As personality cults go, that of President Saparmyrat Niyazov (President of Turkmenistan from 1991 until his death in 2006) was a real belter. In the then impoverished nation’s capital, Ashgabat’s main square, Niyazov constructed a 12m sculpture of himself on a 75m high marble plinth; the gold-plated statue rotated to be in constant alignment with … Thriving Turkmenistan weiterlesen