TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan -- Austere control over the lives of citizens in Turkmenistan took another bizarre turn when officials in the ethnically diverse Balkan Province issued a ban on foreign songs at weddings and ordered Turkmen music to dominate the playlists at receptions.
Perhaps worst of all, marriage celebrants have been instructed to play songs by the country's still powerful but musically mediocre ex-president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, according to locals and a source close to the regional government.
As is usually the case in Turkmenistan, no official announcement was made, but residents told RFE/RL the latest instructions are being delivered verbally to brides- and grooms-to-be when they register for a marriage license.
“Civil registrars warn the future couples that their wedding receptions must be exclusively accompanied by Turkmen music and that the wedding should also be held in a Turkmen style,” a source in Balkan Province said.
The owners and employees of wedding venues, restaurants, and banquet halls have also been informed about the new rules in recent weeks.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov’s portrait adorns the wall of a Turkmen wedding hall.
“Owners of the restaurants [that host weddings] make sure that at least 80 percent of the playlist consists of Turkmen music,” a restaurant employee told RFE/RL, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Noncompliance with authorities’ instructions and criticism of government policies are not tolerated in the strictly controlled former Soviet republic.
Describing a recent wedding, the restaurant employee said the Turkmen-heavy playlist included the traditional Turkmen folk dance “kushdepti” and two songs by Berdymukhammedov.
“The songs [by Berdymukhammedov] were seven minutes long each, and the DJ played them twice,” he added.
Berdymukhammedov ruled the Central Asian country for 15 years before handing the presidency to his son, Serdar, in a managed election in March 2022.
The elder Berdymukhammedov, who now holds the newly minted, influential position of chairman of the People’s Council, has in the past appeared in bizarre videos and staged concerts, performing kitschy pop songs and purportedly playing musical instruments.
Singing Praise To The Leader
Many residents of the multiethnic regional capital, Balkanabat -- and the nearby coastal city of Turkmenbashi -- are frustrated and even angered by the new regulations, which deprive them of playing songs in their mother tongues, locals say. The two cities are home to many ethnic minorities, including Russians, Armenians, and Azeris.
“There were only Turkmen songs and the kushdepti being played, and we had to dance to that,” one Turkmenbashi resident described a recent wedding where the bride and groom and majority of the guests were not ethnic Turkmen.
Participants gather for a Turkmen wedding celebration in Ashgabat.
The wedding speeches were full of praise for the country’s president, and there were portraits of the Berdymukhammedovs hanging on the walls of the venue, another guest said.
“It felt more like a government event than a wedding,” he said. “Everybody was terribly unhappy about how extensively the government is interfering in our private lives.”
RFE/RL attempted to contact regional authorities for comment but received no response.
It’s been previously reported that ethnic Uzbeks in the Dashoguz and Lebap provinces were ordered to play Turkmen songs at their wedding celebrations and wear traditional Turkmen clothes.