Ashgabat
Looking like a lost palace in the urban desert, the National Museum occupies a striking position in front of the Kopet Dag. It’s actually a collection of…
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Ashgabat
With its lavish marble palaces, gleaming gold domes and vast expanses of manicured parkland, Ashgabat (‘the city of love’ in Arabic) has reinvented itself as a showcase city for the newly independent republic and is definitely one of Central Asia's – if not the world's – strangest places. Built almost entirely off the receipts of Turkmenistan’s oil and gas revenues, the city’s transformation continues at break-neck speed, with whole neighbourhoods facing the wrecking ball in the name of progress, and gleaming white marble monoliths springing up overnight like mushrooms.
Attractions
Must-see attractions
Halk Hakydasy Memorial Complex
Ashgabat
Unveiled in 2014, this vast complex features three memorials honouring those that died in the 1948 earthquake, soldiers who perished in WWII and those…
Ashgabat
At the centre of Ashgabat is the enormous Independence Square, on which sits the golden-domed Palace of Turkmenbashi (the place of work of the former…
Ashgabat
Once the centrepiece of Niyazov's Ashgabat, the Arch of Neutrality was erected to celebrate the Turkmen people's unsurprisingly unanimous endorsement of…
Ashgabat
While there’s a limit to the number of rugs the average visitor can stand, the central exhibit, the world’s largest handwoven rug, really is something to…
Ashgabat
The Museum of Fine Arts is located in an impressive building with a big rotunda, two tiers and lots of gold. The collection contains some great Soviet…
Ashgabat
The Altyn Asyr Shopping Centre is the curious pyramidal shopping centre at the northern end of Independence Park. The Monument to the Independence of…
Ashgabat
The statue of Lenin, in a small park off Azadi köçesi, is a charmingly incongruous assembly of a tiny Lenin on an enormous and very Central Asian plinth…
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