WHEN A KLEPTOCRATIC, MEGALOMANIACAL DICTATOR GOES BAD

"Do you see our baby president on top of the world?" Marat, my driver,
said, pointing to the sky. I craned my neck out the window to see an
immense bronze bull with an even larger black metal globe astride its
horns. Finally I saw him: a comparatively tiny gold figurine, the president
as baby, maybe five stories up, nuzzling the whole earth from just below
the North Pole; a golden kidney bean of an infant incongruously attached to
the rest of the sculpture like a raccoon clinging to the top of a tree. "It
represents our president when he was orphaned in the 1948 earthquake,"
Marat explained.

The first rule for a cult of personality is ubiquity.

The presence of the ruler must permeate the lives of the ruled.

And so Turkmenistan, a country situated uneasily between Afghanistan and
Iran, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, is carpet-bombed with the image of its
strange, kleptomaniac president, Saparmurat Niyazov. His face appears on
every denomination of Turkmenistan's currency.

A golden profile of the man is broadcast on a corner of the two national
television stations at all times.

Large stone Niyazovs guard the vestibules and walkways leading into every
government building. Billboards of Niyazov's image plaster almost anything
vertical and are planted upright at intersections. In the mid-90's Niyazov
changed his name to the more all-encompassing Turkmenbashi, which
translates into "father of all Turkmen." He renamed the country's only
significant port city after himself.

In the capital, Ashgabat, where spectacular fountains have been built in
every cranny yet water is rationed to two hours a day, Niyazov's massive
salute to his infant self occupies the city's main square.

Like the other formerly Soviet republics in the Central Asian tinderbox,
Turkmenistan has made the transition to freedom only in the sense that it
is ruled now by a local dictator rather than by one in Moscow. Turkmenistan
also shares with its neighbors rampant corruption and economic
calcification masked by wealth from natural resources -- in Turkmenistan's
case, plentiful reserves of natural gas. But even in this unstable region,
which has suddenly become a focal point for the war on terrorism,
Turkmenistan stands apart.

A year or two ago, it was a wobbly country ruled by a profoundly weird and
corrupt but apparently benign dictator.

More recently, things have grown even weirder, and darker.

On Nov. 25, someone opened fire on Niyazov as he drove his own car in a
motorcade through the capital.

The president escaped unharmed in the attack, arousing suspicion that he
choreographed the incident himself to justify and intensify a crackdown
against his supposed enemies.

Niyazov, to the surprise of no one, immediately fingered the shooters as
thick-necked Russian "mercenaries," and among those arrested was a man
holding dual American-Russian citizenship. More than 100 people have since
been arrested -- there are reports of security forces picking up entire
families. Turkmenistan's best-known dissident, Boris Shikhmuradov, a former
foreign minister, was arrested on Dec. 26 and charged with engineering the
attempted coup.

In recent weeks Niyazov's suspicion has turned against Uzbekistan. Tensions
between the two neighbors had already been churning because of
Turkmenistan's increasing military presence along their shared border.

On Dec. 16, Turkmenistan raised the stakes by sending security police
surging past guards into the Uzbek Embassy in Ashgabat to search the
complex for suspects tied to the assassination attempt.

Neighboring countries do have reasons to dream of regime change in
Turkmenistan: Niyazov's schizophrenic decision-making is irksome to
neighbors in urgent need of stable, predictable and dependable allies.

But analysts and diplomats, most of whom believe the attack was bona fide,
say the coup plotters are probably home-grown, burbling out of the slushy
soup of family and tribal divisions as they vie for power in the government
with Communist apparatchiks who never went away.

Or it could have been a mob hit. "I wouldn't be surprised if we're looking
at mob warfare, something out of 'The Sopranos,"' says Theodore Karasik, an
expert on Central Asia at RAND, the policy center in Santa Monica, Calif.
Western analysts say it has been rumored that Central Asian drug cartels
have members in very high positions in the Turkmenistan government.

he first thing a visitor to Turkmenistan's capital, Ashgabat, notices --
after Niyazov's image -- is the spectacular building boom. The aesthetic
looks as if it sprang from the imagination of a "Star Wars" set designer:
neo-Roman monoliths upholstered in white marble, detailed in Persian
kitsch. The newest government buildings are vast and low-slung, set back
from large concrete concourses where no one seems to walk. The facades are
all gleaming white, full of columns and imposing gold domes, but there is
also lots of tinted glass and modern, sharp corners.

Yet many of the buildings -- perhaps the majority -- are half-finished, and
the idle construction skeletons all over Ashgabat give the impression of a
city flash-frozen, like something thrown on dry ice.

This odd building boom belies Turkmenistan's accelerating downward
trajectory. A quarter of adults are unemployed, according to estimates by
diplomats, and underemployment numbers are much higher.

Public education has been cut from 10 years to 9. The universities are in
such poor shape that they have essentially been decredentialed by every
other country in the world.

Visas to go abroad -- especially to neighboring Iran -- are just about
impossible to get. An elite government position is the ticket to wealth,
reinforcing the universal perception that corruption has metastasized
throughout officialdom. Meanwhile, the government enforces a strict maximum
wage on public-sector jobs -- the vast majority of all work. For example, a
bank teller cannot be paid more than $36 a month.

To pay his cooks a living wage, a restaurant manager told me, he creates
fictional employees and disperses the extra salaries to his staff.

A few years ago the government wowed citizens with eye-opening banquets of
free vegetables and fruit spread along city sidewalks, financed by
natural-gas exports; now Turkmenistan experiences frequent food shortages.
During cotton season, soldiers have been known to board intercity buses to
abduct the passengers for weeks of unpaid work picking the fields.

Western diplomats estimate that Niyazov has spirited between $1.4 billion
and $2 billion from the national treasury into foreign accounts.

Last spring and summer the government responded to an increasing sense of
chaos by unleashing a crackdown.

On Aug. 11, dissidents were arrested at Ashgabat's main outdoor market for
handing out leaflets accusing Niyazov of political oppression and of
stealing the country's wealth.

After a Russian documentary showed starving Turkmen farmers, the government
banned cable TV. Foreign newspapers -- including the Russian papers that
were a news staple for people in the cities -- were also banned, leaving
the bulk of Turkmenistan's five million people essentially cut off from the
outside world.

Though the assassination attempt in November has led to emphatic incidents
of repression, Turkmenistan's symptoms of decay are usually more subtle and
insidious. Niyazov has effectively destroyed primary education in
Turkmenistan. Schoolchildren study almost exclusively from a single text, a
disorganized, quasi-religious memoir-cum-national history written, of
course, by the president.

The book, "Ruhnama" (the word means "soul of the people"), is a hodgepodge
of bland exhortations on how to live a moral life ("Do whatever lawful
thing your parents tell you to do") and Niyazov's own treacly poetry and
putative rules for governing ("The main target in agriculture until 2010 is
to increase the production of grain and cotton"). The book lashes out at
the Soviet Union for mistreating Turkmen, but Niyazov is careful to omit
mention of his long career as a Soviet apparatchik. "Ruhnama" also contains
examples of the handwriting of the "Beloved Leader Saparmurat Turkmenbashi
the Great."

Niyazov's bizarre antics, an Alice in Wonderland marvel to outsiders
peering through the looking glass, are actually an instrument for political
domination. Last summer, Turkmenistan's nominal Legislature passed the
president's request to change some of the names of the days of the week and
the months to his first name, his new last name and words associated with
his name. (In an act of filial generosity, he ordered April to be renamed
for his mother.) For Turkmen the stunt had serious political implications.
One European diplomat living in the country told me that for many citizens,
"Niyazov abusing the Legislature like this, turning what is supposed to be
a serious meeting into a place to pass yet more cult-of-personality
nonsense -- that was the last straw."

Analysts say that the country's growing instability has unpredictable and
potentially dangerous implications for American interests in this
strategically vital region. "All the issues that concern Americans --
drugs, transnational crime, terrorism, ethnic problems -- are a black hole
in Turkmenistan," says Karasik at RAND. "This is the kind of place that can
show up on the front page in a few years and take everyone by surprise."

Western diplomats say analyzing the country is like trying to get a fix on
the view out the window while dining at a revolving restaurant. The small
diplomatic and NGO contingent living in the country are by and large in
Ashgabat, and field reports are hard to come by. Uncertainty is magnified
by the sheer mystery of what will happen when Niyazov ultimately departs
the scene.

Because he is at the center of Turkmenistan's continuing trauma, his
departure would seem to suggest a better future.

But he is stripping the country of the essential elements of a stable
future, like education and functioning economic and political institutions.
The president's health is a constant source of rumor -- he is 62 and had
heart surgery in 1997. Western diplomats say the president doesn't dare
leave the country for fear of a coup and has made such a regular habit of
firing or jailing his ministers that he has turned the government into a
talent vacuum.

turkmen still get some carrots along with their sticks.

The most cherished political sop: free gasoline.

Electricity, which is actually generated from natural gas, is nearly free.
Housing is heavily subsidized -- rarely is anyone's monthly rent more than
$30. A one-way airline ticket costs a whopping $1.50 for travel within the
country.

"Ashgabat is beautiful, yes?" waved Marat as he lighted a cigarette --
smoking is only allowed in cars and indoors -- and pumped his aging BMW
with free gas.

We were heading for Mary, a four-hour drive east from Ashgabat toward
Afghanistan. I went to Mary because I was told it is the city Niyazov likes
least. According to people there, the president's hostility is a
consequence of a murky, long-ago altercation between Niyazov's father and a
Mary resident.

A pleasant city of hidden courtyards and flowering trees, Mary feels more
like a big village, where people keep goats and cows in their courtyards
and the dawn is pierced by the call of roosters.

Mary hasn't escaped the obligatory billboards and statues, but it seemed to
have fewer than other cities.

In front of the train station, I met Kirvar, a compact, mustachioed man of
about 40. Kirvar used to be a cigarette smuggler, but he switched to
legally importing cars from Turkey after losing his contacts with customs
officials. Turkmenistan is at the crossroads of one of the world's largest
heroin routes, and drugs, Kirvar told me, are ruining Mary's young people.
He suggested we get into his Russian Lada for a drive.

"She's one," he said, pointing to an attractive teenage girl who, like
almost all women in the country, was wearing a traditional Turkmen long
satiny dress. "I know her father.

I think he's aware of what she's doing, but we don't talk on the subject."
Inside a Mary discotheque a young Turkmen woman with streaks of dyed blond
hair didn't hesitate to tell me that the going rate for heroin is $2 a dose.

Official corruption, the suppression of moderate forms of Islam and a sense
that social problems like drug use are beyond the control of the government
have led people in neighboring countries to embrace a harsh political
Islam. It's hard to say whether Turkmenistan will follow a similar path.
The country has a mostly Sunni Muslim population, and the state is avowedly
secular. But the nation's school-age elite is now getting a grounding in
political Islam. The force promoting political Islam here comes out of
Turkey, the country with the closest ties to Turkmenistan. A private group
led by a Turkish missionary named Fetullah Gulen has opened 14
"Turkmen-Turk" magnet schools in the country.

The schools boast computers, teachers trained in Turkey and much better
facilities than local schools.

I paid a visit to a Turkmen-Turk school in the northeastern city of
Dashhowuz. A third-grade class offered to demonstrate its English, and when
I agreed, one light-haired boy stood up and began singing the Beatles'
"Yesterday" in a clear, strong voice.

After a few minutes of his solo, the rest of the class joined in. It was a
strangely affecting performance, punctuated by the way the children
concluded the song by turning to each other and applauding.

Although the schools are financed with Turkish money and students are
taught mostly by Turkish teachers, classroom walls are covered with
aphorisms taken from "Ruhnama" (albeit in English), and a shrine to the
president's book takes center stage in the school's lobby.

The schools also, very covertly, proselytize their version of militant
Islam, which includes advocating the need for Islamic law. "This is the one
radical influence that I know about in Turkmenistan," says Shirin Akiner, a
lecturer in Central Asian studies at the University of London.

"Being religious wasn't compulsory, but it was coerced," says Vepar, a
20-year-old university student who graduated from a Turkmen-Turk school and
then studied in the United States under a grant offered by the State
Department. "After a couple of months boys stopped looking at girls.

I always tried to argue with their views, to not be a zombie about things.
But they wanted us to pray five times a day, and they noticed who didn't.
People would talk about making the country Islamic."

I met Ayna and her husband, Muhamed, in a restaurant in Dashhowuz, a
listless place studded with candy-colored Soviet-era concrete apartment
blocks and brick-and-dirt houses with sheet-metal roofs that sharply repel
the unyielding desert sun. Ayna and Muhamed, both in their mid-20's and
carefully groomed, were eager to discuss their lives -- a daring act in
Turkmenistan, where talking unsupervised to a reporter can be dangerous.
Ayna projected a very modern ironic distance when she talked about her
predicament -- the predicament of being Turkmen. Ayna was the only person I
spoke to in Turkmenistan who wanted me to publish her whole name. But at
times even she lapsed into dejection. "My mother tells me I'm too free with
my language," she said. "But I have nothing to lose. I don't have a job,
anything to think about.

I don't have a good life."

Muhamed, consumed with his inability to make money, turned ashen with anger
once he started on his narrative.

He toils 15 hours a day, every day, to earn about $8 a week installing home
satellite dishes across the border in Uzbekistan. The pay is good by local
measures, but for Muhamed the job is not only backbreaking, it's
humiliating. He has already helped build three private businesses:
installing and servicing cable TV systems, selling new cars for a German
automaker and starting Dashhowuz's first photo-processing store. Each time
his job was taken away when Muhamed's boss decided business was robust
enough to fire him and install a friend or a nephew in his place.

And it wasn't only jobs he lost, but capital as well. To start the cable
business, he sold his car; for the car-sales job, he moved his family into
his mother's apartment, splitting the $17 monthly rent. Muhamed is well
aware of how capitalism works elsewhere, asking me about the requirements
for lines of credit in the United States and the availability of small
business loans.

Now he has given up altogether on Turkmenistan's sputtering private sector.
"I want a government job," he said.

My stay in Dashhowuz coincided with a presidential visit.

The foreign ministry had denied my request for an interview with the
president -- in fact, it denied my request for an interview with anyone in
the country.

I was eager to catch a glimpse of Turkmenbashi the Great, the man whose
imprint on this country was so total.

The police had cordoned off his route from the airport, but I was allowed
to linger on a side road near enough to see the street he would be
traveling on. Children were allowed to crowd the intersections. It was a
clear, hot autumn morning, and the children distracted themselves with
ice-cream bars and sodas.

Suddenly, the kids were calling out -- screaming, really -- as a motorcade
of black Mercedes-Benzes slowly moved toward us. From out of one car
emerged a chunky man with very black hair, a mechanical smile and an
overflowing fist of what I was to discover later were American $100 bills.
The children seemed to understand the proceedings. They stuck out their
palms as Turkmenistan's president-for-life, the nation's very own secular
ayatollah, doled out the bills.

Television cameras recorded the act of benevolence.

I thought of the last thing Vepar, the student with an independent mind,
had said to me: "These people are not forever.

I just hope the new people will come as soon as possible.

And in a peaceful way." With the children running to their parents
clutching enough money to cover the rent for half a year, Niyazov returned
to his sedan.

The driver pumped down on the accelerator, and with the free gas given to
every citizen of Turkmenistan, the car moved past my line of sight, and he
was gone.

Ilan Greenberg, formerly a reporter for The Asian Wall Street Journal, is a
writer based in Almaty, Kazakhstan.