Doing Business in Turkmenistan

It apparenlty helps to have publishing connections (via Explananda). As if it’s not bad enough that Ruhnama translation launch parties are being held across the globe, those financing the translation and distribution of the book are companies doing business with the Turkmen government.

“We sponsored it for inter-cultural understanding,” said Arantxa Doerrie, a spokeswoman for Zeppelin Baumaschinen, a German machinery company that translated the second volume of the book and presented it to Niyazov this month. The company plans to distribute the book in Germany, she said.

“In principle, yes, it is a dictatorship,” Doerrie said, “but simultaneously we see that very much is being done to help the people there — for the infrastructure with the building of streets, for example. That is what we understand. We sell building equipment, so yes, there is a market for us there, but we see our contribution as a way to help the people there.”

Zeppelin Baumaschinen’s spokeswoman takes the grand prize for dumb statements about Turkmenistan. And, they by no means are alone in this activity.

“Dear Mr. President,” wrote a director of the Finnish electricity concern Ensto in a letter last year. “The publication of your book will undoubtedly serve as a stimulus for the development of relations between our countries. It will allow for close acquaintance with the culture and national traditions of your people, and the political principles of Turkmenistan. . . . The international industrial concern has an important role in the manufacture and maintenance of energy grids.”

The company’s chief executive, Seppo Martikainen, said in a telephone interview that the company now planned to translate the book only for its employees. “The situation has changed,” he said. “We had discussion on how far we should go with this, and it’s only for our own use.”

And I thought that some of the folks I work with cross a line…

Others in on this include Ireland’s Emerol, who translated it into Lithuanian, and DaimlerChrysler, one of whose officials said, “there are, I believe, not many other heads of state who are authors.” There aren’t many so nutters either.

P.S. check out this Burt Herman photo that accompanies the story. Unbelievable.

This post was written by...

Nathan Hamm – author of 2973 posts on Registan.net.

Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.

For information on reproducing this article, see our Terms of Use