WEEKLY WHINE

An appeal on behalf of the Turkmenistan Tourism Board

The Turkmen capital of Ashgabat has opened a new airport. This facility has everything, except, of course, passengers.

Foreign visitors rarely come to Turkmenistan; visitors from most other nations need visas, which may only be obtained with a letter of invitation from a travel agency based in Turkmenistan. The repressive police state has repeatedly come under criticism from international human rights monitors: religious freedom exists in the text of the national constitution but not in real life, journalists have repeatedly been harassed and imprisoned, and the public do not have access to the Internet.

Are you sold yet?

What do you mean no?

Well, we thought this might happen. So we’ve asked the GoobNet Special Projects Enhancement and Enforcement Division [SPEED] to come up with some tourism slogans for Turkmenistan. One of these will no doubt convince you.

• See the World Famous Akhal-Teke Horse Beauty Pageant
• Come for the Personality Cult, Stay for the Free Utilities
• See for Yourself That We’re Not Where Borat Was From
• Meet Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, the Man who Makes Kim Jong Un Look Like John F Kennedy
• What Makes a Man Turn Neutral? Come See for Yourself!
• Come Find Out Why Everyone is Talking About the Ruhnama [Hint: We’re Required To]
• See for Yourself Whether or Not We Took Down All the Statues of Niyazov
• Can You Put Out the Flaming Hole in the Ground?
• No, Really, Borat Was from Kazakhstan
• Get Your Own Copy of the Ruhnama
• Or Better Yet, Come to the Huge One in Downtown Ashgabat
• Actually, Borat Was a Fictional Character, So He Wasn’t Really Kazakh. He Was a Creation of Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen Who Was Designed to Con People Into Revealing Unsavoury Aspects of Their Personalities