Latest Breaking News

Turkmenistan’s horse-crazy president has immortalized himself with a massive gold-leaf statue of his likeness mounted on his favorite steed “Akkan” (White Khan), dove in hand, galloping atop a column of white marble that towers nearly 70 feet above the nation’s capital.

White doves were released into the sky and soldiers pledged allegiance to President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on Monday as the monument was unveiled.Berdymukhamedov claims the extravagant statue was commissioned at the behest of the people of Turkmenistan. “My main goal is to serve the people and the Motherland,” he said last year. “And so, I will listen to the opinion of the people and do as they choose.”

In commissioning a monument to himself, Berdymukhamedov is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, President Saparmurat Niyazov, who famously built a 250-foot golden statue of himself in the center of the capital Ashgabat that was designed to rotate to always face the sun. Berdymukhamedov had the statue of Niyazov moved to the outskirts of the city when he came to power.
...
“Very little has changed since the death of former dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, and the regime is still one of the harshest in the world,” Samuel Carcanague, a researcher and an expert on Central Asia at the French Institute for International and Strategic Research (IRIS), told VICE News.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/turkmenistans-horse-loving-president-built-a-giant-gold-statue-of-himself-atop-his-favorite-steed/