Trips

Tues., 9/25/18 - Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

This morning as we drove toward the Parthian Fortresses of Nisa, we learned that all workers are to be on the job at 8:30 AM. No one enters by the front of the ministries or corporate buildings, they use a back entrance and park underground or in back of the buildings. Some women were using buses or hitch-hiking to do their appointments or errands and some bus stops along the roadside have air conditioned rooms with a TV screen.

More white marble - the bullet-shaped building is the Yylkyz Hotel	Turkmenbashi Bank building
Monument to Peace	TV Tower - tallest tower in Turkmenistan
The Parthian Fortresses at Nisa were made a UNESCO site in 2007. The resident archaeologist gave us a tour. The site was a Parthian palace from 3 BC to 3 AD and an important stop on the Silk Road. The ruins were uncovered in Soviet times but were collapsed by the 1948 earthquake. We saw mud fired bricks with mud as stucco and tried to imagine a palace, a store room, a throne room, the round temple room with altar for burning sacrifices (Zoroastrian religion), the ceramic and soft stone water pipes, etc. Not much is left there now. The site is surrounded by an encircling, man-made dirt hill, probably a rampart with watch towers. The near mountain to the south is the border with Iran.
Ruins at Nisa	Ruins at Nisa
	Ruins at Nisa
Thick walls	Restoration
Mud for "stucco"	Brickwork
Looking at Iran	What it once looked like
Passageway	Original ceramic water pipes
Ruins	Columns
View of the Mosque of Turkmenbashi from Nisa	Next we visited the mosque and mausoleum of the first president of Turkmenistan, Turkmenbashi - meaning “head of the Turkmen.” He ruled for 22 years and died in 2006. He was quite a controversial figure and did some good things and some not so good. He ruled that the Latin alphabet was to replace Cyrillic - Russia was not pleased. He wrote his own book to be more important than the Koran. It is called Ruhnama, “the book of unity of Turkmen.” The mosque is decorated with sayings from Ruhnama instead of the Koran.  It has outraged many Muslims that the Ruhnama is placed as the Koran's equal. The mosque is the “largest in Central Asia” and holds 20,000 people.
School kids	Mosque of Turkmenbashi
Mosque of Turkmenbashi	Gold doors
Interior of the Dome	Carpet
Mihrab	Carpet
Group instruction	Stained glass window
Doing maintenance on the dome - OSHA would not approve!	Mausoleum - burial place of Turkmenbashi

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