if being a crazed megalomaniacal dictator was an olympic event--and it really should be--my money would be on saparmurad a  niyazov to bring the gold back to turkmenistan.  niyazov, who also refers to himself as turkmenbashi ("father of turkmens"), may not be a household name here and now, but that'll probably change when a.) he does something really nuts following the failure of his plan to build an ice palace (yup out of real ice)  in the hot-as-hell turkmenistan mountains or  b.) his plans to build the aforementioned palace succeed, he invites the world to check it out and people from outside of the country take him up on the invite. 

while the turkmens themselves are likely to bear the brunt of the former (as if they aren't already),  option b. holds the promise of visitors being killed by unskilled  turkmen drivers,  jailed for having gold teeth and/or beards or, most troubling of all,  returning to their home countries intact but bearing a gift that keeps on giving: the black plague.

should you, after reading those two paragraphs,  suspect i'm the one who's lost it, i'll happily concede the point.  please don't let that minor detail deter you from delving deeper into the bizarro world that is niyazov's turkmenistan. .

"Let us build a palace of ice," niyazov challenged the turkmens , "big and grand enough for 1,000 people. Our children can learn to ski. we can build cafes there, and restaurants."  

turkmenbashi sn't  the first to propose constructing a grand ice palace. residents of st paul, mn have been built them every winter for over 100 years  unlike minnesota (which has been called the siberia of the usa) turkmenistan is one of the hottest countries on earth.   niyazov's designated palace site may be high in the copa deg mountains but not high enough to keep the joint from self-liguidation.  

the ice palace idea can succeed by failing because niyazov also wants to build a giant lake in the hot-as-hell turkmenistan desert so there's an upside to all that ice melting.  it's not like the man's a novice at  planning the grandiose. he's made his mark in ashgabat, the capital city of turkmenistan, where a giant golden statue of himself  revolves 360 degrees each day  to keep the sun constantly shining on his giant turkmenbashi countenance.  he's also in the process of building one of the largest mosques in the world. 

all that planning and building hasn't stopped him from engaging in normal day-to-day tyrant stuff  like offering beauty tips that have the effect of law, causing men to shave their beards and women to have their gold crowns  ripped out lest they offend. or changing the test given to applicants for drivers' licenses from ' rules of the road'  to questions about the contents of the ruhnama--a book of spiritual writings authored by niyazov himself.  after all,.."the exam in the Ruhnama is needed to educate future drivers in the high moral principles of Turkmen society"

incidentally, a copy of the ruhnama is placed in mosques alongside the qu'ran where confused worshippers can touch it on the way in.

despite his demigod status, turkmenbashi's excesses-which keep much of the population in poverty in spite of the country's rich oil and gas resources-- haven't totally estranged him from the common man. last week, when his deputy prime minister, dortkuli aydogidyve, enacted a business tax hike from 1% to 20%,  niyazov not only annulled the increase--he fined the errant politician 3 months wages.  “This decision has led to a price surge in the market literally in one day. That is why Aydogdiyev is deprived of three-month wages and his resolution on raising taxes is annulled,” niyazov declared, warning his underlings against trying to fix the economy with  fiscal measures would make life harder for ordinary citizens. 

their leader is also working to change health care in turkmenistan by firing most of the country's licensed healthcare workers to save money.  those with degrees from foreign universities were dumped  for having training that's incompatible with turkmenistan's principles.

not to worry.  to make up for it, the great turkmenbashi made disease illegal. to make sure everyone got the message, there's also a law against even discussing infectious diseases.  it might be as absurdly amusing as all of the above, if turkmenistan's  anti-epidemic emergency commission was correct in saying  "the epidemiological situation on the territory of turkmenistan is safe. there are no cases of dangerous diseases."

in fact, there is reason to believe the country is already experiencing an epidemic thanks to our old friend,  yersinia pestis,  the germ that causes plague.  it's common to the rodents of central asia and strains they carry are among the oldest, most virulent and most dangerous in the world. turkmenistan's leading vector vermin is the giant gerbil. thanks to excellent recent grain harvests in central asia, there are lots of giant gerbils in turkmenistan. 

in 1950, a similar outbreak wiped out several hundred people who were all ultimately infected by direct or indirect contact with one nomadic hunter who was bitten by flea.  by the time he returned to his family, the disease had spread to his lungs and become pneumonic (air borne) and, therefore,  extremely contagious. as those around him succumbed, others fled, carrying the germs with them.  fortunately for the world, turkmenistan was then part of the soviet union (!) so military medical teams were sent in withantibiotics, quarantine was strictly imposed and corpses were incinerated. by using draconian tactics, the ussr managed to contain what could have been a catastrophic disaster.

the black death of 1347-1351 is believed to have been a primarily pneumonic plague that exploded out of central asia and killed an estimated 40 million people. plague has never been totally eliminated though.  there are annual seasonal outbreaks in california and elsewhere in the usa but theyre routinely dealt with and usually kill only the animals who host infected fleas.. thanks to modern medicine and the practice of modern epidemiology, the occasional human who contracts plague lives to talk about it.  the typical survival rate is now about 85%--in countries where its not illegal to discuss the disease. 

according to dissidents, deaths are now occurring in merv in the southeast, in the capital city of ashgabat and in the city of turkmenbashi (formerly known as krasnovodsk) on the shores of the caspian sea. though some reports state that this outbreak of plague is bubonic, and thus spread only by infected fleas or direct contact with a sick animal, others are claiming outbreaks of  the super-contagious pneumonic form.

it's impossible to determine the accuracy of those reports because niyazov crippled the country's care system and controls the press. tests run by the government of uzbekistan confirm the presence of infected fleas and rodents near its border with turkmenistan.  workers near the border have been vaccinated as have thousands of camels.  russia has banned the import of monkeys, cats and camels from turkmenistan. as martha brill olcott--an expert on the politics of central asia--warns,  "The president is wholly unpredictable and does not behave rationally. No one takes seriously that his policies can have tragic consequences for the people of Turkmenistan and those of neighboring countries."

in summary, i'm crazy and so is turkmenbashi (btw the crime of parricide in turkmenistan is officially defined as 'questioning the policy of the president'), but i'm not the one who may well be responsible for a plague on all our houses.