The late Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov (who liked to be known as Turkmenbashi, or "Leader of the Turkmen") is remembered for an authoritarian style and eccentric personality cult embodied by ...

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan – Education authorities in the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan have abolished the requirement for school-leavers to take an exam on the rambling spiritual guide written by ...

I watched this Finnish documentary (which first appeared in 2008, and is now available in full on YouTube) on the Ruhnama, the “holy book” that came to define the dictatorship of Saparmurat Niyazov, ...

President Niyazov (right) with children at the opening of an exhibition center in Ashgabat in 2005 (ITAR-TASS) March 20, 2006 -- Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov says Turkmen youth should ...

People outside Turkmenistan usually have two ways of regarding the Ruhnama, the two-volume compendium of advice, spirituality and ersatz history authored by the Central Asian nation's deceased ...

ASHGABAT (Reuters Life!) – The president of the Central Asian state of Turkmenistan on Wednesday suggested there were limits to his desire to reform, urging the nation to honor a book written by his ...

Berdymukhammedov writes a text to take the place of a handbook which became the basis of a personality cult introduced by his predecessor Niyazov .The new book may be titled “Book of Turkmen ” or ...

Turkmen President Sapamurat Niyazov ordered construction of a university to be named after his book "Rukhnama," which is held as a sacred text in this ex-Soviet republic, the state television reported ...

The Turkmen government has decided to remove the requirement to pass an exam in knowledge of Ruhnama from secondary schools, the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights reports. Ruhnama (the Book of the ...

Two years ago in a McDonald's in Moscow I asked a man from Ashgabat about some of the bizarre stories circulating about his homeland: "Is it true that gold teeth are banned in Turkmenistan?" "Complete ...

ASHGABAT, TurkmenistanASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Education authorities in the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan have abolished the requirement for school-leavers to take an exam on the rambling ...