Suharto

Turkmen Disneyland (AGUSTINUS WIBOWO) Days were always cloudy and cold during my stay in Ashgabat. Today was not exception. Every Sunday, some old stamp and coin collectors gathered in front of Lenin Statue to exchange and sell their collection. Most of them were senior Russians, from 40 years to 70 years of age.As anything else here, philatelic and numismatic hobbies in Turkmenistan also went to bizarre way. The post office didn’t sell stamps more than for postage purpose. The stamps were printed abroad in limited quota, sold to some government officials who would then distribute the stamps through their own channels. This made Turkmenistan stamps incredibly difficult to get in their own country. Sometimes it was even easier and cheaper to buy Turkmen stamps in Russia rather than in Ashgabat. Mikail might be the youngest collector among those gray-haired old men in the park. He invited me to his house, some blocks north, to see his collection. “Life here is difficult, we don’t [read more]