From 1902 to 1904, in addition to the building of the Shrine of the Báb that ` Abdu ' l-Bahá was directing, he started to put into execution two different projects ; the restoration of the House of the Báb in Shiraz, Iran and the construction of the first Bahá ' í House of Worship in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

The most limited definition was the official one of the Soviet Union, which defined Middle Asia as consisting solely of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

* In Turkmenistan, the local party apparatus led by Saparmurat Niyazov was renamed the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan and abandoned communist ideology.

The last living person to be officially proclaimed president for life was Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan was a passing point for numerous migrations and invasions by tribes which gravitated towards the settled regions of the south including ancient Mesopotamia, Elam, and the Indus Valley Civilization.

Modern Turkmenistan was radically transformed by the invasion of the Russian Empire, which conquered the region in the late 19th century.

On 28 December 1999, Niyazov was declared President for Life of Turkmenistan by the Mejlis ( parliament ), which itself had taken office only a week earlier in elections that included only candidates hand-picked by President Niyazov ; no opposition candidates were allowed.

Since all opposition was banned within Turkmenistan, it was forced to form and operate from abroad.

During the Soviet era gas was exported mainly to other Soviet republics, as Turkmenistan steadily increased delivery from about 9. 2 million m³ in 1940 to about 234 million m³ in 1960 and about 51 billion m³ in 1975.

In 2006 Turkmenistan had eight merchant marine vessels of more than 1, 000 tons displacement, of which four were cargo ships, two were oil tankers, one was for refrigerated cargo, and one was a combination ore and oil ship.

Iran was the first nation to recognize Turkmenistan as an independent nation.

* Pakistan was one of the first countries to recognise the independence of Turkmenistan in December 1991.

In the early 1970s, the first section of a major irrigation project was completed to divert water from the Amu Darya River in Turkmenistan eastward into Uzbekistan in order to irrigate the land surrounding Qarshi.

Bactria was the Greek name for Old Persian Bāxtriš ( from native * Bāxçiš ) ( named for its capital Bactra, modern Balkh ), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Margu, the capital of which was Merv, in today's Turkmenistan.

Buddhism was spread among the Turkic people during the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE into modern-day Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, eastern and coastal Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

The countries receiving a score of 7, indicating those where religious freedom was least respected, were Turkmenistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Myanmar and North Korea.

Not until 2005 did Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan agree to begin demarcating their shared borders.

Fossil-based sulfur deposits from salt domes have until recently been the basis for commercial production in the United States, Poland, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.

President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov, a former bureaucrat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ruled Turkmenistan from 1985, when he became head of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR, until his death in 2006.

Most of these anthems were replaced during or after the collapse of the USSR ; Belarus, Kazakhstan ( until 2006 ), Tajikistan, Turkmenistan ( until 1997 ), and Uzbekistan kept the melodies, but with different lyrics.

File: Flag of Russia. svg | The flag of the Russian Empire was the official flag of Turkmenistan until the Russian Revolution.

Ibrahim Bay led a brief resurgence of the movement when collectivization fueled resistance and succeeded in delaying the policy until 1931 in Turkmenistan, but he was soon caught and executed.

They did not enter the World Cup qualifying competition until the France 1998 edition, recording four victories in their preliminary group stage including a 5 – 0 triumph over Turkmenistan, and losing only to China, which placed them second behind their eastern neighbors but out of the competition.

* Saparmurat Niyazov-President of Turkmenistan from 1990 until his death in 2006.

Only recently it has become apparent that places in Central Asia like Merv in Turkmenistan and Akhsiket in Uzbekistan were important centres of production of crucible steel.

He has ridden across Turkmenistan and most recently Mongolia.

Saparmurat Niyazov, the recently deceased president of Turkmenistan, ordered the construction of a huge ice palace near the capital city of Aşgabat in April 2004, a remarkable project considering Turkmenistan's climate.

Among people appearing with him as supporters were several former ambassadors including Levan Mikeladze, a former Georgian ambassador to the U. S and the OSCE as well as Switzerland and UN missions in Geneva, Victor Dolidze, who recently quit his post as envoy to the OSCE and Aleksi Petriashvili, Georgia ’ s former ambassador to Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan has a single-party system, but has, according to the government, begun a transition towards a multi-party system.

Turkmenistan is a single-party state ; the only political party, the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, is the only party legally allowed to hold power.

The Durrani Empire encompassed present-day Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan ( around the Panjdeh oasis ), the Kashmir region, the modern state of Pakistan and northwestern India.

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.

The politics of Turkmenistan takes place in the framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Turkmenistan is both head of state and head of government.

In November 2009, state media in Turkmenistan published the names of candidates running in the parliamentary election that authorities described as a step toward democracy.

In the early 2000s, the contribution of Turkmenistan ’ s state-run agriculture sector to gross domestic product increased under close state supervision.

However, in recent years state policy makers have increased the range of crops with the aim of making Turkmenistan self-sufficient in food.

Private farmers grow most of Turkmenistan ’ s fruits and vegetables ( chiefly tomatoes, watermelons, grapes, and onions ), but all production phases of the main cash crops — grain and cotton — remain under state control.

Bordering Turkmenistan to the southwest, Kazakstan to the north, and Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to the south and east, Uzbekistan is not only one of the larger Central Asian states but also the only Central Asian state to border all of the other four.

In its fullest extent, the state expanded into territories which today comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, western Afghanistan and southwestern Pakistan.

It is named after the Soviet Republic of Turkmen ( now the independent state of Turkmenistan ).

Instead of depicting the current head of state the coins feature a map of Turkmenistan with the Independence Tower superimposed in front of it.

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.

" We will be building an Islamic state here in accordance with the Quran " and citing his goals of reaching Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, " and the rest of the world "..