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Best places to visit in Turkmenistan

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Although a desert country, Turkmenistan has so many locations—fertile plains and historical sites—worth visiting. Some of these places are the Karakum or Black Sand desert where on a sand dune 30 kilometers north of Ashgabat stands the Jeitun Mesolithic settlement, and the burning gas crater near the town of Darvaza. If you want to go inland, you can see Avaza, a multi-billion dollar construction project near Turkmenbashi, that will create a national tourist zone, 60 world-class hotels, a number of shopping malls, and a new international airport. An hour from Ashgabat is the Kow Ata underground sulfur lake which boasts of its medicinal waters in a cave 200 meters in length and 50 meters wide.  About 245 kilometers south of Mary is the Skedishik cave settlement with more than 40 rooms dating back to the Middle Ages. The Masna Baba mausoleum, 40 kilometers south of Tejen in kaka region is built in the 11th to 12th centuries over the grave of Abu Said Maneya, a famous Sofi teacher and philosopher.

One should not miss the country’s capital of Ashgabat in the southern part of the Karakum desert, that has rebuilt itself from the damage of a powerful earthquake of 10.5 magnitude in 1948. In that natural disaster, 110,000 people, or 2/3 of the city’s population perished but it has risen to become as the country’s principal city. There are nature reserves that are also worth visiting such as the Kopet Dag Nature Reserve in the mountains near Ashgabat, the Shurt Hagarday Nature Reserve south of Ashgabat, and the Amur Darya Nature Reserve on the border with Uzbekistan south of Turkmenabat. A visit to these nature reserves, however, requires a special permit issued by the national government.