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Turkmenistan leader renames time

In the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan, a personality cult envelops the country's first and only leader, President Saparmurat Niyazov, or as he is better known there, Akbar Turkmenbashi, the Great Leader of All Turkmen.

There is a city called Turkmenbashi, as well as Turkmenbashi streets, mosques, factories and airports. The president's portrait appears on the country's money, on banners and posters, on bottles of vodka and packets of tea. A golden statue of him atop a 75m arch in the capital, Ashkhabad, rotates so that his arms always point to the sun.

Now the time has come for time itself to honor Turkmenbashi.

Addressing an assembly of 2,000 delegates last week, Niyazov proposed renaming the months of the year, beginning with January, or Yanvar, which would henceforth be known as Turkmenbashi, according to the Interfax news service.

Support from the assembly, whose members were selected by Niyazov, was said to be unanimous. The only dissent came from a delegate who urged that April be named not simply Mother, but after Niyazov's mother, Kurbansultan Edzhe, who died in 1948.

October will be known as Rukhnama, or Spiritual Revival, after a book of Niyazov's historical and philosophical musings. The book, published last year, is required reading in schools and colleges.

Niyazov, 62, has governed Turkmenistan with increasing authority ever since he became chairman of the Turkmen Communist Party in 1985, when the country was still a republic of the Soviet Union. He became president after independence in 1991 and cemented his power by suppressing opponents, restricting free speech and controlling all branches of government.
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