The Turkmen government, not suprisingly, is tight-lipped about the events exploding in Tunisia and Egypt. There has been not a single official report about the events — the same approach that was taken during the …

Look out Turkmenistan, Victorian corsets and vampiric cosmetics are invading! neweurasia’s Annasoltan talks with Maxim, one of Ashgabat’s very first Goths, in this exclusive interview. “Our mood is serious, sad, romantic, melancholic,” he says. “Seen from the outside, we appear to be cool, but inside of us we are very emotional and vulnerable. We are dreamy and ethereal.”

This is the second installment of Annasoltan’s two-part post on ethnic Turkmens in Iran reaching out to their compatriots across the border. In the first installment, she provided the historical and political context for the current situation. Today, we focus on one of the people making contact, a woman named Ejegül.

Most of neweurasia’s readers have probably heard stories about how people living in closed societies are overcoming the barriers to communication with the free world thanks to the Internet. But they might have heard less about how people from two closed societies are using online technology to contact one another, circumventing the double and triple obstacles set up by their governments to prevent such encounters. The story of an ethnic Turkmen woman named Ejegül from Gunbed Kavus is one such case.

Islam is on the rise among Turkmenistan’s young and the government has been responding with more Soviet-style oppression. But how long can this situation last? neweurasia’s Annasoltan interviews Forum 18′s John Kinahan for his perspective.

Islam is on the rise among Turkmenistan’s young, and according to neweurasia’s Annasoltan, the government is taking no chances. The authorities appear to have diagnosed education as one of the root causes, and they are intent upon eliminating it, even if they must dismantle the rising generation’s academic aspirations to do so.

neweurasia’s Annasoltan concludes her conversation with Turkmen entrepreneur Muhammed Mamedov, turning to the subject of Turkmenistan’s internet environment and its authoritarian practices. “I don’t agree that the environment isn’t internet friendly, at least not for what I am doing,” he says. “I can build online communities, news websites, anything I want.”

Earlier this month, neweurasia reported about the problems of MTS users in Turkmenistan. Less than a month into the disruptions of MTS mobile service operations, there is now more clarity to the picture.
An …

neweurasia’s Annasoltan continues her conversation with Turkmen entrepreneur Muhammed Mamedov, turning to the subject of the website Turkmenhits.com and the unique challenges of the Turkmen music industry. “It’s hard to deal with musicians,” he says. “Plagiarism is a disease in Turkmenistan’s music industry.”

During the dark days of Niyazov, when the internet was closed to the majority of Turkmen, an entrepreneur in Houston was laying the groundwork for today’s growing “Turkmennet”. neweurasia’s Annasoltan sits down with Muhammed Mamedov of Turkmenweb and listens to his view on the past, present, and future of his business, the Turkmen online community, and Turkmenistan’s internet policy.