Turkmenistan cultural renaissance

[FACT comments: <whisper> Don’t tell the Ministry of Culture about the ban!]

Turkmenistan Lifts Ban on Opera and Circuses
Compiled from Reuters, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The New York Times, Associated Press: January 22, 2008

ASHGABAT (Reuters) – Turkmenistan will end its seven-year ban on opera and the circus introduced by the Caspian nation’s former eccentric leader, state media reported.

President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov died in late 2006 of a heart attack. He banned opera, ballet and the circus in 2001, saying they are “alien” to Turkmen culture and allowed funding for state-sponsored circuses to dry up.

The new leader, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has sought to promote a softer image for the gas-rich nation bordering Iran — and reversed some of Niyazov’s most eccentric policies.

Late Sunday, state television announced his plans to reopen an opera house, resume circus shows and build a cinema in the capital Ashgabat.

“Today a new period is starting in our country which we have called an era of great renaissance,” Berdymukhamedov said in televised remarks, his speech interrupted by applause.

Berdymukhamedov says his country is becoming increasingly developed and should, therefore, welcome such artistic performances, state-run television reported Sunday.

“Our flourishing nation should not stand separate from the world,” Berdymukhamedov told a group of leading intellectuals at a meeting Saturday. “It absolutely should have a worthy operatic theatre and a worthy state circus.”

In his televised comments, Berdymukhamedov estimated the first opera would be performed in six or seven months but he did not mention whether ballet would also be part of the new policy.

Berdymukhamedov has since eased some of Niyazov’s draconian policies. He has welcomed outside investment and allowed the exchange of foreign currencies.

During his long rule, Niyazov took the title of Turkmenbashi (Head of the Turkmen) and had thousands of portraits and statues of himself put up throughout the country, including a statue in gold leaf that rotates to face the sun in Ashgabat.

Niyazov, who ruled for 20 years and died in 2006, crushed dissent and instituted an immense personality cult.

Niyazov instituted many other restrictive laws such as travel inside the country, internet access and teaching foreign languages at schools. He reduced the number of years children went to school, which were not enough to qualify them for foreign universities.

Isolated from the rest of the world and criticized in the West for human rights violations, Turkmenistan has sought to end its isolationist policies under the new president and attract more foreign investment in its vast oil and natural gas sectors.

(Reporting by Marat Gurt; Writing by Maria Golovnina)