Sometimes, a lifetime can be too short for a ruler's ambitions. Turkmenistan's first president, the megalomaniac Saparmurat Niyazov, fulfilled his dream of turning Ashgabat, once a dusty town on the southernmost rib of the Soviet Union, into a fairy-tale landscape strewn with white marble facades to show his power. The stunning architecture of the capital city, Niyazov thought, should serve to herald the energy-rich country's rising economic prosperity.
Deeply impressed by the Turkish model of mass tourism while on a visit to Antalya a few years ago, Niyazov began plans to apply it to his own country's seashore.
On Niyazov's sudden death in December 2006 his successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, came to power pledging to steer Turkmenistan closer to the mainstream of the global economy. A few signs of change appeared under his administration, but he willingly took over Niyazov's ambitions of building a massive tourism zone on the country's Caspian Sea coast, calling it the symbol of Turkmenistan's opening up to the outside world and a major stride on the way toward a so-called "new era of revival." The Avaza complex is located on the Caspian about 20 kilometers west of Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk), a port renamed after Niyazov's adopted title, meaning "Head of the Turkmen."
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