JDHS Photography Website

Turkmenistan is located in Central Asia. Turkmenistan is surrounded by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Afghanistan and by the Caspian Sea. The population of Turkmenistan is over 5 million people. Turkmenistan is a mostly Muslim country. The Turkmen language is a Turkic language that is similar to Turkish, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and the Azeri language. In Turkmenistan both Turkmen and Russian are spoken since Turkmenistan had been a republic within the former Soviet Union. About nine-tenths of Turkmenistan is a desert, mainly the Kara –Kum.

While I was in Turkmenistan this past summer I visited my family and relatives. I photographed the images on display here to show something about the culture of this country. All of these images were taken in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.

1) When women get married, they wear wedding gowns. Three days after the wedding ceremony they then wear the type of gown shown in the picture for forty days. People would obviously know that they recently had been married.

2)This is fresh water from the mountains that is available for drinking to the public. The water is always fresh and cool.

3)This is the National Turkmen dress people wear everyday to work. Usually, most of the houses in Turkmenistan have rugs on the floor or on the wall. The rugs are handmade from wool.

4) In Turkmenistan people like to play chess after a long day of work and drink hot green tea. You especially get to see this activity when it is a very hot day or when it is cool in the evening.