and now turkmenbashi is dead too

this has really been the year of the dying tyrants. first milosevic died (ok, some of you might not like me grouping him with "tyrants," but, well, all these guys had their supporters, didnt they?) then pinochet died, and now turkmenbashi.
of them all turkmenbashi was certainly the wierdest. he constructed gold statues of himself all over the country and renamed the months of the year after himself and his family. worse, he destroyed the country's education system by making his book the only curiculum. i feel sorry for all those people stuck in his country.
turkmenistan has always been a abit wierd. my father was there in the 60s and his great memory of the place was having his flight out to baku delayed for several hours while they tried to get camels off the runway. i remember also the year when turkmenbashi expelled most of the ethnic russians left in his country. they were only given a few days notice to pack their bags and leave. they arrived like refugees, which is i suppose what they iin fact were, at sheremetevo. i was flying somewhere myself at the time, and i remember seeing plane loads of them arriving with those cheap checkered plasic bags, looking utterly lost. many of them had no relatives of acquaintances in russia, and many had never even been there before.
in hungry, i knew a guy from asgabat. he had left at 17 to go to uni in bishkek (since turkmenbashi essentially shut all the universities in turkmenistan) and he hadnt been home since. he was afraid if he went back he would never be allowed to leave again. so he hadnt been home in something like 5 years, and was determined not to until he had another citizenship of turkmenbashi was dead. but no one thought he would die so soon. i hope mersat can go back now.