Turkmenistan is one of the five Central Asian former Soviet states, sometimes collectively referred to as “the ‘Stans”, though strictly that would cover Afghanistan and Pakistan as well (of course, some would argue that Afghanistan is better understood in the context of Central Asia anyway). It is immediately east of the Caspian Sea, and is best known as a source of fossil fuels and horses. Like most of the other Central Asian states, its language is closely related to Turkish.
After the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, Turkmenistan was ruled by Saparmurat Niyazov, known as Türkmenbaşy, who established an unusual personality cult, After his death his close ally Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow ruled until 2022, when he partially handed over to his son Serdar Berdimuhamedow. It is described as one of the least democratic regimes in the world.
Turkmenistan’s biggest tourist attraction used to be a 60 metre wide natural crater near Darvaza filled with burning natural gas, known as the Door to Hell. However the government has taken action to put the flames out, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for the entrance to hell, and go to Turkmenistan for the horses. (Or the fossil fuels.)
See here for the methodology of these posts, though NB that I am now also using numbers from StoryGraph. Books are disqualified if less than 50% of them is set in the current boundaries of Turkmenistan.
These numbers are crunched by hand, not by AI.
| Title | Author | GR raters | LT owners | SG reviews |
| The Tale of Aypi | Ak Welsapar | 224 | 35 | 95 |
| Joe and Azat | Jesse Lonergan | 88 | 24 | 18 |
| Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan | Adrienne Lynn Edgar | 64 | 36 | 8 |
| Daily Life in Turkmenbashy’s Golden Age: A Methodologically Unsound Study of Interactions Between the Tribal Peoples of America and Turkmenistan | Sam Tranum | 91 | 12 | 8 |
| Death of the Snake Catcher: Short Stories | Ak Welsapar | 32 | 11 | 17 |
| Sacred Horses: Memoirs of a Turkmen Cowboy | Jonathan Evan Maslow | 40 | 16 | 6 |
| Ruhnama: The Book of the Soul | Saparmurat Niyazov | 68 | 6 | 5 |
| Unknown Sands: Journeys Around the World’s Most Isolated Country | John W. Kropf | 46 | 26 | 1 |
I commented a few months back that Tajikistan seemed to be the least well known of the Central Asian states; well, I was wrong. Turkmenistan is the most literarily obscure country I have covered so far, comfortably outdoing Togo, the previous record holder, in terms of how little known the top book is on the three online systems. Perhaps the oppressive political context dampens creativity from locals and visitors alike.
This week’s winner, The Tale of Aypi, is a short magical realist story about a fisherman and a vengeful ghost on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The author was expelled from Turkmenistan in 1993 and has lived in Sweden since 1994. He also has a short story collection, Death of the Snake Catcher, on the list.
The other Turkmen writer on the list is Türkmenbaşy himself, Saparmurat Niyazov, whose philosophical text Ruhnama was part of his personality cult and was routinely inflicted on foreigners showing even a hint of polite interest in the country.
Tribal Nation, the winner on LibraryThing, is a historical account of how Turkmenistan was formed under the Soviet Union. Adrienne Lynn Edgar is the only woman on this week’s list.
The other four are foreigner-goes-to-funny-country books, though it’s worth noting that Joe and Azat is a graphic novel by the author of Drome, and Sacred Horses concentrates on the horses.
Integrating the StoryGraph numbers did not change the top eight, or the winner, which was far ahead on both StoryGraph and Goodreads.
There are many many books covering Turkmenistan as part of a wider look at Central Asia or indeed the former Soviet Union, and I disqualified them all. The only other one that I scratched my head over was Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, by Ken Silverstein, but on closer examination it appears to be mainly set in the lobbying world of Washington DC.
Wikipedia tells me that the best known woman writer from Turkmenistan is Towshan (or Toushan, or Tovshan) Esenova (1915-1988), but none of her work appears to have been translated into English, and anyway she mainly wrote poetry and plays, which tend to do less well in my system (another methodological flaw, I admit).
I don’t normally count travel books here, but I just want to note that the Bradt Guide to Turkmenistan is by the former British ambassador Paul Brummell, who as an undergraduate founded the Cambridge University Diplomacy Society (dedicated to the boardgame, not the profession). I succeeded him in 1987 as its second president. He is currently the British ambassador to Latvia.
Some geographical diversity coming up: Libya next, then rounding off Central Asia with Kyrgyzstan, then Hong Kong (counted separately from China because I’m using Worldometer numbers), then Nicaragua.
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Africa: Nigeria | Ethiopia (revised) | Egypt | DR Congo | Tanzania | South Africa | Kenya | Sudan | Uganda | Algeria | Morocco | Angola | Mozambique | Ghana | Madagascar | Côte d’Ivoire | Cameroon | Niger | Mali | Burkina Faso | Malawi | Zambia | Chad | Somalia | Senegal | Zimbabwe | Guinea | Benin | Rwanda | Burundi | Tunisia | South Sudan | Togo | Sierra Leone
Europe: Russia | Türkiye | Germany | France | UK | Italy | Spain | Poland | Ukraine | Romania | Netherlands | Belgium | Sweden | Czechia | Azerbaijan | Portugal | Greece | Hungary | Austria | Switzerland | Belarus
Oceania: Australia | Papua New Guinea