Size: 24.5x17cm./9.6×6.6inch.
Weight: 820gr./28.9oz.
Pages: 431
Year: 2004
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Book made in Turkmenistan, 2004. The title of the book reads:”My Knowledge, My Country, My Pride. And is written by Saparmurat Niyazov”.
Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov (1940-2006), also known as Turkmenbaşy, was a Turkmen politician who ruled Turkmenistan from 1985 until his death in 2006. He was first secretary of the Turkmen Communist Party from 1985 until 1991 and supported the 1991 Soviet coup attempt.
He continued to rule Turkmenistan for 15 years after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In his time, he was one of the world’s most totalitarian dictators. He promoted a cult of personality around himself and imposed his personal eccentricities upon the country, such as renaming Turkmen months and days of the week to references of his autobiography the Ruhnama.
He made it mandatory to read the Ruhnama in schools, universities and governmental organizations; new governmental employees were tested on the book at job interviews and an exam on its teachings was a part of the driving test in Turkmenistan. In 2005, he closed down all rural libraries and hospitals outside of the capital city Ashgabat. Niyazov ordered that all mountains and places in Turkmenistan be named after Turkmen heroes, poets and leaders. He also abolished the Turkmen word for bread and replaced it with Gurbansoltan, his mother’s name. He outlawed opera, ballet, circuses and philharmonic orchestras in 2001 for being “decidedly unturkmen-like”. He banned the reporting and even mentioning of contagious diseases such as AIDS or cholera. He banned news reporters and presenters from wearing makeup on television. He banned car radios because he considered them to be “useless”. Gold teeth were discouraged in Turkmenistan after Niyazov suggested that the populace chew on bones to strengthen their teeth and lessen the rate at which they fall out. In November 2005, he ordered that doctors should swear an oath to him instead of the Hippocratic Oath.