1.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Turkmenistan
–
Turkmenistan has been at the crossroads of civilizations for centuries. In medieval times, Merv was one of the cities of the Islamic world and an important stop on the Silk Road. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1881, Turkmenistan later figured prominently in the movement in Central Asia. In 1924, Turkmenistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Turkmenistan possesses the worlds fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert, since 1993, citizens have received government-provided electricity, water and natural gas free of charge. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov until his death in 2006, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was elected president in 2007. According to Human Rights Watch, Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most repressive countries, after suspending the death penalty, the use of capital punishment was formally abolished in the 2008 constitution. Historically inhabited by the Indo-Iranians, the history of Turkmenistan begins with its annexation by the Achaemenid Empire of Ancient Iran. In the 8th century AD, Turkic-speaking Oghuz tribes moved from Mongolia into present-day Central Asia, part of a powerful confederation of tribes, these Oghuz formed the ethnic basis of the modern Turkmen population. In the 10th century, the name Turkmen was first applied to Oghuz groups that accepted Islam, There they were under the dominion of the Seljuk Empire, which was composed of Oghuz groups living in present-day Iran and Turkmenistan. Turkmen soldiers in the service of the played a important role in the spreading of Turkic culture when they migrated westward into present-day Azerbaijan. In the 12th century, Turkmen and other tribes overthrew the Seljuk Empire, in the next century, the Mongols took over the more northern lands where the Turkmens had settled, scattering the Turkmens southward and contributing to the formation of new tribal groups. The sixteenth and eighteenth centuries saw a series of splits and confederations among the nomadic Turkmen tribes, by the 16th century, most of those tribes were under the nominal control of two sedentary Uzbek khanates, Khiva and Bukhoro. Turkmen soldiers were an important element of the Uzbek militaries of this period, in the 19th century, raids and rebellions by the Yomud Turkmen group resulted in that groups dispersal by the Uzbek rulers. According to Paul R. Spickard, Prior to the Russian conquest, Russian forces began occupying Turkmen territory late in the 19th century. From their Caspian Sea base at Krasnovodsk, the Russians eventually overcame the Uzbek khanates, in 1916 the Russian Empires participation in World War I resonated in Turkmenistan, as an anticonscription revolt swept most of Russian Central Asia. In 1924 the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was formed from the tsarist province of Transcaspia, by the late 1930s, Soviet reorganization of agriculture had destroyed what remained of the nomadic lifestyle in Turkmenistan, and Moscow controlled political life. The Ashgabat earthquake of 1948 killed over 110,000 people, during the next half-century, Turkmenistan played its designated economic role within the Soviet Union and remained outside the course of major world events
3.
Mary, Turkmenistan
–
Mary, formerly named Merv, Meru and Margiana, is a city on an oasis in the Karakum Desert, located on the Murghab river. It is the city of Mary Province, Turkmenistan. In 2009, Mary had a population of 123,000, in Kerait tradition, Mary, mother of Jesus, was buried here. The ancient city of Merv was a city on the Silk Road. It was occupied by Imperial Russia in 1884, triggering the Panjdeh Incident between Afghan forces and the Imperial Russian Army, the modern settlement was founded later that year as a Russian military and administrative post. Mary was developed by the Soviet Union as a center for production through the use of extensive irrigation. In 1968, huge reserves of gas were discovered 20 kilometers west of the city. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the proclamation of independence of Turkmenistan, in the 2000s, is an accomplishment streets, construction of large residential facilities. In 2012, the city was declared one of the capitals of the CIS. Mary is Turkmenistans fourth-largest city, and an industrial centre, for the natural gas and cotton industries. It is a center for cotton, cereals, hides. Mary is known for its Regional Museum, the city lies near the remains of the ancient city of Merv, which in corrupted form gives its name to the modern town. The main football team is Merw Mary who play at the Mary Stadium
4.
Turkmen language
–
Turkmen has vowel harmony, is agglutinative, and has no grammatical gender. Written Turkmen today is based on the Teke dialect, the other dialects are Nohurly, Ýomud, Änewli, Hasarly, Nerezim, Gökleň, Salyr, Saryk, Ärsary and Çowdur. The Teke dialect is referred to as Chagatai, but like all Turkmen dialects it reflects only a limited influence from classical Chagatai. Officially, Turkmen is rendered in the “Täze Elipbiý”, or “New Alphabet”, however, the old Soviet Cyrillic alphabet is still in wide use. Before 1929, Turkmen was written in an Arabic alphabet, in 1929–1938 a Latin alphabet replaced it, and then the Cyrillic alphabet was used from 1938 to 1991. In 1991, the current Latin alphabet was introduced, although the transition to it has been rather slow and it used to use some unusual letters, such as the pound, dollar, yen, and cent signs, but these were replaced by more conventional letter symbols. The following phonemes are present in the Turkmen language, Turkmen contains both short and long vowels, doubling the duration of sound for a short vowel is generally how its long vowel counterpart is pronounced. Turkmen employs vowel harmony, a principle that is common in fellow Turkic languages, vowels and their sounds are as follows, For purposes of vowel harmony the central vowel is considered back. Turkmen consonant phonemes, Note that с and з are actually used for and, not, like other Turkic languages, Turkmen is characterized by vowel harmony. In general, words of native origin consist either entirely of front vowels or entirely of back vowels, prefixes and suffixes reflect this harmony, taking different forms depending on the word to which they are attached. The infinitive form of a verb determines whether it will follow a front vowel harmony or back vowel harmony, words of foreign origin, mainly Russian, Persian, or Arabic, do not follow vowel harmony. Verbs are conjugated for singular and plural number and first, second, There are 11 verb tenses, present comprehensive, present perfect, future certain, future indefinite, conditional, past definite, obligatory, imperative, and intentional. There are two types of verbs in Turkmen, distinguished by their forms, those ending in the suffix -mak. -Mak verbs follow back vowel harmony, whereas -mek verbs follow front vowel harmony, evidentiality is determined by four markers, roughly, -dY -Yp-dYr -dYr-mY-näm -mYş Some independent particles may be said to convey evidentiality, one such word is the particle eken. Aman become sick-EV-COP Aman is sick, compare 1 with 2. a and 2. b,2. a. Maral Ashgabat-ABL come-EV-COP Maral came from Ashgabat, Ben you-GEN cookie-pl-2sPOSS-ACC eat-3spast Ben ate your cookies. The speaker saw Ben eat the cookies, Ben told the speaker that he ate the cookies. Ben you-GEN cookie-pl-2sPOSS-ACC eat-EV-COP Ben ate your cookies, the speaker heard from someone else that Ben ate the cookies
5.
Afghanistan
–
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
6.
Oasis
–
In geography, an oasis is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source, such as a pond or small lake. Oases also provide habitat for animals and even if the area is big enough. The location of oases has been of importance for trade and transportation routes in desert areas, caravans must travel via oases so that supplies of water. Thus, political or military control of an oasis has in many cases meant control of trade on a particular route. For example, the oases of Awjila, Ghadames, and Kufra, oases are formed from underground rivers or aquifers such as an artesian aquifer, where water can reach the surface naturally by pressure or by man-made wells. Occasional brief thunderstorms provide subterranean water to sustain natural oases, such as the Tuat, substrata of impermeable rock and stone can trap water and retain it in pockets, or on long faulting subsurface ridges or volcanic dikes water can collect and percolate to the surface. Any incidence of water is used by migrating birds, which also pass seeds with their droppings which will grow at the waters edge forming an oasis. It can also be used to plant crops, the word oasis came into English via Latin, oasis from Ancient Greek, ὄασις óasis, which in turn is a direct borrowing from Demotic Egyptian. The word for oasis in the later attested Coptic language is wahe or ouahe which means a dwelling place, people who live in an oasis must manage land and water use carefully, fields must be irrigated to grow plants like apricots, dates, figs, and olives. The most important plant in an oasis is the date palm and these palm trees provide shade for smaller trees like peach trees, which form the middle layer. By growing plants in different layers, the farmers make best use of the soil, many vegetables are also grown and some cereals, such as barley, millet, and wheat, are grown where there is more moisture. Great Man-Made River – the worlds largest irrigation project, developed in Libya to connect cities with fossil water. Guelta Mirage Oasification Qanat Wadi Water supply référence, Jardins au désert |Battesti, Jardins au désert, Evolution des pratiques et savoirs oasiens, Jérid tunisien, Paris, Éditions IRD, coll. À travers champs,2005,440 p. ISBN 2-7099-1564-2 Open Archives, book in free access / in French The dictionary definition of oasis at Wiktionary
7.
Natural gas
–
It is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years. The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of bonds in the gas. Natural gas is a fuel used as a source of energy for heating, cooking. It is also used as fuel for vehicles and as a feedstock in the manufacture of plastics. Natural gas is found in underground rock formations or associated with other hydrocarbon reservoirs in coal beds. Petroleum is another resource and fossil fuel found in proximity to. Most natural gas was created over time by two mechanisms, biogenic and thermogenic, biogenic gas is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, landfills, and shallow sediments. Deeper in the earth, at temperature and pressure, thermogenic gas is created from buried organic material. In petroleum production gas is burnt as flare gas. The World Bank estimates that over 150 cubic kilometers of gas are flared or vented annually. Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, most, Natural gas is often informally referred to simply as gas, especially when compared to other energy sources such as oil or coal. However, it is not to be confused with gasoline, especially in North America, Natural gas was used by the Chinese in about 500 BCE. They discovered a way to transport gas seeping from the ground in crude pipelines of bamboo to where it was used to salt water to extract the salt. The worlds first industrial extraction of gas started at Fredonia, New York. By 2009,66000 km³ had been used out of the total 850000 km³ of estimated remaining reserves of natural gas. An annual increase in usage of 2–3% could result in currently recoverable reserves lasting significantly less, unwanted natural gas was a disposal problem in the active oil fields. If there was not a market for natural gas near the wellhead it was expensive to pipe to the end user. In the 19th century and early 20th century, unwanted gas was burned off at oil fields
8.
Electric power
–
Electric power is the rate, per unit time, at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second, Electric power is usually produced by electric generators, but can also be supplied by sources such as electric batteries. It is usually supplied to businesses and homes by the power industry through an electric power grid. Electric power is sold by the kilowatt hour which is the product of power in kilowatts multiplied by running time in hours. Electric utilities measure power using an electricity meter, which keeps a total of the electric energy delivered to a customer. Electrical power provides a low form of energy and can be carried long distances and converted into other forms of energy such as motion. Electric power, like power, is the rate of doing work, measured in watts. The term wattage is used colloquially to mean electric power in watts, the potential energy of the charges due to the voltage between the terminals is converted to kinetic energy in the device. These devices are called passive components or loads, they consume electric power from the circuit, converting it to other forms of such as mechanical work, heat, light. Examples are electrical appliances, such as bulbs, electric motors. In alternating current circuits the direction of the voltage periodically reverses, devices in which this occurs are called active devices or power sources, such as electric generators and batteries. Some devices can be either a source or a load, depending on the voltage, for example, a rechargeable battery acts as a source when it provides power to a circuit, but as a load when it is connected to a battery charger and is being recharged. Since electric power can flow either into or out of a component, Electric power flowing out of a circuit into a component is arbitrarily defined to have a positive sign, while power flowing into a circuit from a component is defined to have a negative sign. Thus passive components have positive power consumption, while power sources have negative power consumption and this is called the passive sign convention. In alternating current circuits, energy storage such as inductance and capacitance may result in periodic reversals of the direction of energy flow. The portion of power flow that, averaged over a cycle of the AC waveform. That portion of power due to stored energy, that returns to the source in each cycle, is known as reactive power. Real power is represented as a vector and reactive power is represented as a vertical vector
9.
Karakum Canal
–
The Karakum Canal in Turkmenistan is one of the largest irrigation and water supply canals in the world. The canal opened up new tracts of land to agriculture, especially to cotton monoculture heavily promoted by the Soviet Union. The canal is also a factor leading to the Aral Sea environmental disaster. The current Karakum Canal was not the first major attempt to bring the Amu-Darya water to the Karakums, in the early 1950s, construction began on the Main Turkmen Canal, which would start at a much more northerly location, and run southwest toward Krasnovodsk. The canal would have used around 25 percent of the Amu-Daryas water, the works were abandoned after the death of Joseph Stalin, the current Karakum Canal route being chosen instead. Reservoirs such as Hanhowuz Reservoir were created to regulate it
10.
Murghab River
–
The Murghāb River, also called Margos, Margu and Margiana River, and also transliterated as Murgab and Murgap, is an 850-kilometre long river in Central Asia. It rises in central-western Afghanistan and runs north-west towards the Murghab District, which takes its name from the river, and then the Kara Kum desert in Turkmenistan, where it peters out. The Murghab originates in central-western Afghanistan, on a plateau situated among the chain of mountains of Paropamisus, Gharjistan, in its higher course, oriented from east to west, and to the locality of Mukhamedkhan—i. e. Over a length of 300 kilometres —the valley of Murghab is narrow, there are narrow gorges in some places. Between Darband-i Kilrekht and Mukhammedkhan, the Murghab crosses the western part of Band-i Turkestan and it then runs toward the northwest in a deep canyon. In Mukhammedkhan, it crosses the gorges of Jaokar, after this, the valley widens somewhat gradually, reaching a width of 2 kilometres in Turkmenistan. Beyond Mukhamedkhan, a portion of the water of the Murghab is used for irrigation. The Murghab receives the waters of the Kaysar river on the right, in the territory of Turkmenistan, close to Takhta-Bazaar, the Murghab receives the Kachan river from the left bank, and 25 kilometres further, there is the confluence of the Kushk. Reaching the oasis of Merv, the Murghab mingles its waters with those of the Karakum Canal, the catchment area of the Murghab is estimated at 46,880 square kilometres. Map of the province of Ghor, with trace of the flow of water Map of vegetation cover in the province of Badghis, with trace of the flow of water Morghab River, in Britannica
11.
Merv
–
Several cities have existed on this site, which is significant for the interchange of culture and politics at a site of major strategic value. It is claimed that Merv was briefly the largest city in the world in the 12th century, the site of ancient Merv has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The geography of the Zend-Avesta mentions Merv along with Balkh, in Zoroastrianism, the god Ahura Mazda created Mouru as one of sixteen perfect lands. The first city of Merv was founded in the 6th century BC as part of the Achaemenid expansion into the region of Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Greats visit to Merv is merely legendary, but the city was named Alexandria for a time. After Alexanders death in 323 BC, Merv became the capital of the Province of Margiana of the Seleucid, Bactrian, Parthian, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Soter renamed Merv as Antiochia Margiana, he rebuilt and expanded the city at the site presently known as Gyaur Gala. After the fall of the Seleucid dynasty, Bactria, Parthia, Merv was a major city of Buddhist learning, with Buddhist monastery temples for many centuries until its Islamicization. At the site of Gyaur Kala and Bairam Ali Buddhism was followed and practised often at the Buddhist stupa, during this period Merv was home to practitioners of various religions beside the official Sassanid Zoroastrianism, including Buddhists, Manichaeans, and Christians of the Church of the East. Between the 6th and 11th centuries AD, Merv served as the seat of an East Syrian metropolitan province, the Hephthalite occupation from the end of the 5th century to 565 a. d briefly interrupted Sassanid rule. Sassanian rule came to an end when the last Sassanian ruler, Yazdegerd III was killed not far from the city, representatives of the caliph Umar occupied the city, which became the capital of the Umayyad province of Khorasan. In 671 Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan sent 50,000 Arab troops to Merv as a colony and this colony retained its native Kufan sympathies and became the nucleus of Khurasan. Using the city as their base, the Arabs, led by Qutayba ibn Muslim from 705 to 715, brought under subjection large parts of Central Asia, including Balkh, Bokhara, and Fergana. Merv, and Khorasan in general, became one of the first parts of the Persian-speaking world to become majority-Muslim, Arab immigration to the area was substantial. A Chinese captured at Talas, Du Huan, was brought to Baghdad and he observed that in Merv, Khurasan, Arabs and Persians lived in mixed concentrations. After the Abbasids became established in Baghdad, Abu Muslim continued to rule Merv as a semi-independent prince until his eventual assassination, the influential Barmakid family, based in Merv, played an important part in transferring Greek knowledge into the Arab world. Throughout the Abbasid era, Merv remained the capital and most important city of Khurasan, during this time, the Arab historian Al-Muqaddasi called Merv delightful, fine, elegant, brilliant, extensive, and pleasant. Mervs architecture perhaps provided the inspiration for the Abbasid re-planning of Baghdad, the city was notable as a home for immigrants from the Arab lands as well as for those from Sogdia and elsewhere in Central Asia. In the period from 813 to 818, the residency of the caliph al-Mamun effectively made Merv the capital of the Muslim world. During this period Merv, like Samarkand and Bukhara, functioned as one of the cities of Muslim scholarship
12.
Russian language
–
Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
13.
Lebap Region
–
Lebap Region is one of the regions of Turkmenistan. It is in the northeast of the country, bordering Afghanistan, Uzbekistan along the Amu Darya and it has an area of 93,730 square kilometers, and a population of 1,334,500 people. The name Lebap is Turkmenized form of the Persian Lab-i āb which means riverside and has long used to designate the middle reaches of the Amu Darya river. It contains the Repetek Nature Reserve and the Köýtendag Nature Reserve, Region is located alongside of Amuderya river, Gyzylgum desert is located east side of river and Garagum desert is located west side of river. Thanks to sunny whether and abundance of water resources state produced one of the highest quality cotton, Region is also rich for its natural resources such as natural gas and other mines. China-Turkmenistan gas-pipeline started from this region, Lebap Regions Bagtiyarlik natural gas field is main supplier of Chinese natural gas. Lebap Region is divided into 16 districts and 3 cities
14.
Ahal Region
–
Ahal Region is one of the regions of Turkmenistan. It is in the south-center of the country, bordering Iran and Afghanistan along the Kopet Dag Range and its area is 97,160 km2 and population 939,700. In 2000, Ahal Region accounted for 14% of Turkmenistans population, 11% of the number of employed, 23% of agricultural production. Ahals agriculture is irrigated by the Karakum Canal, which all the way across the province from east to west. Another water source is Tejen River, which flows north from Afghanistan in the south-east corner of the province, passing through two large reservoirs south of the city of Tejen. Ahal is known for the Geok Tepe battle of 1881, today the site of a new mosque. The capital of Ahal Province is Anau, a town on the outskirts of Ashgabat. Other notable towns are Abadan north-west of Ashgabat and Tejen in the south-east near the border with Mary Province, Turkmenistans largest city, Ashgabat, is located within the Ahal Province, but it has the status of a special capital district outside the provincial jurisdiction. Ahal Region is administratively divided into 9 districts and 2 cities that have etrap status
15.
Faryab Province
–
Faryab is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, which is located in the north of the country bordering neighboring Turkmenistan. It has a population of about 948,000, which is multi-ethnic, the province encompasses 15 districts and over 1,000 villages. The capital of Faryab province is Maymana, Faryab is a Persian toponym meaning lands irrigated by diversion of river water. It is named after a town that was founded by the Sassanids and it is the hometown to the famed Islamic philosopher, al-Farabi, per the biographer Ibn al-Nadim. The area has part of Greater Khorasan. British geographers referred to the area as Afghan Turkestan, the history of settlement in Faryab is ancient and comprises layer upon layer of occupation. At times, it was a pot within which a host of cultures have merged into a non-conflictual whole or at least peaceable coexistence. Maymana and Andkhui actually entered written history 2,500 years ago when Jews arrived and settled in 586 BC, the territory was under Persian control at the time, which later gave way to Greek rule following the conquest by Alexander the Great in 326 BC. Persian dominance was restored from the 3rd to the 7th century AD, the pre-Islamic period ended with the conquest of northern Afghanistan by Arab Muslims. The area turned into a vast battlefield as the two great Arab and Persian cultures battled for not only political and geographical supremacy but ideological supremacy, as a result, centuries of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity and indigenous pagan cults were swept away. Various Islamic dynasties rose to power and influenced the locals and they included the Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Seljuks, and Ghurids. The history of Faryab was greatly altered yet again in the 11th century, as he moved into the area from the north, cities and towns including Maymana were razed, populations massacred, grain, fields and livestock stolen or burnt and ancient irrigation systems obliterated. Control by the descendants of Genghis Khan stemmed from the capitals of Bukhara or Samarkand north of the Amu Darya River. They ruled in a manner, however, allowing local tribal chiefs in Maymana and elsewhere considerable autonomy. Uzbek occupation of the area began within the Turko-Mongol period, in 1500, Uzbek princes, also known as Khanate of Bukhara, themselves a Turco-Mongol product, swept across the Amu Darya, reaching Faryab and related areas around 1505. They joined a substantial and largely pastoral Arab population and ruled the area until the mid-18th century and it was conquered by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1748 and became part of the Durrani Empire. The area was untouched by the British during the three Anglo-Afghan wars that were fought in the 19th and 20th centuries, Faryab become a province in 1964. From the administrative reforms of the 1930s until then it was known as Maymana and was a sub-province of Balkh Province, which had its headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif
16.
Badghis Province
–
Bādghīs is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northwest of the country next to Turkmenistan. The name is a corruption of the Persian compound, bâd-khiz, meaning wind source, referring to the winds that blow into the province from the north. Badghis is irrigated by the Murghab, the extension of the area into Turkmenistan still sports the old version, and serves as the Bâdkhiz Nature Preserve. Its northern border extends to the edge of the desert of Sarakhs, Badghis includes the Chul formations through which the Turkmen-Afghan boundary runs. The province was carved out of portions of Herat Province and Meymaneh Province in 1964 and has an area of 20,591 km2. It is counted as one of the most underdeveloped of the countrys 34 provinces, qala i Naw, a small town halfway between Maimana and Herat, serves as the provincial center. The province was one of the last captured by the Taliban in their military offensive before the American invasion in 2001, the province was quickly retaken by Northern Alliance forces as the United States initiated hostilities. The province was flooded by governors which was in favor of Hamed Karzai and these governors did not make a positive change. Especially governor Nasiri, who was moved to Zabul facilitated the raising of Taliban, the current Governor of the province is Jamaluddin Ishaq. At the province was a Provincial Reconstruction Team, which was led by Spain, agriculture is the main source of peoples income and the existence of Murghab, river makes the available land suitable for cultivation. The province faced severe drought during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Badghis is the leading province in Afghanistan in pistachio production. It is also one of the capitals of the country. Badghis Province suffers from a lack of adequate transportation, a single airport exists at the provincial seat--Qala i Naw Airport, which is capable of handling light aircraft. Work on a 233 km section of the Afghan ring road has started in 2012 and this will connect Herat to Mazar-i Sharif and open up Badghis to the rest of Afghanistan. This section goes from Laman in Herat Province to Qaisar in Faryab Province, through Qala-e-Now, Muqur, Bala Murghab, Badghis is part of National Ring road, but because of Pashtuns supremacy and their power in the government, they made it immposible to built it. There are three main reason why do not want the connection of ring road, the southern provinces with Pashtun majority will get less benefit from Herat-Kabul highway. The ring road will connect North to West of the country which are non-Pashtun majority and it will pave the way for breaking the old school pashtun theory to keep Afghanistan border safe by pashtuns. Pashtuns will lose the lands in Bala Murghab by flood of farmers from Faryab
17.
Balkan Region
–
Balkan Region is one of the regions of Turkmenistan. It is in the far west of the country, bordering Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea and its capital is Balkanabat, formerly known as Nebit Dag. Balkan is Turkish for Wooded mountain and it has an area of 139,270 square kilometers and a population of approximately 553,500 people. Its population density of 3.3 persons per square kilometer is the lowest in Turkmenistan, other cities include, Bereket, Türkmenbaşy, Gumdag, Serdar, Hazar, Gyzyletrek, Esenguly. The Balkan Region has significant energy reserves, which account for 94% of Turkmenistans natural gas production and it also generates 18% of the countrys electric power. Due to the low water supply, agriculture is negligible. Off its Caspian shores the Balkan Province includes the island of Ogurja Ada, Balkan Region is administratively divided into six districts and seven cities
18.
Balkanabat
–
Balkanabat, formerly Nebit Dag, is a city in western Turkmenistan, and the capital of Balkan Province, the largest province in the country. It is located at 39°31′0″N 54°22′0″E, at an altitude of 17 meters, Balkanabat lies at the foot of the Balkan Daglary mountain range. Balkanabat is about 450 km west of Ashgabat and 160 km east of the city of Turkmenbashi. The city has an airport with scheduled flights to Ashgabat. The former name, Nebit Dag, means Oil Mountain in Turkmen language, the town was founded in 1933, as a settlement along one of the stations of Trans-Caspian Railway. There is a monument on the far eastern side of the city called Monument to the Desert Explorers which depicts a camel. Nebit Dag was renamed to Balkanabad in 2001 by the decree of former President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov. The city has a Health Path, which is a path outside of the city built to give the citizens of the town a place to take a moderate hike along the mountainside. It was opened in 2004 to model a similar concrete path outside of Ashgabat, the city has five bazaars Gök, Jennet, Gündogar, Bereket and bazaar on 5th microregion. There is hotel Nebitçi, a theatre, museums, restaurants, the north side of town contains the large park Saparmyrat Türkmenbaşy Seýilgähi which contains tennis courts, a life-size chess board and plenty of benches. The Yomud tribe was historic to the Balkan region and the Yomud carpet göl is one of the five patterns represented on the Turkmen flag, most of residence are Turkmens, other ethnic includes Russians, Kazakhs, Lezgins, Azeri, Armenians, Uzbeks, Tatars and Karakalpaks. It is a center for petroleum and natural gas production. Animal breeding and wheat and cotton cultivation are another areas of economy in Balkanabat, the city is served by Balkanabat Airport. The city is connected to Ashgabat by Turkmenistan Airlines, as well as by train, buses route is from east to the west of Magtymguly shayoly and makes stops at bus station. While there is no official cab company, private citizens operate shared cabs, almost any vehicle will pick up passengers and a ride costs is about 1 Turkmen manats. If the driver has already passengers in the car, then he will agree to take you if headed in the direction of their other available passengers. The city layout is a grid of apartment blocks called kvartal, there are main streets called Magtymguly, Pervomayskiy and Gurbansoltan eje shayoly. There are range of banks, Turkmenpostal services in the centre by Magtymguly Shayoly
Mary Region
