THE TERRIBLE TURKMEN

Last time we saw how, in the oil and gasrich ’Stans of Central Asia, native unrest and the prospect of jihad was kept at bay by a burgeoning cult of the strongman, with post-Soviet dictators clinging onto power for decades by ruling with an iron fist and making the prospect of their absence appear unthinkable. But succession planning is a must if you don’t want your ’Stan to collapse into chaos once you’re gone. Dictatorial ideas for preventing such a fate have ranged from becoming immortal by drinking special yoghurt to turning yourself into a saint and forcing people to worship you after your death. Each ’Stan has its own special circumstances, meaning there are a variety of potential solutions to the age-old problem of what comes next after the national saviour snuffs it.

MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

Another good idea when a strongman dies is to install a clone to serve in the original despot’s place.Turkmenistan’s current President, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, is falsely rumoured to be the illegitimate son of his esteemed predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov, such a chip off the old block does he seem. Ruling since 1985 and declared President for Life in 1999, Niyazov easily filled the post-Communist vacuum left by toppled statues of Marx and Lenin. Famously, Niyazov’s own giant statue in the capital, Ashgabat, was made of gold (at least on the outside) and rotated to face the Sun, his outstretched arms guiding its rise and fall. Styling himself ‘Turkembashi the Great’, or ‘The Great Father of All Turkmen’, he renamed towns after himself, copying Leningrad, doing likewise with a meteorite, an airport, a mosque, several brands of consumer product and the entire month of January. He also put his dead mother Gurbansoltan Eje into dictionaries, replacing the native word for ‘bread’ with her name, before renaming April in her honour and planning a new eight-month year. He had already renamed the days of the week; Monday became ‘Main Day’ and Sunday ‘Rest Day’. Only Friday escaped,