July 17, 2017 • 31 mins
Saparmurat Niyazov (Super-murat Ne-yah-zov) was born on February 19th, 1940 in the former Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan. He didn’t have the best childhood. His father either died fighting Nazis in World War II or dodged fighting and was therefore sentenced by a military court (two different stories on this). When he was 8 his mother and both his siblings were killed in an earthquake that leveled the city they were living in when the building they were all in collapsed. Niyazov spent 8 days digging himself out of the rubble with his bare hands. When he emerged he was the only living member of his family so he was shipped off to a Soviet-run orphanage in the middle of the mountains. (More on the podcast)
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(00:21):
Welcome to try to start late.Hey, Yeah, why didn't you come
in on time? Because I knewthat you were going to start talking.
I was waiting. Welcome to MistakesWere Made a podcast about mistakes made in
history, hosted by two guys whoare mistakes themselves. I am Robert Bacon,
and with me as always is myco host Mike cough Man. Yeah.
(00:41):
What was that new sound effect youadded in the beginning? You that
was you? I don't that wasyou. I don't know. That was
a woo woo sound. Yeah.I was like, is that a button
that you hit now or not?Is that there's no? I mean,
I didn't that adds something to theshow. I think we should talk about
it. I mean, the soundboard is hooked up right to my phone.
Sexst one. I just feel likeyou're making decisions. You ready for
this one? Ye? Read readyfor this one? Ready to jump right
(01:02):
in j jomp jump super Marat.I'm sorry, super hold on, super
Marat, SuPAR Marat. Where that'sit? This gentleman from SuPAR Marat Niyazov
Niyazov, Okay, you're not speakingEnglish? What is that? Was born
(01:23):
on February nineteenth, nineteen forty inthe former Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan. Now
I understand everything. I'm just gonnacall him Nani from now on. Can
can I see it real quick?Yeah? Sorry? S oh boy by
by super Marat Niyazov. Nini.Yeah, his name is Nini, probably
(01:46):
went by Nini uh Nini. Justlike most people on this podcast, he
didn't have the best childhood. Hisfather either died fighting the Nazis in World
War Two or dodged fighting and alcoholism. We don't know. It's hard to
tell, but you'll be okay,won't you accept Nini? Or he dodged
(02:08):
fighting and was therefore sentenced by amilitary court. There were two different stories
on this that I read about mostpeople. I do believe that he died
fighting fighting Nazis in World Wars.Your father died fighting, I promise.
Yeah. When Nini was eight,his mother and both his siblings were killed
in an earthquake that leveled the citywhere they were living in. When a
(02:30):
building that they were living in collapsed, Nini spent Nini spent eight days digging
himself out of the rubble with hisbare hands. Wow. When he emerged,
he was the only living member ofhis family, so he was shipped
off to the Soviet run orphanage inthe middle of the mountains. How old
(02:53):
is he at this point? Eighteight years old? And he spent eight
days in rubble yep, and survived. I imagine this one. You're living
in Turkmenistan. Oh God, soworry. How could he get worse than
this? Giant earthquakes hits Turkmenistan destroyshuge cities in there. My family's okay?
(03:14):
Ooh, nope, sorry, Notonly did your dad die a long
time ago, but now your motherand both your siblings are dead. And
he died in the war fighting theNazis. Yep. But now you have
to stay. You have to spendeight days digging yourself out of rubble.
Oh fort cool of rock. Sothen when you get out, everything's gonna
be cool, right right? Oh, I'm the strongest kid alive. Nope,
we're gonna send you to an orphanage. But I'm okay, But I
(03:37):
like I'm super strong. I justdug myself out. I'm probably good enough.
I'm independent. We'll see how strongyou are there. Despite all of
this, Ninie persevered. He gota scholarship and earned a degree in power
engineering and then got a job inan electrical routing station near his hometown.
Wow, so he lived his wholelife. Fine, he got a good
(03:59):
job, he got a good educationand a good job. But he wasn't
satisfied with this and wanted more.So he became a politician. Hey,
Nini, what do you want tobe when you grow up? I want
to rule Exmenistan Turkmenistan. Well,I made up a country and I want
to rule. This next part getscomplicated, So in order to get the
(04:25):
good stuff, I'm just gonna tellyou, I'm just gonna tell you that
thanks to the collapse of the SovietUnion, which was controlling the area of
Turkmenistan, a power vacuum occurred andTurkmenistan switched from a Soviet republic to its
own independent state. Nice Turkmenistan,and now we need somebody to rule it.
(04:46):
May takers Nini? Yeah, Ninibecame president when he ran unopposed and
he won ninety nine point nine percentof the popular vote. Usually that's a
sign that he didn't actually win andthen it was a rigged election. But
in this case, amazing, andit must be true. This is always
like, this is how you know, it's a dictator. Nine percent.
(05:10):
That never happened. That never happens. Okay, and he's what fourteen at
this point. No, he's he'sa full grownment. Okay, welcome.
So one of his first orders ofbusiness was to replace all the communist images
of Marx and Lenin with his ownimage. So back in the day when
Soviet Russia controlled a lot of thatstuff, they put they put up.
There's a whole documentary on like allthese statues of the I got. So
(05:33):
they've got like Big Carl Marx's,yeah, Big Lennon's, John Lennons,
Oh my god. He then founded, uh, the Association of Turkman's of
the World, an organization that existedonly so Nini could officially and formally announce
himself supreme ruler of all the Turkmenpeople on the planet. Yeah, supreme
(05:57):
ruler. That sounds like a termthat of someone I would elect. Yeah,
this is somebody you vote on.Who would you like your supreme ruler
to be? So he becomes presidentwith nine percent of the vote. Okay.
He then decides to make up awhole new association in which he becomes
supreme ruler of all the Turkmen peoplein the entire world, not only people
like if you really it doesn't matterif you moved, if you moved still
(06:20):
got ye. I love in Pennsylvania. Your mind nope, mind? Oh
God, he's like your mind.Hope he is. He is their pope,
He's the Turkmen Pope. He's ourpope. We gotta listen to him.
To appropriately commemorate this new responsibility,he then officially changed his last name
to Turkmen Bashi no, which meansfather of all the Turkmens. That's like
(06:45):
the pope changed in his last nameto the Pope the Christians. Yeah,
the Christians. He then renamed thetown of a cross novistic Turkman Bashi after
himself. So he changed his nameto Urkman Bashi. Honestly, look,
that's easier to say than the oldnames. Yeah, go for it.
Nini is now Turkmen Bashi has becomeTurkmen Boshi. Got it okay uh And
(07:11):
he renamed uh schools, airports,theaters, a brand of vodka, two
kinds of cologne, a kind oftea, and even a meteorite after himself
and members of his family. Oh, I'd like to I'd like to buy
the turkmen boshi. Which one?Oh yeah, the turkmen boshi. Okay,
(07:32):
there's two kinds. Oh, theturkmen boshi looks and smells great.
Cool, the red turkmen boshi orthe blue turkmen boshi. Look, I'm
going on a date. Cool andsmell like I want to smell fresh.
Okay, So I'm gonna go withthe turkmen bosh. Cool. You do
know that they're both just straight gasoline. Give me the turkmen boshi. Okay,
(07:53):
it doesn't matter. Just take it. Get out of my store.
That's great too. Of just like, uh, that's named after my mom.
Um, that's named after my dad. That you used to call that
an orange. That's now that's mydad's name. No more oranges. You
know what I'm gonna call Ninie still. Ninie then ordered the construction of a
(08:13):
two hundred and fifty foot tall neutralityarch and a huge marble tower. It
was a huge marble tower with atwelve million dollars gold statue of himself mounted
at the top. No, yeah, what is a neutrality arch. It
is just a giant marble arch.Okay. It's a big France as the
(08:35):
Arc de triomphan and there's a bunchof arches all over Europe. Yeah,
and it's also a I do believeI saw it. It was also like
a fountain. It's just a bigelaborate thing. Million dollars. The statue
is twelve million dollars. Yeah.The other stuff I don't just for that
statue is crazy because it's a giantstatue. It's crazy. Oh. Also,
the best part about the statue it'sgold. No, that's not even
(08:56):
the best part. You want toknow the best part, Oh my god,
it's it talks. I wish itsings. It's animatronic. We'll get
it moves. We'll get to somethingelse later about that. There's something fly.
The statue sat on a mechanical accessthat rotated three hundred and sixty degrees,
so that I was always facing thesun. What Yeah, Okay,
(09:18):
that's a weird. So it's like, Okay, I want this Gian two
hundred fifty gold statue. We gotit. Yeah, but I always wanted
to be staring directly into the sun. Okay, what Yeah, I wanted
to burn its eyeballs out staring atthe sun constantly. Man, that's my
costume. I don't it's like areverse sun dial. Yeah, yeah,
(09:39):
yeah, if you would, ifyou were gonna say you wanted it to
look away from the sun, Iwas gonna say, like, oh maybe
six seven hundred ninie never never looksaway. Yeah, you want to look
at the sun? I always lookdirect boy, all right, that's probably
like ten twelve. No whatever,I'm a dictator, okay, dropping the
bucket, pleasure doing a business withyou. Uh Nini could do all this
(10:05):
because there was a massive amount offoreign income from the gas and petroleum reserves
coming into the country. Really,Turkmenistan had a lot of gas and yep,
a lot of oil. Okay,right, Okay, I didn't know.
Here's here's a list. So otherwisethis would be too long to try
and explain everything. So I've literallyjust made a list of awesome things,
(10:28):
awesome things okay that he did.Are you ready? Let's go through this.
Stop me when you need me.I will, I will. Things
he did great, cool one hewas able to basically eliminate freedom of the
press. Got that right out ofthe way. Whoa okay was that day
one that he was just like no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, you're gonna writewhat I tell you to write.
Yep. The press just became basicallythe stateroom press. Okay, so he
(10:50):
stopped the presses got He eliminated thereligious rites of minority religious groups. Hey,
you're not the majority of religious group, you're done zo. Oh wow,
he was the pope. He changedto the Romanian alphabet, from the
Russian uh crilic letters to Latin basedletters. So you know, have you
ever seen okay, so turkmeniste right, it was part of Russia. Yeah,
(11:13):
have you ever seen Russian letters?They're weird, yes to them,
normal to us, a little weird, yes, So, but he wanted
to go to the Latin based lettersthat like Spanish, English, French use,
so he made everyone adopt to that. No, that's not how that
works. Yeah, he just switchedit. Yeah. Can you imagine,
(11:33):
I mean, just for a second, if in America today, if they
told you all of a sudden thatwe're on the metric system yea, and
that English is no longer our language, or that people would lose their mind.
They would absolutely not. We can'teven go to the metric system,
even though it makes more sense.Yeah, hey, yeah it doesn't.
(11:56):
Because this is America. I liketo I like to pay twelve dollars for
two pigs foot worth of gasoline,and you got it because that's what the
King's foot was exactly. Okay,cool, he created one thing, he
did. He created everyone's tests.Oh man, he created a bunch of
holidays and name them after himself.Yeah. I kind of like that,
(12:16):
though. Did people get off work? I don't know. I don't think
so. Okay, because if theydid, then I like this guy all
of a sudden. I wasn't feelingtoo keen about him, but now I'm
like, all right, I seewhat he's doing. Well. One of
these holidays was just about melons.Oh I love it. What water or
candle? Which doesn't deserve honey?Dude does not. I'm gonna have to
(12:37):
disagree with him on it if itwas candle, but I'd say sure watermelon.
Absolutely. He changed the names ofthe days of the week. You
were drinking when I told you thatone time out? Okay, wait,
wait, wait, wait, Ihave to comment this. That is absurd.
Yep. You can't mess with people'sweek. Everybody's waiting for Friday.
(12:58):
Nope, not this day, waitingfor the weekend. Yeah, thank goodness,
it's I don't know what day itis anymore. Well, Tuesday became
what was translated, if it's translatedinto english's young day? Time out?
And what are there still seven days? There's seven days a week? Okay?
Got him? He changed if hewas like, there's six days.
Now I'm just gonna lose. AndSaturday became spirituality day. Tuesday's what again,
(13:22):
young day, which means what?I don't know. A lot of
the days of the week were alsonamed after him or his family members.
His young Day, Saturday, spiritualityDay, but don't you don't you be
spiritual? And another religion that's notthe major exactly? Got it? Ok
He changed the names of months tohonor his members of his family, so
why not. He already changed thedays of the weekend, do whatever he
(13:43):
wants the rest of the calendar.He banned men from growing beards. Sure
we talked about that before. He'shappening for Yeah, that makes total sense.
In fact, we could do thatnow. He banned opera and ballet
because they were quote unnecessary, buthe oddly increased funding for the arts.
(14:03):
Weird duck. Well, here's anotherone. He had musicians arrested for lip
syncing at concerts and that. Oh, I agree one hundred percent. You
agree with a lot of the stuffbecause look, the guy's making good points.
I'm just saying that you remember fromwhat's her name? Every pop star
(14:24):
ever? Yeah, thank you,that's who I was thinking of. Yeah.
When when they lip sync, yeah, it was just really it broke
my heart. He outlawed the playingof recorded music on TV or at public
events, but what recorded music?You couldn't play recorded music on TV or
at public events and had to belive. You had to play it live.
This guy loves Saturday Night Live,which I get. You had to
(14:46):
play it live. And don't youdare lip sync? I paid for this
concert and I want to see yourperformance. You're not gonna like this one.
No, I love everything this guy'sdone so far. He banished dogs
from the Capitol because he thought,quote they smell, don't be okay.
I do disagree with that one.I don't understand that one. I think,
you know, maybe that's a bathingproblem, and maybe he could have
(15:07):
put it some laws in place tobathe those dogs more properly if that was
the case. He forbid makeup onwomen on TV because Turkmen women already were
naturally beautiful. Okay, interesting complimenthidden with a weird law, right,
like a fort like a law that'sjust like uh, but then nice compliment.
Nini was also not a big fanof education. He banned algebra,
(15:31):
physics, pe, the internet,the hippocratic oath libraries, and made secondary
education only one year long in aclear attempt to dumb down the Turkmen.
A stand population what okay, whichis crazy? Which is which is what
(15:52):
you do? Right? You cancontrol people who aren't smart yep, So
you stop a free press, rightif they don't know anythore and you get
people done right, because knowledge ispower. If they don't have knowledge,
then they're not going to be powerful. But I will agree with him in
one point because I'm telling you thisguy he sees something, he knows something
nobody needs. What is the pointof physical education? That it's the biggest
(16:17):
waste of time? Another cool thing. He used the country's wealth to make
a giant man made lake in themiddle of the desert. He destroyed a
forest to make it a desert.And this guy mixed oil and water.
Right what he made an ice palaceoutside the capitol? How hot is it?
Very gets to like one hundred andtwenty O keep it cold. He
(16:47):
just builds this giant ice palace bythe way, and everyone's like, maybe
you shouldn't do this, even ifyou're a dictator. Hey, did it
any We should probably take a pictureof it because it won't last. It's
He built a ski resort in frontnext to the ice palace. No,
the ice palace was the ski resort. He just built another ski resort,
and he made a one hundred andthirty foot tall pyramid. This guy sounds
(17:11):
like he doesn't understand weather. Itsounds like he's like real opposed. Well,
he's banned weather too. He triedto ban weather. This is the
This is the ultimate. Like,yeah, you you can say, like,
you know, I don't agree withclimate change, right yea, But
this guy, this guy was likehot cold, It's all the same to
me. I don't care snow.I'm making a resort, pyramids, I'm
(17:33):
putting sand down. He wrote anautobiography meant to guide the Turkmenistan people with
his values. Okay, sure,you actually had to read it and take
a test on it to get adriver's license. Here's what's crazy is that
he's banned all other forms of education. Yes, this is his main education.
And now you have to read hisbook, but to get a driver's
(17:56):
test, which I hope, Ihope that somewhere in that book mentioned maybe
stop signs, yield signs, howto drive a car, when to signal,
how many feet to be away froma school bus something. His autobiography
of this book that he wrote,and he even had it put on a
rocket and sent into space because thepress announcement for it said, quote,
(18:17):
the book that conquered the hearts ofmillions on Earth is now a conquering space.
That I mean, he's a genius. Market. He had a fifty
foot statue of the book put upin the middle of the capital of Turkmenistan
that cost and at eight pm everynight this thing opens up, sir,
and a video re quoting plays apassage from the book that's terrifying. Yep,
(18:41):
oh my god. Okay, allright, great, And by the
way, so so many a laserlightshell for his book. Everything so much
stuff is like banned and the bookis like you have to read it,
and he is like basically a god. This is their big form of entertainment.
People gathered around watched this giant bookopen and it's like a big spectacle.
No people are in do it.This is like the Tommy Bartlett Ski
Sky and Stage Show. Oh,if you guys have ever been to the
(19:03):
Wisconsin Dells, you need to gocheck out the Tommy Bartlett Ski Sky and
Stage Show. It is amazing.I love it. I've seen it several
times. It's incredible. Better thana giant golden book. Yes, he
made himself. Then he made arule where he made oh sorry, this
was this is probably in the eighties, I think actually where he made the
book right, because okay, okay, but but it might still be there.
(19:26):
We need to find out. Yeah, he made himself president until two
thousand and two, where there wouldbe another election. Oh my god.
So he was president for so long, so long, and he's like,
all right, you know what,how about I'll just pick a number that's
like seems like a million years away, two and two. The two would
never come. Yeah, that's sofunny. Two thousand and two is this
(19:47):
year that is just impossible to getto. Yeah. And and of course
he exiled, tortured, and killedany of his enemies of course, so
of course he's doing all this awesomestuff and he loses track of time and
all of a sudden it's two thousandand two. Oh boy, and he
has to run for president again.Oh boy. Now, despite of all
(20:08):
this, he was actually universally liked, mostly because before him, Turkmenistan was
a poor Soviet run country and nowthey were actually self sufficient thanks to their
natural grass natural gas resources. Yeah, I was gonna say that natural grass
isn't making them as much money asthey thought. Also in that so,
Nini also kept the country out ofreligious wars, and people really like that
(20:33):
because there was a ton of religiouswars in that area. God, but
it's so's you can do that,it just don't start it. Also,
he was super popular because if yousaid anything bad about him, you would
be thrown into jail. Okay.So yeah, everyone loved him because they
had too. In two thousand andtwo, the same year as the election,
(20:55):
okay, three gunmen, oh boy, opened fire no on Nini's limo,
oh no Nani. Now, manypeople believe that Nini staged this attempt
because shortly after the attempt was made, Nini arrested his only political rival and
threw him into prison. Oh becausethe election is going on, so we
have to go up against somebody.You said people, people suspected, people
(21:18):
suspected. They could I add myselfto that group, yes, because I
think I'm strong sting him for thatcrime. You're going up against one person,
one So then all of a suddenyou stage getting shot at in which
no one gets killed, no one, no one got hurt, And it's
like, oh, the my politicalopponent. Definitely, he did that.
He organized the whole thing. Throwhim. He has all the power.
(21:41):
That guy that I'm running up againsthas all the power. Yeah, he
has all the power. You don'tworry about my power. He has all
of it. So the only guythat was running against him was in the
election was imprisoned for treason, andNini had a tight grip on the country.
So he won the two thousand andtwo election. Guess guess what he
wanted with ninety eight point five percent? No, dude, ninety nine point
(22:02):
nine No, who's that one?Dude? I don't like him. I
don't like him. Oh come on, he's the best. No, dude.
When you're a dictator like this,your ego is so huge you can't
say one percent because it's like butyou can always go ninety nine point nine.
But you can't go less than that. You can go ninety eight point
(22:22):
six. You don't have to gofever. No, they can't. There
can't be that one percent that doesn'tlike him. They hate that hate that
day. They dude, hate it. Wow. So after the election,
he told the guy that was runningagainst him that he would let him out
of prison as long as that guywrote two bucks, one about how he
plotted the assassination attempt and explained everythingabout it, and the other about how
(22:47):
great Nean he is. Oh,so this guy all of a sudden is
like, I'm not a fiction writer. I don't know. Okay, I'll
try too bad he did. Hewrote both books. Oh of course he
did. He ran for his life. Yes, shortly after this, Nini
just decided fuck it and made himselfpresident for life. Wow, yep,
(23:08):
okay, wow, geez. Thiswas great. But in two thousand and
four, two thousand and two,I mean after it's so recent, baking,
it's so recent, this is notOkay, this is all great,
But in two thousand and four,Ninie was obviously getting bored because then he
turned his attention to people with goldcrowns. Burger King no, the gold
(23:33):
crowns that are on your teeth.Oh what, Yes, he had bad
teeth. He said that the peoplehad them because the country had a national
obsession with set sweet tea. Quote. What is this? This is a
quote by him. What I watchedyoung dogs when I was young. They
were given bones to naw. Thoseof you whose teeth have fallen out did
(23:56):
not gnaw on bones. This ismy advice, non bone. He's saying
that you need to harden your teethby gnawing on both. That's what wait,
what does that have to do withsweet tea? He doesn't make any
sense, dude, he does not, especially if you try. If he's
gonna ban sweet teeth, okay,good, because there was gonna be a
(24:18):
revolution. Well, he basically bannedHe banned soft gold teeth, soft foods,
and he was like, only hardfoods. You're gonna gnaw on some
hard foods. Uh. People rushedto swap out their gold teeth for porcelain
ones. What why? Because heoutlawed gold teeth. He said, no,
no, no, no, nogold teeth. Yeah. So if
(24:40):
you're walking around and you were gold, you had a gold tooth, you
know, people are like, oh, shame. That's like the scarlet letter
Shame God, shame, chingy ifChinney went there, shame this guy shame.
Oh that's terrifying. Like he canjust he can just decide something's not
okay and everyone a whim and everyone will get behind it because they don't
(25:02):
want to be not okay, right, like they want to be safe.
And there wasn't like any step,like he would just have all these dictators
have like weekly radio addresses or TVthings, so he would honestly just be
like talking, you know. AndI don't like these gold crowns. Our
country has too many gold crowns,you know, because we drink too much
sweet stuff. You should have beenchewing on bones like those dogs. I
saw. Like he doesn't understand howdogs teeth work. Yeah, apparently not,
(25:26):
so people went to swap out theirgold teeth for postal in one of
these. One of those people wasMissus Taliva, a thirty two year old
laboratory technician. She had been senthome from work because of her offending teeth.
Wow, thirty two years old,she's thirty year old. Thirty years
old? Home? You got yougot gold gold teeth? Get like gold
(25:48):
teeth yep as universities, government departments, and state run companies humored their president
for life. She said, andI quote, I've had gold teeth since
I was eighteen. It was myit was my dowry from my parents when
I got married. Before, Iwas really proud of my teeth. They
showed me as a success. Butnow I cannot work and I cannot have
(26:11):
them. So they pulled him out. Wait, but she swished him for
porcelain. Yeah, okay, youhave to you have to give the money
for that. I don't know.Oh boy, other just gonna ripped out
and you have a hole in yourmy face. Yeah, I guess so,
dude, you can't mess around.Oh yeah, because otherwise you're gonna
get killed or what. I don'tknow. Who knows. Nobody knows.
It couldn't work. Everyone would justlook down get out of her dirty gold
(26:36):
teeth. Yeah, it would justbe considered gross. Wow. In two
thousand and six, nine Supreme Rulerof Turkmenistan died of a heart attack at
the age of sixty six, aftersingle handedly ruling a country of five million
people for over twenty years. Wow. So that wasn't in the eighties then,
(26:56):
So that was like in the ninetieswhen he made that book. Anyway,
he was buried in the biggest mosquein the world. The one hundred
million dollars mosque is a building ofhis own construction that he had decorated with
gold leaf inscriptions of passages from hisautobiography that book. I just I can't
(27:18):
it's ah God, here's one thingI found out. Please. In two
thousand and eight, his replacement hadthe gold rotating statue removed. Oh,
okay, good, that's a stepGod, I hope. But but that
giant mosque is still there and he'sstill his replacement was that person elected.
I think you're gonna have to gofind that one out. And I hated
Cliffhanger. Cliff Oh sorry. Thatis the story of Sumaratni. Yeah,
(27:45):
yeah, yeah, okay, Nani. Here's what terrifies me. Yes,
so many things, so many things. One two thousand and six, this
ended. Yeah, that's because hedied at the age of sixty six,
eleven years ago. Yeah, it'stoo recent. That is scary recent.
Yeah, twenty years this went on, yep, okay. Insanity. Also,
(28:11):
just so many things that he ruledthat he did whatever he wanted.
Also, Here's the number one thingthat I think freaks me out about this
now that I realize that, isthat there are people who have that mindset,
who that if you put them inpower, they love it, they
love it. If you put mein power, you put you in power.
Anybody that we know, they're notgonna go nuts like that, and
(28:33):
then that's why we'll never be inpower. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So like these people are seeking outpower. So I guess I guess the
message the takeaway from me is becareful, be wary of people who are
seeking that power. Yeah, duh, that's why everyone hates politicians. Right
to be a politicians, you kindof have to be a sleeze ball,
(28:55):
right, Like, why do youwant that power? What is in it
for? The salary? Is notthat great? Works a lot than I
make sure me too. We're comedians, Okay, what are we doing with
our lives? Why are we notpoliticians? Timeout? Because I'm not an
awful record, I can't have therecord. We should be politicians. Do
you realize I can have a statueof gold on myself? You can't not
(29:18):
hear it? I could No,I could get kicked out of office.
Oh, come on ram. Emmanuelis still fine. Yeah, he's not
doing fine. He's doing fine.Yeah, but he knows it. Yeah,
people hate him, but he lovesit. But why don't why don't
we try to run? You're beingawful. I'm just saying we could run.
You're being off. Okay, I'mjust saying maybe it wouldn't be a
(29:38):
mistake for me. It's the giantstatue of himself that goes with the sun
and the book. You really shouldlook up I want YouTube video of this
book. Just look look up Turkmenistanbook. Yes, and it'll be the
first thing that comes up on YouTube. I can't wait. It is insane
of like this giant book opening anda video playing on it and then it
(30:00):
closes. No, it is,and it's once a day, every night,
every night, once a day.So of course when you do something
like that once a day, peoplego to check it out. Yeah,
it's like the volcano at like someat the mirage and there that's an example
of a volcano that goes off everyonce in a while. And okay,
I think the book opening at leasta video playing is more entertaining than the
volcano doing that. The the Eiffeltower glitters, it gets sparkles. What
(30:26):
people don't know this Thefel Tower,the Eiffel Tower sparkles on the hour,
every hour at night. What itis incredible sparkles. Look it up.
Flights on it. Eiffel Tower,sparkle. Look it up. Did shoot
sparkles? Nope, it just glittersthe whole thing sparkles. What do you
mean lights on the It explains nineo'clock, ten o'clock, the thing,
(30:47):
the entire Eiffel Tower. You're notexplaining it. You have to look it
up. I'm leaving it to theimagine. Lights on it. Yeah,
it is very Turkmenistani. Okay,well whatever, all right, So that's
the it's his story. Incredible,and I hope those people at Turkmenistan are
doing better now. I hope theygot somebody who's who's not. Maybe you
(31:07):
could do a report for once andlet me know. Okay, you know
what Turks, you did this one, I will do the next one.
Okay. You say that the dealmistakes were mad
Welcome to try to start late.Hey, Yeah, why didn't you come
in on time? Because I knewthat you were going to start talking.
I was waiting. Welcome to MistakesWere Made a podcast about mistakes made in
history, hosted by two guys whoare mistakes themselves. I am Robert Bacon,
and with me as always is myco host Mike cough Man. Yeah.
(00:41):
What was that new sound effect youadded in the beginning? You that
was you? I don't that wasyou. I don't know. That was
a woo woo sound. Yeah.I was like, is that a button
that you hit now or not?Is that there's no? I mean,
I didn't that adds something to theshow. I think we should talk about
it. I mean, the soundboard is hooked up right to my phone.
Sexst one. I just feel likeyou're making decisions. You ready for
this one? Ye? Read readyfor this one? Ready to jump right
(01:02):
in j jomp jump super Marat.I'm sorry, super hold on, super
Marat, SuPAR Marat. Where that'sit? This gentleman from SuPAR Marat Niyazov
Niyazov, Okay, you're not speakingEnglish? What is that? Was born
(01:23):
on February nineteenth, nineteen forty inthe former Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan. Now
I understand everything. I'm just gonnacall him Nani from now on. Can
can I see it real quick?Yeah? Sorry? S oh boy by
by super Marat Niyazov. Nini.Yeah, his name is Nini, probably
(01:46):
went by Nini uh Nini. Justlike most people on this podcast, he
didn't have the best childhood. Hisfather either died fighting the Nazis in World
War Two or dodged fighting and alcoholism. We don't know. It's hard to
tell, but you'll be okay,won't you accept Nini? Or he dodged
(02:08):
fighting and was therefore sentenced by amilitary court. There were two different stories
on this that I read about mostpeople. I do believe that he died
fighting fighting Nazis in World Wars.Your father died fighting, I promise.
Yeah. When Nini was eight,his mother and both his siblings were killed
in an earthquake that leveled the citywhere they were living in. When a
(02:30):
building that they were living in collapsed, Nini spent Nini spent eight days digging
himself out of the rubble with hisbare hands. Wow. When he emerged,
he was the only living member ofhis family, so he was shipped
off to the Soviet run orphanage inthe middle of the mountains. How old
(02:53):
is he at this point? Eighteight years old? And he spent eight
days in rubble yep, and survived. I imagine this one. You're living
in Turkmenistan. Oh God, soworry. How could he get worse than
this? Giant earthquakes hits Turkmenistan destroyshuge cities in there. My family's okay?
(03:14):
Ooh, nope, sorry, Notonly did your dad die a long
time ago, but now your motherand both your siblings are dead. And
he died in the war fighting theNazis. Yep. But now you have
to stay. You have to spendeight days digging yourself out of rubble.
Oh fort cool of rock. Sothen when you get out, everything's gonna
be cool, right right? Oh, I'm the strongest kid alive. Nope,
we're gonna send you to an orphanage. But I'm okay, But I
(03:37):
like I'm super strong. I justdug myself out. I'm probably good enough.
I'm independent. We'll see how strongyou are there. Despite all of
this, Ninie persevered. He gota scholarship and earned a degree in power
engineering and then got a job inan electrical routing station near his hometown.
Wow, so he lived his wholelife. Fine, he got a good
(03:59):
job, he got a good educationand a good job. But he wasn't
satisfied with this and wanted more.So he became a politician. Hey,
Nini, what do you want tobe when you grow up? I want
to rule Exmenistan Turkmenistan. Well,I made up a country and I want
to rule. This next part getscomplicated, So in order to get the
(04:25):
good stuff, I'm just gonna tellyou, I'm just gonna tell you that
thanks to the collapse of the SovietUnion, which was controlling the area of
Turkmenistan, a power vacuum occurred andTurkmenistan switched from a Soviet republic to its
own independent state. Nice Turkmenistan,and now we need somebody to rule it.
(04:46):
May takers Nini? Yeah, Ninibecame president when he ran unopposed and
he won ninety nine point nine percentof the popular vote. Usually that's a
sign that he didn't actually win andthen it was a rigged election. But
in this case, amazing, andit must be true. This is always
like, this is how you know, it's a dictator. Nine percent.
(05:10):
That never happened. That never happens. Okay, and he's what fourteen at
this point. No, he's he'sa full grownment. Okay, welcome.
So one of his first orders ofbusiness was to replace all the communist images
of Marx and Lenin with his ownimage. So back in the day when
Soviet Russia controlled a lot of thatstuff, they put they put up.
There's a whole documentary on like allthese statues of the I got. So
(05:33):
they've got like Big Carl Marx's,yeah, Big Lennon's, John Lennons,
Oh my god. He then founded, uh, the Association of Turkman's of
the World, an organization that existedonly so Nini could officially and formally announce
himself supreme ruler of all the Turkmenpeople on the planet. Yeah, supreme
(05:57):
ruler. That sounds like a termthat of someone I would elect. Yeah,
this is somebody you vote on.Who would you like your supreme ruler
to be? So he becomes presidentwith nine percent of the vote. Okay.
He then decides to make up awhole new association in which he becomes
supreme ruler of all the Turkmen peoplein the entire world, not only people
like if you really it doesn't matterif you moved, if you moved still
(06:20):
got ye. I love in Pennsylvania. Your mind nope, mind? Oh
God, he's like your mind.Hope he is. He is their pope,
He's the Turkmen Pope. He's ourpope. We gotta listen to him.
To appropriately commemorate this new responsibility,he then officially changed his last name
to Turkmen Bashi no, which meansfather of all the Turkmens. That's like
(06:45):
the pope changed in his last nameto the Pope the Christians. Yeah,
the Christians. He then renamed thetown of a cross novistic Turkman Bashi after
himself. So he changed his nameto Urkman Bashi. Honestly, look,
that's easier to say than the oldnames. Yeah, go for it.
Nini is now Turkmen Bashi has becomeTurkmen Boshi. Got it okay uh And
(07:11):
he renamed uh schools, airports,theaters, a brand of vodka, two
kinds of cologne, a kind oftea, and even a meteorite after himself
and members of his family. Oh, I'd like to I'd like to buy
the turkmen boshi. Which one?Oh yeah, the turkmen boshi. Okay,
(07:32):
there's two kinds. Oh, theturkmen boshi looks and smells great.
Cool, the red turkmen boshi orthe blue turkmen boshi. Look, I'm
going on a date. Cool andsmell like I want to smell fresh.
Okay, So I'm gonna go withthe turkmen bosh. Cool. You do
know that they're both just straight gasoline. Give me the turkmen boshi. Okay,
(07:53):
it doesn't matter. Just take it. Get out of my store.
That's great too. Of just like, uh, that's named after my mom.
Um, that's named after my dad. That you used to call that
an orange. That's now that's mydad's name. No more oranges. You
know what I'm gonna call Ninie still. Ninie then ordered the construction of a
(08:13):
two hundred and fifty foot tall neutralityarch and a huge marble tower. It
was a huge marble tower with atwelve million dollars gold statue of himself mounted
at the top. No, yeah, what is a neutrality arch. It
is just a giant marble arch.Okay. It's a big France as the
(08:35):
Arc de triomphan and there's a bunchof arches all over Europe. Yeah,
and it's also a I do believeI saw it. It was also like
a fountain. It's just a bigelaborate thing. Million dollars. The statue
is twelve million dollars. Yeah.The other stuff I don't just for that
statue is crazy because it's a giantstatue. It's crazy. Oh. Also,
the best part about the statue it'sgold. No, that's not even
(08:56):
the best part. You want toknow the best part, Oh my god,
it's it talks. I wish itsings. It's animatronic. We'll get
it moves. We'll get to somethingelse later about that. There's something fly.
The statue sat on a mechanical accessthat rotated three hundred and sixty degrees,
so that I was always facing thesun. What Yeah, Okay,
(09:18):
that's a weird. So it's like, Okay, I want this Gian two
hundred fifty gold statue. We gotit. Yeah, but I always wanted
to be staring directly into the sun. Okay, what Yeah, I wanted
to burn its eyeballs out staring atthe sun constantly. Man, that's my
costume. I don't it's like areverse sun dial. Yeah, yeah,
(09:39):
yeah, if you would, ifyou were gonna say you wanted it to
look away from the sun, Iwas gonna say, like, oh maybe
six seven hundred ninie never never looksaway. Yeah, you want to look
at the sun? I always lookdirect boy, all right, that's probably
like ten twelve. No whatever,I'm a dictator, okay, dropping the
bucket, pleasure doing a business withyou. Uh Nini could do all this
(10:05):
because there was a massive amount offoreign income from the gas and petroleum reserves
coming into the country. Really,Turkmenistan had a lot of gas and yep,
a lot of oil. Okay,right, Okay, I didn't know.
Here's here's a list. So otherwisethis would be too long to try
and explain everything. So I've literallyjust made a list of awesome things,
(10:28):
awesome things okay that he did.Are you ready? Let's go through this.
Stop me when you need me.I will, I will. Things
he did great, cool one hewas able to basically eliminate freedom of the
press. Got that right out ofthe way. Whoa okay was that day
one that he was just like no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, you're gonna writewhat I tell you to write.
Yep. The press just became basicallythe stateroom press. Okay, so he
(10:50):
stopped the presses got He eliminated thereligious rites of minority religious groups. Hey,
you're not the majority of religious group, you're done zo. Oh wow,
he was the pope. He changedto the Romanian alphabet, from the
Russian uh crilic letters to Latin basedletters. So you know, have you
ever seen okay, so turkmeniste right, it was part of Russia. Yeah,
(11:13):
have you ever seen Russian letters?They're weird, yes to them,
normal to us, a little weird, yes, So, but he wanted
to go to the Latin based lettersthat like Spanish, English, French use,
so he made everyone adopt to that. No, that's not how that
works. Yeah, he just switchedit. Yeah. Can you imagine,
(11:33):
I mean, just for a second, if in America today, if they
told you all of a sudden thatwe're on the metric system yea, and
that English is no longer our language, or that people would lose their mind.
They would absolutely not. We can'teven go to the metric system,
even though it makes more sense.Yeah, hey, yeah it doesn't.
(11:56):
Because this is America. I liketo I like to pay twelve dollars for
two pigs foot worth of gasoline,and you got it because that's what the
King's foot was exactly. Okay,cool, he created one thing, he
did. He created everyone's tests.Oh man, he created a bunch of
holidays and name them after himself.Yeah. I kind of like that,
(12:16):
though. Did people get off work? I don't know. I don't think
so. Okay, because if theydid, then I like this guy all
of a sudden. I wasn't feelingtoo keen about him, but now I'm
like, all right, I seewhat he's doing. Well. One of
these holidays was just about melons.Oh I love it. What water or
candle? Which doesn't deserve honey?Dude does not. I'm gonna have to
(12:37):
disagree with him on it if itwas candle, but I'd say sure watermelon.
Absolutely. He changed the names ofthe days of the week. You
were drinking when I told you thatone time out? Okay, wait,
wait, wait, wait, Ihave to comment this. That is absurd.
Yep. You can't mess with people'sweek. Everybody's waiting for Friday.
(12:58):
Nope, not this day, waitingfor the weekend. Yeah, thank goodness,
it's I don't know what day itis anymore. Well, Tuesday became
what was translated, if it's translatedinto english's young day? Time out?
And what are there still seven days? There's seven days a week? Okay?
Got him? He changed if hewas like, there's six days.
Now I'm just gonna lose. AndSaturday became spirituality day. Tuesday's what again,
(13:22):
young day, which means what?I don't know. A lot of
the days of the week were alsonamed after him or his family members.
His young Day, Saturday, spiritualityDay, but don't you don't you be
spiritual? And another religion that's notthe major exactly? Got it? Ok
He changed the names of months tohonor his members of his family, so
why not. He already changed thedays of the weekend, do whatever he
(13:43):
wants the rest of the calendar.He banned men from growing beards. Sure
we talked about that before. He'shappening for Yeah, that makes total sense.
In fact, we could do thatnow. He banned opera and ballet
because they were quote unnecessary, buthe oddly increased funding for the arts.
(14:03):
Weird duck. Well, here's anotherone. He had musicians arrested for lip
syncing at concerts and that. Oh, I agree one hundred percent. You
agree with a lot of the stuffbecause look, the guy's making good points.
I'm just saying that you remember fromwhat's her name? Every pop star
(14:24):
ever? Yeah, thank you,that's who I was thinking of. Yeah.
When when they lip sync, yeah, it was just really it broke
my heart. He outlawed the playingof recorded music on TV or at public
events, but what recorded music?You couldn't play recorded music on TV or
at public events and had to belive. You had to play it live.
This guy loves Saturday Night Live,which I get. You had to
(14:46):
play it live. And don't youdare lip sync? I paid for this
concert and I want to see yourperformance. You're not gonna like this one.
No, I love everything this guy'sdone so far. He banished dogs
from the Capitol because he thought,quote they smell, don't be okay.
I do disagree with that one.I don't understand that one. I think,
you know, maybe that's a bathingproblem, and maybe he could have
(15:07):
put it some laws in place tobathe those dogs more properly if that was
the case. He forbid makeup onwomen on TV because Turkmen women already were
naturally beautiful. Okay, interesting complimenthidden with a weird law, right,
like a fort like a law that'sjust like uh, but then nice compliment.
Nini was also not a big fanof education. He banned algebra,
(15:31):
physics, pe, the internet,the hippocratic oath libraries, and made secondary
education only one year long in aclear attempt to dumb down the Turkmen.
A stand population what okay, whichis crazy? Which is which is what
(15:52):
you do? Right? You cancontrol people who aren't smart yep, So
you stop a free press, rightif they don't know anythore and you get
people done right, because knowledge ispower. If they don't have knowledge,
then they're not going to be powerful. But I will agree with him in
one point because I'm telling you thisguy he sees something, he knows something
nobody needs. What is the pointof physical education? That it's the biggest
(16:17):
waste of time? Another cool thing. He used the country's wealth to make
a giant man made lake in themiddle of the desert. He destroyed a
forest to make it a desert.And this guy mixed oil and water.
Right what he made an ice palaceoutside the capitol? How hot is it?
Very gets to like one hundred andtwenty O keep it cold. He
(16:47):
just builds this giant ice palace bythe way, and everyone's like, maybe
you shouldn't do this, even ifyou're a dictator. Hey, did it
any We should probably take a pictureof it because it won't last. It's
He built a ski resort in frontnext to the ice palace. No,
the ice palace was the ski resort. He just built another ski resort,
and he made a one hundred andthirty foot tall pyramid. This guy sounds
(17:11):
like he doesn't understand weather. Itsounds like he's like real opposed. Well,
he's banned weather too. He triedto ban weather. This is the
This is the ultimate. Like,yeah, you you can say, like,
you know, I don't agree withclimate change, right yea, But
this guy, this guy was likehot cold, It's all the same to
me. I don't care snow.I'm making a resort, pyramids, I'm
(17:33):
putting sand down. He wrote anautobiography meant to guide the Turkmenistan people with
his values. Okay, sure,you actually had to read it and take
a test on it to get adriver's license. Here's what's crazy is that
he's banned all other forms of education. Yes, this is his main education.
And now you have to read hisbook, but to get a driver's
(17:56):
test, which I hope, Ihope that somewhere in that book mentioned maybe
stop signs, yield signs, howto drive a car, when to signal,
how many feet to be away froma school bus something. His autobiography
of this book that he wrote,and he even had it put on a
rocket and sent into space because thepress announcement for it said, quote,
(18:17):
the book that conquered the hearts ofmillions on Earth is now a conquering space.
That I mean, he's a genius. Market. He had a fifty
foot statue of the book put upin the middle of the capital of Turkmenistan
that cost and at eight pm everynight this thing opens up, sir,
and a video re quoting plays apassage from the book that's terrifying. Yep,
(18:41):
oh my god. Okay, allright, great, And by the
way, so so many a laserlightshell for his book. Everything so much
stuff is like banned and the bookis like you have to read it,
and he is like basically a god. This is their big form of entertainment.
People gathered around watched this giant bookopen and it's like a big spectacle.
No people are in do it.This is like the Tommy Bartlett Ski
Sky and Stage Show. Oh,if you guys have ever been to the
(19:03):
Wisconsin Dells, you need to gocheck out the Tommy Bartlett Ski Sky and
Stage Show. It is amazing.I love it. I've seen it several
times. It's incredible. Better thana giant golden book. Yes, he
made himself. Then he made arule where he made oh sorry, this
was this is probably in the eighties, I think actually where he made the
book right, because okay, okay, but but it might still be there.
(19:26):
We need to find out. Yeah, he made himself president until two
thousand and two, where there wouldbe another election. Oh my god.
So he was president for so long, so long, and he's like,
all right, you know what,how about I'll just pick a number that's
like seems like a million years away, two and two. The two would
never come. Yeah, that's sofunny. Two thousand and two is this
(19:47):
year that is just impossible to getto. Yeah. And and of course
he exiled, tortured, and killedany of his enemies of course, so
of course he's doing all this awesomestuff and he loses track of time and
all of a sudden it's two thousandand two. Oh boy, and he
has to run for president again.Oh boy. Now, despite of all
(20:08):
this, he was actually universally liked, mostly because before him, Turkmenistan was
a poor Soviet run country and nowthey were actually self sufficient thanks to their
natural grass natural gas resources. Yeah, I was gonna say that natural grass
isn't making them as much money asthey thought. Also in that so,
Nini also kept the country out ofreligious wars, and people really like that
(20:33):
because there was a ton of religiouswars in that area. God, but
it's so's you can do that,it just don't start it. Also,
he was super popular because if yousaid anything bad about him, you would
be thrown into jail. Okay.So yeah, everyone loved him because they
had too. In two thousand andtwo, the same year as the election,
(20:55):
okay, three gunmen, oh boy, opened fire no on Nini's limo,
oh no Nani. Now, manypeople believe that Nini staged this attempt
because shortly after the attempt was made, Nini arrested his only political rival and
threw him into prison. Oh becausethe election is going on, so we
have to go up against somebody.You said people, people suspected, people
(21:18):
suspected. They could I add myselfto that group, yes, because I
think I'm strong sting him for thatcrime. You're going up against one person,
one So then all of a suddenyou stage getting shot at in which
no one gets killed, no one, no one got hurt, And it's
like, oh, the my politicalopponent. Definitely, he did that.
He organized the whole thing. Throwhim. He has all the power.
(21:41):
That guy that I'm running up againsthas all the power. Yeah, he
has all the power. You don'tworry about my power. He has all
of it. So the only guythat was running against him was in the
election was imprisoned for treason, andNini had a tight grip on the country.
So he won the two thousand andtwo election. Guess guess what he
wanted with ninety eight point five percent? No, dude, ninety nine point
(22:02):
nine No, who's that one?Dude? I don't like him. I
don't like him. Oh come on, he's the best. No, dude.
When you're a dictator like this,your ego is so huge you can't
say one percent because it's like butyou can always go ninety nine point nine.
But you can't go less than that. You can go ninety eight point
(22:22):
six. You don't have to gofever. No, they can't. There
can't be that one percent that doesn'tlike him. They hate that hate that
day. They dude, hate it. Wow. So after the election,
he told the guy that was runningagainst him that he would let him out
of prison as long as that guywrote two bucks, one about how he
plotted the assassination attempt and explained everythingabout it, and the other about how
(22:47):
great Nean he is. Oh,so this guy all of a sudden is
like, I'm not a fiction writer. I don't know. Okay, I'll
try too bad he did. Hewrote both books. Oh of course he
did. He ran for his life. Yes, shortly after this, Nini
just decided fuck it and made himselfpresident for life. Wow, yep,
(23:08):
okay, wow, geez. Thiswas great. But in two thousand and
four, two thousand and two,I mean after it's so recent, baking,
it's so recent, this is notOkay, this is all great,
But in two thousand and four,Ninie was obviously getting bored because then he
turned his attention to people with goldcrowns. Burger King no, the gold
(23:33):
crowns that are on your teeth.Oh what, Yes, he had bad
teeth. He said that the peoplehad them because the country had a national
obsession with set sweet tea. Quote. What is this? This is a
quote by him. What I watchedyoung dogs when I was young. They
were given bones to naw. Thoseof you whose teeth have fallen out did
(23:56):
not gnaw on bones. This ismy advice, non bone. He's saying
that you need to harden your teethby gnawing on both. That's what wait,
what does that have to do withsweet tea? He doesn't make any
sense, dude, he does not, especially if you try. If he's
gonna ban sweet teeth, okay,good, because there was gonna be a
(24:18):
revolution. Well, he basically bannedHe banned soft gold teeth, soft foods,
and he was like, only hardfoods. You're gonna gnaw on some
hard foods. Uh. People rushedto swap out their gold teeth for porcelain
ones. What why? Because heoutlawed gold teeth. He said, no,
no, no, no, nogold teeth. Yeah. So if
(24:40):
you're walking around and you were gold, you had a gold tooth, you
know, people are like, oh, shame. That's like the scarlet letter
Shame God, shame, chingy ifChinney went there, shame this guy shame.
Oh that's terrifying. Like he canjust he can just decide something's not
okay and everyone a whim and everyone will get behind it because they don't
(25:02):
want to be not okay, right, like they want to be safe.
And there wasn't like any step,like he would just have all these dictators
have like weekly radio addresses or TVthings, so he would honestly just be
like talking, you know. AndI don't like these gold crowns. Our
country has too many gold crowns,you know, because we drink too much
sweet stuff. You should have beenchewing on bones like those dogs. I
saw. Like he doesn't understand howdogs teeth work. Yeah, apparently not,
(25:26):
so people went to swap out theirgold teeth for postal in one of
these. One of those people wasMissus Taliva, a thirty two year old
laboratory technician. She had been senthome from work because of her offending teeth.
Wow, thirty two years old,she's thirty year old. Thirty years
old? Home? You got yougot gold gold teeth? Get like gold
(25:48):
teeth yep as universities, government departments, and state run companies humored their president
for life. She said, andI quote, I've had gold teeth since
I was eighteen. It was myit was my dowry from my parents when
I got married. Before, Iwas really proud of my teeth. They
showed me as a success. Butnow I cannot work and I cannot have
(26:11):
them. So they pulled him out. Wait, but she swished him for
porcelain. Yeah, okay, youhave to you have to give the money
for that. I don't know.Oh boy, other just gonna ripped out
and you have a hole in yourmy face. Yeah, I guess so,
dude, you can't mess around.Oh yeah, because otherwise you're gonna
get killed or what. I don'tknow. Who knows. Nobody knows.
It couldn't work. Everyone would justlook down get out of her dirty gold
(26:36):
teeth. Yeah, it would justbe considered gross. Wow. In two
thousand and six, nine Supreme Rulerof Turkmenistan died of a heart attack at
the age of sixty six, aftersingle handedly ruling a country of five million
people for over twenty years. Wow. So that wasn't in the eighties then,
(26:56):
So that was like in the ninetieswhen he made that book. Anyway,
he was buried in the biggest mosquein the world. The one hundred
million dollars mosque is a building ofhis own construction that he had decorated with
gold leaf inscriptions of passages from hisautobiography that book. I just I can't
(27:18):
it's ah God, here's one thingI found out. Please. In two
thousand and eight, his replacement hadthe gold rotating statue removed. Oh,
okay, good, that's a stepGod, I hope. But but that
giant mosque is still there and he'sstill his replacement was that person elected.
I think you're gonna have to gofind that one out. And I hated
Cliffhanger. Cliff Oh sorry. Thatis the story of Sumaratni. Yeah,
(27:45):
yeah, yeah, okay, Nani. Here's what terrifies me. Yes,
so many things, so many things. One two thousand and six, this
ended. Yeah, that's because hedied at the age of sixty six,
eleven years ago. Yeah, it'stoo recent. That is scary recent.
Yeah, twenty years this went on, yep, okay. Insanity. Also,
(28:11):
just so many things that he ruledthat he did whatever he wanted.
Also, Here's the number one thingthat I think freaks me out about this
now that I realize that, isthat there are people who have that mindset,
who that if you put them inpower, they love it, they
love it. If you put mein power, you put you in power.
Anybody that we know, they're notgonna go nuts like that, and
(28:33):
then that's why we'll never be inpower. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So like these people are seeking outpower. So I guess I guess the
message the takeaway from me is becareful, be wary of people who are
seeking that power. Yeah, duh, that's why everyone hates politicians. Right
to be a politicians, you kindof have to be a sleeze ball,
(28:55):
right, Like, why do youwant that power? What is in it
for? The salary? Is notthat great? Works a lot than I
make sure me too. We're comedians, Okay, what are we doing with
our lives? Why are we notpoliticians? Timeout? Because I'm not an
awful record, I can't have therecord. We should be politicians. Do
you realize I can have a statueof gold on myself? You can't not
(29:18):
hear it? I could No,I could get kicked out of office.
Oh, come on ram. Emmanuelis still fine. Yeah, he's not
doing fine. He's doing fine.Yeah, but he knows it. Yeah,
people hate him, but he lovesit. But why don't why don't
we try to run? You're beingawful. I'm just saying we could run.
You're being off. Okay, I'mjust saying maybe it wouldn't be a
(29:38):
mistake for me. It's the giantstatue of himself that goes with the sun
and the book. You really shouldlook up I want YouTube video of this
book. Just look look up Turkmenistanbook. Yes, and it'll be the
first thing that comes up on YouTube. I can't wait. It is insane
of like this giant book opening anda video playing on it and then it
(30:00):
closes. No, it is,and it's once a day, every night,
every night, once a day.So of course when you do something
like that once a day, peoplego to check it out. Yeah,
it's like the volcano at like someat the mirage and there that's an example
of a volcano that goes off everyonce in a while. And okay,
I think the book opening at leasta video playing is more entertaining than the
volcano doing that. The the Eiffeltower glitters, it gets sparkles. What
(30:26):
people don't know this Thefel Tower,the Eiffel Tower sparkles on the hour,
every hour at night. What itis incredible sparkles. Look it up.
Flights on it. Eiffel Tower,sparkle. Look it up. Did shoot
sparkles? Nope, it just glittersthe whole thing sparkles. What do you
mean lights on the It explains nineo'clock, ten o'clock, the thing,
(30:47):
the entire Eiffel Tower. You're notexplaining it. You have to look it
up. I'm leaving it to theimagine. Lights on it. Yeah,
it is very Turkmenistani. Okay,well whatever, all right, So that's
the it's his story. Incredible,and I hope those people at Turkmenistan are
doing better now. I hope theygot somebody who's who's not. Maybe you
(31:07):
could do a report for once andlet me know. Okay, you know
what Turks, you did this one, I will do the next one.
Okay. You say that the dealmistakes were mad
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