Turkmenbashy Part 1: Soviet Stooge, Hermit Tyrant

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Turkmenistan in Central Asia. Somewhere unremarkable, you might assume. But you’d be wrong. Away from prying eyes, an extraordinary story unfolded here. In the early 1990s, a man called Saparmurat Niyazov creates a brand-new state from the rubble of the Soviet Union. His regime will be a case study in modern tyranny, filled with bizarre pronouncements and barely believable laws. As ‘Turkmenbashy’, or ‘Head of the Turkmen’, Niyazov rules into the 2000s, turning Turkmenistan into a North Korea 2.0. But how does he get away with it? A Noiser production, written by Dan Smith.