President’s Book Was Introduced as a Study Course

The book "Social and Economic Development" under the authorship of Gurbanguli Berdimuhamedov was introduced to all universities and institutes of higher education as a subject called "Epoch of Revival". (The so called "Turkmen Renaissance" is name of policy conducted by the second president.) In all of the cases the subject replaced what was previously taught as "Rukhnama" – book of previous president Saparmurat Turkmenbashi, everything remained the same whereas only name of the subject changed since the meaning of both of subjects is not found interesting by vast majority of students and is hard to navigate in many contradictory facts. In the fall 2010 president of Turkmenistan ordered to introduce the new subject that would replace economics, sociology, philosophy, history and "Rukhnama", so the younger generation would understand the reforms going in the country and policy conducted by the government. The content of book is primarily related to late-Soviet and Russian books on economics and sociology, with maybe few places mentioning now popular terms: "innovative", "e-government" and etc. In overall the book does not have anything that explains why the prices rise in the country despite fixed exchange rates, despite rises in payments; it does not mention why the government spends around 30 billion dollars on construction which is forth item of expenses in state budget, while healthcare is not even in top 10. Plus, no one seems to doubt the fact that a person who has a diploma of a professional dentist also has deep knowledge of macroeconomics and sociology on the level required to govern the country. While the outer world was glad to hear that golden statue of Saparmurat Turkmenbashi was dismantled in the center of capital where it used to follow the sun on the sky, it appears that the successor is about to build his own one instead of previous. Gurbanguli Berdimuhamedov is building up cult of his own personality; at the moment his image replaced old one on all ubiquitous portraits, his book replaced Rukhnama, he "received" a title "arkadag". Next things on his to-do list would be something like "make myself and my parents heroes of Turkmenistan", "build a 100-foot platinum statue that would follow both sun and moon", "rename Ashgabat to Gurbanguli-Vegas", "rename June to Gurbanguli". It all may sound as a joke, though there are announced plans to build a 200-foot statue representing president riding a horse, similar to the statue of Oguzkhan on the road to capital's airport. According to rumors the statue is to be located on the foothills of Kopetdag Mountains, south of Ashgabat, and to be performed in marble and gold. The conclusion that could be made out of it is that all presidents are mortal (unfortunately to them) but some traditions remain forever. I hope I am wrong on the last one.