Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the most important filter on the development of tourism in Turkmenistan
is the strict requirement to purchase accommodation, transportation and
other services, without which a visa will be refused. The Turkmenistan
government uses this to attempt to obtain total control over the movement
of all foreigners. Deviations from the designated program may be made
only with the regime's consent by an authorized travel agency. The reason
for requiring a guide during travel in Turkmenistan (outside of Ashgabat),
which also applies to individual tourists, is to prevent locations prohibited
by the state from being seen. Experience shows that this gives rise to a
significant increase in travel expenses, especially for individual tourists, in
addition to creating a psychological and financial obstacle, which makes
entry to Turkmenistan more difficult. On the one hand, the official guides
are—especially for individual tourists—the sole mediators of life in Turk-
menistan. In practice, though, it is they who can present that side of life
in the country which power demand to be hidden (impoverished areas,
corruption etc.). In reality, the person working as a guide and his/her self-
critical observations is very important.
Tourists who, normally from lack of funding, do not wish to or can-
not pay for a full program in Turkmenistan must rely instead upon being
granted a transit visa, which is normally issued for a five-day period. This
is enough time to transit the country, but only allows trips to one or two lo-
cations and thereby fails to take advantage of Turkmenistan's full potential
for tourists. Most tourists take advantage of the fact that granting a visa is
not tied to further services by travel agencies. Turkmenistan's visa policy
thus focuses primarily on very strict control of foreigners. For this rea-
son, Turkmenistan's policy is the most reminiscent of all the post-Soviet
countries of what travel had been during the Soviet era. This significantly
impacts the tourist potential of Turkmenistan as an attractive, exotic tour-
ist destination. A short-term transit visa does not allow tourists to make
adequate use of all the options that should be available to them, and the
tourist visa is not available for the majority of people.
In looking at the visa policy of Central Asian countries overall, a gen-
eral equality relation may be seen between the internal character of the
regime, the amount of effort it puts into isolating itself from the external
world, and its visa policy. On the one hand there is Kyrgyzstan, whose
regime is much more liberal (in the context of the region) and whose visa
policy is the most open. On the other hand, there are the strong authoritar-
ian systems of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, whose conditions for granting
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