KZBlog

Paul Theroux, the prolific and noted travel writer, probably most famous in this region for his book on traveling the Trans-Siberian railroad, has written an article for the New Yorker on Turkmenistan and the cult of personality, Letter from Turkmenistan and given an interview with RFE/RL in Turkmenistan.

Interesting reading, particularly the end of the interview:

So you can’t criticize Niyazov too much. You have to see that he’s part of a tendency. That’s a tendency. And the people who criticize him have also to look at places like the George Bush Airport and say, “Well, what’s the story with that?” Or in his lifetime, [former U.S. President] Ronald Reagan — there was Reagan airport and Reagan this and Reagan that and the Reagan Library. They were also named after him. So I’m against that. And I also think that that’s also part of, maybe not a cult of personality, but that’s an obsession with personality. You should name it after dead people, people who are dead, and people who are really great — writers, thinkers, scientists — not politicians.

Bush-bashi anyone?