When I heard this morning that Saparmurat Niyazov had died of a heart attack, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Dead?” I thought to myself, “Saparmurat? Could this really be happening? And if so, who is he? I’ve never heard of him before.”

Saparmurat always thought of Turkmenistan as one of his own children. Maybe as his only child – I’m not really sure if he had children. I think I remember something about that from the BBC, but I’m not sure about the exact details. He thought of Turkmenistan as a child, one way or another, and a child needs to be nurtured, and nurture he did from the very first day of his Presidency (which was a day some time within the last hundred years) to the day he died (which was yesterday, I think). The country will never be the same. Or maybe it will be. I’m not totally sure what’s going to happen over there, or where “over there” is, exactly. I think it’s pretty close to Russia.

The BBC report said that Saparmurat once banned hospitals. That was the kind of guy he was – always joking around, or attempting to ensure painful and drawn-out disease and death for his subjects. There was another thing they mentioned that he once banned, but I forget what it was. Their police force, maybe? Food? I can’t remember, exactly. Whatever it was, it was CLASSIC Saparmurat. You should really google it and try to figure it out. It will provide you with a deeper understanding of who Saparmurat Niyazov really was, just like the deep understanding I momentarily possessed while listening to a radio report about his death earlier this morning.

I remember the time I heard that Saparmurat had once made a deal to sell natural gas to the Ukraine, but then passed some legislation that made it pretty much impossible to sell natural gas to the Ukraine later on that afternoon. I was driving in my car listening to Public Radio at the time. It was raining, not too hard but definitely more than a drizzle. I remember the details like it was yesterday.

Slightly better than that, actually.

Anyway, the point of that particular anecdote was to show you that Saparmurat was a pretty famous guy. They talked about some stuff he did on the radio, so, you know… famous. But he wouldn’t have wanted us to just remember him as “famous” – no! That wasn’t the kind of guy he was, I bet! No – he might have wanted us to gather around the gold statues cast in his likeness that are scattered throughout Turkmenistan and cut our throats. He might have wanted us to let our hot blood pool at his feet so he could laugh, laugh from above at the disposable peons, the shriveled, writhing husks of the Turkmen.

Or maybe not. I’m not really sure.

When it comes to Saparmurat Niyazov as a man, I can’t say much for certain, but aside from people who knew him, or people who study the region, or BBC reporters, or generally well-informed people, who really can? I don’t think Saparmurat Niyazov really wanted anyone to know him. He was very successful in that regard – I, personally, did not even know he existed until after he was already dead. He was a bit of a mystery in that way. I bet he always was, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he always is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was never really a mystery at all, either. I basically know nothing about him.

Saparmurat Niyazov may have lived a good life, and I’m willing to bet there are some people who will never forget him. His wife, maybe, if he had one. His kids, maybe? The guy must’ve had some sort of family. Wherever you are, Saparmurat, whoever you are, just remember this: your legacy will live on through the wife you might have had, the children you may have fathered, and the painful memories of the people you subjugated for however long you were in power, which was probably a pretty long time.

Rest in peace, Saparmurat. There’s really not much else you can do at this point.

(Feel free to sign the funeral guestbook below with fond memories and remembrances of the time you never spent with Saparmurat Niyazov, the former authoritarian President of Turkmenistan)