Part One: Turkmenbashi: The Dictator Who Declared Himself Jesus

Actually he was jaywalking. Well the fuck him? Yeah that's what I thought. Yeah, yeah, that's that's good. I'm gonna I'm gonna share a little bit of your personal business day because it makes me laugh. Your parents came here from the the blighted hellscape that is the East Coast to escape the snow. Yes, that's true. They're very old, so they do what old people do, and they went to a warm climate during the winter, and then Los

Angeles got its first snow in sixty something. Here. Sure, they are very bummed out because when it's not snowing, it's been raining that stop. We've had our first winter in decades, which has been delightful. It's been great for the people who live here. It's nice. Yeah, especially after the summer, although it is a dire sign of climate change when Los Angeles has seasons. Yeah, the world is dying. Yeah,

but it's nice to get to wear a jacket, Hollywood. Yeah. Uh, well, Dave, today we are talking about a special fellow, very special fellow. Have you ever heard the name saparmar Atni is of Oh boy, oh oh boy. Now, the last show we had you won was Momar Kadafi. Kadafi is kind of the gold standard for just a lunatic who winds up in charge of a country, like not like a guy like like Hitler Stalin. People call them crazy, but they

really weren't. Like if you if you look at them, everything they did kind of made sense, like based on where they're coming from. Kaddafi was a fucking maniac. Uh. And saparmar Atnia is off maybe even crazier than Kaddafi. He might be the craziest person who's ever run a country. Uh, But we'll have to judge that at the end of

these episodes. Before we get into that, I have a new sparkling water beverage called Bubbly and I got it hoping for an orange soda of some sort, but I don't know if that's what it is or if it's more like one of those one of those lacroix. So I'm gonna I'm gonna learn right now. How is it. It's actually really nice. It is on the Lacroix scale. So it's like someone put an orange in. It's like it's like an orange was in the same room as some sparkling water. Um, but in this case, the orange

talked to the water. Uh, and they reached in a chord. It's good. Okay, it's good. Yeah, it's like a melted popsicle bubbly. I'm gonna have to try it if you want too. Yeah, report in your lacroix. All right, Here we go over the over the equipment. This is we're reaching across the table. Oh Jesus sorry, it's good. Has it mixed with that? But I'm going to keep drinking it. So that's a little bit of science for you listeners at home. Do not mix passion fruit lacroix with orange bubbly. Uh.

Not a good idea. All right, speaking of bad ideas, let's talk about saparmar At Niyazov, the lunatic god king of Turkmenistan. I'm so psyched. So today we're talking about a guy who was at one point probably the most powerful crazy person on planet Earth. He was the absolute ruler of a nation of five million people. So parmar At Niyazov was the dictator of Turkmenistan. And I think you're going to enjoy him, Dave, Although Turkmenistan did not um,

I am extremely ignorant of the world. So where is Turkmenistan. It's like near Afghanistan and in in in the old Soviet Union. It's one of those little chunks of the country. It was like when Genghis Khan started doing his thing when they like left China and started conquering his way towards the Middle East. They were like the first empire he ran into on his way out of China. Yeah, and he had to, yet he sucked him up pretty bad. Uh So, Turkmenistan the actual country did not exist as

a political entity until nineteen twenty four. Like, it wasn't a thing anyone had ever thought about as like an area. It was just a place where a bunch of like it had been a bunch of different kingdoms, but like no one had called them Turkmenistan or whatever. They wound up under Russian control during the era of the Csars, and not much was done with them. They were a little bit of a backwater, so they pretty much just stuck to themselves and did Turkmen stuff, which mainly meant

outdoor picnics, fantastic wine and horseback riding. Oh good for them, yeah, yeah, yeah. It seemed to have that, seemed to have their ship together. Yeah, and there's just like, no one's noticing us. Yeah, let's just have a great time. Let's just chill out. They like falcons, big, big falcon people doesn't Who doesn't love

a good falcon. They got great horses, and uh, they're one of those pieces of the Muslim world where everybody drinks still because they became Muslim, but they've been growing wine since before they were Muslims. They were like, well, let's just ignore that trunk earlier than we've been. It's kept grandfathered into the religion. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Uh. In nineteen twenty four, the brand new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics decided this chunk of the world and its

people needed an official designation and borders. The Turkmen SSR was considered to be the backwatery ist backwater in the entire Soviet Union. Uh say, maybe some of those chunks of Russia that were too cold for anything, but Gulags, an American diplomat told New Yorker author Paul Thiou that quote, it was the sleepiest, most remote, least favorite of the USSRS republics. So they don't get much love. Yeah, but

I mean I want to live there. Yeah, if you're going to live in the Soviet Union, you want to live in the place that like Stalin doesn't think about ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were they were basically the Soviet Union's gas station. Uh. They had like have like either the third of the fifth largest natural gas reserves in the world, and so the Soviet Union just kind of took all of their fuel and and didn't really give them money for it. And that that was kind of what happened for like

seventy years or so. So they were they were doing fine. Uh. Suparmarat Niezov was born into this quiet region of the world in nineteen forty. His father was Attaya Niyazov, a farmer and His mother was Gurbon Sultan. They lived in the town of ghip Jack, a small village six miles from the capital, Ashgabat. If you know much history, you're probably aware that nineteen forty was not a great time

to be born in the Soviet Union. The Nazis invaded before Subparmarat was one, and in nineteen forty two his father died in battle fighting the Wehrmacht. So not the best start so far, das he's really fun things up for this kid and twenty million other people. Yeah. Uh. This prompted Subparmarants mom to move them into the capital, where they all lived together until nineteen forty eight, when a massive earthquake struck the city and killed a hundred

and ten thousand people, including Suparmarat's entire family. Okay, see, he's just having none of the luck, none of the luck, really really bad first eight years of his life. Yeah. Yeah, rough rough start, um, fair to say so. Young Saparmat grew up in a Soviet orphanage until the government found a family member he'd never met for him to go

live with. Uh. In spite of the rough start, he did pretty well, winning a place in Leningrad Polytechnical Institute and graduating with a degree in power engineering in nineteen sixty six. Uh he got a job at a power plant near the capital, And UH do you like he was just going to be a normal Soviet dude. So far, so good, So far, so rough start, But he's getting his life on track, getting his life on track working as an engineer. If I know anything about engineers is

that they never turned into power krazed maniacs. Yeah, that's that's for sure, something about engineers that we know. Uh Saparmarat joined the Communist Party back in nineteen sixty two, and his ambitions immediately extended beyond just working at a power plant. Throughout the late nineteen sixties and the nineteen seventies, he steadily rose the ranks in local politics, due largely to the fact that he was a member of the

largest Turkmen tribe in the region. The techie now uh saparmar at Yezov was named the first Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmen by Mikhail Gorbachev and nine eight five he was put in power because his predecessor, a guy named Gapasov, had been incredibly corrupt. Uh and and stealing huge amounts of money from, you know, the republic.

So that's that's his predecessor. Now. The good thing about Gapisov is that he'd almost completed construction of the world's longest aqueduct during his term, so it was like a couple of weeks away from being finished when he got ship can't And then Niyazov comes to power and he immediately takes credit for building the aqueduct, which good, solid. Yeah. So Gorbachev promised that Niyazov's promotion meant the dawning of

a new age of corruption free governance in Turkmenistan. This would prove to be about as wrong as a statement can be. That feels like how a lot of monsters start. Yeah, of like the guy before them was terrible and corrupt, and they come up and they're like, no more corruption, no more corruption. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good pitch, like basically how this starts. Yeah, And he he probably would have gotten busted by Gorbachev eventually because he was really

corrupt too. But five years after he comes to power, the USSR starts to fall apart, and so when the Soviet Union collapses, he's the guy in charge of Turkmenistan. So in nineteen ninety, the Turkmen Parliament declares its independence during a couple of different votes, and on October nineteen ninety, the state of Turkmenistan was officially born. It held its

first presidential election immediately afterwards. Niyazov was the only candidate and he received ninety eight point three percent of the vote. So okay, so yeah, as everything collapsed around him, he took It's like having it's like being the manager at the final Blockbuster, yeah exactly, yeah, and just being like, we're gonna do things differently around Blockbuster now. Yeah. Uh yeah,

he is. He is that guy. Uh. So, As the autocratic ruler of a new nation, Niazov's immediate goal was to be as neutral as possible and make a shipload of money. So not a bad plan at the start. He started selling gas oil and electricity to Iran, but also sweet talked Saudi Arabia and flew to Mecca to do his pilgrimage. So he's kind of trying to play both sides of of every angle. He's trying to be nice to Russia and be nice to the US. He

just doesn't want anybody to funk with Turkmenistan. So reasonable, Yeah, that's fair. He's protecting his people, protecting his people. Now, when he came to power, most Turkmen were still dirt poor because the Soviet Union had basically just been stealing their gas, like paying them, but paying them in Soviet money that wasn't worth anything, and being like, yeah, you guys are getting a fair market value for this. Feel like it was. It was a free gas station for

the Soviet Union. But now that they were an independent nation, these guys had like a shipload of money at like something like five billion dollars a year coming in in uh in fuel money. And there's only five million people. So in a fair and equitable system, everyone in Turkmenistan could be really rich, like like they are in Kuwait or something. Of course, I assume that's what's going to happen. Yeah, that they all get taken care of really well, and

then that's it. Well you can find us on Twitter and Instagram and at Bastards pod day. No. Uh So that was what a lot of people hoped for, that like the economy will be reformed and they'd all get some of this sweet sweet gas money. But Niyazov was worried about what might happen if he reformed the economy too much. He thought it might be too much change for people in too short a period of time. Right, you got to protect the people from progress for money,

change money. So what those people to have, who knows what they'll spend it? Are exactly houses? Food? Yeah, you know, you don't want to risk that. So he promised that he would eventually add in some free market stuff, but in the short term, he decided that he really needed absolute power to get stuff started for good foot you know. Yeah, makes sense, understandable. I just need a little I just need a little absolute powerst a couple of years. Absolute power. Yeah,

I swear I will. I'll give it up. Yeah, like all the times people have given up absolute power in the past. Uh. So he got his wish when Turkmenistan's new constitution was drafted. It declared that power is held by the president, who was elected by the people, which seems reasonable until you realize that, once elected, the president's power was essentially infinite. Uh, and then included the power

to determine how elections were held in the future. Yeah. Perfect. Now, under the constitution, citizens did have the right to form political parties as long as they could get a thousand other people together. That was like the minimum threshold you can make a political party. So several citizens did this. They created political parties, They kept in line, scrupulously followed the law, they avoided any calls for violence, they filled out all the required forms of petitions, and their parties

were immediately banned. Um. Since the state controlled all media, no political parties were allowed in any airtime. So yeah, that's that's uh, that that's what nias sort of starts off U tagging Jumakov, a journalist working for a state paper that was essentially owned by nias Off explained, quote, at this time, there is no need for a multi party system. Many problems have to be solved, social problems,

and we must raise living standards. When our living standards are high and we are economically independent, then we can have a multiparty system. But if this happens now, there will be anarchy. It feels like there's a lot of putting, putting it off, putting, a lot of like, you know, no, it's a great, it's great, we'll do that at some point, but right now we really can't. Yeah, I'll clean up my room after yeah, finished stealing all this natural guess I'll clean my room, But first I got to do

this cocaine, and that'll help me clean up. I can't. I can't make my bed with all this cocaine on the table. Exactly what have I what am I knocked the cocaine off the table? Exactly? Yes, yeah, he has that that that that logic is it? Exactly how Niazov justifies what he does. So At a People's Council in December nine, Niazov estimated it would take ten years for Turkmenistan to achieve the prosperity it needed for people to be allowed to vote. After the constitution was ratified, Niasov

ran for president again winning. Yeah. He's he's very pop very popular, very also the only candidate, uh. He was the only Central Asian head of state to continue to govern after the USSRS fall. So, of of the guys who are in charge when like the Soviet Union falls part,

he's the only one who manages to hang on to power. Um. Now, Turkmenistan had never been a country before, not in the modern sense of the world, and Niazov knew he had to do something to bind all of his people together, so he held conferences using sketchy history to claim that all Turkmen were part of the same ethnic group, the Tehran, which was essentially just an ancient Persian word for the region. He also announced, to great fanfare that his name was

now Turkmen Boshi, which means first among Turkmen's. He created an ethnic group, yeah, kind of okay, he just said we're all this thing. Yeah. He didn't want the tribalism to get in the way, so he said, we're all part of the same thing. Now, all right, Yeah, you got to invent stuff if you create a country. His full title was Serdar Turkmen Boshi, Great Leader of all Turkmen. Now, as natural gas money started to flow into the country,

Turkmenistan found itself with money for the first time and ever. Really, Turkmen Boshi, a man who had promised his people prosperity, knew what he had to spend his windfall on. Wait what do you mean? It was, Oh god, I I don't know what do you what do you think you spent the billions of dollars That is the first money is country has ever gotten on. I mean, this could

go in so many ways. It could be like war um, but I feel like it's like a clown party or something like that's not super far I watched, I listened to another show, and to not make too many predictions, he spent it all on statues. Oh, of course, of course, of course, why do oh man? That's I think there's something in our DNA where we want to It's just a natural thing we want to do is make statues. If you give me, if you gave me a million dollars, I'll be like, Okay, well the statue, um, and then

I'll get a nice apartment. I guess a second RoboCop statue in Detroit would make sense. Yeah, yeah, let's do that first, and then another rocky statue in Philadelphia, all slightly bigger, slightly she like drive the statue by homeless people in the street and like statue. Uh. New Yorker writer Paul Three visited Turkmeno STANDARDI end of Turkmen Boshi's bragin. Here's how he described the capital city quote Ashkobat was filled with gold statues of Turkmen Boshi. And these statues,

which had an ecclesiastical era. Boshi was el Dorado the man of Gold, all powerful and all knowing. Statues show him sitting, striding, waving, saluting, and smiling a twenty four carrot smile. One even showed him as a precocious golden child sitting in the lap of his bronze mother. He once said to a journalist, I admit it. There are too many portraits, pictures and monuments of me. I don't find any pleasure in it, but the people demand it because of their mentality. Guys, just give me a few

more years. Everything will be fine. We'll get a few more statues up and then that's it. Just a couple of more statues and love democracy promise. I swear you're going to vote at some point. I do love that he makes his mom bronze, but he's gold. A little bit of mom shade there, it's just worth. Yeah, you want the baby to really pop in your in your statue of yourself as a baby. Now, we don't know what the people actually demanded, because they weren't, you know,

allowed to vote, or form political parties or speak freely. Uh. Several of them were eventually allowed to operate political parties, but these were just for show and most did not meet the minimum number of members required in the constitution was just so that Turkmen Bosha could be like, no, we're not a one party state. Look at all these

other parties. There's like nine guys in that one. Whenever Turkmen Poshi got in hot water with the democratic world, he'd sponsor a party or two and let his people have the illusion of a tiny amount of choice, or, to be more accurate, let the world have the illusion that his people had a tiny amount of choice. Now, Nyazov immediately started renaming parts of the country after himself. It started, not crazily, at least changing the name of a major street in the capital from Lennin to you know,

Turkmen Bosh. That's fair. You know, Soviet Union's gone. You know when it named after Lennon. Okay, we named streets after presidents all the time. Uh. He ran him to collective farm in the Linen Canal with his own name. Also, when people compared what he was doing to Stalin's personality cult, he said, quote Stalin achieved his personality cult through repressive measures, whereas I achieved my popularity without conflicts. So overall, I'm

just sorry. I'm thinking about his childhood and stuff. There's nothing like that messed up that happened to him and the earthquake. I'm saying that there's not anything like horrible things happened to a lot of people. Yeah, this feels like a story of like this is just like you give someone too much power. This it feels like this could be anybody. It's just like, let's give him a lot of power and then the next thing you know,

they're a golden baby statue. That's possible. We'll say how you feel at the end of this, Okay, I feel like he I mean, yeah, so so far, I'm not saying what he did is understandable so far, it's just that it's I find it remarkable that his childhood isn't that over the top. Well, we just don't know that much about like what happened in the orphanage or what

that's sucking. Soviet orphanage in the late forties that probably wasn't the best place you can Probably you probably some bad stuff, But I really don't know because there's just not like Turkmenistan is still a very close society, so there's not a whole lot of information. I can't imagine this guy keeping good records, know what's going on. Not a big fan of that now. Um, Turkmenistan launched its own currency, the man, in the late or in the

early nineteen nineties. It's great wealth meant that the money launched at parody with the U. S. Dollar. So at the start, the Turkmenistan man is worth one U. S dollar, which is great. You know. Yeah, a new country, your dollar is a pretty good thing to be worth. In the early nineteen nineties, uh Niyazov's face was, of course, prominently printed on each and every bill. Um. Now, it's not true that his popularity was without conflict. Dissidents were

punished brutally, although he was pretty popular at first. Because the Turkmen had been treated like ship by the Soviet Union, and now that were independent, uh, there was enough money for both ridiculous statues and social programs. So Turkmen Boshi tripled the salaries of public employees, He heavily subsidized food, and he offered free gas, electricity, and water to all citizens. He also spent a hundred and thirty million dollars turning

his presidential seven sixty seven into an airborne palace. Yeah, so a little bit for you, a little bit from a little bit for you, a lot a lot for me, get golden statues for me. Gasoline is basically free. Uh so you know, I mean as a citizen at this point, it's not the worst case and it's not the worst not the worst case scenario. It's just like, Okay, well there's a bunch of just terrible statues of this, really bad statues. But you know what I'm not I'm not

paying for gas. I'm not paying for gas. We will see where this story goes. But speaking of not complaining, you know what makes me not complain? I want to say adds, yes, adds for the odd product, a couple of services. Okay, maybe maybe even an ad for bubbly sparkling water, the only sparkling water that tastes terrible and mixed with lacroix. That is that going to get us any money? Sovie? Alright, ads, and we're back. We're talking about Turkmen boshi Uh, dictator of Turkmenistan and at this

point not doing terrible. A lot of statues, way too much money on the plane. Gold Baby. I'm really thinking about that gold baby thing because I think what it is is that making a statue of yourself as an adult. Like, yeah, that's messed up, but it's celebrating your big birth as this special event. Yeah, Like there's really only the one person that we do that with. Yeah, if someone else is doing it, like, that's it's a bold statement. It's a bold statement. And I gotta say, Dave you really

on the right track with that, with that? Oh yeah, delight. So at this point in Niazov does not seem like the worst case scenario for a dictator. The Turkmen people were at least getting something while he robbed the country blind. But Niyazov's corruption quickly took its toll on the national economy.

After bribing former U S Secretary of State Alexander Haig to lobby on Turkmenistan's behalf, he almost succeeded in gletting the Clinton administration to open the country up to American investment. The deal got to rail because Niazov demanded of all invested money go to him personally. Yeah, I can see them moving that out, but I get a third of everything. I know. You don't know. Now, this turned out to be a bad idea because most of Turkmenistan's regional trading partners.

The former Soviet states suffered economic collapses after their first few years of capitalism. Uh They stopped being able to buy Turkmenistan's fuel production fell by two thirds, and all that sweet plane and statue money stopped coming in. Niyazov responded to this with an effort to boost the country's internal economy. He did this by modernizing the capital, Ashgabat.

According to the book Inside Central Asia by Dilip hero Quote, modernizing Ashkabat meant raising many central neighborhoods to create a network of bulls of ards with lavish palaces of white marble and green tinted glass, dotted with massive fountains and statues of Niyazov and his parents, as well as historical Turkmen personalities, guarded by uniform security men standing to attention.

The city would become the site of the largest fountain in the world, a multi storied shopping mall with water gushing out of the roof and pouring down in a ring of waterfalls. Its main avenue would end up with twenty two five star hotels where foreign guests would be accommodated only in the rooms that were bugged. Many of the displaced families did not get alternative accommodation or compensation as they could not prove the ownership of their homes.

How modern bulldozes hundreds of houses, builds twenty two hotels, and nobody's visiting Turkmenistan at this point, Like there's no foreign visits. Yeah, but did you hear about fountain that fucking fountains the ship. That's when I think the future. I think, how can we make water fall in neat ways?

That is what the future is. And how can we fill a city with enough gold fountains that we need to have permanent security guards stationed to stop people from stealing the gold because we bulldozed their houses and they're all poor, solid move, solid move Now. Building a shipload of hotels and additional statues during an economic downturn may not seem like a great idea, but that's just because

you and I are in economic geniuses like Turkmens. Yeah. Now, to keep the economy afloat, Turkmenistan Central Bank started printing money like it was going out of fucking style. Inflation hit three percent and the menot went from being at one to one parody with the U S dollar to being at fifty two hundred to one parody with the US dollar. It turns out that's not a great strategy. Nobody could have predicted that. No, I mean, you know,

it's the econty. Nobody knows. It's like, it's like predicting that offering people a lot of ballooning interest rate mortgages on their houses and like loans and stuff would eventually lead to a massive foreclosure. Christ who could who could have seen that come? They did all the right things, They got the statues, they got the statues, and what is it? Warren Buffett always says, when the economy is bad, build more fountains. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's basic economics one

oh two. At least. Now, as his entire nation suffered, so did Turkmen Boshy. His doctors told him that his arteries had hardened, probably because of his massive chronic alcoholism constant cigarette smoking. Uh. He would need major heart surgery, which he received in a German clinic. Uh. He survived the surgery, but it seems to have wrought a change

in him. Up to this point, he had been the absolute ruler of Turkmenistan, but he was more or less normal for like an absolute ruler, you know, banning political parties, building tons of statues, sacred police, nothing super wild, like like it was some fun stuff, but like the dictators stuff, as far as ruthless dictators go, this is pretty by the book, pretty by the book. After his heart surgery, Niazov began to treat his nation as an extension of himself.

His doctor told him he had to stop smoking, so he ordered all cabinet ministers to stop smoking too. He banned smoking in public places and even smoking out in the street. Sucks, It really sucks. Why can't we smoke outside anymore? The president's hearts turned my house into a gold fountain. Let me smoke, Let me smoke. My house

is a statue of you as a baby. Well. He was rebuilding his capital in the Muslim Las Vegas and dealing with hard issues and being a nut turkmen bosh, he managed to maintain his policy of careful, stringent neutrality. He joined the non Aligned movement in and commemorated the event with a hundred and seventy foot tall neutrality arch in downtown Ashgabad. It is described as an amalgam of

a triffid Eiffels, Eiffel Tower and a marble covered base rocket. Sophie, I, I I'll finish describing this first, but can you look up the Neutrality Arch so I can show Dave now. A few years later, after his heart surgery, turkmen Bosh he added another statue to the top of the Neutrality Arch, a twenty two foot tall golden plated statue of himself wearing Superman's cape with his arms extended into the air. The statue rotates three hundred and sixty degrees every day,

so his face is always facing the sun. Turkmen Boshi required that the statue be visible from the International Airport, many miles away from the city. Also, the airport was named after him. Of course, of course this is now. This is reminded me of that Futurama episode where Benderbill's the giant exactly remember me, Like, didn't shoot fire out of it, no, but it's it's pretty close to that. So if he we'll have a picture up on the website.

Look at that phone. Yeah, when I think the word neutral, that's that's what's what I think of when I think of neutral. Holy shi it. I love that he saw that. He was like needs another statue, needs another statue of me made out of gold wearing a cape. Oh my god. So turk and Boshi took his neutrality as seriously as he took his absurd statues and monuments. He renamed the official newspaper from Turkmenistan to Neutral Turkmenistan. He replaced the

national anthem Turkmenistan with independent Neutral Turkmenistan State anthem. He wrote both the words and the music for this song. I'm just gonna read the words. I'm just gonna read the first verse because I find it funny. I don't know how to sing this. I am ready to give life for our native heart. The spirit of ancestors descendants are famous for. My land is sacred. My flag plays in the world, A symbol of the great neutral country flies.

This is why you gotta outsource, Your gotta outsarch your song. Right dictators or tomorrow, don't think you can do anything. It's also of the of the ways to inspire a people. The word neutral is not one of them, like the Swiss are neutral. It's not like the session word. It's again another Futurama reference. Oh, post surgery Turkmen Bosh. He succeeded in getting a second chance to dance with Uncle Sam. He made some deals that included Unokal, an American corporation,

helping Turkmenistan to build a gigantic pipeline. The fact that an American company won the contract looked very good to the White House. There was talk of okaying more investment in Turkmenistan. But in January of that year, those Pesky State Department bastards released their yearly report on human rights. They noted that Turkmenistan had made basically no progress towards

democracy since leaving the Soviet Union. The Clinton administration asked Nia's off to give them what Heroes book calls a gesture towards democratization. In return, Turkmen Bosh would be invited to the White House. Now, he visited the US once before, shortly after taking power, but he'd been ignored by everybody. Uh, And this was something Turkmen Bosh you very badly wanted for reasons I don't understand, but probably boiled down to eagle.

He wanted pictures with the American president. It was like his thing. So that February, Nika'sov got up in front of Turkmenistan's high officials and promised to amend to the constitution, giving more power to parliament and less to himself. True to his word, Bill Clinton invited him to the White House. Turkmen Boshi immediately reneged on his promises now that he had the invitation, and said that any constitutional amendments would have to wait until the parliamentary elections in December of

What a shocker. What a shocker. You can't just be like, look, you have to you have to say you'll do this, and then you can take pictures with me, Like, you have to make sure they actually follow through, right, I mean, if we cared about democracy, that's I don't know, if we cared, They're like, look, you have to at least pretend, yeah, like just so we can all look good, Yeah, for at least a moment, for at least a second. Yeah, let us pretend that we care about freedom around the world,

which you know he did. He gave Americans the ability to feel like the good guys for one last time before nine eleven. That's true, So thank you, turkmen Boshi. Sonia's off spit a fun week in the United States hanging out with Bill Clinton, and al Gore and talking about democracy uh and all the democracy that he was totally gonna bring to his people. There were, of course questions from the press and outrage from people who didn't like dictators. I'm going to quote from the book Inside

Central Asia here quote. In his press briefing, the White House spokesman explained that, just as in the case of China, the US national economic interest outweighed the administration's concern over Niyazov's dismal record on post Soviet reform. When questioned on the issues of civil liberties and multiparty democracy, it's such forms as the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Niyazov repeated and not the argument that political liberalization would

follow only after independence and stability had been consolidated. His statement that no one had been arrested in Turkmenistan for political reasons flew in the face of the recent State Department report on Turkmenistan. The opposition was repressed, with leading

dissidents either imprisoned or committed to psychiatric hospitals. The reality is that a roughly twenty thousand people had been imprisoned, so it's frustratingly hard to find many stories of the victims of Turkmen Bosh's regime, because again, it's still a pretty close at soxiety. Uh. The imprisoned were generally tracked by secret police after being freed to keep them from talking. I did find one Telegraph article that interviewed a former enemy of the state. Here's what he said about his

time in a Turkmenistan prison. Quote. I had read about the beatings and electric shock therapy, which I experienced in prison, but it was the unexpected techniques that really damaged me. I was fitted with a gas mask in the airvant was closed. They played tapes of my relatives being beaten after they were arrested. Their suffering was mine. It was terrible. Wow. Yeah, that he did not mass execute people. Uh. He did have some people killed, but he didn't do mass executions.

His thing seems to be if you stepped out of line, he'd arrest your whole family and beat the ship up and then tape them and creative villain. Yeah Jesus, Yeah, it is one of those one of those dictator strategies that I hadn't run into yet, which is like like obviously people's families being threatened like that specific way, it's like, okay, well,

at least you're an innovator. Yeah. Uh. He also tortured shiploads of people, although he did, you know, avoid the mass murder that like a guy like Bachar Lassad is famous for Turkmen. Boshi was smart enough to avoid doing anything too obviously horrible, like you know, bombing you know, a dissident chunk of the city or whatever. And so he never really provoked mass outrage from the United States

or any of its allies. Since he only tortured and imprisoned people, our government was happy to take his money, or, to be more accurate, let major US corporations take his money. Right, he's staying under the radar, staying right under the radar. Yeah, smart guy, Smart guy. Elections came Une point nine percent of the country showed up to choose between a hundred and four candidates for fifty seats in the parliament. So he kept his promise. People got to vote. Yeah, they

got to vote for parliament. Now all of the candidates were members of the same party which he headed. Uh, but it's something, but it's a yeah, you've yeah, you got to press a button or like write a name. Write it's democracy, twice as many choices as there were seats,

and even they were all from It's something. Uh. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe did not send out election observers, which they normally do in situations like this, because the elections were seen as too much of a sham to be worth observing. After the election, the delegates who had been voted in unanimously declared that Niyazov was president for life. Yeah. Democracy, So lucky for him, he really nailed it. Yeah, he must be very popular now

president for life. Niazov introduced a new set of civil rights for his citizens. So this is seeming like he's making his promise. I mean he didn't. He didn't choose to be president. No, he the people demanded that he'd be president, and he gave them new civil rights. Uh. He did not, however, have a great grasp on what civil rights are. So his first new civil rights was to cancel all internet licenses except the state owned Telecom Telecom Company, Continuing to prove that he really didn't have

a good handle on the concept of civil rights. Niyazov next band Ballet and Opera, calling them, calling them alien to Turkmen. Culture. Somewhere there's like a smoking ballet Dancer's just like I can't have a cigarette, I can't do ballet. Just staring at that golden baby got damn uh. Yeah, he ordered the country's few movie theaters shut down, but he did replace the movie theaters with a single enormous puppet theater in the capital. What is wrong with him? Okay,

don't you like puppet? What happened at that orphanage? That's that's the real question with this guy. A friend of puppet, like a roll of cellulose fell out of a movie theater and crushed his favorite puppeteer. Yeah, this is story to feel like he's he's trolling his country on purpose, Like I'm going to get rid of the movie theaters

and give them puppet puppet shows. Christ. Yeah. His exact justification was something along the lines of, like, all these movies made by foreign people are going to make people not like the way we talk here in Well, yeah, if he's trying to control the internet and movies, yeah, he's definitely trying to make people in this country not realize just how screwed they are at the moment. Yeah, how how not not great? It is? To not be able to fucking banning ballet, Like what subversive about ballet?

Even Stalin had ballets. Still, you could make your own movies. Yeah, ballet. He must have like dated a ballet dancer or something. Get is heartbroken. Yeah, it all feels so personal. Yeah, it really does. Like that's the thing. That's the thing that's weird about this Guy's that every decision he makes feels like like a guy who got pissed at something like then banned it for the entire country. Right, But like cigarettes sucked up my heart, nobody gets to smoke.

As someone who loves movies, I'm real peeved about the movie thing, because if you're gonna ban movies and then make better movies or something, don't replace it with puppets, because your people are going to see that and be like, I know there's something better than I know it gets better than puppets. I know this is the best we can do. So in two thousand one, Present for Life and puppet Lover turkmen Boshi embarked on the next great chapter of his career as a dictator and as a luminary.

He wrote a book, Oh God, not just any book, His Opus, The Runama was billed by him as the most important book since the Koran. Part history text, part guide to life, part religious book, and all crazy. The Runama was the pinnacle of everything insane dictator literature can be. Here's how Turkmen Boshi described the book in his own introduction. Runama is a visit to this land. Runama is a visit to the past of this territory and a visit to the future of this territory. Runama is the visit

made to the heart of the Turkmen. Runama is a sweet spiritual fruit grown in this territory. No human being who has not experienced what I have lived through can understand me. Wow, it's a little bit of emo. That special. He's a real special boy. He's a real special boy. Now. The book is partly fictional, jumping between modern day and the Middle Ages, and focused around a character Saparmaratnsov, whose birth was ordained by God himself, a character with his

name who is God's profit on earth. M M. I wonder if it's based on anyway. If you're gonna write a book like this, at least do it under a different name or something, because you can't say you're God. Well, God's profit on Earth, God's profit. He's not saying he's better than Mohammed, just that he's newer than Mohammed and so should be taken more seriously than the prophet of the Muslims, right, the new cool Mohammed. Yeah, he'll let you drink, but you can't smoke, which I mean, I

guess Actually that's a that is a help. Well, yeah, this kind of a watch. Actually. Yeah. Ah. So we're going to talk about the Runama, and I'm going to read you some of it's timeless wisdom. But first you know what else is timelessly wise? Oh? God, I want to say, ads, you're you're, you're, you nailed it, all right, products, we're back, all right. So, uh, we're talking about the Runama, a book in which saparmarrotnie is Off writes about himself

as God's prophet. Uh. He goes on a quest to discover the history of the Turkmen's uh, and during that quest he learns that he is God's son essentially. Uh. Good for him, good for him? Yeah, he Well, he was a child ordained by God and probably probably his mom was impregnated by divine will. Uh. In other words. Saparmaratniezov wrote an explicitly Turkmen themed Bible with himself as Jesus and mixed it with a self help book and like one of those history books. Below'riley writes like, that's

that's kind of the Runama in a nutshell. It's all these red flags just smushed together. It's a lot. Yeah. Now I'm gonna level with you all. I did not have time this week to read the entirety of the Runama. I may get back to it someday, because apparently reading it three times guarantees you entry into heaven. Yeah, I think next vacation or something. Just read it on the beach.

Read it on the beach. I did learn reading Paul throws New Yorker article that apparently you you are guaranteed a trip to heaven if you read it three times. So you know, people out there, if you're sinning, if you're if you're doing anything terrible, Uh, maybe read the Runama three times in a row. I also feel like more books should use that for marketing because it's like, well, I mean they're probably wrong, but what if they're right?

What if they're it's just three Yeah, and then you just gotta read it through just yet, you gotta read it three times? Does it? Does it count? If you do like the thing where like kindle like where it reads the book for you. You can do it on double speed. I don't know that would trick God. Dave, let me let me read to you where Paul Throw learned that this was apparently what Saparmarra was saying. He apparently was told this by a cab driver during a

visit to Turkmenistan. So I'm gonna quote from that conversation. He was on TV last night. My driver said, well, he's on almost every night. Turkmen almost never said Turkmen Boshi's name aloud. He said, if you read my book three times, you will go to heaven. How does he know this? He said, I asked Allah to arrange it. So, yeah, so he told Allah to do so. He told God that if you read his book three times, anyone who he told a promo code? Yeah, exactly. He's doing with podcasters.

But God, can we work something out here? Yeah? This is the heavenly equivalent of offering a discount code on a mattress. Good for him, working with God? Yeah, working with God now Paul Throw, being a better journalist than me, read the entirety of the Runama. He described it as a confused mixture of memoire, Turkmen lore, potted history, dietary suggestions,

Soviet bashing, boasting, wild promises, and Turkmen Boshi's poems. He seemed to regard it as both a sort of koran and as a how to guide for the Turkmen people, a jingoistic pep talk. In fact, it is little more than a sopa for chloroform in print. As Mark Twain described the Book of Mormon, I read it once. Turkmen Boshi would have to promise more than heaven I for we to read it two more times. Yeah. I think if you're not a dictator, we call this a manifesto.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. This is just the ravings of a madman. And I do feel like in another society, Turkmen Bosh he is a guy who mails people bombs and forces the New York Times to print as manifest And it's it's those little things that's like hidden in there, like recipes. It's like, oh, you just want to be listened to. Yeah, you were just dictating this to somebody

and stopped at some point string of consciousness. Now I did skin the Runama in search of some of the apparently ageless wisdom that Turkmen Boshi blessed the world with in his book. I can tell it's definitely the book of an old man who was worried about dying because he writes about time a lot. But the way he writes about time makes no sense at all to me. Quote the devil keeps a close eye over your time

and faith, both of which are your precious belongings. Time is your life in this world and faith is your life in the other world. Wasting time means losing one's life or oneself. Teach your child how to save his time and life. All that you can save of time will belong to you. Time is a mace hit or be hit. Huh, So you can hit time? What does that mean? Like, I get saving time. It's valuable to have more time, obviously, what is time as a mase? Mean? How do you hit someone with time? I'm trying to

I mean, I want to know. I want to know how how do you get hit with time? Like jail? Yeah? Yeah, Like Marty McFly had this experience. Marty McFly might might be the only person who's taken turkmen Boshi's advice get hit by the DeLorean from did get hit by the Dolorean? Al Right, well, we're finding some logic in this. Thinking about this one for a while. You know, he did come to power in the mid eighties, so it's possible

he was a big back to the future. Yeah, DeLorean is it's a metallic it's yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Turkmen Boshi also had a lot to say on the subject of laziness. He was not for it. Quote, laziness means being profligate and living one leaving oneself to be blown about by the winds of fate. Be hard working and you will generate returns in cash. Be lazy and you will get into debt. The comfort that laziness provides

is like the taste of a sour cucumber. Out of mercy for yourself, work, joblessness, lack of wisdom, and laziness will damage you more than your enemies ever could. Time is a wild predator, but if you train it, you may use it to your benefit. Do not be subject to time. Let it be your subject lives, so that you regret nothing when you die. Living does not only mean passing time. It means reaching eternity after passing through time.

I don't think you should train time by hitting it though. Yeah, that doesn't seem that seems like time is going to grow up like abused and problems. I don't want time to turn on me. You do not want time to turn on you, although that is the one thing time does to everybody. Yeah. Yeah, also bold decision, uh, speaking out against laziness. Yeah really, really really now. The Runama

also includes handy advice on how to obtain world peace. Quote, if everybody likes their own nation, then the nations will like each other. It feels like I think that's not how that works. Like that's the opposite of how that work. Yeah, I think historically feel like the nation really likes itself. The first problem, that's the first step to other nations ceasing to exist, is one nation really liking itself, likes itself so much. It's like, guys, you gotta try this nation.

You gotta try being Germany. It's pretty sweet here in Germany. Oh you don't want some, now, come here, come here, come here. You're gonna try. You're gonna take some Germany. You'll love it. You'll love it. Turkmenistanard like that's what the Soviet Union did to them, Just like, right, this is going so well, we're just gonna keep going now. The Runama also includes handy advice. Oh sorry, already read that part. I didn't edit this, which is unusual for

me because I'm a hacking of fraud. So everyone should know. No, this is raw. We're going, we're raw dogging. It is punk rock where we are talking raw talking. That's one of my favorite terms. It's just so visceral and gross re It's just the nastiest way to describe that. I love it. Okay, So are you wondering, Dave, how Niyazov defined the concept of a nation. Oh, yes, yeah, well, nation is the transformation of human groups in the context

of certain spiritual foundations. A nation is shaped materially according to these spiritual foundations. You get what I need statues? Is that where he's going, you got to have, like, you're not a nation unless you have, like I don't know, ten or more statues. Yeah, I mean way more than ten statues. Right, that's a minimum? That is that a minimum? Yeah? So? Uh?

In the Runama, Turkmen Boshi credits the Turkmen people with many great historical innovations, including the invention of robots, the invention of white wheat, and the invention of the wheel. What ye, robots and the wheel? How did he? How did robots get into that? I do not know, Dave. I could see, like anybody can kind of claim the wheel, because it's like, who's going to prove them? Who's going to prove you wrong? Yeah, it might have been Turkman.

I don't know. Yeah, for all we know, but robots, I feel like we have that written down, Like we're pretty clear on robots. Yeah. So I cannot say that my limited reading of the Runama has led me to any staggering revelations about my place in the universe. But Nazov was adamant that his people needed to read this book. He acquired anyone entering a Moscow or a church to kiss a copy of the Runama before going into worship.

And Yeah. In a different New Yorker article by Macy halford I found one possible explanation of Niyazov's motivation in writing the Runama. The person who provided it is just described as a scholar. I think because they're a person from Turkmenistan who doesn't want to have their family tortured fair enough. Yeah, quote, Niyazov was somewhat illiterate. He couldn't read or write Turkmen or Russian properly. People who have disabilities, for example of literacy want to be seen as geniuses.

That's probably what got him started. I don't know about that logic either, but it's funny that he can't read. I mean, it's definitely most dictators are compensating for things, right, Yeah, that part seems in It probably starts with like a profound lack of confidence, where it's like, you know, just you're you're fine, man, you're fine. You don't have to build this many statues and and hear of your people or bulldoz or houses or whatever. Yeah, like it's all right,

you're fine, you're fine, You're doing great, buddy. We were all impressed when you were an engineer. Yeah, you didn't do the rest of this. Great career would have been a great career. We would have done so much good things. Is that just as an engineer keeping the lights on, not building golden baby statues? You think that's where it started. As an engineer, he was like, you know what I really need want to like engineer is statues, statues. That's yeah,

closer than yeah, it's comfortable. So once it was published. Once the Runama was published, Turkmen Boshi did everything in his power to make it a central part of turkmenistan life. According to the book Inside Central Asia, Niazov erected a commemorative complex in his home village of gip Jack, conceived as a symbol of the rebirth of the Turkmen nation, which included a mosque whose walls carry quotations from the

Koran as well as the Runama. Yeah, that's bold. The Turkmen government ordered a prominent display of the Runama, not only in bookshops and official buildings, but also in mosques and churches, sharing its place with the Koran or the Bible. The colossal pink statue of the Runama and Ashkabat was too conspicuous to be missed. Another decree extended the book's presence to libraries and schools and made it a part of the curriculum. To be able to recite passages of

the book became a badge of honor. Next, civil servants, teachers and doctors were required to pass a test on its teachings. Then this requirement also became part of the driving test. The Runama was lauded in songs, and the state run media regularly broadcast or printed excerpts from it. Criticizing the book even in private was tantamount to criticizing Niyazov,

an offense punishable with a five year jail sentence. Niyazov redesigned the educational system, reducing the compulsory schooling from two years to one uh in higher education by three years down to a mere two Inexplicably, he reduced the college and university enrollments to ten percent of the then current figure. He banned the teaching of foreign languages and decreed that the exceptional history and culture of Turkmen must be stressed with his Runama to act as the load star. The

worst part is this book sounds terrible. It's a terrible book. And then he bans other languages and cuts like, reduces school by a half so that nobody has any education, so that presumably they'll find his book more compelling. Exactly, you can of these people reading other books. No, Yeah, it's like it's like if Neil Breener Tommy Wise, Oh opened a theater and had like Citizen Cane posters next

to the room. Yeah, and it was just walled with that and like started a film school where they're like, look, we're just going to focus on the room, on the classics. Yeah, but gradually they phase out Citizen Kane for just exactly he's trying to create. He's basically lowering the bar as much as he can to make his book the best thing around. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what's happening. That's infuriating now. Uh.

You may have noted from from that passage. I read a little note about a statue of the Runama that was put up in the capital. Oh. I have a video of that statue day uh and and it'll be up on our side behind the Bastards dot Com. But I've got to show it to you, and I'd like you to describe it to our listeners because most of them are probably jogging or driving or shopping at the moment and can't get a video. I hope they're pooping to Okay, I'm not sure what I'm seeing right now.

There's like cool, very cool, it's very cool music. I've seen a lot of colors. I feel like it should be high. Um. Oh wow, it's a book. It's a very colorful book. Is this a statue? Is a statue? It's opening? Oh my god, it is a giant sly opens every night in Ashgabaty. It opens every night. This is like a Disney attraction in this Like this should be like the Story of snow White opens the New Coral's Old Spiritual Guide for the people. It's an interact.

It's like a moving Is that a per chance? There's of course, there's fastest children are expected to learn. Wow, he loves his book, so as anyone who wants to get a driver's license. But what is the point of that he made you memorize bits of it to get a driver's license? Yeah? Why? Okay, there's so much to unpack here. So first of all, that he loves his books so much that you made a giant statue that just opens, a statue that opens, Yeah, just like celebrating

the act of opening his book. Okay, so the driver's license. What in the book helps with driving? Well, you gotta know how to use time as a mace dave, otherwise you're gonna get hit. So back to the delrium ba. See it all ties together, the internal logics consistent. I mean, I'm gonna be honest. After writing a book I was, I'm pretty proud of it, right, But I don't think I would build a giant statue of my book A Brief History of Ice. I would build a statue of

your book. But see, if you build it, it's fine, It is fine. Yeah, exactly. I should note that reading my book will not help you pass the driver's test. You never know. Don't sell yourself short, don't presume what people will take away from your book. I learned how to merge from you. But this is this is a running theme with like Kadafi with that astronaut thing, with the death of the dictators are like brutal and do all these things, and then they're like, but you gotta

read my stuff, you gotta read my book. It's just like, why don't we start with that, Like, let's all read their your brook first and we'll praise you and then you don't have to hurt everybody. It's it's it's you know what it is like. And someone has a post go viral on Twitter unexpectedly and they link their SoundCloud or something it's the v But if you're in charge of a country, right, yeah, oh god, I'm in charge everybody. Look at this, so many follows. I didn't expect this, guys,

didn't expect this. Guys, here's my PayPal. Oh wait, I'm in charge of where all the oil and gas money goes, so it just goes right to my bank account. Uh So that's all we're gonna talk about in part one of this episode. But when we come back, we're going to talk about Turkman Boss. He's post two thousand one career, and trust me, Dave, it's going to go even further off the rails. Turns out all the craziness we've talked

about so far was just a dress rehearsal. Oh yeah, yeah, So you got any plug double as you want to plug before we uh we head out. I guess So I have a I have a podcast network that run with Tom Ryman called Gamefully Unemployed. You can check us out at patreon dot com slash gamefully Unemployed. We have a new show called Fox Molders a Maniac. It's exclusive. Yeah, it's uh, it's our behind the bastards, but just for Fox.

Fust for Fox molders, so check it out. Yeah, donate to gamefully Unemployed fantastic podcasts Tom and Dave two the funniest guys I know. Please please give them your dollars, give them your sense, uh, mail them your your really anything? Yeah, shirts, pants, yeah, oh god, yeah, pop tarts, uh, severed heads of horses, all of those things. You're appreciated. And look up this podcast Behind the Bastards dot com on the Internet, and uh you find the sources for this. You can find

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