Monday, September 17, 2007

Nazarbayev honors Turkmenbashi

OK, so this story is a few days old, but Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev was on a state visit to Turkmenistan last week. I scoured the news for suitable photo opportunities of the man Reigstan playfully calls "Uncle Nazzy" and his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov, but alas - I can't find anything with a suitable freshness date. If anyone has a recent picture of Nazarbayev and Berdimuhammedov shaking hands, hugging, or laughing maniacally together, please consider sending it my way?

Anyway, this story has some intriguing tidbits about life in the dictator lane in Central Asia. Nazarbayev apparently had about as much fun in Turkmenistan as it's possible to have, and as a sign of respect, laid flowers on the grave of the recently departed dictator of Turkmenistan Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niazov, who lest we forget, is reputed to be Berdimuhammedov's real father. I'm not exactly an expert on customs in the former Soviet Central Asia, but in the west, a visitor would have taken great pains not honor the memory of the likes of Niazov, no matter what protocol calls for. Nazabayev himself is a dictator, granted, but Niazov's infamy is such that you'd imagine that Nazarbayev should have been talked out of it. Needless to say, if anyone can link or provide me with a photo of Nazarbayev giving props to Niazov, I'm all over that like white on rice.

1 comment:

Dan said...

Hey.. I just found your dictator blog.. pretty sweet.. I think you'd like ours (www.democraticpiece.com). It's a group blog for the Democracy and Governance MA program at Georgetown. We study about authoritarianism, and I too am facinated by dictators.. check it out, I posted about your blog