Kilometer 14 802: who was the first to wear socks with high heels aka Turkmen fashion

Dolce and Gabbana could come here to get inspired and express their admiration for the innovative marrying of various fabrics and the choice of motives.

Patterned, batiste headscarves, velvet dresses long enough to reach half of the skyrocketing heels in a contrasting colour, merrily broidered coats emphasizing the small waists and thick plaits reaching those waists. Local women dress more colourfully than I do!

They contrast with the icy white marble of Ashgabat almost absurdly, but it’s enough to get away from the capital, take a walk around the perforated streets of the charming silky Këneurgench or enter a roadside chaikhana to see what a pretty composition they make against a fluffy red carpet (watch out, it’s not allowed to take the carpets out of the country, you’ll have to find other souvenirs), enormous pillows scattered around the room, a weird little table and a crooked iron stove.

We gladly fitted ourselves into this picture and filled our stomachs with plov – a rice-carrot-meat dish, followed by very weak green tea and delicious nougat chocolates (oh, what the heck, my dvd coach’s sight doesn’t reach Turkmenistan). Our broken Russian is not always enough, sometimes it would come in handy to speak some broken Turkish, as in Central Asia not even all locals can understand each other! There’s a bit of an ethnic mesh here: turkmenity intermingles with uzbecity and russianity, that’s why the multi-coloured jolly company is as happy as we are with every successful act of communication.