Ashgabat
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Overview
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
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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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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…
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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…
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Ashgabat
Once the centrepiece of Niyazov's Ashgabat, the Arch of Neutrality was erected to celebrate the Turkmen people's unsurprisingly unanimous endorsement of…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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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