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How the President of Ukraine helps bring Ashgabat to a halt
OK, so I want to preface this by saying that Ashgabat is not really a bustling city to begin with, although of course it has streets and traffic and rush hour like everywhere else. Anytime the President wants to go ANYWHERE sh!t hits the fan. The roads that he will be using are closed. Pedestrians are forced to hide behind bushes or in parking lots until he passes. Windows must be closed. Cars must not be in parking lots (so oftentimes new parking lots sprout up behind the buildings on the road he is passing, instead of in front of the shopping center they are trying to get to).
Enter Viktor Yanukovych, the President of Ukraine. Now, the President of Turkmenistan is going to more meetings and hanging out with the Ukrainian President. So his comings and goings are more frequent and so no one is ever certain which roads will be closed and when. Viktor decides to stay at the only nice hotel in town, the Sofitel. FH booked us a night there for my birthday, not knowing about the chaos that Viktor would cause. So our driver is trying to take us to the hotel via small back roads, but alas, the cops are there! He explains that he has !Americans! in the car that are staying at the hotel. So they allow him to offroad through the dirt to get us closer to the main road, where we run into more police. He again explains that !Americans! are in the car and staying at the hotel, while we stand there annoyed with our bags. They ask to see our card key and we explain we are going to check in. They allow us to walk the final half mile up to the hotel. Ugh, but fine.
So we start trudging up the hill and in 3 minutes run into more police. We try to explain the same thing, but without our driver, we can't communicate very well with them. Eventually we are told that we can walk around the hotel to the apartment side and enter through there. But we have to cross the closed street and walk on the other side, for some horribly pointless reason. So we cross 3 lanes, a little park/promenade with grass, fountains and lamposts, then another 3 lanes and walk along a park. Then we are forced to go under an underpass instead of just letting us cross the empty road! This whole time we are being escorted by one of the security guards, who is trying to explain that it's because the Ukrainian president is in town. As if that explains this and it's all normal!
15 minutes later we arrive in front of the side entrance to the hotel, which has set up a portable metal detector. They don't have our name on the hotel list, so we have to try to explain that for 10 minutes, until they finally call someone over who speaks English, who gets that we are trying to check in and FINALLY gets us into the hotel, 45 minutes after we left our apartment 2 miles away.
This morning, the streets were all closed again, so I just waited in the hotel until the President left so the roads would be open (we asked the night before; why they have no problem telling everyone his schedule is beyond me). Guys, it's at times like these where we think to ourselves, "why are we living here? We need to get out of this place." Everyone thinks this is normal!! Imagine what would happen if Obama made old ladies squat behind bushes because his car was passing by on that street?! Or if they closed down half the streets in DC because some foreign dignitary was in town? Ahhhh - the crazy ways of Ashgabat!
Re: How the President of Ukraine helps bring Ashgabat to a halt
I love your stories of Ashgabat!
I also love your Ashgabat stories! You need to post more photos!
The G20 will be taking place here in November, it is going to be hell. We have to get security passes to be able to go home, the whole downtown will be shut down. Also no windows allowed open. We live right in front of where the police are expecting the protesters to congregate. Urgh. We are planning to go somewhere so we won't have to deal with it all.
I think you'll be way to busy to post photos when you're in Italy, you know, with YOUR wedding and all!
BFP Apr 2012, EDD Dec 19 2012 * twin h/b at 6wk, 9wk scan * Baby A lost at 12wks, Baby B was my rainbow born at 36wks