Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is a fan of setting obscure world records, and he is now at risk of breaking his own record for consecutive days absent from national news bulletins, recharging speculation around the enigmatic strongman’s health.
Berdymukhammedov, 65, is no longer secretive Turkmenistan’s president, having handed that role to his son, Serdar, last year.
But as of the beginning of this year, he has held a post that is seemingly even more powerful: chairing the People’s Council that effectively oversees the work of the whole government -- his son included -- as well as assuming the new title of “national leader.”
People don’t know which of the Berdymukhammedovs is really running the country, but whoever is in charge isn’t doing a good job.”-- Turkmen journalist
These self-promotions less than a year after stepping down from the presidency to make way for “young leaders” have underscored his role as the star of evening news programs, where he often eclipses the 41-year-old Serdar.
But ever since Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was shown to be on a trip to Germany -- where he was not known to have any official engagements -- there has been an eerie lack of him.
There is a precedent for this from Berdymukhammedov’s time as president, which lasted from 2006 until 2022.
In 2019, he was effectively absent from the news for a month between the first week of July and the first week of August of that year.
State media did at one point between those dates show him lecturing a government official about bus stops in the capital, Ashgabat, but at least part of that footage appeared to have been recycled.
This time, there has been no fresh Berdymukhammedov footage since a sequence apparently filmed in Germany on an unknown date and broadcast on the Watan Habarlary news program on April 29.
And before that, there had been no sign of the older Berdymukhamedov for more than a week, with footage of the autocrat shown chairing a session of the People’s Council on April 20 -- another appearance that is hard to pin down.
Mission To Frankfurt
The April 29 state news broadcast informed viewers about Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov’s trip “on behalf” of his son, during which he visited a German horse-breeding complex and “got acquainted with the peculiarities of keeping horses.”
To be sure, this is not an area in which Berdymukhammedov senior should require much instruction.
He was awarded the title of "People's Horse Breeder” in 2015, and state propaganda regularly shows him riding, caring for, and authoring books about Turkmenistan’s famed Akhal-Teke steeds.
Another mysterious element of the Germany visit was the sighting of Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov at the stables alongside the former president.
Turkmen state television on May 1 announced that Meredov, who is also deputy prime minister, had taken his annual leave and was entrusting his duties to deputy Vepa Khadjiev.
This is somewhat earlier than the summer vacations that most Turkmen officials traditionally take.
Flight data from the Flightradar24 website referred to by the Europe-based Chronicles of Turkmenistan certainly supports the idea that Berdymukhammedov made a trip to Germany.
The website’s data showed the Boeing 777-200 (LR) aircraft used by Berdymukhammedov senior landing at Frankfurt airport on April 22 and returning to Ashgabat on April 28 -- the day before the news about his visit.
But was Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov inside the plane that returned from Germany? And, if yes, why has he still not made any public appearances, including on April 30 -- national Horse Day -- where his presence at equine festivities has come to be expected?
A government source speaking on condition of anonymity told RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service that Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Meredov are still in Germany, where they are conducting unspecified meetings. RFE/RL is unable to corroborate this information with other sources.
Intriguingly, Turkmen state media reported on May 2 that a Turkmen government delegation had held talks with Deutsche Bank and another German bank, Commerzbank, as part of wider economic cooperation between the two countries.
The same state media report that referred to the Turkmen delegation’s talks with German businesses referred to Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov’s “recent” trip to that country as if it were a separate event, adding more details about the visit to the horse farm that was shown on state television.
The report said the former president had invited Turkmenistan’s “German partners” to visit festivities marking the opening of Arkadag -- a new city whose name translates as "Protector" -- the senior Berdymukhammedov’s official moniker.
Deutsche Bank is notable as a bank that Turkmenistan’s first leader, Saparmurat Niyazov, was known to patronize.
As the transparency watchdog Global Witness wrote in a complaint more than a decade ago, Turkmenistan’s central bank held “account number 949924500 at Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt,” and used the bank to deposit vast sums from natural gas sales.
Yet “various reports from international financial institutions state that money from this account is solely controlled by Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan,” Global Witness added. Niyazov died suddenly in 2006, allowing then-Health Minister Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to step up to the top job.
The Turkmen Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for information about Meredov and Berdymukhammedov’s trip.
Back From The Dead
Whatever Berdymukhammedov senior was doing in Germany besides riding horses, the visit will inevitably increase speculation about his physical well-being.
By the standards set by heads of state in Central Asia, Berdymukhammedov was still a young man when he decided to resign the presidency after 15 years in the post in February of last year.
In the summer of 2019, his long disappearance prompted false reports of his death -- rumors that he banished in style by driving around the burning Darvaza gas crater known as the Gates Of Hell in the Karakum Desert.
But that did not put the matter to rest, and Serdar Berdymukhammedov’s rise through the ranks of government assumed a new rapidity in the years that followed.
The country’s hereditary succession should, in theory, have given Berdymukhammedov senior more leeway to disappear from public view for periods at a time, while also easing uncertainty around the leadership in the event that he were to die.
Just a week after Serdar Berdymukhammedov was elected in an opposition-free vote, his predecessor requested his permission for a holiday to indulge in his hobbies.
"I have been working in leadership positions for 40 years and have been involved in politics for 25 years. Due to the large amount of work during this time, I could not rest in full. I am therefore asking for a vacation from April 1," the Neutral Turkmenistan state newspaper quoted the older Berdymukhammedov as saying at the time, noting that the new president had granted the request.
But the ex-president reinvigorated the rumormongers by returning to public life with a vengeance later that year -- meeting with foreign heads of state, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin-- and regularly touring the country’s provinces, where residents were reportedly mobilized for extravagant displays of loyalty.
So overwhelming was his public dominance that a veteran Turkmen journalist interviewed anonymously for an RFE/RL report at the end of last year quipped: “People don’t know which of the Berdymukhammedovs is really running the country, but whoever is in charge isn’t doing a good job.”
RFE/RL correspondents in Turkmenistan contacted for this report delivered a similar message from a country where the cost of living has soared as a result of sustained mismanagement under the Berdymukhammedovs.
“People are now preoccupied with their daily problems. Whether Gurbanguly exists or not, nobody cares. No one even mentions him," said one.
Turkmenistan was represented by President Serdar Berdymukhammedov during a last-minute May 9 visit to Moscow for Russia’s tightly controlled, scaled-down Victory Day parade and again during talks with the leadership of Tajikistan in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on May 10.
