Modern City in an Ancient land

Asgabat, Ashkhabad, Ashgabad; there are many ways to spell the name of this city, the capital of Turkmenistan. Transliteration is never a straightforward task but one reason it is particularly onerous here perhaps, is that in less than 80 years Turkmenistan has gone from using Arabic script for its language, Turkmen - a Turkic tongue - to Latin, Cyrillic and now back to Latin. Although the site of the capital is ancient - neolithic settlements have been discovered in the foothills of the Kopet Dag range around the capital and Ashgabad itself was probably founded around the 3rd century BC - it was only after the Russians arrived in 1881 that the city began to take the form it has today. But in 1948 Ashgabad was virtually leveled by an earthquake and as Turkmenistan was then officially the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic not only did the outside world not hear much about it, but the re-building was of the decidedly drab until the advent of independence, oil and president for life Sapurmarat Niyazov, also known as Turkmenbashy, or Father of the Turkmen.