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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 001406 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN, DRL, INR/B 
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PLEASE PASS TO USTDA DAN STEIN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/02/2018 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR SOCI TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN:  BERDIMUHAMEDOV'S NEW YEAR 
DINNER-CABARET -- SIMPLE PLEASURES, MILD POLITICAL SATIRE, 
LITTLE ALCOHOL 
 
Classified By: CHARGE RICHARD E. HOAGLAND FOR REASONS 1.4 (B), (D) 
 
¶1.  (SBU) President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov's December 28 
New Year party provided a glimpse of his government at work 
-- and at play.  The Ministry of Culture and Broadcasting 
organized it as a dinner-cabaret (to be televised later) in 
the south wing of the central Exhibition Palace.  Guests 
included the deputy chairmen of the Cabinet of Ministers 
(equivalent to deputy prime ministers), ministers and their 
deputies, heads of state agencies, members of Parliament, 
chairmen of public organizations and state enterprises, the 
diplomatic corps, and TV and movie stars past and present. 
 
A WINTER WONDERLAND 
 
¶2.  (U) Set designers transformed the three-story atrium-like 
space into a winter wonderland of white-silk snow drifts, 
blue-lit New Year trees, and an elaborately designed and 
expansive stage at the opposite end from the head table.  The 
first and second balconies held TV cameras and various 
lighting effects, including sweeping green laser lights and 
multi-colored strobes. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  Guests were told to arrive at 4:00 pm for the 
planned 5:00 pm event, but Berdimuhamedov didn't arrive until 
nearly 6:00 pm.  (NOTE:  Until very recently, guests at 
presidential events were customarily told to arrive 20 
minutes early for security check, and the president was 
always punctual to the minute.  However, for the recent 
opening of the UN Preventive Diplomacy Center, guests were 
told to arrive at 9:30am for the 10:00am opening.  The 
President showed up at 9:40am, and only four diplomats were 
present to be filmed greeting Berdimuhamedov.  The others, 
embarrassingly, showed up several minutes later.  According 
to subsequent press reports, Berdimuhamedov spent extra time, 
right before the New Year's party, playing with children at 
the lighting of the national New Year tree on the plaza in 
front of the Presidential Palace, and then decided to walk 
the two blocks to the Exhibition Palace, further delaying his 
arrival.  END NOTE.)  During the two-hour wait for the 
president, the master of ceremonies, a well-known TV 
variety-show star in a black cut-velvet dinner jacket, 
imperiously went to each ambassador who had been invited to 
offer a toast and laid down the law that the toast could not 
be more than 60 seconds, and shorter would be better. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  When the president finally arrived, he walked down 
the red carpet to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" played by flanking 
teenaged violinists, saxophonists, and an electric keyboard. 
Still wearing his overcoat, he sauntered into the dinner hall 
and feigned surprise for the TV cameras. 
 
WHO RANKS 
 
¶5.  (SBU) At the head table, the same size as the other round 
tables (although the fruit plate held two extra pineapples 
and the fish appetizer plate had real smoked salmon rather 
than smoked whitefish), Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign 
Minister Rashit Meredov sat to his left looking lordly, and 
to his right were Speaker of Parliament Akja Nurberdiyeva and 
Deputy Prime Minister of Oil and Gas Tachberdi Tagiyev.  At 
the table to the president's left were the power ministers -- 
defense, security, interior, presidential guard -- all in 
business suits rather than uniforms.  At the table to the 
president's right were the other deputy prime ministers. 
 
CAVIAR CARPE DIEM 
 
 
ASHGABAT 00001406  002 OF 003 
 
 
¶6.  (C) Charge was  seated at the next table to the deputy 
prime ministers with the outgoing and incoming diplomatic 
doyens and the Russian and UAE ambassadors.  During the final 
hour of the wait for the president to appear, incoming doyen 
Kyrgyz Ambassador Zarylbek Akmatbekov started passing around 
the caviar, advising, "Eat it now.  It's free.  It won't 
last."  And to prove his point, he scooped up a third of it. 
Russian Ambassador Igor Blatov pointedly laid his Dunhill 
Blue cigarettes and gold lighter on the table, but the 
waiters didn't bring an ash tray because smoking is forbidden 
in public.  During the dinner, he made several smoke-trips to 
the men's room -- also forbidden but generally tolerated. 
 
¶7.  (U) The show (and dinner) finally started with several 
very credible arias from Italian opera and Gershwin, followed 
by a Russian balalaika band and then two traditional Turkmen 
folk songs. 
 
SIMPLY HAPPY NEW YEAR 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The lights came back up and it was time for the 
diplomats' toasts.  Russia, China, the UAE, and Japan droned 
on interminably, despite the master of ceremonies' 
admonition, from their prepared texts about GDPs, trade 
figures, and cultural relations.  For the first time, the 
Charge was asked to offer a toast in public, suggesting the 
waning power of outgoing doyen Armenian Ambassador Armen 
Grigoryan, who had always previously cast non-accredited 
charges into socio-diplomatic outer darkness.  Drawing a 
laugh from the president and the audience by repeating the 
master of ceremonies' admonition about brevity, Charge simply 
noted it had been an extraordinary year for U.S.-Turkmenistan 
relations, that we firmly support the president's reforms, 
and wished him, his government, and all the people of 
Turkmenistan peace, health, happiness, success, and 
prosperity in the new year. 
 
WELCOME TO THE CATSKILLS ON THE CASPIAN 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The rest of the programmed entertainment during the 
long, long evening, was song-skits.  TV professionals 
performed most of them, comedy songs with topical references 
verging on very mild political satire -- much like vaudeville 
skits from the turn of the 20th century, even with all the 
standard characters of that genre, including the dopey fat 
guy -- c.f., Laurel and Hardy.  (NOTE:  Russian-Soviet 
middle-brow theater skits were almost all based on 
19th-century Jewish popular theater, and elite Turkmen 
culture is Russian-Soviet to the core.  END NOTE.)  The 
deputy prime ministers and ministers were on the edges of 
their chairs with delight.  Two guest-of-honor elderly 
actors, one male and one female, read long, long poems 
praising Turkmen history and culture. 
 
REELING IN THE BIG FISH 
 
¶10.  (C) Most interesting for an outside observer was that 
government groups performed two of the song-skits.  Minister 
of Textile Industry (and Niyazov-era political prisoner) 
Jemal Goklenova, who has an increasingly high public profile, 
led a vamping fashion show performed by her deputies and 
department heads, with the men playing as fey as possible 
(suggesting slightly risque comedy indeed exists in 
post-police-state Turkmenistan).  The ministers, chairmen, 
and directors of the oil and gas sector, all draped in tinsel 
garland and led by State Hydrocarbon Agency Executive 
Director Bayrammurat Muradov, performed the famous Russian 
fairytale of catching the goldfish, with real fishing rods 
 
ASHGABAT 00001406  003 OF 003 
 
 
and a big plastic goldfish, and turned it into a political 
statement about "reeling in the big international contracts." 
 
¶11.  (C) An hour of traditional Central Asian circle dancing 
followed the skits, led first by the impossibly tall and 
willowy offiial "hostess-models" who are at nearly every 
high-level public event.  The decidedly drunk outgoing 
diplomatic doyen hit hard on Deputy Prime Minister of 
Culture, TV Broadcasting, and Press Maysa Yazmuhammedova to 
try to get her to dance.  She politely but adamantly refused, 
and the male deputy prime ministers firmly ushered Ambassador 
Grigoryan back to his table where he draped a napkin over his 
head. 
 
NO ALCOHOL, PLEASE 
 
¶12.  (C) Toward the end of the evening, President 
Berdimuhamedov, along with Foreign Minister Meredov (who 
increasingly appears, at least in public, to be Number Two), 
made the rounds of the VIP tables, stopping to speak with 
each diplomat and minister.  When they stopped to chat with 
the Charge, Meredov commented, "Perfect toast."  The 
president asked, "Is everything OK with you?"  Charge 
replied, "Yes, Mr. President, but I'd like to have better 
access to your ministers."  Berdimuhamedov responded, "Well, 
why not?"  Meredov winced.  (NOTE:  His MFA, along with the 
Ministry of Security, controls access.  END NOTE.) 
 
¶13.  (C) Each of the VIP guests offered the president a toast 
as he stopped to chat, but he simply put his one glass of red 
wine to his lips for each toast, and by the end of his rounds 
of the entire room, the glass was only half empty.  Meredov 
did not carry a glass.  The day before, the Foreign Ministry 
had returned the Embassy's New Year gratuity of California 
wine, noting "The Foreign Minister does not accept alcohol." 
 
COMMENT 
 
¶14.  (SBU) As the departing crowd shivered in the unusual 
cold wave and waited at curb-side for the swarm of black 
Mercedes and diplomatic limos to pull up, a European charge 
commented, "It was rather both pre-modern and post-modern, 
wasn't it."  Yes.  END COMMENT. 
HOAGLAND