Gas-rich Turkmenistan transforms capital into luxury marble showpiece

In an extraordinary building boom, the isolated Central Asian country of Turkmenistan is spending billions of dollars on remodelling its capital Ashgabat into a gleaming white showpiece where even the road curbs are made of marble.

The gas-rich desert nation says that the massive spending spree has already poured in US$8 billion in international investment and 4 trillion manats (HK$10.9 trillion) of its own funds since gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

"We are directing the profit from gas exports into improving the quality of life of our people," said President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

Turkmenistan, on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, claims to have the world's fourth-biggest supply of natural gas with estimated reserves of more than 24 trillion cubic metres, according to BP.

With a population of a million, the city is now a giant construction site as the government demolishes large areas of low-rise brick buildings from the Soviet era. All new buildings for ministries, government agencies and also new apartment blocks are being faced with marble, giving the city the nickname: "White City".

The 55-year-old president, a dentist by profession, has even ordered that the concrete curbs on central avenues and streets be replaced with marble ones.

"In this epoch of magnificence and happiness, our respected president has given us the task of developing the city to create the most comfortable conditions for people's life," boasted the city's chief architect, Bairam Shamuradov.