Part One: Turkmenbashi: The Dictator Who Declared Himself Jesus

In Episode 53, Robert is joined by David Bell to discuss a man who was, at one point, the most powerful lunatic on planet earth and absolute ruler of a nation of five million people, Saparmurat Niyazov who was the dictator of Turkmenistan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hmm, what's ringing my bells? I am Robert Evans. This
is Behind the Bastards, the show where every week I
try out a new introduction. This one got so Pie's approval,
so that's good. It's also a show where we talk
about the worst people in all of history, tell you
the things you don't know about them. My guest today
is David Christopher Bow. Hello. How you doing, Dave? I

(00:22):
am well. I almost hit a man with my car
on the way here. Oh sweet, did he have it coming? Yeah?
Actually he was jaywalking. Well the fuck him? Yeah that's
what I thought. Yeah, yeah, that's that's good. I'm gonna
I'm gonna share a little bit of your personal business
day because it makes me laugh. Your parents came here
from the the blighted hellscape that is the East Coast
to escape the snow. Yes, that's true. They're very old,

(00:44):
so they do what old people do, and they went
to a warm climate during the winter, and then Los
Angeles got its first snow in sixty something. Here. Sure,
they are very bummed out because when it's not snowing,
it's been raining that stop. We've had our first winter
in decades, which has been delightful. It's been great for

(01:05):
the people who live here. It's nice. Yeah, especially after
the summer, although it is a dire sign of climate
change when Los Angeles has seasons. Yeah, the world is dying. Yeah,
but it's nice to get to wear a jacket, Hollywood. Yeah. Uh, well, Dave,
today we are talking about a special fellow, very special fellow.

(01:26):
Have you ever heard the name saparmar Atni is of
Oh boy, oh oh boy. Now, the last show we
had you won was Momar Kadafi. Kadafi is kind of
the gold standard for just a lunatic who winds up
in charge of a country, like not like a guy
like like Hitler Stalin. People call them crazy, but they
really weren't. Like if you if you look at them,
everything they did kind of made sense, like based on

(01:48):
where they're coming from. Kaddafi was a fucking maniac. Uh.
And saparmar Atnia is off maybe even crazier than Kaddafi.
He might be the craziest person who's ever run a country. Uh,
But we'll have to judge that at the end of
these episodes. Before we get into that, I have a

(02:09):
new sparkling water beverage called Bubbly and I got it
hoping for an orange soda of some sort, but I
don't know if that's what it is or if it's
more like one of those one of those lacroix. So
I'm gonna I'm gonna learn right now. How is it.
It's actually really nice. It is on the Lacroix scale.
So it's like someone put an orange in. It's like

(02:29):
it's like an orange was in the same room as
some sparkling water. Um, but in this case, the orange
talked to the water. Uh, and they reached in a chord.
It's good. Okay, it's good. Yeah, it's like a melted
popsicle bubbly. I'm gonna have to try it if you
want too. Yeah, report in your lacroix. All right, Here

(02:49):
we go over the over the equipment. This is we're
reaching across the table. Oh Jesus sorry, it's good. Has
it mixed with that? But I'm going to keep drinking it.
So that's a little bit of science for you listeners
at home. Do not mix passion fruit lacroix with orange bubbly. Uh.

(03:12):
Not a good idea. All right, speaking of bad ideas,
let's talk about saparmar At Niyazov, the lunatic god king
of Turkmenistan. I'm so psyched. So today we're talking about
a guy who was at one point probably the most
powerful crazy person on planet Earth. He was the absolute
ruler of a nation of five million people. So parmar
At Niyazov was the dictator of Turkmenistan. And I think

(03:34):
you're going to enjoy him, Dave, Although Turkmenistan did not um,
I am extremely ignorant of the world. So where is Turkmenistan.
It's like near Afghanistan and in in in the old
Soviet Union. It's one of those little chunks of the country.
It was like when Genghis Khan started doing his thing
when they like left China and started conquering his way

(03:57):
towards the Middle East. They were like the first empire
he ran into on his way out of China. Yeah,
and he had to, yet he sucked him up pretty bad.
Uh So, Turkmenistan the actual country did not exist as
a political entity until nineteen twenty four. Like, it wasn't
a thing anyone had ever thought about as like an area.
It was just a place where a bunch of like
it had been a bunch of different kingdoms, but like

(04:18):
no one had called them Turkmenistan or whatever. They wound
up under Russian control during the era of the Csars,
and not much was done with them. They were a
little bit of a backwater, so they pretty much just
stuck to themselves and did Turkmen stuff, which mainly meant
outdoor picnics, fantastic wine and horseback riding. Oh good for them, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It seemed to have that, seemed to have their ship together. Yeah,
and there's just like, no one's noticing us. Yeah, let's

(04:39):
just have a great time. Let's just chill out. They
like falcons, big, big falcon people doesn't Who doesn't love
a good falcon. They got great horses, and uh, they're
one of those pieces of the Muslim world where everybody
drinks still because they became Muslim, but they've been growing
wine since before they were Muslims. They were like, well,
let's just ignore that trunk earlier than we've been. It's

(05:01):
kept grandfathered into the religion. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Uh.
In nineteen twenty four, the brand new Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics decided this chunk of the world and its
people needed an official designation and borders. The Turkmen SSR
was considered to be the backwatery ist backwater in the
entire Soviet Union. Uh say, maybe some of those chunks
of Russia that were too cold for anything, but Gulags,

(05:24):
an American diplomat told New Yorker author Paul Thiou that quote,
it was the sleepiest, most remote, least favorite of the
USSRS republics. So they don't get much love. Yeah, but
I mean I want to live there. Yeah, if you're
going to live in the Soviet Union, you want to
live in the place that like Stalin doesn't think about ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they were they were basically the Soviet Union's gas station. Uh.

(05:46):
They had like have like either the third of the
fifth largest natural gas reserves in the world, and so
the Soviet Union just kind of took all of their
fuel and and didn't really give them money for it.
And that that was kind of what happened for like
seventy years or so. So they were they were doing fine. Uh.
Suparmarat Niezov was born into this quiet region of the
world in nineteen forty. His father was Attaya Niyazov, a

(06:08):
farmer and His mother was Gurbon Sultan. They lived in
the town of ghip Jack, a small village six miles
from the capital, Ashgabat. If you know much history, you're
probably aware that nineteen forty was not a great time
to be born in the Soviet Union. The Nazis invaded
before Subparmarat was one, and in nineteen forty two his
father died in battle fighting the Wehrmacht. So not the
best start so far, das he's really fun things up

(06:33):
for this kid and twenty million other people. Yeah. Uh.
This prompted Subparmarants mom to move them into the capital,
where they all lived together until nineteen forty eight, when
a massive earthquake struck the city and killed a hundred
and ten thousand people, including Suparmarat's entire family. Okay, see,
he's just having none of the luck, none of the luck,
really really bad first eight years of his life. Yeah. Yeah,

(06:56):
rough rough start, um, fair to say so. Young Saparmat
grew up in a Soviet orphanage until the government found
a family member he'd never met for him to go
live with. Uh. In spite of the rough start, he
did pretty well, winning a place in Leningrad Polytechnical Institute
and graduating with a degree in power engineering in nineteen
sixty six. Uh he got a job at a power

(07:18):
plant near the capital, And UH do you like he
was just going to be a normal Soviet dude. So far,
so good, So far, so rough start, But he's getting
his life on track, getting his life on track working
as an engineer. If I know anything about engineers is
that they never turned into power krazed maniacs. Yeah, that's
that's for sure, something about engineers that we know. Uh
Saparmarat joined the Communist Party back in nineteen sixty two,

(07:41):
and his ambitions immediately extended beyond just working at a
power plant. Throughout the late nineteen sixties and the nineteen seventies,
he steadily rose the ranks in local politics, due largely
to the fact that he was a member of the
largest Turkmen tribe in the region. The techie now uh
saparmar at Yezov was named the first Secretary of the
Communist Party of Turkmen by Mikhail Gorbachev and nine eight
five he was put in power because his predecessor, a

(08:03):
guy named Gapasov, had been incredibly corrupt. Uh and and
stealing huge amounts of money from, you know, the republic.
So that's that's his predecessor. Now. The good thing about
Gapisov is that he'd almost completed construction of the world's
longest aqueduct during his term, so it was like a
couple of weeks away from being finished when he got
ship can't And then Niyazov comes to power and he

(08:23):
immediately takes credit for building the aqueduct, which good, solid. Yeah.
So Gorbachev promised that Niyazov's promotion meant the dawning of
a new age of corruption free governance in Turkmenistan. This
would prove to be about as wrong as a statement
can be. That feels like how a lot of monsters start. Yeah,
of like the guy before them was terrible and corrupt,

(08:45):
and they come up and they're like, no more corruption,
no more corruption. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good pitch, like
basically how this starts. Yeah, And he he probably would
have gotten busted by Gorbachev eventually because he was really
corrupt too. But five years after he comes to power,
the USSR starts to fall apart, and so when the
Soviet Union collapses, he's the guy in charge of Turkmenistan.

(09:09):
So in nineteen ninety, the Turkmen Parliament declares its independence
during a couple of different votes, and on October nineteen ninety,
the state of Turkmenistan was officially born. It held its
first presidential election immediately afterwards. Niyazov was the only candidate
and he received ninety eight point three percent of the vote.
So okay, so yeah, as everything collapsed around him, he

(09:30):
took It's like having it's like being the manager at
the final Blockbuster, yeah exactly, yeah, and just being like,
we're gonna do things differently around Blockbuster now. Yeah. Uh yeah,
he is. He is that guy. Uh. So, As the
autocratic ruler of a new nation, Niazov's immediate goal was
to be as neutral as possible and make a shipload
of money. So not a bad plan at the start.

(09:51):
He started selling gas oil and electricity to Iran, but
also sweet talked Saudi Arabia and flew to Mecca to
do his pilgrimage. So he's kind of trying to play
both sides of of every angle. He's trying to be
nice to Russia and be nice to the US. He
just doesn't want anybody to funk with Turkmenistan. So reasonable, Yeah,
that's fair. He's protecting his people, protecting his people. Now,
when he came to power, most Turkmen were still dirt

(10:11):
poor because the Soviet Union had basically just been stealing
their gas, like paying them, but paying them in Soviet
money that wasn't worth anything, and being like, yeah, you
guys are getting a fair market value for this. Feel
like it was. It was a free gas station for
the Soviet Union. But now that they were an independent nation,
these guys had like a shipload of money at like
something like five billion dollars a year coming in in

(10:34):
uh in fuel money. And there's only five million people.
So in a fair and equitable system, everyone in Turkmenistan
could be really rich, like like they are in Kuwait
or something. Of course, I assume that's what's going to happen. Yeah,
that they all get taken care of really well, and
then that's it. Well you can find us on Twitter
and Instagram and at Bastards pod day. No. Uh So

(11:00):
that was what a lot of people hoped for, that
like the economy will be reformed and they'd all get
some of this sweet sweet gas money. But Niyazov was
worried about what might happen if he reformed the economy
too much. He thought it might be too much change
for people in too short a period of time. Right,
you got to protect the people from progress for money,
change money. So what those people to have, who knows
what they'll spend it? Are exactly houses? Food? Yeah, you know,

(11:24):
you don't want to risk that. So he promised that
he would eventually add in some free market stuff, but
in the short term, he decided that he really needed
absolute power to get stuff started for good foot you know. Yeah,
makes sense, understandable. I just need a little I just
need a little absolute powerst a couple of years. Absolute power. Yeah,
I swear I will. I'll give it up. Yeah, like
all the times people have given up absolute power in

(11:46):
the past. Uh. So he got his wish when Turkmenistan's
new constitution was drafted. It declared that power is held
by the president, who was elected by the people, which
seems reasonable until you realize that, once elected, the president's
power was essentially infinite. Uh, and then included the power
to determine how elections were held in the future. Yeah. Perfect. Now,

(12:07):
under the constitution, citizens did have the right to form
political parties as long as they could get a thousand
other people together. That was like the minimum threshold you
can make a political party. So several citizens did this.
They created political parties, They kept in line, scrupulously followed
the law, they avoided any calls for violence, they filled
out all the required forms of petitions, and their parties
were immediately banned. Um. Since the state controlled all media,

(12:28):
no political parties were allowed in any airtime. So yeah,
that's that's uh, that that's what nias sort of starts
off U tagging Jumakov, a journalist working for a state
paper that was essentially owned by nias Off explained, quote,
at this time, there is no need for a multi
party system. Many problems have to be solved, social problems,
and we must raise living standards. When our living standards

(12:51):
are high and we are economically independent, then we can
have a multiparty system. But if this happens now, there
will be anarchy. It feels like there's a lot of putting,
putting it off, putting, a lot of like, you know, no,
it's a great, it's great, we'll do that at some point,
but right now we really can't. Yeah, I'll clean up
my room after yeah, finished stealing all this natural guess

(13:12):
I'll clean my room, But first I got to do
this cocaine, and that'll help me clean up. I can't.
I can't make my bed with all this cocaine on
the table. Exactly what have I what am I knocked
the cocaine off the table? Exactly? Yes, yeah, he has
that that that that logic is it? Exactly how Niazov
justifies what he does. So At a People's Council in
December nine, Niazov estimated it would take ten years for

(13:35):
Turkmenistan to achieve the prosperity it needed for people to
be allowed to vote. After the constitution was ratified, Niasov
ran for president again winning. Yeah. He's he's very pop
very popular, very also the only candidate, uh. He was
the only Central Asian head of state to continue to
govern after the USSRS fall. So, of of the guys

(13:57):
who are in charge when like the Soviet Union falls part,
he's the only one who manages to hang on to power. Um. Now,
Turkmenistan had never been a country before, not in the
modern sense of the world, and Niazov knew he had
to do something to bind all of his people together,
so he held conferences using sketchy history to claim that
all Turkmen were part of the same ethnic group, the Tehran,
which was essentially just an ancient Persian word for the region.

(14:19):
He also announced, to great fanfare that his name was
now Turkmen Boshi, which means first among Turkmen's. He created
an ethnic group, yeah, kind of okay, he just said
we're all this thing. Yeah. He didn't want the tribalism
to get in the way, so he said, we're all
part of the same thing. Now, all right, Yeah, you
got to invent stuff if you create a country. His
full title was Serdar Turkmen Boshi, Great Leader of all Turkmen. Now,

(14:44):
as natural gas money started to flow into the country,
Turkmenistan found itself with money for the first time and ever. Really,
Turkmen Boshi, a man who had promised his people prosperity,
knew what he had to spend his windfall on. Wait
what do you mean? It was, Oh god, I I
don't know what do you what do you think you
spent the billions of dollars That is the first money
is country has ever gotten on. I mean, this could

(15:06):
go in so many ways. It could be like war um,
but I feel like it's like a clown party or
something like that's not super far I watched, I listened
to another show, and to not make too many predictions,
he spent it all on statues. Oh, of course, of course,
of course, why do oh man? That's I think there's

(15:29):
something in our DNA where we want to It's just
a natural thing we want to do is make statues.
If you give me, if you gave me a million dollars,
I'll be like, Okay, well the statue, um, and then
I'll get a nice apartment. I guess a second RoboCop
statue in Detroit would make sense. Yeah, yeah, let's do
that first, and then another rocky statue in Philadelphia, all

(15:49):
slightly bigger, slightly she like drive the statue by homeless
people in the street and like statue. Uh. New Yorker
writer Paul Three visited Turkmeno STANDARDI end of Turkmen Boshi's bragin.
Here's how he described the capital city quote Ashkobat was

(16:10):
filled with gold statues of Turkmen Boshi. And these statues,
which had an ecclesiastical era. Boshi was el Dorado the
man of Gold, all powerful and all knowing. Statues show
him sitting, striding, waving, saluting, and smiling a twenty four
carrot smile. One even showed him as a precocious golden
child sitting in the lap of his bronze mother. He
once said to a journalist, I admit it. There are
too many portraits, pictures and monuments of me. I don't

(16:32):
find any pleasure in it, but the people demand it
because of their mentality. Guys, just give me a few
more years. Everything will be fine. We'll get a few
more statues up and then that's it. Just a couple
of more statues and love democracy promise. I swear you're
going to vote at some point. I do love that
he makes his mom bronze, but he's gold. A little

(16:56):
bit of mom shade there, it's just worth. Yeah, you
want the baby to really pop in your in your
statue of yourself as a baby. Now, we don't know
what the people actually demanded, because they weren't, you know,
allowed to vote, or form political parties or speak freely. Uh.
Several of them were eventually allowed to operate political parties,

(17:16):
but these were just for show and most did not
meet the minimum number of members required in the constitution
was just so that Turkmen Bosha could be like, no,
we're not a one party state. Look at all these
other parties. There's like nine guys in that one. Whenever
Turkmen Poshi got in hot water with the democratic world,
he'd sponsor a party or two and let his people
have the illusion of a tiny amount of choice, or,

(17:36):
to be more accurate, let the world have the illusion
that his people had a tiny amount of choice. Now,
Nyazov immediately started renaming parts of the country after himself.
It started, not crazily, at least changing the name of
a major street in the capital from Lennin to you know,
Turkmen Bosh. That's fair. You know, Soviet Union's gone. You
know when it named after Lennon. Okay, we named streets

(17:57):
after presidents all the time. Uh. He ran him to
collective farm in the Linen Canal with his own name. Also,
when people compared what he was doing to Stalin's personality cult,
he said, quote Stalin achieved his personality cult through repressive measures,
whereas I achieved my popularity without conflicts. So overall, I'm
just sorry. I'm thinking about his childhood and stuff. There's

(18:19):
nothing like that messed up that happened to him and
the earthquake. I'm saying that there's not anything like horrible
things happened to a lot of people. Yeah, this feels
like a story of like this is just like you
give someone too much power. This it feels like this
could be anybody. It's just like, let's give him a

(18:39):
lot of power and then the next thing you know,
they're a golden baby statue. That's possible. We'll say how
you feel at the end of this, Okay, I feel
like he I mean, yeah, so so far, I'm not
saying what he did is understandable so far, it's just
that it's I find it remarkable that his childhood isn't

(19:01):
that over the top. Well, we just don't know that
much about like what happened in the orphanage or what
that's sucking. Soviet orphanage in the late forties that probably
wasn't the best place you can Probably you probably some
bad stuff, But I really don't know because there's just
not like Turkmenistan is still a very close society, so
there's not a whole lot of information. I can't imagine
this guy keeping good records, know what's going on. Not

(19:24):
a big fan of that now. Um, Turkmenistan launched its
own currency, the man, in the late or in the
early nineteen nineties. It's great wealth meant that the money
launched at parody with the U. S. Dollar. So at
the start, the Turkmenistan man is worth one U. S dollar,
which is great. You know. Yeah, a new country, your
dollar is a pretty good thing to be worth. In
the early nineteen nineties, uh Niyazov's face was, of course,

(19:47):
prominently printed on each and every bill. Um. Now, it's
not true that his popularity was without conflict. Dissidents were
punished brutally, although he was pretty popular at first. Because
the Turkmen had been treated like ship by the Soviet Union,
and now that were independent, uh, there was enough money
for both ridiculous statues and social programs. So Turkmen Boshi
tripled the salaries of public employees, He heavily subsidized food,

(20:09):
and he offered free gas, electricity, and water to all citizens.
He also spent a hundred and thirty million dollars turning
his presidential seven sixty seven into an airborne palace. Yeah,
so a little bit for you, a little bit from
a little bit for you, a lot a lot for me,
get golden statues for me. Gasoline is basically free. Uh
so you know, I mean as a citizen at this point,

(20:32):
it's not the worst case and it's not the worst
not the worst case scenario. It's just like, Okay, well
there's a bunch of just terrible statues of this, really
bad statues. But you know what I'm not I'm not
paying for gas. I'm not paying for gas. We will
see where this story goes. But speaking of not complaining,
you know what makes me not complain? I want to

(20:53):
say adds, yes, adds for the odd product, a couple
of services. Okay, maybe maybe even an ad for bubbly
sparkling water, the only sparkling water that tastes terrible and
mixed with lacroix. That is that going to get us
any money? Sovie? Alright, ads, and we're back. We're talking

(21:21):
about Turkmen boshi Uh, dictator of Turkmenistan and at this
point not doing terrible. A lot of statues, way too
much money on the plane. Gold Baby. I'm really thinking
about that gold baby thing because I think what it
is is that making a statue of yourself as an adult. Like, yeah,
that's messed up, but it's celebrating your big birth as

(21:43):
this special event. Yeah, Like there's really only the one
person that we do that with. Yeah, if someone else
is doing it, like, that's it's a bold statement. It's
a bold statement. And I gotta say, Dave you really
on the right track with that, with that? Oh yeah, delight.
So at this point in Niazov does not seem like

(22:04):
the worst case scenario for a dictator. The Turkmen people
were at least getting something while he robbed the country blind.
But Niyazov's corruption quickly took its toll on the national economy.
After bribing former U S Secretary of State Alexander Haig
to lobby on Turkmenistan's behalf, he almost succeeded in gletting
the Clinton administration to open the country up to American investment.
The deal got to rail because Niazov demanded of all

(22:26):
invested money go to him personally. Yeah, I can see
them moving that out, but I get a third of everything.
I know. You don't know. Now, this turned out to
be a bad idea because most of Turkmenistan's regional trading partners.
The former Soviet states suffered economic collapses after their first

(22:50):
few years of capitalism. Uh They stopped being able to
buy Turkmenistan's fuel production fell by two thirds, and all
that sweet plane and statue money stopped coming in. Niyazov
responded to this with an effort to boost the country's
internal economy. He did this by modernizing the capital, Ashgabat.
According to the book Inside Central Asia by Dilip hero Quote,

(23:11):
modernizing Ashkabat meant raising many central neighborhoods to create a
network of bulls of ards with lavish palaces of white
marble and green tinted glass, dotted with massive fountains and
statues of Niyazov and his parents, as well as historical
Turkmen personalities, guarded by uniform security men standing to attention.
The city would become the site of the largest fountain
in the world, a multi storied shopping mall with water

(23:31):
gushing out of the roof and pouring down in a
ring of waterfalls. Its main avenue would end up with
twenty two five star hotels where foreign guests would be
accommodated only in the rooms that were bugged. Many of
the displaced families did not get alternative accommodation or compensation
as they could not prove the ownership of their homes.
How modern bulldozes hundreds of houses, builds twenty two hotels,

(23:54):
and nobody's visiting Turkmenistan at this point, Like there's no
foreign visits. Yeah, but did you hear about fountain that
fucking fountains the ship. That's when I think the future.
I think, how can we make water fall in neat ways?
That is what the future is. And how can we
fill a city with enough gold fountains that we need
to have permanent security guards stationed to stop people from

(24:16):
stealing the gold because we bulldozed their houses and they're
all poor, solid move, solid move Now. Building a shipload
of hotels and additional statues during an economic downturn may
not seem like a great idea, but that's just because
you and I are in economic geniuses like Turkmens. Yeah. Now,
to keep the economy afloat, Turkmenistan Central Bank started printing

(24:39):
money like it was going out of fucking style. Inflation
hit three percent and the menot went from being at
one to one parody with the U S dollar to
being at fifty two hundred to one parody with the
US dollar. It turns out that's not a great strategy.
Nobody could have predicted that. No, I mean, you know,
it's the econty. Nobody knows. It's like, it's like predicting

(25:02):
that offering people a lot of ballooning interest rate mortgages
on their houses and like loans and stuff would eventually
lead to a massive foreclosure. Christ who could who could
have seen that come? They did all the right things,
They got the statues, they got the statues, and what
is it? Warren Buffett always says, when the economy is bad,
build more fountains. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's basic economics one

(25:24):
oh two. At least. Now, as his entire nation suffered,
so did Turkmen Boshy. His doctors told him that his
arteries had hardened, probably because of his massive chronic alcoholism
constant cigarette smoking. Uh. He would need major heart surgery,
which he received in a German clinic. Uh. He survived
the surgery, but it seems to have wrought a change
in him. Up to this point, he had been the

(25:44):
absolute ruler of Turkmenistan, but he was more or less
normal for like an absolute ruler, you know, banning political parties,
building tons of statues, sacred police, nothing super wild, like
like it was some fun stuff, but like the dictators stuff,
as far as ruthless dictators go, this is pretty by
the book, pretty by the book. After his heart surgery,

(26:06):
Niazov began to treat his nation as an extension of himself.
His doctor told him he had to stop smoking, so
he ordered all cabinet ministers to stop smoking too. He
banned smoking in public places and even smoking out in
the street. Sucks, It really sucks. Why can't we smoke
outside anymore? The president's hearts turned my house into a
gold fountain. Let me smoke, Let me smoke. My house

(26:31):
is a statue of you as a baby. Well. He
was rebuilding his capital in the Muslim Las Vegas and
dealing with hard issues and being a nut turkmen bosh,
he managed to maintain his policy of careful, stringent neutrality.
He joined the non Aligned movement in and commemorated the
event with a hundred and seventy foot tall neutrality arch
in downtown Ashgabad. It is described as an amalgam of

(26:54):
a triffid Eiffels, Eiffel Tower and a marble covered base rocket. Sophie, I,
I I'll finish describing this first, but can you look
up the Neutrality Arch so I can show Dave now.
A few years later, after his heart surgery, turkmen Bosh
he added another statue to the top of the Neutrality Arch,
a twenty two foot tall golden plated statue of himself
wearing Superman's cape with his arms extended into the air.

(27:16):
The statue rotates three hundred and sixty degrees every day,
so his face is always facing the sun. Turkmen Boshi
required that the statue be visible from the International Airport,
many miles away from the city. Also, the airport was
named after him. Of course, of course this is now.
This is reminded me of that Futurama episode where Benderbill's
the giant exactly remember me, Like, didn't shoot fire out

(27:38):
of it, no, but it's it's pretty close to that.
So if he we'll have a picture up on the website.
Look at that phone. Yeah, when I think the word neutral,
that's that's what's what I think of when I think
of neutral. Holy shi it. I love that he saw that.
He was like needs another statue, needs another statue of
me made out of gold wearing a cape. Oh my god.

(27:59):
So turk and Boshi took his neutrality as seriously as
he took his absurd statues and monuments. He renamed the
official newspaper from Turkmenistan to Neutral Turkmenistan. He replaced the
national anthem Turkmenistan with independent Neutral Turkmenistan State anthem. He
wrote both the words and the music for this song.
I'm just gonna read the words. I'm just gonna read

(28:21):
the first verse because I find it funny. I don't
know how to sing this. I am ready to give
life for our native heart. The spirit of ancestors descendants
are famous for. My land is sacred. My flag plays
in the world, A symbol of the great neutral country flies.
This is why you gotta outsource, Your gotta outsarch your song.

(28:42):
Right dictators or tomorrow, don't think you can do anything.
It's also of the of the ways to inspire a people.
The word neutral is not one of them, like the
Swiss are neutral. It's not like the session word. It's
again another Futurama reference. Oh, post surgery Turkmen Bosh. He

(29:06):
succeeded in getting a second chance to dance with Uncle Sam.
He made some deals that included Unokal, an American corporation,
helping Turkmenistan to build a gigantic pipeline. The fact that
an American company won the contract looked very good to
the White House. There was talk of okaying more investment
in Turkmenistan. But in January of that year, those Pesky
State Department bastards released their yearly report on human rights.

(29:28):
They noted that Turkmenistan had made basically no progress towards
democracy since leaving the Soviet Union. The Clinton administration asked
Nia's off to give them what Heroes book calls a
gesture towards democratization. In return, Turkmen Bosh would be invited
to the White House. Now, he visited the US once before,
shortly after taking power, but he'd been ignored by everybody. Uh,
And this was something Turkmen Bosh you very badly wanted

(29:50):
for reasons I don't understand, but probably boiled down to eagle.
He wanted pictures with the American president. It was like
his thing. So that February, Nika'sov got up in front
of Turkmenistan's high officials and promised to amend to the constitution,
giving more power to parliament and less to himself. True
to his word, Bill Clinton invited him to the White House.
Turkmen Boshi immediately reneged on his promises now that he

(30:10):
had the invitation, and said that any constitutional amendments would
have to wait until the parliamentary elections in December of
What a shocker. What a shocker. You can't just be like, look,
you have to you have to say you'll do this,
and then you can take pictures with me, Like, you
have to make sure they actually follow through, right, I mean,
if we cared about democracy, that's I don't know, if

(30:34):
we cared, They're like, look, you have to at least pretend, yeah,
like just so we can all look good, Yeah, for
at least a moment, for at least a second. Yeah,
let us pretend that we care about freedom around the world,
which you know he did. He gave Americans the ability
to feel like the good guys for one last time
before nine eleven. That's true, So thank you, turkmen Boshi.

(30:58):
Sonia's off spit a fun week in the United States
hanging out with Bill Clinton, and al Gore and talking
about democracy uh and all the democracy that he was
totally gonna bring to his people. There were, of course
questions from the press and outrage from people who didn't
like dictators. I'm going to quote from the book Inside
Central Asia here quote. In his press briefing, the White
House spokesman explained that, just as in the case of China,

(31:19):
the US national economic interest outweighed the administration's concern over
Niyazov's dismal record on post Soviet reform. When questioned on
the issues of civil liberties and multiparty democracy, it's such
forms as the Council on Foreign Relations in New York,
Niyazov repeated and not the argument that political liberalization would
follow only after independence and stability had been consolidated. His
statement that no one had been arrested in Turkmenistan for

(31:40):
political reasons flew in the face of the recent State
Department report on Turkmenistan. The opposition was repressed, with leading
dissidents either imprisoned or committed to psychiatric hospitals. The reality
is that a roughly twenty thousand people had been imprisoned,
so it's frustratingly hard to find many stories of the
victims of Turkmen Bosh's regime, because again, it's still a
pretty close at soxiety. Uh. The imprisoned were generally tracked

(32:02):
by secret police after being freed to keep them from talking.
I did find one Telegraph article that interviewed a former
enemy of the state. Here's what he said about his
time in a Turkmenistan prison. Quote. I had read about
the beatings and electric shock therapy, which I experienced in prison,
but it was the unexpected techniques that really damaged me.
I was fitted with a gas mask in the airvant
was closed. They played tapes of my relatives being beaten

(32:24):
after they were arrested. Their suffering was mine. It was terrible. Wow. Yeah,
that he did not mass execute people. Uh. He did
have some people killed, but he didn't do mass executions.
His thing seems to be if you stepped out of line,
he'd arrest your whole family and beat the ship up
and then tape them and creative villain. Yeah Jesus, Yeah,

(32:45):
it is one of those one of those dictator strategies
that I hadn't run into yet, which is like like
obviously people's families being threatened like that specific way, it's like, okay, well,
at least you're an innovator. Yeah. Uh. He also tortured
shiploads of people, although he did, you know, avoid the
mass murder that like a guy like Bachar Lassad is
famous for Turkmen. Boshi was smart enough to avoid doing

(33:05):
anything too obviously horrible, like you know, bombing you know,
a dissident chunk of the city or whatever. And so
he never really provoked mass outrage from the United States
or any of its allies. Since he only tortured and
imprisoned people, our government was happy to take his money, or,
to be more accurate, let major US corporations take his money. Right,
he's staying under the radar, staying right under the radar. Yeah,

(33:27):
smart guy, Smart guy. Elections came Une point nine percent
of the country showed up to choose between a hundred
and four candidates for fifty seats in the parliament. So
he kept his promise. People got to vote. Yeah, they
got to vote for parliament. Now all of the candidates
were members of the same party which he headed. Uh,
but it's something, but it's a yeah, you've yeah, you

(33:49):
got to press a button or like write a name.
Write it's democracy, twice as many choices as there were seats,
and even they were all from It's something. Uh. The
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe did not send
out election observers, which they normally do in situations like this,
because the elections were seen as too much of a

(34:10):
sham to be worth observing. After the election, the delegates
who had been voted in unanimously declared that Niyazov was
president for life. Yeah. Democracy, So lucky for him, he
really nailed it. Yeah, he must be very popular now
president for life. Niazov introduced a new set of civil

(34:31):
rights for his citizens. So this is seeming like he's
making his promise. I mean he didn't. He didn't choose
to be president. No, he the people demanded that he'd
be president, and he gave them new civil rights. Uh.
He did not, however, have a great grasp on what
civil rights are. So his first new civil rights was
to cancel all internet licenses except the state owned Telecom

(34:55):
Telecom Company, Continuing to prove that he really didn't have
a good handle on the concept of civil rights. Niyazov
next band Ballet and Opera, calling them, calling them alien
to Turkmen. Culture. Somewhere there's like a smoking ballet Dancer's
just like I can't have a cigarette, I can't do ballet.
Just staring at that golden baby got damn uh. Yeah,

(35:21):
he ordered the country's few movie theaters shut down, but
he did replace the movie theaters with a single enormous
puppet theater in the capital. What is wrong with him? Okay,
don't you like puppet? What happened at that orphanage? That's
that's the real question with this guy. A friend of puppet,
like a roll of cellulose fell out of a movie

(35:42):
theater and crushed his favorite puppeteer. Yeah, this is story
to feel like he's he's trolling his country on purpose,
Like I'm going to get rid of the movie theaters
and give them puppet puppet shows. Christ. Yeah. His exact
justification was something along the lines of, like, all these
movies made by foreign people are going to make people
not like the way we talk here in Well, yeah,

(36:05):
if he's trying to control the internet and movies, yeah,
he's definitely trying to make people in this country not
realize just how screwed they are at the moment. Yeah,
how how not not great? It is? To not be
able to fucking banning ballet, Like what subversive about ballet?
Even Stalin had ballets. Still, you could make your own movies. Yeah, ballet.

(36:27):
He must have like dated a ballet dancer or something.
Get is heartbroken. Yeah, it all feels so personal. Yeah,
it really does. Like that's the thing. That's the thing
that's weird about this Guy's that every decision he makes
feels like like a guy who got pissed at something
like then banned it for the entire country. Right, But
like cigarettes sucked up my heart, nobody gets to smoke.

(36:47):
As someone who loves movies, I'm real peeved about the
movie thing, because if you're gonna ban movies and then
make better movies or something, don't replace it with puppets,
because your people are going to see that and be like,
I know there's something better than I know it gets
better than puppets. I know this is the best we
can do. So in two thousand one, Present for Life

(37:12):
and puppet Lover turkmen Boshi embarked on the next great
chapter of his career as a dictator and as a luminary.
He wrote a book, Oh God, not just any book,
His Opus, The Runama was billed by him as the
most important book since the Koran. Part history text, part

(37:33):
guide to life, part religious book, and all crazy. The
Runama was the pinnacle of everything insane dictator literature can be.
Here's how Turkmen Boshi described the book in his own introduction.
Runama is a visit to this land. Runama is a
visit to the past of this territory and a visit
to the future of this territory. Runama is the visit
made to the heart of the Turkmen. Runama is a

(37:54):
sweet spiritual fruit grown in this territory. No human being
who has not experienced what I have lived through can
understand me. Wow, it's a little bit of emo. That special.
He's a real special boy. He's a real special boy. Now.
The book is partly fictional, jumping between modern day and
the Middle Ages, and focused around a character Saparmaratnsov, whose

(38:15):
birth was ordained by God himself, a character with his
name who is God's profit on earth. M M. I
wonder if it's based on anyway. If you're gonna write
a book like this, at least do it under a
different name or something, because you can't say you're God. Well,

(38:36):
God's profit on Earth, God's profit. He's not saying he's
better than Mohammed, just that he's newer than Mohammed and
so should be taken more seriously than the prophet of
the Muslims, right, the new cool Mohammed. Yeah, he'll let
you drink, but you can't smoke, which I mean, I
guess Actually that's a that is a help. Well, yeah,

(38:57):
this kind of a watch. Actually. Yeah. Ah. So we're
going to talk about the Runama, and I'm going to
read you some of it's timeless wisdom. But first you
know what else is timelessly wise? Oh? God, I want
to say, ads, you're you're, you're, you nailed it, all right, products,

(39:23):
we're back, all right. So, uh, we're talking about the Runama,
a book in which saparmarrotnie is Off writes about himself
as God's prophet. Uh. He goes on a quest to
discover the history of the Turkmen's uh, and during that
quest he learns that he is God's son essentially. Uh.
Good for him, good for him? Yeah, he Well, he

(39:44):
was a child ordained by God and probably probably his
mom was impregnated by divine will. Uh. In other words.
Saparmaratniezov wrote an explicitly Turkmen themed Bible with himself as
Jesus and mixed it with a self help book and
like one of those history books. Below'riley writes like, that's
that's kind of the Runama in a nutshell. It's all
these red flags just smushed together. It's a lot. Yeah.

(40:06):
Now I'm gonna level with you all. I did not
have time this week to read the entirety of the Runama.
I may get back to it someday, because apparently reading
it three times guarantees you entry into heaven. Yeah, I
think next vacation or something. Just read it on the beach.
Read it on the beach. I did learn reading Paul
throws New Yorker article that apparently you you are guaranteed

(40:26):
a trip to heaven if you read it three times.
So you know, people out there, if you're sinning, if
you're if you're doing anything terrible, Uh, maybe read the
Runama three times in a row. I also feel like
more books should use that for marketing because it's like, well,
I mean they're probably wrong, but what if they're right?
What if they're it's just three Yeah, and then you

(40:48):
just gotta read it through just yet, you gotta read
it three times? Does it? Does it count? If you
do like the thing where like kindle like where it
reads the book for you. You can do it on
double speed. I don't know that would trick God. Dave,
let me let me read to you where Paul Throw
learned that this was apparently what Saparmarra was saying. He

(41:09):
apparently was told this by a cab driver during a
visit to Turkmenistan. So I'm gonna quote from that conversation.
He was on TV last night. My driver said, well,
he's on almost every night. Turkmen almost never said Turkmen
Boshi's name aloud. He said, if you read my book
three times, you will go to heaven. How does he
know this? He said, I asked Allah to arrange it. So, yeah,

(41:31):
so he told Allah to do so. He told God
that if you read his book three times, anyone who
he told a promo code? Yeah, exactly. He's doing with podcasters.
But God, can we work something out here? Yeah? This
is the heavenly equivalent of offering a discount code on
a mattress. Good for him, working with God? Yeah, working

(41:56):
with God now Paul Throw, being a better journalist than me,
read the entirety of the Runama. He described it as
a confused mixture of memoire, Turkmen lore, potted history, dietary suggestions,
Soviet bashing, boasting, wild promises, and Turkmen Boshi's poems. He
seemed to regard it as both a sort of koran
and as a how to guide for the Turkmen people,
a jingoistic pep talk. In fact, it is little more

(42:17):
than a sopa for chloroform in print. As Mark Twain
described the Book of Mormon, I read it once. Turkmen
Boshi would have to promise more than heaven I for
we to read it two more times. Yeah. I think
if you're not a dictator, we call this a manifesto.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. This is just the ravings of
a madman. And I do feel like in another society,
Turkmen Bosh he is a guy who mails people bombs

(42:38):
and forces the New York Times to print as manifest
And it's it's those little things that's like hidden in there,
like recipes. It's like, oh, you just want to be
listened to. Yeah, you were just dictating this to somebody
and stopped at some point string of consciousness. Now I
did skin the Runama in search of some of the

(43:00):
apparently ageless wisdom that Turkmen Boshi blessed the world with
in his book. I can tell it's definitely the book
of an old man who was worried about dying because
he writes about time a lot. But the way he
writes about time makes no sense at all to me.
Quote the devil keeps a close eye over your time
and faith, both of which are your precious belongings. Time
is your life in this world and faith is your
life in the other world. Wasting time means losing one's

(43:22):
life or oneself. Teach your child how to save his
time and life. All that you can save of time
will belong to you. Time is a mace hit or
be hit. Huh, So you can hit time? What does
that mean? Like, I get saving time. It's valuable to
have more time, obviously, what is time as a mase? Mean?
How do you hit someone with time? I'm trying to

(43:44):
I mean, I want to know. I want to know
how how do you get hit with time? Like jail? Yeah? Yeah,
Like Marty McFly had this experience. Marty McFly might might
be the only person who's taken turkmen Boshi's advice get
hit by the DeLorean from did get hit by the Dolorean?

(44:05):
Al Right, well, we're finding some logic in this. Thinking
about this one for a while. You know, he did
come to power in the mid eighties, so it's possible
he was a big back to the future. Yeah, DeLorean
is it's a metallic it's yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Turkmen Boshi also had a lot to say on the
subject of laziness. He was not for it. Quote, laziness

(44:28):
means being profligate and living one leaving oneself to be
blown about by the winds of fate. Be hard working
and you will generate returns in cash. Be lazy and
you will get into debt. The comfort that laziness provides
is like the taste of a sour cucumber. Out of
mercy for yourself, work, joblessness, lack of wisdom, and laziness
will damage you more than your enemies ever could. Time
is a wild predator, but if you train it, you

(44:48):
may use it to your benefit. Do not be subject
to time. Let it be your subject lives, so that
you regret nothing when you die. Living does not only
mean passing time. It means reaching eternity after passing through time.
I don't think you should train time by hitting it though. Yeah,
that doesn't seem that seems like time is going to
grow up like abused and problems. I don't want time

(45:08):
to turn on me. You do not want time to
turn on you, although that is the one thing time
does to everybody. Yeah. Yeah, also bold decision, uh, speaking
out against laziness. Yeah really, really really now. The Runama
also includes handy advice on how to obtain world peace. Quote,

(45:31):
if everybody likes their own nation, then the nations will
like each other. It feels like I think that's not
how that works. Like that's the opposite of how that work. Yeah,
I think historically feel like the nation really likes itself.
The first problem, that's the first step to other nations
ceasing to exist, is one nation really liking itself, likes

(45:54):
itself so much. It's like, guys, you gotta try this nation.
You gotta try being Germany. It's pretty sweet here in Germany.
Oh you don't want some, now, come here, come here,
come here. You're gonna try. You're gonna take some Germany.
You'll love it. You'll love it. Turkmenistanard like that's what
the Soviet Union did to them, Just like, right, this
is going so well, we're just gonna keep going now.

(46:17):
The Runama also includes handy advice. Oh sorry, already read
that part. I didn't edit this, which is unusual for
me because I'm a hacking of fraud. So everyone should know. No,
this is raw. We're going, we're raw dogging. It is
punk rock where we are talking raw talking. That's one
of my favorite terms. It's just so visceral and gross

(46:38):
re It's just the nastiest way to describe that. I
love it. Okay, So are you wondering, Dave, how Niyazov
defined the concept of a nation. Oh, yes, yeah, well,
nation is the transformation of human groups in the context
of certain spiritual foundations. A nation is shaped materially according
to these spiritual foundations. You get what I need statues?

(47:04):
Is that where he's going, you got to have, like,
you're not a nation unless you have, like I don't know,
ten or more statues. Yeah, I mean way more than
ten statues. Right, that's a minimum? That is that a minimum? Yeah? So? Uh?
In the Runama, Turkmen Boshi credits the Turkmen people with
many great historical innovations, including the invention of robots, the
invention of white wheat, and the invention of the wheel.

(47:26):
What ye, robots and the wheel? How did he? How
did robots get into that? I do not know, Dave.
I could see, like anybody can kind of claim the wheel,
because it's like, who's going to prove them? Who's going
to prove you wrong? Yeah, it might have been Turkman.
I don't know. Yeah, for all we know, but robots,
I feel like we have that written down, Like we're
pretty clear on robots. Yeah. So I cannot say that

(47:50):
my limited reading of the Runama has led me to
any staggering revelations about my place in the universe. But
Nazov was adamant that his people needed to read this book.
He acquired anyone entering a Moscow or a church to
kiss a copy of the Runama before going into worship.
And Yeah. In a different New Yorker article by Macy
halford I found one possible explanation of Niyazov's motivation in

(48:12):
writing the Runama. The person who provided it is just
described as a scholar. I think because they're a person
from Turkmenistan who doesn't want to have their family tortured
fair enough. Yeah, quote, Niyazov was somewhat illiterate. He couldn't
read or write Turkmen or Russian properly. People who have disabilities,
for example of literacy want to be seen as geniuses.
That's probably what got him started. I don't know about

(48:33):
that logic either, but it's funny that he can't read.
I mean, it's definitely most dictators are compensating for things, right, Yeah,
that part seems in It probably starts with like a
profound lack of confidence, where it's like, you know, just
you're you're fine, man, you're fine. You don't have to
build this many statues and and hear of your people

(48:53):
or bulldoz or houses or whatever. Yeah, like it's all right,
you're fine, you're fine, You're doing great, buddy. We were
all impressed when you were an engineer. Yeah, you didn't
do the rest of this. Great career would have been
a great career. We would have done so much good things.
Is that just as an engineer keeping the lights on,
not building golden baby statues? You think that's where it started.

(49:15):
As an engineer, he was like, you know what I
really need want to like engineer is statues, statues. That's yeah,
closer than yeah, it's comfortable. So once it was published.
Once the Runama was published, Turkmen Boshi did everything in
his power to make it a central part of turkmenistan life.
According to the book Inside Central Asia, Niazov erected a

(49:36):
commemorative complex in his home village of gip Jack, conceived
as a symbol of the rebirth of the Turkmen nation,
which included a mosque whose walls carry quotations from the
Koran as well as the Runama. Yeah, that's bold. The
Turkmen government ordered a prominent display of the Runama, not
only in bookshops and official buildings, but also in mosques
and churches, sharing its place with the Koran or the Bible.

(49:57):
The colossal pink statue of the Runama and Ashkabat was
too conspicuous to be missed. Another decree extended the book's
presence to libraries and schools and made it a part
of the curriculum. To be able to recite passages of
the book became a badge of honor. Next, civil servants,
teachers and doctors were required to pass a test on
its teachings. Then this requirement also became part of the
driving test. The Runama was lauded in songs, and the

(50:18):
state run media regularly broadcast or printed excerpts from it.
Criticizing the book even in private was tantamount to criticizing Niyazov,
an offense punishable with a five year jail sentence. Niyazov
redesigned the educational system, reducing the compulsory schooling from two
years to one uh in higher education by three years
down to a mere two Inexplicably, he reduced the college
and university enrollments to ten percent of the then current figure.

(50:42):
He banned the teaching of foreign languages and decreed that
the exceptional history and culture of Turkmen must be stressed
with his Runama to act as the load star. The
worst part is this book sounds terrible. It's a terrible book.
And then he bans other languages and cuts like, reduces
school by a half so that nobody has any education,
so that presumably they'll find his book more compelling. Exactly,

(51:04):
you can of these people reading other books. No, Yeah,
it's like it's like if Neil Breener Tommy Wise, Oh
opened a theater and had like Citizen Cane posters next
to the room. Yeah, and it was just walled with
that and like started a film school where they're like, look,
we're just going to focus on the room, on the classics. Yeah,
but gradually they phase out Citizen Kane for just exactly

(51:24):
he's trying to create. He's basically lowering the bar as
much as he can to make his book the best
thing around. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what's happening. That's infuriating now. Uh.
You may have noted from from that passage. I read
a little note about a statue of the Runama that
was put up in the capital. Oh. I have a

(51:45):
video of that statue day uh and and it'll be
up on our side behind the Bastards dot Com. But
I've got to show it to you, and I'd like
you to describe it to our listeners because most of
them are probably jogging or driving or shopping at the
moment and can't get a video. I hope they're pooping
to Okay, I'm not sure what I'm seeing right now.
There's like cool, very cool, it's very cool music. I've

(52:08):
seen a lot of colors. I feel like it should
be high. Um. Oh wow, it's a book. It's a
very colorful book. Is this a statue? Is a statue?
It's opening? Oh my god, it is a giant sly
opens every night in Ashgabaty. It opens every night. This
is like a Disney attraction in this Like this should

(52:31):
be like the Story of snow White opens the New
Coral's Old Spiritual Guide for the people. It's an interact.
It's like a moving Is that a per chance? There's
of course, there's fastest children are expected to learn. Wow,
he loves his book, so as anyone who wants to
get a driver's license. But what is the point of

(52:54):
that he made you memorize bits of it to get
a driver's license? Yeah? Why? Okay, there's so much to
unpack here. So first of all, that he loves his
books so much that you made a giant statue that
just opens, a statue that opens, Yeah, just like celebrating
the act of opening his book. Okay, so the driver's license.

(53:18):
What in the book helps with driving? Well, you gotta
know how to use time as a mace dave, otherwise
you're gonna get hit. So back to the delrium ba.
See it all ties together, the internal logics consistent. I mean,
I'm gonna be honest. After writing a book I was,
I'm pretty proud of it, right, But I don't think
I would build a giant statue of my book A

(53:41):
Brief History of Ice. I would build a statue of
your book. But see, if you build it, it's fine,
It is fine. Yeah, exactly. I should note that reading
my book will not help you pass the driver's test.
You never know. Don't sell yourself short, don't presume what

(54:02):
people will take away from your book. I learned how
to merge from you. But this is this is a
running theme with like Kadafi with that astronaut thing, with
the death of the dictators are like brutal and do
all these things, and then they're like, but you gotta
read my stuff, you gotta read my book. It's just like,
why don't we start with that, Like, let's all read

(54:23):
their your brook first and we'll praise you and then
you don't have to hurt everybody. It's it's it's you
know what it is like. And someone has a post
go viral on Twitter unexpectedly and they link their SoundCloud
or something it's the v But if you're in charge
of a country, right, yeah, oh god, I'm in charge everybody.
Look at this, so many follows. I didn't expect this, guys,

(54:47):
didn't expect this. Guys, here's my PayPal. Oh wait, I'm
in charge of where all the oil and gas money goes,
so it just goes right to my bank account. Uh
So that's all we're gonna talk about in part one
of this episode. But when we come back, we're going
to talk about Turkman Boss. He's post two thousand one career,
and trust me, Dave, it's going to go even further
off the rails. Turns out all the craziness we've talked

(55:08):
about so far was just a dress rehearsal. Oh yeah, yeah,
So you got any plug double as you want to
plug before we uh we head out. I guess So
I have a I have a podcast network that run
with Tom Ryman called Gamefully Unemployed. You can check us
out at patreon dot com slash gamefully Unemployed. We have

(55:29):
a new show called Fox Molders a Maniac. It's exclusive. Yeah,
it's uh, it's our behind the bastards, but just for Fox.
Fust for Fox molders, so check it out. Yeah, donate
to gamefully Unemployed fantastic podcasts Tom and Dave two the
funniest guys I know. Please please give them your dollars,
give them your sense, uh, mail them your your really anything? Yeah, shirts, pants, yeah,

(55:54):
oh god, yeah, pop tarts, uh, severed heads of horses,
all of those things. You're appreciated. And look up this
podcast Behind the Bastards dot com on the Internet, and
uh you find the sources for this. You can find
us on Twitter and Instagram and at Bastards pod. Uh
T shirts we we do, we have a we have

(56:15):
a we have a brand new uh do crimes Save
Lives Robal Wallenberg shirts. Uh. If you're a fan of
our episode on Rule Wallenberg, you can get those from
t public Behind the Bastard shop. So help us help
ourselves to the money that we get from T shirt sets.
Also mail them horsehead also mail us horse sets any

(56:36):
kind of head really Yeah, No more Commodo dragon heads,
we have gotten too many of those. Uh old Commoto
dragons are still welcome, very very appreciated. Name. I'm Robert Evans.
This has been Behind the Bastards. I love you. Eight