Editor’s note: “Tomorrow begins today!” That’s not the title of the latest James Bond film, but instead the enthusiastic slogan of the Turkmen government for its most grandiose project, the tourist city Avaza. neweurasia’s Annasoltan explores the true importance of the city.  “The megapolis’ glitter is casting a long, hot, and simmer shadow,” she writes.  “Time will tell whether Avaza will become Berdimuhammedov’s great monument — or his gravestone.”

For the last three years the Berdimuhammedov regime has been constructing a huge tourist city called “Avaza” on the shores of the Caspian Sea.  Hailed by the government as a new “Pearl on the Caspian” and “a symbol of the new epoch“.  The future megapolis will be replete with all manners of gleaming hypercapitalist and post-modern Space Age architecture, a lot like the kind that’s been built throughout the region and especially in Astana and Almaty.  The city is bursting from the desert sands so quickly that even the government seems bedazzled by the pace of construction.

However, Avaza is more than just an ambitious tourist stop: it embodies the ambitions of Turkmenistan’s totalitarian government and even the very personal reputation of the president himself.  There are serious questions about the meaning of this city.  Will it succeed in attracting the jetsetters and other elites of the world?  And if so, can it hide from them the truths lurking in the shadows of its opulence?

The real meaning of Avaza

For a country that was the least developed corner of the Soviet Union twenty years ago, Avaza looks quite modern and impressive. In a way, the various buildings can be counted like items on a spoilt child’s long wish list: several multi-story five-star hotels for those seeking something palatial, cozy cottages for those fond of domestic-style comforts, stadiums, golf clubs, tennis courts, swimming pools, water parks, recreation and health improving centers, a 7-km artificial river, an artificial lake, a delphinium, leisure amusements, disco clubs, luxurious  restaurants, bars and casinos, children’s playgrounds, and a shopping mall. The opening ceremonies of the first row of hotels were held last summer and a new airport nearby was opened recently.  Meanwhile, there’s a new highway under construction between Turkmenbashi City and Avaza. All told, the megapolis is costing Turkmenistan $5 billion.

Turkmenistan’s pinning a lot of hopes on the city.  The government and the people hope Avaza will create more jobs and increase tax and personal revenues, in turn financing better infrastructure, higher standards of living, and international prestige. Furthermore, not only would it crown the Berdimuhammedov regime’s ambitions to be remembered as a government of renewal and progress, but it would be an ideological capstone as well, a symbol of Turkmenistan’s long-standing neutrality of policy of “good neighborliness”. It’s as though the city were a magic medicine for the country’s ailing reputation abroad.

To finance the project, Berdimuhammedov has been enticing foreign participation and investment with significant tax, customs, and visa privileges.For example, tourists are allowed to take souvenirs home with them without paying any duties or taxes.  It’s as though the Turkmen guest tradition has been re-writ large, transformed into grandiose policy.  There’s a dark side to that, though, because it also means that the president’s involvement has made Avaza a matter upon which his personal honor is staked.

What lurks behind the glitter

The government is trying to compete with some serious competition around the world.  In order to make Avaza stand out from the rest, the city’s planners  are emphasizing the project’s sheer extravagance.  Personally, I’m not sure that will work.  Turkmenistan is already associated in the mind’s eye of the world with extravagance, especially of the worst Stalinistic kind.  But it’s also true that the kind of clientele who have the money and inclination for such luxurious vacationing are fickle, not to mention wary of oppression.  I’m obviously thinking about the Gulf States’ increasingly controversial conservatism, so perhaps if Turkmenistan can promote itself as a secularist and tolerant alternative to the Arabs, it might do well.

Yet, Avaza’s vastness will likely not be able to hide the fact that the city is merely an extreme case of enclave tourism, a phenomenon that’s been occurring throughout the developing world since the 1970s.  The practice consists of concentrating visitors to a small geographical area, sequestered from the rest of the country in splendid isolation.  Because the abilities of local production of souvenirs, food, and energy  to meet the high demands of the tourism market are usually low, indigenous sources are either stretched to the breaking point or simply passed over in favor of outside sources.  That means enclave tourism rarely leads to the kind of development windfalls that are its raison d’etre.  Worsening the situation is the inevitable reality that a lot of revenue ends up being pocketed by corrupt political forces anyway.  In the end, enclave tourism only ends up reinforcing problems within the country as well as the country’s dependency upon richer nations.

The Berdimuhammedov regime is trading effective and sustainable development for prestige.  If you’ve been reading my reports here on neweurasia, you’ll know that unfortunately there’s nothing new about that.   But there’s a much darker side to Avaza.  The Turkmen people have lived for decades under totalitarian isolation.  Culturally nomadic and hence already distrustful of the outside world by nature, the government has also inculcated in the population a strong paranoia toward foreigners.  Moreover, most Turkmens subsist on a measly average monthly income of only $150, so taking vacations of any kind, much less of the opulent variety embodied in Avaza, are an impossibility of which they are all too aware.   So, the tourists’ lives of secluded splendor in Avaza might aggravate these deep feelings of distrust, and not only toward the foreigners.

There’s already a lot of resentment toward the government for perceived special treatment of outsiders and many Turkmen identify the project with Berdimuhammedov himself.  My friend Yazmurat from Ashgabat complained to me,

“Roughly put, our government admits that Avaza is a ‘special tourism zone’.  But that conceals its real meaning meaning. We, the people, understad that Avaza is really meant for very special people, while the government does not seem interested in addressing our problems.”

The megapolis’ glitter is casting a long, hot, and simmering shadow.  Time will tell whether Avaza will become Berdimuhammedov’s great monument — or his gravestone.

Editor’s note: All the images below are from official Turkmen sources, e.g., here.