Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Another significant omission in any subsequent edition of the book (of which more than a million have been printed, in more than thirty languages, including Zulu and Japanese) is any mention of the assassination attempt against Niyazov. In 2002, in what might have been a failed coup, he was almost killed when he was shot at as his motorcade sped through the city. This resulted in a wave of repression, the perpetrators and their helpers hunted down and either killed or imprisoned. Whole families were jailed, and nothing was heard of them afterwards. The word was that his own disgruntled and ambitious ministers had schemed to get rid of him, and the plan was that he would be kidnapped, taken hostage, and deposed rather than knocked off.

Anyway, the caper failed, but understandably it completed Niyazov's paranoia, and his delusions of grandeur—evident throughout the country in the form of the gold statues—were now accompanied by delusions of persecution. He ordered a clampdown: no Internet, no telephones, total control of the media, of all comings and goings.

And that other inconvenient feature of tyrannies—roadblocks. These were installed throughout all cities and on roads leading out of the cities, about every four miles. In a twelve-mile journey to some nearby ruins I was stopped three times by the usual well-armed men in spiffy uniforms who did not have the slightest notion of what to do with the cars they stopped. They examined papers, they looked into the back seat of the car, they made scowling faces and shouldered their rifles; but really, they were foxed.

On that trip to see the ruins, I asked about Niyazov's passion for renaming. I was with two Turkmen—a man I shall call Mamed, whose English was shaky, and a woman I shall call Gulnara, who was fluent.

The funny part was that although Mamed and Gulnara had read about the renamings, there were so many changes they couldn't keep them straight.

"January is now Turkmenbashi," Gulnara said. "He named the first month after himself. Ha! February is Bayderk—the flag. March is Nowruz. April is Gurbansultan-ezdhe—his mother. June is Oguz—our hero. But May is—what is May?"

Mamed said, "May is Sanjar."

"No, that's November."

"Are you sure?"

"I know September is Rukhnama," Gulnara said. "What do you think, Paul?"

I said, "It's every writer's dream to have a month named after his book."

"August is Alp Arslan," Mamed said. "He was sultan."

"You forgot July," Gulnara said.

"I don't remember July. What is it?"

Gulnara shook her head. She squinted and said, "Then there's October."

Mamed said, "Garashsyzliyk."

"Independence," Gulnara said.

They were just as vague on the days of the week, though Gulnara started confidently: "Monday is Bashgün—Beginning. Tuesday is Yashgün, Young Day. Wednesday is Hoshgün."

"Tuesday is Hoshgün," Mamed said. "Wednesday is Yashgün."

"I don't think so," Gulnara said.

Their confusion was funny but politically suspect, because the renaming was considered so important. By a government decree, all departments, all ministries, schools, colleges, the police, the army—all citizens—had to demonstrate a knowledge of the changes, and had to use them, too.

"What if people are talking in Russian?" I asked, which was common, since Ashgabat had a community of Russians who'd been there for many years, somewhat sidelined by Niyazov's nationalism, but too old to leave.

"Even speaking in Russian—although it would be normal to use the Russian names for months and days—they use the new ones. Which makes no sense."

"Someone told me he renamed bread."

"That was an idea," Gulnara said. "But he renamed ketchup. He made a big speech. 'Why do we say "ketchup"? This is a foreign word. We are Turkmen. We must have a Turkmen word for this!'"

"So what is it?"

"Ketchup is uwmech?

"If I looked up uwmech in the dictionary, what would it say?"

"It would say 'ketchup,' except we don't have any new dictionaries in Turkmenistan."

Mamed said, "He got rid of them."

All this talk of the obsessive president made Mamed and Gulnara self-conscious, and when they fell silent I said, "Does it bother you that the president has made all these changes? Not just the renaming, but his mother's name, his father's name."

"Most people don't think about it," Gulnara said. She meant: don't want to think about it, because it will only make them miserable.

"What about the gold statues he puts up of himself?"

Mamed made a face, shook his head, became alert. It was said that hotel rooms and offices were bugged, to catch any subversive talk—surely this car could be bugged too?

But Gulnara had an opinion. She was confident and bright, qualities she shared with many of the Turkmen women I met. She said, "The statues. The slogans. The five-year plans. We have seen this before. Stalin—and others."