Saparmurat Niazov laid to rest

Flags in Turkmenistan were flown at half mast, and compulsory mourning was the order of the day as former dictator Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niazov was laid to rest on Saturday. After an open casket viewing in the capital of Aşgabat, Niazov's body was loaded onto the trailer of a military vehicle and driven the 7 or so miles to his ancestral village, where, presumably, he be laid into the ground, never to bother Central Asia ever again.

How is the world press remembering the man who ran roughshod over his nation for 21 years? Mostly with disinterest, disdain, or total ambivalence. Not so the Russian periodical Kommersant who eulogized the former tyrant in an article that remembers Niazov as "odious" , a "dictator" and "the most unsociable president in the CIS". I recommend reading it, which you can do right here.