TAJIKISTAN has the vainest ruler in Central Asia. Emomali Rahmon flies what may be the world’s largest flag atop what used to be the world’s tallest flagpole. His capital boasts that it will soon host the region’s biggest mosque, mainly paid for by Qatar. It already has the world’s largest teahouse, mainly Chinese-financed and mostly empty; and an immense national library—sadly devoid of books, according to whispering sceptics.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, a dentist who now runs Turkmenistan, is nearly as big-headed. He calls himself Arkadag (“the Protector”). He moved the 39-foot-tall, gold-plated statue of his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, that rotated to catch the sun, and erected a gold-plated statue of himself, bravely astride a golden horse on a majestic cliff-top (pictured).
Such absurd extravagances can only happen in a dictatorship—and indeed all five of the once-Soviet Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) suffer under repressive, cronyist governments. Their rulers fear “colour revolutions”, which toppled regimes in the former Soviet countries of Ukraine and...Continue reading
from Asia http://ift.tt/292Vp8K
EmoticonEmoticon