in Unicode, the Azerbaijani language has problems with the ISO / IEC Turkish encoding, so sometimes ä has been used instead, as in the Tatar language and Turkmen language.

Zaman has prints in 10 different languages including Kyrgyz, Romanian, Bulgarian, Azeri, Uzbek, Turkmen.

In March 2005, the Iraqi Turkmen Front agreed to join the UIA ’ s caucus in the National Assembly.

As part of an effort by the Turkmen government to dismantle the Nyazov cult of personality and help politically disambiguate the current rule, only the highest valued banknote, 500 manat, bears a portrait of the former leader while the other denominations feature images of buildings in Ashgabat and portraits of Ahmed Sanjar, Oghuz Khan, Magtymguly Pyragy and other figures in Turkmen history .</ br >

These are elaborate and colorful rugs, and these too help indicate the distinction between the various Turkmen clans.

The Qaraqum Canal ( Karakum Canal, Kara Kum Canal, Garagum Canal ;, Karakumsky Kanal, Turkmen: Garagum kanally ) in Turkmenistan is one of the largest irrigation and water supply canals in the world.

The agreement to build the pipeline to transport Turkmen gas to Afghanistan and Pakistan and thereafter to India was signed in 2010.

It is cut short, however, when Stephan falls ill and is cared for by a Turkmen farmer, another of the righteous Muslims that Werfel represents in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.

In Ashgabat, it would be hard to find a person who did not speak Russian, however with recent efforts to revive the ancient culture of Turkmenistan, Turkmen is quickly regaining its place as the chief language of the state.

There is no official government report on the exact ethnic make-over but a map appeared in the November 2003 issue of the National Geographic magazine showing Tajiks 60 %, Hazaras 10 %, Pashtuns 10 %, Turkmen 10 %, and Uzbeks 10 %.

Turkmen say that Adam who was moulded from clay had no soul.

Turkmen say that Adam, who was moulded from clay, had no soul.

Moreover, ordinary citizens have no access to the World Wide Web, and instead are limited to the use of the Turkmenet, an online community in Turkmen language, but effectively a censored version of the internet.

On September 12, Mujahedeen agents threw Scott Taylor into an awaiting cab in northern Iraq with next to no money and abruptly released him, having negotiated a release with the Iraqi Turkmen Front and Zeynep Tugrul, who had been released earlier.

Their reporting brought them to the city of Tal Afar in the predominantly Turkmen North, where the U. S was on the verge of major action against mujahedeen fighters.

Because the Turkmen generally were indifferent to the advent of Soviet rule in 1917, little revolutionary activity occurred in the region in the years that followed.

The foundation of Gäwürgala ( Turkmen take from Persian " Gabr Qala " (" Fortress of the Zoroastrians ") occurred in the early Hellenistic era under the rule of the Seleucid king Antiochus I.

As such, his poetry exemplifies a trend towards increased usage of Turkic languages ( as opposed to Persian ), and Magtymguly is revered as the founder of Turkmen poetry, literature, and language.

The Turkmen Beyliks were under the control of the Mongols, at least nominally, through declining Seljuk Sultans.

Among the Turkmen leaders the Ottomans emerged as great power under Osman and his son Orhan I. Smyrna was conquered in 1330 AD, and the last Byzantine possession, Philadélphia ( modern Alaşehir ), fell in 1390 AD.

From 2002 to July 2008 under Turkmen calendar reform, the month of August was named after Alp Arslan.

The fourth article of the Constitution of Afghanistan states that citizens of Afghanistan include Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkmen, Aymaq, Arab, Baluch, Pashayi, Nuristani, Qezelbash, Gujjars and Brahui, who are native inhabitants of the country, and that all citizens of Afghanistan be called Afghans.

The bulk of the people are Uzbek and Turkmen with large concentrations of Tajik, Hazara and Pashtuns.

* Earliest day on which Turkmen Racing Horse Festival can fall, while April 30 is the latest ; celebrated on the last Sunday in April.

In short order, the powerful army brought under its control the Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkmen, and other tribes of northern Afghanistan.

After expansion by Turkic peoples, Central Asia also became the homeland for many Turkic peoples, including the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kyrgyz and Uyghurs.

:* Turkmen includes the distinct Turkish alphabet letters Ç, Ö, Ş and Ü.

In addition, Turkmen uses A with diaeresis ( Ä ) to represent, N with caron ( Ň ) to represent the velar nasal, Y with acute ( Ý ) to represent the palatal approximant, and Z with caron ( Ž ) to represent.

The British viewed Russia's absorption of the Caucasus, the Kyrgyz and Turkmen lands, the Khanate of Khiva, and the Emirate of Bukhara with equal suspicion as a threat to their interests in the Asian subcontinent.

Imperial Russia purchased 400 Gatling guns and used them against Turkmen cavalry and other nomads of central Asia.

According to National Geographic, the population consists of 45 % Tajiks, 25 % Hazaras, 25 % Pashtuns, 2 % Uzbeks, 1 % Baloch, 1 % Turkmen, and 1 % Hindu.

" While Suleiman was campaigning in Hungary, Turkmen tribes in central Anatolia revolted under the leadership of Kalender Çelebi.

In the late 11th century, Syria was conquered first by the Seljuks and then carved between Turkmen tribes and participants of the first Crusade.

Armenian and Turkmen are spoken among the small Armenian and Turkmen populations respectively.

* Earliest day on which Turkmen Bakhshi Day can fall, while September 14 is the latest ; celebrated on the second Sunday in September.

There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz languages, including Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish.

There is also a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the various Oghuz languages, which include Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, Balkan Gagauz Turkish and Oghuz influenced Crimean Tatar.

The vast majority of inhabitants were converted to Hanifism, while the Balkar-HunOghuz brought the beginnings of the Turkic Turkmen language that came to dominate the area.

Because of excessive irrigation, Turkmen agriculture contributes to the steady drawdown of sea levels.