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Turkmenbashy Part 1: Soviet Stooge, Hermit Tyrant

Real Dictators

CHAPTER

A Look at Ashkabat

Ashkabat was a colonial outpost before the Russians and Soviets came along. Low-rise residential areas had given Ashkabat an old-fashioned feel, ever since the city's foundation in the 1880s. But these yield to high-rise blocks in the Soviet brutalist style. The orphanages tried very much to make good Soviet citizens out of the kids they had.

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