Tag Archives: Study in Turkmenistan

Located in Central Asia, of which it occupies the south-eastern part, Turkmenistan is made up, for over three quarters of the territory, by the arid and sandy Karakum desert. The proximity to the Caspian Sea and the discovery of enormous deposits of minerals and natural gas, however, has constituted in the last century a winning combination for the transformation of the country, which has become the target of the energy and economic interests of neighboring and western states. Turkmenistan is the holder of indispensable resources for the growing consumption of market economies and, above all, a strategic pass through the dense network of oil and gas pipelines branching out across the region, and has been able to fully exploit this concomitance of resources and needs, offering its territory also as an international military base for operations in problematic border areas, starting with the Afghan and Pakistani ones. Foreign interest in maintaining this situation has not been scratched even in the face of the particular internal political situation of the country, governed by what has been compared by many to a real modern pharaoh, father-master of Turkmenistan: the president Niyazov, continuously in power since the proclamation of independence following the dissolution of the USSR. Oppressed by one of the most self-referential political administrations that contemporary history has known, the country has lived the last twenty years in the shadow of its leader and of the cult of personality which he promoted in every way. Furthermore, the implications relating to the real life of the country have denounced the presence, for all these years, of an almost total political, cultural and economic monopoly, with the complete elimination of press freedom, the silence of the opposition and the closure places of culture and the exchange of knowledge, starting with libraries and theaters. And even if to counteract these profound limitations it was for a long time a paternalistic attempt to coax the local population with economic facilitations, tax reliefs and real “gifts”, the path that awaits the country, after the death of his leader in 2006. According to COUNTRYAAH, Turkmenistan is a nation in Central Asia, the capital city of which is Ashgabat. The latest population of Turkmenistan is 6,031,211. ACEINLAND: Lists and descriptions of main religions and beliefs in Turkmenistan, including religion demographics and statistics on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.
GEOGRAPHY
The territory extends over a vast plateau limited to the S by the mountainous alignments of Kopet-Dag and Paropamiso, whose offshoots also affect south-eastern Turkmenistan; the flat region is largely affected by the Karakum desert. On the Caspian Sea it has a flat and dune coast, articulated by vast inlets, and largely below sea level. There are not many rivers, the main rivers are the Amudar’ja, the only one that can cross the Karakum, and the Murgab. The climate is continental, with strong temperature variations: in winter the absolute minimum temperatures even reach -30 ° C while in summer they regularly exceed 40 ° C and often reach 50 ° C; rainfall is scarce (100-200 mm per year).