Turkmenistan: The final frontier

A soldier staggered past me, his face contorted, clutching a handkerchief to his jaw. Then a woman's loud groans and the high-pitched whine of a drill filled the corridor. I wanted to escape but forced myself to stay put. I had been up half the night with an abscess. By breakfast time, the throbbing pain had forced me through the grimy doors of the state dental clinic across the road from our hotel.

The dentist, dressed like a satanic chef in a tall white hat, started tapping inside my mouth with a little metal hammer. When he struck the offending tooth, I practically leapt out of the chair. "Aieee! That hurts!" I shrieked. "It's just the change in climate," he muttered. "We saw swelling on the gums like this when they sent conscripts down here from Vladivostok - nothing to worry about." He scribbled down the name of a locally produced antibiotic. "Best injected in the buttock," he said, gruffly, handing the prescription to Malik, my tour guide.

Turkmenistan is not a place for toothache, nor for the faint-hearted. After the break-up of the USSR, the Cadogan guidebook, one of the first for Central Asia, described the former Soviet republic as "only marginally more suited to human habitation than the moon". The relentless Karakum, or Black Sand Desert, blankets most of the country. Crossing it by the Trans-Caspian Railroad in the 1880s, Lord Curzon decided that it was "the sorriest waste that ever met the human eye". What's more, this isolated nation bordering Iran and Afghanistan has one of the most secretive and repressive regimes on earth.

If none of this puts you off, Turkmenistan is definitely worth a visit. The capital, Ashgabat, is a monument to the country's eccentric dictator, President Saparmurat Niyazov - otherwise known as "Turkmenbashi", or "Father of the Turkomans". His country is blessed with the world's fifth-largest deposits of natural gas, and he is frantically turning the wealth below ground into high-rise real estate. Except it doesn't look real. Gleaming marble-clad towers have sprung up everywhere, like a brash mirage in the desert.

Cranes dominate the skyline, and the building frenzy had reached a climax when I arrived during celebrations for the 14th anniversary of independence. State television showed the demure family of a Turkoman airline pilot moving into one of the pristine flats, but I wondered if they would have any neighbours. Dozens of other recently constructed blocks stood eerily empty. Malik pointed out a spanking new theatre with massive Greek-style columns - it looked bigger than the Bolshoi. The President banned opera and ballet a few years ago in favour of epic dramas glorifying the heroes of Turkoman history. Round the back of the theatre, I noticed a pygmy-sized Lenin on a pedestal of brightly coloured Central Asian tiles. It was curiously feminine - even pretty.

Elsewhere in Ashgabat, and in the rest of the country, statues of Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin have long given way to representations of someone else - a man with a fuller face, fleshier lips and far more hair. The President's image is everywhere, from billboards and classrooms to vodka bottles. My favourite was the large poster of him at the railway station, checking his watch.

Of course, the most famous personality-cult landmark is the 12m-high golden statue of Niyazov, which revolves through 360 degrees every 24 hours so that the sun is always on his face. It stands on top of the Arch of Neutrality - a bizarre tripod structure that is supposed to symbolise the trivet that supports the traditional Turkoman cooking-pot. You have to take the lift, which crawls slowly up one of the sloping legs, to reach the café. Unlike the President, it doesn't revolve but it has a very good view over the city and the Kopet Dag mountains beyond, on the Iranian border.

On the Turkoman side, the wrinkly brown mountains get virtually no snow, but the President is determined to build a ski resort. The French construction giant Bouygues, responsible for many of the concrete folies des grandeurs in Ashgabat, is designing the cable cars. Under flashing neon lights, the glare of Independence Day fireworks, and the stony gaze of security men, Ashgabat is like a cross between Stalinism and Las Vegas.

On my second day, I went shopping at the biggest open-air market in Central Asia. It's just a few miles outside the capital but seems to belong to a different world. The streets of new Ashgabat are wide, deserted and tidy - continually swept by hundreds of women with twig brooms, scarves wound across their faces to protect them from the dust. The market is chaotic, muddy and very crowded, hence its Russian nickname "Tolkuchka" or "Push a Little".

You can buy anything here. I opted for a stylish camelhair bag and a shaggy Turkoman hat known as a telpek. After an exhausting couple of hours of haggling and dodging deep puddles, Malik took us to a little café for some green tea and freshly baked somsas, or meat pastries. Many foreigners come to Tolkuchka for the deep red tekke carpets, the most prized possessions of Turkoman nomads. In a workshop a couple of hours' drive from the capital, we watched a team of nine women weaving by hand at a furious pace. A mother and her daughter were in charge and they sat supervising a complex pattern. Each carpet had 400,000 knots per square metre, and it takes all nine women 100 days to make a carpet for a large living-room. The one I saw being made was for an oligarch in Moscow, and he had ordered 16 more just like it.

"The colours are a bit garish," admitted Hemra, the owner of the workshop. "But that's market forces - we have to cater to our customers' tastes." Apart from his carpet venture, Hemra runs a stud farm, and he gave us a tour of the stables.

Akhal-Teke horses, like the carpets, are central to Turkoman culture, and a source of national pride. The country is known as the cradle of the early horse breeds, possibly dating as far back as 6000BC. They look as if they've stepped out of a fairy-tale book, with their slim legs, metallic gleaming coats and swanlike necks. In the early days of Niyazov's rule, he presented a chestnut stallion to John Major, to the great consternation of British Embassy officials. I rather fancied prancing about on Pearl, a creamy mare, but Hemra warned me that she had a fiery temper. "These horses aren't for amateurs," he sniffed.

After a delicious lunch of plov - a rice and mutton dish - we watched a film about how the Akhal-Teke was nearly wiped out by Soviet collectivisation in the 1930s. We saw Turkoman nomads being robbed of their four-legged friends by evil Bolsheviks in leather jackets, who packed the animals off to slaughterhouses and turned them into horse-meat.

On the way back to the capital we stopped for a quick dip in an underground lake that was the temperature of bath water. To reach Kow Ata, at the bottom of a cave in the Kopet Dag mountains, you have to climb down a steep concrete staircase in semi-darkness. I quickly undressed and plunged into the sulphurous water, trying not to think about the bats overhead. On emerging, I smelled quite pungent but my skin felt softer - the high mineral content is supposed to cure all kinds of ailments, including arthritis, eczema and rheumatism.

The next day we set off for Ancient Merv, which once rivalled Baghdad as a centre of Islamic art, culture and learning. A major capital for 2,500 years, it was one of the most important oasis cities of the Silk Road, and remains a treasure trove for archaeologists. We had the whole 1,000ha site to ourselves - the only other "tourists" were a couple of elderly Turkoman army officers. I bumped into them beneath the double dome of the 12th-century Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar. Originally, it was covered in turquoise tiles and was visible to travellers when still a day's caravan ride from the city.

For me, the most fascinating monument was the Kyz Kala, or "Girls' Castle", a fortress with crenellated mud walls resembling giant brandy snaps. According to one story, 40 girls sought refuge there at the time of the Mongol invasion, but it also had a reputation, as Sultan Sanjar's party palace, where he entertained high-ranking guests, of being filled with beautiful female slaves. That night, in the nearby modern town of Mary, we found a bar serving local beer and plates of shish kebab. The owner treated us to gurts, salty balls of dried yogurt. It was probably a ploy to make us drink more beer. Anyway, I think the gurts were my downfall because, later that night, the toothache kicked in.

TRAVELLER'S GUIDE

GETTING THERE

The only airline with direct services between the UK and Ashgabat is Turkmenistan Airlines (020-8577 2211), which flies from Birmingham and Heathrow. Turkish Airlines (020-7766 9300; www.turkishairlines.com) flies from Heathrow and Manchester via Istanbul.

The writer travelled to Turkmenistan with Silk Road and Beyond (020-7371 3131; www.silkroadandbeyond.co.uk), which organises similar trips from £1,700. This includes return flights from Heathrow to Ashgabat via Istanbul, transfers, tours and nine nights' bed and breakfast accommodation.

RED TAPE & MORE INFORMATION

British passport-holders require a visa to visit Turkmenistan. A letter of invitation, certified by the State Service of Turkmenistan for the Registration of Foreign Nationals, is needed to support the visa application. These can be obtained from authorised travel agents and must be presented when requesting a visa. Visas are obtained from the Embassy of Turkmenistan, 14-17 Wells Street, London W1P (020-7255 1071) and cost $46 (£25.60; five-10 working days) or $81 (£45) for an express service (one-three working days). Upon arrival in Turkmenistan, visitors must complete a migration card and pay a $10 (£5.60) fee. There is a $25 (£13.90) departure tax. Visitors must register with the State Service of Turkmenistan for the Registration of Foreign Nationals at 57 Azadi Street, Ashgabat within three days of arrival, with two passport photos. If staying for more than three days visitors should register with the British Embassy in Ashgabat (00 99 312 36 34 98; www.britishembassy.gov.uk/turkmenistan).

Paul Brummell, the former British ambassador, has just written the first English language guidebook devoted to Turkmenistan. It is published by Bradt, £14.99.

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