Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
So where exactly is Turkmenistan?
With only eleven days left before I ship off with the Peace Corps to Turkmenistan I’m finally feeling the anxiety of a two-year commitment overseas. This wouldn’t be the first time I would be off playing in foreign sand, but I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t have to double check on my map exactly where T-stan (apparently the cool way to refer to Turkmenistan) was.
Obviously Turkmenistan wasn’t on my radar when I applied to be a Peace Corps volunteer. I was originally hoping for placement in the Middle East or North Africa since I had experience there and can speak some Arabic. But unfortunately there are only 2 Peace Corps host countries in the region (Jordan & Morocco) and there were no openings. So I was nominated back in early December 2008 for service as an English teacher in Sub-Saharan Africa. After completing seemingly endless piles of paper work the only thing left to do was to play the waiting game. The program I was nominated for wasn’t until November 2009. I went to Egypt for three months in the spring to continue my Arabic lessons and then worked on a summer Middle Eastern youth development program hosted in my home University. It was July when I finally received word from the Peace Corps that my file was under review. I soon received a call from the D.C. Office asking if I was interested in moving my departure up two months and switching to a host country in Central Asia. Then early August 2009 I received my nomination in the mail for Turkmenistan. I would have just two months before we would ship out.
Well since I’m a huge history nerd I’m going to give you a crash course on the history of the Turkmen, Turkmenistan and Central Asia in general… and yes their will be a quiz at the end so take notes! Turkmenistan is located just north of Iran and Afghanistan, west of the Caspian Sea and south of other “stans” (which is ancient Persian for “homeland/place of”). Turkmenistan is nearly 90% desert and comparative in size to the state of California, but with only a population of around 5 million compared to California’s 36 million. The primary ethnic group is Turkmen who are Oghuz Turks, like those in Turkey and Azerbaijan. They primarily speak Turkmen, which is in Oghuz Turkic family so it shares linguistic similarities to Turkish & Azeri. Russian is also widely understood in urban areas and there are large communities of ethnic Uzbeks and Russians in the country. Until independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian was the primary language when it came to government, education and most professions. But after independence Turkmenistan politicians began encouraging Turkic nationalism and language was one of the key cornerstones. The Turkmen alphabet was switched from Cyrillic to a Latin script (similar to that of Turkey’s) and Turkmen would become the sole official language.
Turkmen (like most Turkic people) were semi-nomadic and it wasn’t until the Russian Empire invaded and conquered various Turkmen tribes did this change. The different Turkic peoples originate from what is today Western China and Mongolia. Their migration began halfway through the first millennium A.D. They would settle all over Central Asia, Persia (Iran), much of the Middle East and until this point a Turk-less Turkey. This migration culminated in the creation of the Great Seljuk Empire, which spanned from Central Asia to Turkey. After a few hundred years the Seljuk Empire began to disintegrate into many smaller independent Turkic ruled kingdoms making the Seljuk Empire more of a Turkic ruled confederation. Then out of the East came Genghis Khan and his invasion of Central Asia and Persia would be devastating to the local people especially the Turkmen. Genghis Khan commenced both a military and systematic terror campaign of the local inhabitance to keep order and minimize resistance (as Governor Tarkin said in Star Wars “fear will keep them in line”). Genghis Khan sacked one of the largest cities on the Silk Road called Merv (which by the way is a UNESCO world Heritage site) in present day Turkmenistan. In its prime (around the12th century) Merv is thought by many historians to be one of the largest cities in the world. Although it isn’t well know Merv was one of the key cities on the Silk Road, but it would never recover from the Mongol invasion. After the tide of the Mongol Invasions began to recede Central Asia was full of various small Kingdoms. In the area that now is Turkmenistan the various nomadic Turkmen tribes were in competition with each other and other rival Empires. Then in the late 19th century in the heat of the Great Game with England, Russia finally conquered the last of the Turkmen tribes. Little changed in the region until the Bolshevik Revolution when it became a battle ground between the Red Army and the White Guards and Turkic separatists. The Red Army was finally victorious after long military campaigns in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The Soviets put forward their agenda in Central Asia by forcing the local people to end their nomadic lifestyle, establishing collectivized farms and anti-religion campaigns. These programs led to purges, starvation and increased Russian emigration and colonization. But there where some benefits as well, the Soviets were able to increases the literacy in the region, which was almost nonexistent to nearly 99% in just a few decades. It also promoted more women’s rights, higher education and brought technological advances to help improve the lives of the local population. And ironically it was the Soviet occupation that put an end to the endless fighting between the Turkmen tribes and brought forward the idea of a unified Turkmen people. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union Turkmenistan asserted its right for independence in 1991.
Ok did you get all that? Needless to say after reading up on Turkmenistan and the history of the Turkmens my interest in volunteering there has gone through the roof. I hope this little crash course helped put some things in context. More to come soon…
F.Y.I. If any one also has a nerdy passion for history I advise you checkout "Inside Central Asia" by Dilip Hiro. It is very informative and goes into a lot of detail especially the recent post-Soviet period of all the new republics in Central Asia.
Obviously Turkmenistan wasn’t on my radar when I applied to be a Peace Corps volunteer. I was originally hoping for placement in the Middle East or North Africa since I had experience there and can speak some Arabic. But unfortunately there are only 2 Peace Corps host countries in the region (Jordan & Morocco) and there were no openings. So I was nominated back in early December 2008 for service as an English teacher in Sub-Saharan Africa. After completing seemingly endless piles of paper work the only thing left to do was to play the waiting game. The program I was nominated for wasn’t until November 2009. I went to Egypt for three months in the spring to continue my Arabic lessons and then worked on a summer Middle Eastern youth development program hosted in my home University. It was July when I finally received word from the Peace Corps that my file was under review. I soon received a call from the D.C. Office asking if I was interested in moving my departure up two months and switching to a host country in Central Asia. Then early August 2009 I received my nomination in the mail for Turkmenistan. I would have just two months before we would ship out.
Well since I’m a huge history nerd I’m going to give you a crash course on the history of the Turkmen, Turkmenistan and Central Asia in general… and yes their will be a quiz at the end so take notes! Turkmenistan is located just north of Iran and Afghanistan, west of the Caspian Sea and south of other “stans” (which is ancient Persian for “homeland/place of”). Turkmenistan is nearly 90% desert and comparative in size to the state of California, but with only a population of around 5 million compared to California’s 36 million. The primary ethnic group is Turkmen who are Oghuz Turks, like those in Turkey and Azerbaijan. They primarily speak Turkmen, which is in Oghuz Turkic family so it shares linguistic similarities to Turkish & Azeri. Russian is also widely understood in urban areas and there are large communities of ethnic Uzbeks and Russians in the country. Until independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian was the primary language when it came to government, education and most professions. But after independence Turkmenistan politicians began encouraging Turkic nationalism and language was one of the key cornerstones. The Turkmen alphabet was switched from Cyrillic to a Latin script (similar to that of Turkey’s) and Turkmen would become the sole official language.
Turkmen (like most Turkic people) were semi-nomadic and it wasn’t until the Russian Empire invaded and conquered various Turkmen tribes did this change. The different Turkic peoples originate from what is today Western China and Mongolia. Their migration began halfway through the first millennium A.D. They would settle all over Central Asia, Persia (Iran), much of the Middle East and until this point a Turk-less Turkey. This migration culminated in the creation of the Great Seljuk Empire, which spanned from Central Asia to Turkey. After a few hundred years the Seljuk Empire began to disintegrate into many smaller independent Turkic ruled kingdoms making the Seljuk Empire more of a Turkic ruled confederation. Then out of the East came Genghis Khan and his invasion of Central Asia and Persia would be devastating to the local people especially the Turkmen. Genghis Khan commenced both a military and systematic terror campaign of the local inhabitance to keep order and minimize resistance (as Governor Tarkin said in Star Wars “fear will keep them in line”). Genghis Khan sacked one of the largest cities on the Silk Road called Merv (which by the way is a UNESCO world Heritage site) in present day Turkmenistan. In its prime (around the12th century) Merv is thought by many historians to be one of the largest cities in the world. Although it isn’t well know Merv was one of the key cities on the Silk Road, but it would never recover from the Mongol invasion. After the tide of the Mongol Invasions began to recede Central Asia was full of various small Kingdoms. In the area that now is Turkmenistan the various nomadic Turkmen tribes were in competition with each other and other rival Empires. Then in the late 19th century in the heat of the Great Game with England, Russia finally conquered the last of the Turkmen tribes. Little changed in the region until the Bolshevik Revolution when it became a battle ground between the Red Army and the White Guards and Turkic separatists. The Red Army was finally victorious after long military campaigns in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The Soviets put forward their agenda in Central Asia by forcing the local people to end their nomadic lifestyle, establishing collectivized farms and anti-religion campaigns. These programs led to purges, starvation and increased Russian emigration and colonization. But there where some benefits as well, the Soviets were able to increases the literacy in the region, which was almost nonexistent to nearly 99% in just a few decades. It also promoted more women’s rights, higher education and brought technological advances to help improve the lives of the local population. And ironically it was the Soviet occupation that put an end to the endless fighting between the Turkmen tribes and brought forward the idea of a unified Turkmen people. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union Turkmenistan asserted its right for independence in 1991.
Ok did you get all that? Needless to say after reading up on Turkmenistan and the history of the Turkmens my interest in volunteering there has gone through the roof. I hope this little crash course helped put some things in context. More to come soon…
F.Y.I. If any one also has a nerdy passion for history I advise you checkout "Inside Central Asia" by Dilip Hiro. It is very informative and goes into a lot of detail especially the recent post-Soviet period of all the new republics in Central Asia.
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