On the other side of the border back in Uzbekistan, we quickly reached Nukus, the capital of the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Region. A republic within a republic (neither of which is anything like a republic), Stalin glommed this region onto the Uzbek SSR in 1926 when he couldn’t think of anything to do with its large area and small population.

Since then, Karakalpakstan has been hard hit by one disaster after another, particularly the drying up of the Aral Sea, which was once the world’s fourth largest inland lake. Starting in the 1950′s, the Soviet Union and later the independent ‘Stans consciously diverted the Amu Darya river to such an extent that not a drop of its water now makes it to the Aral basin. In theory, this was to irrigate fields of the all-powerful cotton industry, but in fact more than two thirds of the diverted water evaporates or sinks into the sand before reaching the fields. As a result, the Aral Sea is now a wasteland and the local fishing industry is gone. The residents who haven’t moved away are left in an increasingly dry climate swept by toxic dust storms.

We obviously didn’t want to spend a long time here, but there was one place we had to visit.

Nukus has one of the most remarkable art museums in the world. A Russian artist named Igor Savitsky moved to Nukus in the 1950s and began collecting avant-garde art both locally and in Moscow. Many of these artists had been forced underground or into the gulags by official policies that viewed “art for art’s sake” as bourgeois and counter-revolutionary. Somehow, because Nukus was at the end of the earth, Savitsky was able to get away with buying and displaying this art that was forbidden everywhere else. By the time he died in 1984, he had assembled one of the most remarkable collections in the world.

The museum is interesting because it displays a large set of work from a few artists who are completely unknown to me and probably most others outside of Russia. Some of the work is quite remarkable and inventive: for example, an artist painting his “self-portrait as a sculpture”. It’s worth the trip.

After Bukhara, we did a six-day swoop through Turkmenistan. The most closed of the Central Asian “republics,” Turkmenistan can only be visited on an organized tour on fixed dates, much as Intourist controlled travel in the former Soviet Union. We had arranged this tour over the summer, and we worked the rest of the trip around these dates.

Turkmenistan has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most closed and bizarre police states on the planet. Its government is as close to the Soviet Union as still exists, and indeed its “Democratic Party of Turkmenistan” is simply a renaming of the machine that ran the Turkmen SSR. But using energy riches found since independence, the “presidents” have gone on a spree of building monuments to their own grandeur that would make even North Korea blush. The result is a country that lives in its own twilight zone divorced from normal economic reality, where marble-covered buildings and gold statues of the great leader live alongside a population still mostly at the poverty line.

Because internet access is tightly controlled and monitored in Turkmenistan, we were unable to post blogs as we went. I have therefore assembled all the entries in a series of posts in chronological order starting TM-#, which follow this one. As always, you will probably need to click the “Older Posts” link at the bottom to get to the later entries.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are both paranoid police states, and they don't like each other. A sizeable Uzbek minority lives across the border, and the Turkmenistan government is perennially worried about uprisings.

As a result, the border is heavily fortified, even compared with others we have crossed. The Uzbek exit post was relatively straightforward with none of the problems we had heard of travelers being shaken down for bribes. But then we needed to cross the no-man's land, a strip of fenced-off desert about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) wide with land that is left empty on each side of the real border line. Especially on the Turkmenistan side, the road is lined with barbed-wire fence and the surrounding land is probably mined. With trucks backed up the whole way across this area, we had no choice but to walk, fortunately a pleasant day on a cool autumn morning.

A picture of the smiling face of President Berdymukhamedov greeted us above the Turkmenistan border station. A former dentist, he is the second of Turkmenistan's independent presidents, the first being President Niyazov, who created such a bizarre personality cult around himself that he renamed the months after members of his family (so did Caesar Augustus, I suppose). He was the undisputed eternal ruler of Turkmenistan's new “Golden Age” until December 21, 2006, when he suddenly died of a massive heart attack. President B, as I will call him for brevity's sake, took over in a surprisingly smooth transition, and has continued most of the building spree, though toning down some of the more bizarre programs of his predecessor. So far, he has contented himself with large pictures of himself rather than gold statues.

Our guide was waiting for us at the Turkmen border station, and he helped us through the entry process. Because of the packaged tour, we were able to get our visa on arrival at the border upon payment of $65 each in US dollars. A Turkish truck driver told me his 6-mointh multiple-entry visa had cost $800.

And then we were suddenly on the road in Turkmenistan.

Merv, or Margiana as it was once called, was one of the great cities of the ancient world. It was already a giant citadel when Alexander's armies came through, and he modestly renamed it Alexandria Margiana. It prospered at the center of the Silk Road until 1221, when Genghis Khan's most brutal son sacked the city in retaliation for a snub to his emissary. In a typically Mongol gambit, he accepted the 300,000 inhabitants' peaceful surrender then slaughtered every one of them. There were some attempts to build a new, smaller town, but it was sacked again by Bukhara and abandoned by its river, which changed course 30 kilometers to the west. By the time the Russians came, Merv was little more than a nomad camp beside ancient ruins.

There are actually five ruined cities from different eras, as the population center moved gradually westward. The earliest was the one that Alexander knew, a large citadel with mud brick walls 40 meters (170 feet) high. Although that city was 600 meters across, it was small compared with the cities that followed.

The second was a cosmopolitan city several kilometers across. Remains were found of Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Nestorian Christian and Islamic worship. This water tank near the mosque shows excellent brickwork.

The third even-larger city was built by the Seljuk, and it was the zenith of Merv's power.

The only thing Genghis Khan left standing was the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, a 38-meter-high domed tomb that has been restored with Turkish money.

A few other interesting buildings lie outside the town walls. Two large structures might have been houses of rich families.

A small 12th-century mausoleum is named after the Shiite martyr Mohammed ibn Zeid, although it probably does not contain his grave. It does, however, contain some fabulous Arabic calligraphy carved in brick, as well as a wall with clearly Zoroastrian symbols, which still infiltrate the Islam of the area.

We spent the night in the Soviet city of Mary, the heart of an irrigated farm belt near the present course of the river. Our hotel was pretty shabby with a door lock that didn’t work, but it was apparently better than the rest of the soviet-style hotels in town.

The next day, we visited the even older ruin of Gonur, a bronze-age settlement across desert tracks 60 kilometers to the north. Linked with cities in Bactria (now in northern Afghanistan), Gonur flourished in the delta of the Murghab River from about 3000 to 1500 BC. Archaeologists speculate that its residents moved out when the river changed to the location of Merv. Others may have moved even further, as it appears that Gonur’s fire-worshipping religion might have spawned Zoroastrianism.

Gonur has been unearthed over the last thirty years mostly by the Greek-Russian archaeologist Victor Sarianidi, and the great man was on site. Now in his 80s, Sarianidi's health is failing, and he is in a rush to finish his digging with finds that will cement his reputation. A gracious man with only a few words of English, he invited us into his tent for tea at the end of our visit.

Gonur is a large and impressive site, to the extent that any archaeological dig can be called impressive. Spread over about a square kilometer, this was clearly the capital of a prosperous and advanced kingdom. A palace complex stands at the center and several large temples nearby. A set of ponds were separated by a water filtration house, and underground clay pipes brought the water into the palace walls.

Pottery and other relics found at the site are exquisite, equal to things made in Merv two thousand years later.

Royal graves included skeletons of animals and chariots with bronze-reinforced wheels.

Sadly, the rush to dig is not matched by a rush to conserve. Only a few of the palace walls have been recovered by mud and the rest have been left to the elements. Mud-brick walls literally melt within a few years when left open to the harsh desert air, and large parts of the site have already become indistinct mounds like those we saw at Penjikent. Soon there will be nothing left but shards of pottery.

No, it's not a prison run by the Ministry of Magic. But it's an equally strange place, the weird capital of the earth's weirdest banana republic.

Ashgabat was a small village in the 19th century at the time the Russians moved in and made it their capital. What the Tsarists built completely collapsed in a giant earthquake in 1948, and the Soviets rebuilt it in their style.

And since 1991, it has been replaced yet again. The first not-quite-eternal President Niyazov declared his reign to be Turkmenistan's “Golden Age,” and he needed a capital to match. Reserving gold for palace domes and statues of himself, he had the rest of the city rebuilt in white Italian marble. As he toured the capital cities of the world, he would see things he liked and build grander versions at home. Thanks to oil and natural gas revenues, money was no object, nor were water or electricity. The world's largest floodlit fountain in the middle of the desert? No problem.

Everything is built in a consistent style by the French construction company Bouygues. That would be wonderful if it actually had style. But it's the cheapest imitation of neoclassical capital architecture. It makes Las Vegas look classy.

The result is a giant, kitschy capital on a scale exceeding Washington. All this for a poverty-line desert country of 5 million people, smaller than Kunming or the San Francisco Bay Area. Less than a million people live in the capital, and only the corrupt officials of the many ministries can afford the gleaming apartment blocks. The Ministry of Carpets has its own 12-story building.

We stayed at in the “new city” of Berzengi, a Las Vegas strip of 36 hotels and government ministries on the southern outskirts. Our hotel was reminiscent of a medieval castle. The rooms were huge, but completely unmaintained. Water and electricity are free in Ashgabat, so no one worried that they ran continually in our bathroom. No one spoke English and service was non-existent.

Sadly, we came a month too late to see the greatest monument of all, the Arch of Neutrality, shown in the bus-stop poster to the right. Niyazov built it to commemorate his trip to the UN to declare his country “permanently neutral,” and he crowned the 91-meter (300 foot) tower with a 12-meter gold statue of himself. The statue rotated once a day so that it always faced the sun, or vice versa, as some wags claimed. Alas, President B decided to make his mark this year by tearing down the most visible monument to his predecessor, perhaps sensitive that it was making an international laughingstock of his kingdom. So all we got to see were the cranes removing the final third at its base. No doubt Bouygues was again being paid well for the demolition.

Also under revision is the book-shaped museum of the Ruhnama, the “holy book” that Niyazov wrote to create a mythology for himself and his ex-nomad people. In its day, the Ruhnama was required reading for college entrance and driving exams, but there are rumors it will now be shelved even in elementary schools.

Every visitor must make the excursion to Gypjak, the largest mosque in Central Asia. Built by Niyazov at the village of his birth, it has a huge gold dome and minarets 91 meters (200 feet) tall. 91 is an important number as the year of independence and therefore the start of the Golden Age. To say it's a mosque is stretching Islam: an inscription over the entrance compares the Ruhnama to the Koran.

The one place we did want to go was the National Museum, which has most of the best finds from Merv, Gonur, and other archaeological sites in Turkmenistan. It was indeed a good museum, but somewhat overshadowed by its giant building, which had to be large enough to hold the world's second largest carpet weaved by happy workers in honor of the president (the largest is a similar work in the carpet museum on the other side of town).

The shining capital seemed strangely empty, with more policemen than people walking in the streets. But somewhere there had to be a million people struggling to make ends meet in the hidden underbelly where normal economics still had to apply. Despite free water and electricity given by the government, life can’t be easy for people making only a few hundred dollars per month.

We finally found the people in the giant market that takes place every weekend on the north end of town. A crude city of shipping containers and tarps in the desert, it was the place normal people could go to buy housewares, car parts and sheep. The toilet was the sand dune to the west. But even this bit of reality will soon change, as President B has arranged its imminent relocation to a huge marble-coated hall even further out of town. Prices will no doubt go up.

Just outside Ashgabat is the site of Old Nissa, a capital of the Parthian empire 2300 years ago. Mithridates reigned here, and in a celebrated battle in 53 BC, the Parthians' gleaming silk banners so frightened Crassus's Roman army that it was completely defeated. There are tales that the Parthians resettled the captured Romans in Central Asia and later in western China, perhaps the source of some strains of blond hair. Like other ruins, there isn't much left of Nissa, though several walls have been excavated and reconstructed.

Further in the same direction is Geok-Depe, the scene of another battle between the Tsarist forces and a large army of fierce Turkmen defenders. After capturing the fort, the Russians took a page out of Genghis Khan's playbook and slaughtered most of the prisoners, its general saying “the harder you hit them, the longer they will stay down.” The rest of the nomadic Turkmen tribes surrendered quickly and the Russian presence became permanent.

At a farm near Geok-Depe, we were able to see a pair of the famous Akhal Teke horses. At first the owner wanted $50 just to show them, but he quickly backed down when we refused to pay. They are indeed beautiful, tall horses, able to run all day.

In a land of the bizarre, nothing is stranger than this burning crater in the middle of nowhere. Roughly 100 meters (330 feet) across and 40 meters (130 feet) deep, the crater has thousands of burning jets of natural gas seeping up from underground. The flames are strong enough to light and heat the surrounding desert.

No one knows whether the Darvaza Gas Crater is a natural phenomenon or a result of some Soviet-era experiment gone wrong. It shows no signs of explosion or impact, although there are some twisted cables and pipes that were clearly man-made. It has been burning for a long time, although its existence was never acknowledged until the end of the Soviet period.

We are likely to be among the last people who see it. Last year, President B learned about it during a survey of natural-gas installations in the area, and he asked his engineers to shut it down. It's not clear how they plan to do that, but they will no doubt put an end to the fun.

After spending the night at the crater, we continued north across the Karakum Desert. Although its name literally means “black sands,” the color is meant to be taken metaphorically.

Right near the northern border lies Konye (“old”) Urgench. Once the second-largest city in Central Asia, the capital of Khorezm was destroyed first by Genghis Khan, again by Timur, and finally by the movement of its water source, the Amu Darya (Oxus) River. Most of the inhabitants moved to the new city of Urgench near Khiva, now across the border in Uzbekistan.

Despite its ruined state, Konye Urgench has several amazing monuments. One mausoleum has an almost complete dome of original tile. A 62-meter minaret still stands, the largest ancient structure in Central Asia.

The area has attracted pilgrims for many years. In another not-very-Islamic tradition, women roll down a dusty hill hoping to be blessed with fertility.

After visiting the site, we crossed back into Uzbekistan. The border crossing was much shorter and the baggage checks uneventful. We were back from the twilight zone.

———— end of detailed Turkmenistan postings ————–

250 kilometers west of Samarkand lies Bukhara, another ancient city that frequently shared its history.

Bukhara was an early outpost of Islam, and the religion radiated from there throughout Central Asia. The mystic Sufi branch was particularly important here, with the Naqshbandi sect holding sway thoughout much of the area.

Bukhara had over 100 madrassas and 300 mosques. From the beginning, Islam placed great value in learning, and madrassas (religious schools) are among the most important buildings. The word has recently become associated with fundamentalist indoctrination academies, but most madrassas are just Islamic colleges. Some of the impressive buildings in Bukhara date back to the 15th century.

Although there has been a small religious revival since independence, most of these structures are still unused or converted to souvenir shops. Many smaller madrassas have been renovated into B&Bs with comfortable bedrooms and modern conveniences. We stayed at one with eight rooms and an 18th-century mosque in the back.

Even the more obscure buildings have beautiful features, like this wooden ceiling in a small neighborhood mosque.

The tallest structure in Bukhara is the Kalon (great) Minaret. Built in 1127, it is 47 meters (160 feet) tall with foundations another 10 meters (33 feet) deep. With only minor repais, it has survived earthquakes and Bolshevik air bombings. Even Ghengis Khan left it alone. In addition to its religious uses, the Emir found it a convenient place for executions, dropping prisoners to their death.

Bukhara was also a temporal power superior to Samarkand for most of its history. For the last few centuries before the Russians moved in, Bukhara was the seat of a notorious emir, who capriciously tortured and killed prisoners including two British agents who blundered in. His fortress, the Ark, was a place best avoided.

I gathered my courage and climbed the “water tower,” a decaying Soviet structure in the Registan square opposite the Ark. It seemed solid enough, but I refrained from trying the last external staircase to the top floor. Marcia stayed on the ground and refused to look.

The oldest surviving building is the mausoleum of Ismail Samani, built in 905. The building’s decoration includes suns and other Zoroastrian motifs. By the time of the Mongol invasions, it was covered by dirt and invisible.

Bukhara is known for its medieval markets, built as a series of stone domes. These are now given over to souvenir shops, but still fun to walk through.

Lacking an association with the government’s favorite strongman Timur, Bukhara has seen less reconstruction funds and wholesale rebuilding. As a result, it has a more authentic feeling with occasional locals still using the historic structures. In one neighborhood, a man invited us into his “private museum,” a 19th-century madrassa fallen into disrepair.

We also visited the 19th-century mansion of the first Communist president of the Uzbek SSR. He was hardly a member of the proletariat.

A few kilometers outside Bukhara lies the Bakhautdin Naqshband Mausoleum, the burial place of the founder of the local line of Sufi mystics. Pilgrims come from afar to visit his tomb and to walk around the trunk of an old tree, which supposedly sprouted at a place where Bakhautdin struck his staff on returning from Mecca. This practice is more likely to have come from the local Zoroastrian tradition than from Islam.