Saparmurat Niyazov
Saparmurat Niyazov renamed the months of the year after his family and declared his country permanently neutral, which is the only one of his decisions that outlived him. He was an orphan of the Ashgabat earthquake of 1948, which killed most of the city including his mother, and rose through the party to run Soviet Turkmenistan in 1985. Independence came in 1991 without a movement demanding it, and he simply continued, taking the title Turkmenbashi - head of the Turkmen - and then the presidency for life. The cult was extravagant even by the standards of the genre. A gold statue of him rotated to face the sun. His book of spiritual guidance, the Ruhnama, was required reading in schools, in mosques and in the driving test. January was renamed after him and April after his mother, and one town was renamed for a horse. The policy that mattered was neutrality. In 1995 the United Nations recognised Turkmenistan's permanent neutrality by resolution, the only such recognition of its kind, and it has kept the country out of the Russian-led security and economic blocs its neighbours joined - and out of most other things as well. Gas made this affordable: Turkmenistan has among the largest reserves in the world, sold mostly to Russia and later to China, and the revenue paid for free electricity and petrol at a few cents a litre. It did not pay for hospitals outside the capital, which he closed, or for the Academy of Sciences, which he abolished. He died in office in 2006 and his dentist succeeded him.
- Lived: 1940 CE – 2006 CE
- Nationality: Turkmen
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
