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ALMATY – Turkmenistan, one of many world’s most repressive and remoted nations, is laid low with widespread poverty.
However the authorities are set to unveil a newly constructed $1.5 billion metropolis, a mission that officers declare “displays the speedy socioeconomic growth” within the Central Asian nation.
The brand new metropolis — Arkadag, or Protector — attracts its title from the formal title of Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the authoritarian chief who stepped down in March after ruling the nation with an iron fist for over 15 years.
Berdymukhammedov handed energy to his son, Serdar, in a managed election. However the 65-year-old stays a prime official because the chairman of the higher home of parliament and continues to wield appreciable affect.
Positioned round 30 kilometers southwest of the capital Ashgabat, Arkadag will function the capital of Akhal Province, which is located alongside the border with Iran and Afghanistan.
Development of the mission started in 2019, the identical 12 months that Serdar Berdymukhammedov’s was appointed as governor of Akhal.
Over the course of the mission, the youthful Bedymukhammedov turned the minister of trade and development supplies and deputy chairman of the cupboard earlier than succeeding his father as president.
In April, Serdar Berdymukhammedov known as for a “public dialogue” to discover a title for the brand new metropolis.
Positive sufficient, the speaker of Turkmenistan’s decrease home of parliament duly introduced town’s title on December 21, claiming that “the desires of residents of all areas” and the “solutions of public organizations” had been taken under consideration.
However sources instructed RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service in Could that the title was already determined.
Turkmenistan watchers scoff on the notion that the city-naming was an train in democracy.
“There isn’t a hint of a public marketing campaign. How did they ask the opinion of individuals in these areas the place there isn’t a Web, the place even cellular penetration is low?” requested Luca Anceschi, professor of Eurasian Research on the College of Glasgow. “The title of town is an phantasm. The town itself is an phantasm.”
‘Far Away From Meals Queues’
Arkadag doesn’t resemble most cities, and even provincial capitals, in Turkmenistan.
Footage proven on state media suggests it can have extra in widespread with central Ashgabat, the place billions of {dollars} generated from fuel exports have funded the development of ostentatious buildings with white marble facades whilst different elements of the nation bear the brunt of a protracted financial disaster.
Arkadag has been hailed by Turkmen authorities as a “good metropolis,” which is able to host a hippodrome, a youngsters’s rehabilitation heart named after the previous president, and a statue of the ex-leader. One of many central streets within the metropolis can be named after the patriarch’s favourite horse, Akhan.
The town is designed to accommodate greater than 12,000 households.
Ruslan Myatiev, the editor of the Europe-based, exile-run Turkmen.Information web site, says Arkadag will accommodate members of the elite and people with ties to the ruling Berdymukhammedov household.
Myatiev stated this matches the overall sample of the Berdymukhammedovs holding members of their prolonged clan separate from the overall inhabitants and “distant from meals queues” which have develop into widespread amid rising poverty and meals shortages.
“In the intervening time, the kinfolk — a really broad time period that features even very distant kinfolk — have occupied various neighborhoods constructed with state cash in and round Ashgabat,” stated the journalist.
In distinction, “since about 2015 the overall inhabitants of Turkmenistan has been dwelling with no clear imaginative and prescient of tomorrow,” Myatiev added.
‘Devices Of Corruption’
Regardless of all proof on the contrary, Turkmen state propaganda has claimed a unending procession of financial successes.
An exception got here final 12 months when the elder Berdymukhammedov, then president, acknowledged that the state was struggling to repay its overseas collectors on time.
The fact is that the federal government can be struggling to pay the salaries of public sector staff on time, together with the development employees constructing Arkadag, based on a report by RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service in September.
Earlier this month, residents of some neighborhoods in Ashgabat instructed RFE/RL that they’d been left with out water and heating throughout a chilly snap.
In November, RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service reported a pointy progress out there for secondhand garments and used home items in Turkmenabat, the capital of jap Lebap Province.
“Whenever you go round to individuals’s homes, you see that they’ve put up on the market half of their belongings simply to outlive, to purchase bread,” one Turkmenabat resident instructed RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service.
Turkmenistan’s energy-dependent financial system took a nosedive after world oil and fuel costs plunged in 2014 and Russia ceased imports in 2016.
Not too long ago, world vitality costs have recovered, Russia has resumed shopping for some Turkmen fuel, and prime shopper China within the first 9 months of this 12 months bought greater than $7 billion value of the gasoline, based on Chinese language customs information.
However that has not fueled an financial restoration in Turkmenistan, the place the state has prioritized spending on multibillion-dollar self-importance tasks, regardless of power meals shortages and worth hikes.
Widespread poverty, corruption, and unemployment have compelled hundreds of thousands of Turkmen to go away the nation in current a long time.
“You might have a brand new metropolis in a rustic the place the inhabitants is shrinking, no matter official statistics declare. You might have a brand new airport that prices over $2 billion in a rustic that has no tourism and which is attempting to cease its residents from fleeing the nation,” stated Anceschi of the College of Glasgow.
“Every little thing is backwards, however what we could be certain of, is that anyone is making an terrible lot of cash off these tasks. As a result of they’re devices of corruption,” he stated.
There may be little hope of a change in course. President Serdar Berdymukhammedov has pledged to “comply with the course” set by his father.
The youthful Berdymukhammedov has solely had good issues to say about Arkadag, a mission that he has led.
“There are at the moment few nations on this planet which might be constructing and commissioning a whole metropolis,” Berdymukhammedov stated in April. “This means the rising financial potential of the Motherland, the nice coaching of our specialists.”
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