The crisp air of autumn has brought out a poetic strain in Turkmenistan’s president, who last week regaled his citizens with some verses.
A poem of four quatrains appeared on October 17 in a front page splash on the Russian language edition of government daily Neutral Turkmenistan.
The lines are accompanied of a photograph of Gurbanguly Berdymukhameov in a blue suit-and-tie combination, stiffly holding his right hand up in a half-wave.
A title in large green letters bears the name of the poem: “Onward! And Only Onward, Land of my Kin — Turkmenistan!”:
Oh beloved Motherland,
You are amity and spring!
Peace — a universal banner,
And a symbol for all!
Upward, forward, onward!
Land of my kin — Turkmenistan!
Onward! And only onward
Land of my kin — Turkmenistan!
Our lives infused with joy,
Oh what times we live in!
And always onward,
Oh nation heroic.
Upward, forward, onward!
Land of my kin — Turkmenistan!
Onward! And only onward
Land of my kin — Turkmenistan!
The composition is not especially ambitious, although it does rhyme in the Russian version at least. That said, Berdymukhamedov rhymes Turkmenistan with Turkmenistan on two separate occasions, so hardly ground-breaking stuff.
Berdymukhamedov has a growing list of written works to his name.
In 2013, he published a novel about his father’s youth called “The Bird of Happiness.” He earlier wrote books on medicinal plants, carpet weaving, horses, history and ethnography.
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