Turkmenistan
This week we are focused on Turkmenistan by arranging a photo exhibition “Between Iran and Afghanistan”.
There is little knowledge about Turkmenistan in the world. The country is geographically isolated and conflicts and problems in neighboring Iran and Afghanistan have usually attracted the world's attention in the region.
Like Sweden, Turkmenistan is a small country with approximately 5 million inhabitants. Natural resources consist mainly of gas and oil. In terms of surface area, the country is as big as France and Germany, but 80 percent of the territory consists of the Karakum Desert, which is one of the world’s largest. The country has an ancient culture with proud traditions. Turkmen carpet knitting is said to be one of the world’s finest and the Turkmen horses are world famous. To the West, the country is bordering the Caspian Sea, and since the Middle Ages, Turkmenistan and its neighboring countries have provided Europe with goods, especially silverware. Before the sea route was opened to the Black Sea, Turkmenistan was linked to Northern Europe by an ancient trade route that went through the Caspian Sea, formerly known as the Khazar Sea, to the Silk Road. This old route is today again important since the Caspian Sea has vast gas and oil deposits, even larger than those of the North Sea. Today Turkmenistan is the world's fourth largest producer of gas and a major supplier of energy to Europe.
Since 1991, Turkmenistan has been under a dictatorship and isolated from the outside world. This was a deliberate policy of the country's long-time president Saparmurat Niyazov. He died on the 21st of December 2006, but there have been no clear signs of any real political change so far.
The exhibition is organized by the UCRS Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies in cooperation with Shokhrat Kadyrov. Shokhrat is the head of International Foundation for Education of Human Rights in the Post-Soviet Central Asian Countries (IFECAS), an NGO based in Norway.