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138-516: Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest , Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast , Afghanistan to the southeast , Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ashgabat is the capital and largest city . It is one of the six independent Turkic states. With a population over 7 million, Turkmenistan

276-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in

414-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to

552-587: A non-democratic election (he had been vice-president and then acting president previously); and his son Serdar , who won a subsequent 2022 presidential election described by international observers as neither free nor fair , and now shares power with his father. Turkmenistan possesses the world's fifth largest reserves of natural gas . Most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert . From 1993 to 2019, citizens received government-provided electricity, water and natural gas free of charge. Turkmenistan

690-656: A political dynasty in Turkmenistan. On 19 March 2022, Serdar Berdimuhamedov was sworn in as Turkmenistan's new president to succeed his father. After over a century of being a part of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union (including 67 years as a union republic), Turkmenistan declared its independence on 27 October 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union . Saparmurat Niyazov ,

828-550: A "cheaper and faster" option. One married couple in the eastern Farap district said that they had to provide documents and letters from 40 different agencies to support their adoption application, yet three years later there was still no decision on their bid. Meanwhile, wealthier applicants in Farap received a child for legal adoption within four months after applying because they paid up to 50,000 manats (about $ 14,300) in bribes. At 488,100 km (188,500 sq mi), Turkmenistan

966-638: A border with a coastal country but any path to a coast would still lead across at least two borders. The Free City of Frankfurt which was independent between 1815 and 1866 was doubly landlocked as it bordered the Electorate of Hesse , the Grand Duchy of Hesse , Hesse-Homburg , and Nassau . In the German Confederation there were several other landlocked states that only bordered landlocked states and landlocked exclaves of coastal states:

1104-537: A country's development. It cuts a nation off from important sea resources such as fishing , and impedes or prevents direct access to maritime trade , a crucial component of economic and social advance. As such, coastal regions, or inland regions that have access to the World Ocean, tended to be wealthier and more heavily populated than inland regions that have no access to the World Ocean. Paul Collier in his book The Bottom Billion argues that being landlocked in

1242-664: A court decision. Homosexual acts are illegal in Turkmenistan. The use of the death penalty in the country was suspended in 1999, before being formally abolished in 2008. Despite the launch of Turkmenistan's first communication satellite , the TurkmenSat 1 , in April 2015, the Turkmen government banned all satellite dishes in Turkmenistan the same month. The statement issued by the government indicated that all existing satellite dishes would have to be removed or destroyed—despite

1380-601: A former official of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , ruled Turkmenistan from 1985, when he became head of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR , until his death in 2006. He retained absolute control over the country as President after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 28 December 1999, Niyazov was declared President for Life of Turkmenistan by the Mejlis (parliament), which itself had taken office

1518-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate

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1656-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but

1794-539: A lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian

1932-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between

2070-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it

2208-792: A neutral position on almost all international issues. Niyazov eschewed membership in regional organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation , and in the late 1990s he maintained relations with the Taliban and its chief opponent in Afghanistan , the Northern Alliance . He offered limited support to the military campaign against the Taliban following the 11 September 2001 attacks . In 2002 an alleged assassination attempt against Niyazov led to

2346-719: A new Constitution . The latter resulted in the abolition of the council and a significant increase in the size of Parliament in December 2008 and also permits the formation of multiple political parties. The Assembly ( Turkmen : Mejlis ) is since January 2023 the unicameral legislature of Turkmenistan. Between March 2021 and 21 January 2023 it was the lower house of the now defunct bicameral National Council of Turkmenistan ( Turkmen : Milli Geňeş ). It has 125 members, elected for five-year terms in single-seat constituencies . The People's Council of Turkmenistan ( Turkmen : Halk Maslahaty , [xɑlq mɑθlɑxɑt̪ɯ] ; "People's Council")

2484-420: A new wave of security restrictions, dismissals of government officials, and restrictions placed on the media. Niyazov accused exiled former foreign minister Boris Shikhmuradov of having planned the attack. Between 2002 and 2004, serious tension arose between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan because of bilateral disputes and Niyazov's implication that Uzbekistan had a role in the 2002 assassination attempt. In 2004,

2622-443: A poor geographical neighbourhood is one of four major development "traps" by which a country can be held back. In general, he found that when a neighbouring country experiences better growth, it tends to spill over into favorable development for the country itself. For landlocked countries, the effect is particularly strong, as they are limited in their trading activity with the rest of the world. He states, "If you are coastal, you serve

2760-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in

2898-470: A series of bilateral treaties restored friendly relations. In the parliamentary elections of December 2004 and January 2005 , only Niyazov's party was represented, and no international monitors participated. In 2005, Niyazov exercised his dictatorial power by closing all hospitals outside Ashgabat and all rural libraries. The year 2006 saw intensification of the trends of arbitrary policy changes, shuffling of top officials, diminishing economic output outside

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3036-459: A series of splits and confederations among the nomadic Turkmen tribes, who remained staunchly independent and inspired fear in their neighbors. 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

3174-637: A tie with Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 169th place globally, between Chad and Equatorial Guinea, with a score of 19 out of 100. Opposition media and foreign human rights organizations describe Turkmenistan as suffering from rampant corruption. A non-governmental organization, Crude Accountability , has openly called the economy of Turkmenistan a kleptocracy . Opposition and domestic state-controlled media have described widespread bribery in education and law enforcement. In 2019,

3312-627: A week earlier in elections that included only candidates hand-picked by President Niyazov. No opposition candidates were allowed. The former Communist Party, now known as the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan , is the dominant party. The second party, the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs , was established in August 2012, and an agrarian party appeared two years later. Political gatherings are illegal unless government sanctioned. In 2013,

3450-754: Is "doubly landlocked" or "double-landlocked" when it is surrounded entirely by landlocked countries (i.e. requiring the crossing of at least two national borders to reach a coastline). There are two such countries: After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire , the Kingdom of Württemberg became a doubly landlocked state, bordering Bavaria , Baden , Switzerland , the Grand Duchy of Hesse ( Wimpfen exclave), Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen , and Hohenzollern-Hechingen . The latter two were themselves landlocked between each other, Württemberg, and Baden. In 1866 they became an exclave of Prussia , giving Württemberg

3588-1857: Is 48.0  °C (118.4  °F ) and Kerki , an extreme inland city located on the banks of the Amu Darya river, recorded 51.7 °C (125.1 °F) in July 1983, although this value is unofficial. 50.1 °C (122 °F) is the highest temperature recorded at Repetek Reserve , recognized as the highest temperature ever recorded in the whole former Soviet Union. Turkmenistan enjoys 235–240 sunny days per year. The average number of degree days ranges from 4500 to 5000 Celsius, sufficient for production of extra long staple cotton. Turkmenistan contains seven terrestrial ecoregions: Alai-Western Tian Shan steppe , Kopet Dag woodlands and forest steppe , Badghyz and Karabil semi-desert , Caspian lowland desert , Central Asian riparian woodlands , Central Asian southern desert , and Kopet Dag semi-desert . Landlocked country Generally, being landlocked creates political and economic disadvantages that having access to international waters would avoid. For this reason, nations large and small throughout history have fought to gain access to open waters, even at great expense in wealth, bloodshed, and political capital . The economic disadvantages of being landlocked can be alleviated or aggravated depending on degree of development, surrounding trade routes and freedom of trade , commonality of language, and other considerations. Some landlocked countries in Europe are affluent, such as Andorra , Austria , Liechtenstein , Luxembourg , San Marino , Switzerland , and Vatican City , all of which, excluding Luxembourg (a founding member of NATO ), frequently employ neutrality in global political issues. However, 32 out of

3726-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,

3864-485: Is Turkmenistan's independent "representative body" exerting supreme constitutional authority. It includes in its membership, but is not considered part of, the legislature . Inter alia it is empowered to amend the constitution. Its chairperson is appointed by the president and is designated the "National Leader". State media referred to the People's Council as the "supreme organ of government authority". From 2018 to 2023 it

4002-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under

4140-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of

4278-1036: Is a member of the United Nations , the International Monetary Fund , the World Bank , the Economic Cooperation Organization , the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe , the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation , the Islamic Development Bank , Asian Development Bank , European Bank for Reconstruction and Development , the Food and Agriculture Organization , International Organization of Turkic Culture and observer member of Organisation of Turkic States . Turkmenistan

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4416-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this

4554-594: Is an observer state in the Organisation of Turkic States , the Türksoy community and a member of the United Nations . The name of Turkmenistan ( Turkmen : Türkmenistan ) can be divided into two components: the ethnonym Türkmen and the Persian suffix -stan meaning "place of" or "country". The name "Turkmen" comes from Turk, plus the Sogdian suffix -men, meaning "almost Turk", in reference to their status outside

4692-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to

4830-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There

4968-580: Is considered to be one of the "10 Most Censored Countries". Each broadcast under Niyazov began with a pledge that the broadcaster's tongue will shrivel if he slanders the country, flag, or president. Religious minorities are discriminated against for conscientious objection and practising their religion by imprisonment, preventing foreign travel, confiscating copies of Christian literature or defamation. Many detainees who have been arrested for exercising their freedom of religion or belief were tortured and subsequently sentenced to imprisonment, many of them without

5106-538: Is in a temperate desert zone with a dry continental climate. Remote from the open sea, with mountain ranges to the south and southeast, Turkmenistan's climate is characterized by low precipitation, low cloudiness, and high evaporation. Absence of mountains to the north allows cold Arctic air to penetrate southward to the southerly mountain ranges, which in turn block warm, moist air from the Indian Ocean. Limited winter and spring rains are attributable to moist air from

5244-573: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially

5382-561: Is mostly governed by the Interior Ministry . The Ministry of National Security (KNB) is the intelligence-gathering asset. The Interior Ministry commands the 25,000 personnel of the national police force directly, while the KNB deals with intelligence and counterintelligence work. Turkmenistan has been widely criticised for human rights abuses and has imposed severe restrictions on foreign travel for its citizens. Discrimination against

5520-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which

5658-657: Is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to

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5796-762: Is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has

5934-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and

6072-501: Is severely curtailed, inhibiting free expression of the voters' will. Despite measures to demonstrate transparency, the integrity of elections was not ensured, leaving veracity of results in doubt The judiciary in Turkmenistan is not independent. Under Articles 71 and 100 of the constitution of Turkmenistan, the president appoints all judges, including the chairperson (chief justice) of the Supreme Court , and may dismiss them with

6210-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to

6348-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in

6486-641: Is the 35th most-populous country in Asia and has the lowest population of the Central Asian republics while being one of the most sparsely populated nations on the Asian continent. Turkmenistan has long served as a thoroughfare for several empires and cultures. Merv is one of the oldest oasis-cities in Central Asia, and was once among the biggest cities in the world. It was also one of the great cities of

6624-727: Is the 82nd most peaceful country in the world, according to the 2024 Global Peace Index . The Armed Forces of Turkmenistan ( Turkmen : Türkmenistanyň Ýaragly Güýçleri ), known informally as the Turkmen National Army ( Turkmen : Türkmenistanyň Milli goşun ) is the national military of Turkmenistan. It consists of the Ground Forces , the Air Force and Air Defense Forces , Navy , and other independent formations (etc. Border Troops , Internal Troops and National Guard ). The national police force in Turkmenistan

6762-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using

6900-602: Is the world's 52nd-largest country. It is slightly smaller than Spain and larger than Cameroon . It lies between latitudes 35° and 43° N , and longitudes 52° and 67° E . Over 80% of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert . The center of the country is dominated by the Turan Depression and the Karakum Desert. Topographically, Turkmenistan is bounded by the Ustyurt Plateau to the north,

7038-597: Is usually not considered a continent but a geographical region by the English-speaking countries ) also has no landlocked countries. All landlocked countries, except Bolivia and Paraguay , are located on the continental mainland of Afro-Eurasia . Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It

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7176-468: Is widely criticized for its poor human rights , including for its treatment of minorities, and its lack of press and religious freedoms. Since the independence declared from the Soviet Union in 1991, Turkmenistan has been ruled by repressive totalitarian regimes: that of President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov (also known as Türkmenbaşy or "Head of the Turkmens") until his death in 2006; Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow , who became president in 2007 after winning

7314-399: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population

7452-600: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian

7590-486: The Atrek (Etrek) River . Tributaries of the Atrek include the Sumbar River and Chandyr River . The Turkmen shore along the Caspian Sea is 1,748 kilometres (1,086 mi) long. The Caspian Sea is entirely landlocked, with no natural access to the ocean, although the Volga–Don Canal allows shipping access to and from the Black Sea . Major cities include Aşgabat , Türkmenbaşy (formerly Krasnovodsk), Balkanabat , Daşoguz , Türkmenabat , and Mary . Turkmenistan

7728-544: The Baltic Sea , Black Sea , and Pacific Ocean . On the other hand, some landlocked countries can have access to the ocean along wide navigable rivers. For instance, Paraguay (and Bolivia to a lesser extent) have access to the ocean through the Paraguay and Paraná rivers. Several countries have coastlines on landlocked bodies of water, such as the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea . Since these seas are in effect lakes without access to wider seaborne trade, countries such as Kazakhstan are still considered landlocked. Although

7866-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in

8004-470: The Grand Duchy of Hesse , Hesse-Homburg , Nassau (all until 1866), Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld , Saxe-Hildburghausen (both until 1826), and Reuss, elder line (until 1871). All of these bordered Prussia but not the main territory with sea access. There were no doubly landlocked countries from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the end of World War I . Liechtenstein bordered the Austro-Hungarian Empire , which had an Adriatic coastline, and Uzbekistan

8142-404: The Islamic world and an important stop on the Silk Road . Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1881, Turkmenistan figured prominently in the anti-Bolshevik movement in Central Asia. In 1925, Turkmenistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union , the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR); it became independent after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The country

8280-405: The Kopet Dag Range to the south, the Paropamyz Plateau, the Koytendag Range to the east, the Amu Darya Valley, and the Caspian Sea to the west. Turkmenistan includes three tectonic regions, the Epigersin platform region, the Alpine shrinkage region, and the Epiplatform orogenesis region. The Alpine tectonic region is the epicenter of earthquakes in Turkmenistan. Strong earthquakes occurred in

8418-406: The Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union , gained its independence with the dissolution of the latter in 1991 and became the second doubly landlocked country. However, Uzbekistan's doubly landlocked status depends on whether the Caspian Sea is considered a lake or a sea. In the latter case, Uzbekistan is not doubly landlocked, since its neighbors Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have access to

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8556-436: The Russian Revolution of 1917 had little direct impact, in the 1920s Turkmen forces joined Kazakhs , Kyrgyz , and Uzbeks in the so-called Basmachi rebellion against the rule of the newly formed Soviet Union . In 1921 the tsarist province of Transcaspia ( Russian : Закаспийская область , 'Transcaspian Oblast') was renamed Turkmen Oblast ( Russian : Туркменская область ), and in 1924, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic

8694-682: The Sound Dues , a toll needed to be paid to reach Western European waters. Sweden bypassed it by conquering Scania in 1658. Landlocked countries may be bordered by a single country having direct access to the high seas , two or more such countries, or be surrounded by other landlocked countries, making a country doubly landlocked. Three countries are landlocked by a single country ( enclaved countries): Seven landlocked countries are surrounded by only two mutually bordering neighbours (semi-enclaved countries): To this group could be added three landlocked territories, two of them de facto states with limited or no international recognition : A country

8832-476: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On

8970-507: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to

9108-440: The Yomud Turkmen group resulted in that group's dispersal by the Uzbek rulers. In 1855 the Turkmen tribe of Teke led by Gowshut-Khan defeated the invading army of the Khan of Khiva Muhammad Amin Khan and in 1861 the invading Persian army of Nasreddin-Shah . In the second half of the 19th century, northern Turkmens were the main military and political power in the Khanate of Khiva . According to Paul R. Spickard, "Prior to

9246-405: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as

9384-545: The 45 landlocked countries, including those in Africa , Asia , and South America , have been classified as Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) by the United Nations . Nine of the twelve countries with the lowest Human Development Index rankings are landlocked. International initiatives are aimed at reducing inequalities resulting from issues such as these, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 , which aims to reduce inequality substantially by 2030. In 1990, there were only 30 landlocked countries in

9522-424: The Ahal area of Turkmenistan . However, in 1881, the last significant resistance in Turkmen territory was crushed at the Battle of Geok Tepe , and shortly thereafter Turkmenistan was annexed, together with adjoining Uzbek territory, into the Russian Empire . In 1916, the Russian Empire's participation in World War I resonated in Turkmenistan, as an anticonscription revolt swept most of Russian Central Asia. Although

9660-412: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home

9798-466: The Caspian Sea is connected to the Black Sea via the man-made Volga–Don Canal , large oceangoing ships are unable to traverse it. Some countries or important parts of countries have coastlines or river ports reachable by oceangoing ships, but only through a strait or river part of the territory of another country. The other country can put restriction on passage. Between 1429 and 1857 Poland , Sweden , Russia and more Baltic countries were suffering from

9936-657: The Caspian Sea. Notes: The landlocked countries and de facto states can be grouped in contiguous groups as follows: Notes: There are the following 12 "single" landlocked countries (each of them borders no other landlocked country or de facto state): According to the United Nations geoscheme (excluding the de facto states ), Africa has the most landlocked countries, at 16, followed by Europe (14), Asia (12), and South America (2). However, if Armenia , Azerbaijan , Kazakhstan , and South Ossetia (de facto state) are counted as parts of Europe, then Europe has

10074-532: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,

10212-590: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this

10350-575: The Kopet Dag Range in 1869, 1893, 1895, 1929, 1948, and 1994. The city of Ashgabat and surrounding villages were largely destroyed by the 1948 earthquake . The Kopet Dag Range , along the southwestern border, reaches 2,912 metres (9,554 feet ) at Kuh-e Rizeh (Mount Rizeh). The Great Balkhan Range in the west of the country ( Balkan Province ) and the Köýtendag Range on the southeastern border with Uzbekistan ( Lebap Province ) are

10488-526: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of

10626-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated

10764-648: The Russian conquest, the Turkmen were known and feared for their involvement in the Central Asian slave trade ." Russian forces began occupying Turkmen territory late in the 19th century. From their Caspian Sea base at Krasnovodsk (now Türkmenbaşy ), the Russians eventually overcame the Uzbek khanates. In 1879, the Russian forces were defeated by the Teke Turkmens during the first attempt to conquer

10902-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from

11040-458: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian

11178-563: The Turkic dynastic mythological system. However, some scholars argue the suffix is an intensifier , changing the meaning of Türkmen to "pure Turks" or "the Turkish Turks." Muslim chroniclers like Ibn Kathir suggested that the etymology of Turkmenistan came from the words Türk and iman ( Arabic : إيمان , lit.   'faith/belief'); this is in reference to a massive conversion to Islam of two hundred thousand households in

11316-532: The Turkmen-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty . Internet access is filtered and websites to which the government objects are blocked. Blocked websites include opposition news media, YouTube, many social media sites (including Facebook), and encrypted communications applications. Use of virtual private networks to circumvent censorship is prohibited. Transparency International 's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index placed Turkmenistan in

11454-403: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of

11592-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter

11730-415: The communications receiving antennas having been legally installed since 1995—in an effort by the government to fully block access of the population to many "hundreds of independent international media outlets" which are currently accessible in the country only through satellite dishes, including all leading international news channels in different languages. The main target of this campaign is Radio Azatlyk ,

11868-631: The consent of the Parliament. Outside observers consider the Turkmen legislature to be a rubber stamp parliament, and thus despite constitutional guarantees of judicial independence under Articles 98 and 99, the judiciary is de facto firmly under presidential control. The chief justice is considered a member of the executive authority of the government and sits on the State Security Council . The U.S. Department of State stated in its 2020-human rights report on Turkmenistan, Although

12006-520: The country's ethnic minorities remains in practice. Universities have been encouraged to reject applicants with non-Turkmen surnames, especially ethnic Russians. It is forbidden to teach the customs and language of the Baloch , an ethnic minority. The same happens to Uzbeks, though the Uzbek language was formerly taught in some national schools. According to Human Rights Watch , "Turkmenistan remains one of

12144-470: The country's independence. Historically inhabited by Indo-Iranians , Turkmenistan's written history begins with its annexation by the Achaemenid Empire of Ancient Iran. After centuries of turmoil, over a thousand years later, 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

12282-513: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language

12420-406: The country. His successor, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow , repealed some of Niyazov's most idiosyncratic policies, including banning operas and circuses for being "insufficiently Turkmen" , though other such rules were later put into place such as the banning of non-white cars. In education, Berdimuhamedow's government increased basic education to ten years from nine years, and higher education

12558-551: The course of major world events. Even the major liberalization movement that shook Russia in the late 1980s had little impact. However, in 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Turkmenistan declared sovereignty as a nationalist response to perceived exploitation by Moscow . Although Turkmenistan was ill-prepared for independence and then- communist leader Saparmurat Niyazov preferred to preserve the Soviet Union, in October 1991,

12696-463: The current responsible Undersecretary-General is Anwarul Karim Chowdhury . Some countries have a long coastline, but much of it may not be readily usable for trade and commerce. For instance, in its early history, Russia 's only ports were on the Arctic Ocean and frozen shut for much of the year. The wish to gain control of a warm-water port was a major motivator of Russian expansion towards

12834-465: The ethnic basis of the modern Turkmen population. In the 10th century, the name "Turkmen" was first applied to Oghuz groups that accepted Islam and began to occupy present-day Turkmenistan. There they were under the dominion of the Seljuk Empire , which was composed of Oghuz groups living in present-day Iran and Turkmenistan. Oghuz groups in the service of the empire played an important role in

12972-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,

13110-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or

13248-490: The first multi-party parliamentary elections were held in Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan was a one-party state from 1991 to 2012; however, the 2013 elections were widely seen as rigged. In practice, all parties in parliament operate jointly under the direction of the DPT. There are no true opposition parties in the Turkmen parliament. Since the December 2006 death of Niyazov, Turkmenistan's leadership has made tentative moves to open up

13386-527: The former landlocked country of Czechoslovakia ceased to exist on 1 January 1993. On 30 September 2022, the Luhansk People's Republic (de facto state) was annexed by Russia and ceased to exist as a landlocked de facto state. On 19 September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a new offensive against the Republic of Artsakh (de facto state) and achieved a decisive victory. The Government of Artsakh

13524-401: The fragmentation of that entity forced him to call a national referendum that approved independence. On 26 December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Niyazov continued as Turkmenistan's chief of state, replacing communism with a unique brand of independent nationalism reinforced by a pervasive cult of personality . A 1994 referendum and legislation in 1999 abolished further requirements for

13662-631: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to

13800-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and

13938-531: The law provides for an independent judiciary, the executive controls it, and it is subordinate to the executive. There was no legislative review of the president's judicial appointments and dismissals. The president had sole authority to dismiss any judge. The judiciary was widely reputed to be corrupt and inefficient. Many national laws of Turkmenistan have been published online on the Ministry of Justice website. Turkmenistan's declaration of "permanent neutrality"

14076-657: The most landlocked countries, at 20 (including all three landlocked de facto states). If these transcontinental or culturally European countries are included in Asia, then both Africa and Europe (including Kosovo and Transnistria ) have the most, at 16. Depending on the status of Kazakhstan and the South Caucasian countries, Asia has between 9 and 13 (including South Ossetia ). South America only has two landlocked countries: Bolivia and Paraguay . Australia and North America have no landlocked countries, while Antarctica has no countries at all. Oceania (which

14214-437: The national chief of police, Minister of Internal Affairs Isgender Mulikov , was convicted and imprisoned for corruption. In 2020, the deputy prime minister for education and science, Pürli Agamyradow, was dismissed for failure to control bribery in education. The illegal adoption of abandoned babies in Turkmenistan is blamed on rampant corruption in the agencies involved in the legal adoption process which pushes some parents to

14352-524: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of

14490-443: The oil and gas sector, and isolation from regional and world organizations. China was among a very few nations to whom Turkmenistan made significant overtures. The sudden death of Niyazov at the end of 2006 left a complete vacuum of power, as his cult of personality , comparable to the one of eternal president Kim Il Sung of North Korea , had precluded the naming of a successor. Deputy Prime Minister Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow , who

14628-588: The only other significant elevations. The Great Balkhan Range rises to 1,880 metres (6,170 ft) at Mount Arlan and the highest summit in Turkmenistan is Ayrybaba in the Kugitangtau Range – 3,137 metres (10,292 ft). The Kopet Dag mountain range forms most of the border between Turkmenistan and Iran. Major rivers include the Amu Darya , the Murghab River , the Tejen River , and

14766-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to

14904-516: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,

15042-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held

15180-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or

15318-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian

15456-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in

15594-432: The president to stand for re-election (although in 1992 he completely dominated the only presidential election in which he ran, as he was the only candidate and no one else was allowed to run for the office), making him effectively president for life . During his tenure, Niyazov conducted frequent purges of public officials and abolished organizations deemed threatening. Throughout the post-Soviet era, Turkmenistan has taken

15732-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration

15870-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,

16008-473: The ratio is 3:1). Historically, traveling between a landlocked country and a country which did not border said country required the traveler to pass border controls twice or more. In recent times the advent of air travel has largely negated this impediment. Countries have acted to overcome being landlocked by acquiring land that reaches the sea: Countries can make agreements on getting free transport of goods through neighbouring countries: Losing access to

16146-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed

16284-520: The sea is generally a great loss to a nation, politically, militarily, and economically. The following are examples of countries becoming landlocked. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea now gives a landlocked country a right of access to and from the sea without taxation of traffic through transit states. The United Nations has a programme of action to assist landlocked developing countries, and

16422-597: The spreading of Turkic culture when they migrated westward into present-day Azerbaijan and eastern Turkey . 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

16560-626: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In

16698-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to

16836-786: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic  * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature

16974-511: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to

17112-529: The west, originating in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Winters are mild and dry, with most precipitation falling between January and May. The Kopet Dag Range receives the highest level of precipitation. The Karakum Desert is one of the driest deserts in the world; some places have an average annual precipitation of only 12 mm (0.47 in). The highest temperature recorded in Ashgabat

17250-471: The world's most repressive countries. The country is virtually closed to independent scrutiny, media and religious freedoms are subject to draconian restrictions, and human rights defenders and other activists face the constant threat of government reprisal." According to Reporters Without Borders 's 2014 World Press Freedom Index, Turkmenistan had the 3rd worst press freedom conditions in the world (178/180 countries), just before North Korea and Eritrea . It

17388-429: The world. However, the dissolutions of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia ; the breakup of Yugoslavia ; the independence referendums of South Ossetia (de facto state), Eritrea , Montenegro , South Sudan , and the Luhansk People's Republic (de facto state); and the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo (de facto state) created 15 new landlocked countries and five landlocked de facto states while

17526-431: The world; if you are landlocked, you serve your neighbors." Others have argued that being landlocked has an advantage as it creates a "natural tariff barrier" that protects the country from cheap imports. In some instances, this has led to more robust local food systems. Landlocked developing countries have significantly higher costs of international cargo transportation compared to coastal developing countries (in Asia

17664-423: The year 971. Turkmenistan declared its independence from the Soviet Union after the independence referendum in 1991. As a result, the constitutional law was adopted on 27 October of that year and Article 1 established the new name of the state: Turkmenistan ( Türkmenistan / Түркменистан). A common name for the Turkmen SSR was Turkmenia ( Russian : Туркмения , romanization : Turkmeniya), used in some reports of

17802-513: Was extended from four years to five. Berdimuhamedow was succeeded by his son Serdar in 2022 . The politics of Turkmenistan take place in the framework of a presidential republic , with the President both head of state and head of government . Under Niyazov, Turkmenistan had a one-party system ; however, in September 2008, the People's Council unanimously passed a resolution adopting

17940-468: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian

18078-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of

18216-501: Was formally recognized by the United Nations in 1995. Former President Saparmurat Niyazov stated that the neutrality would prevent Turkmenistan from participating in multi-national defense organizations, but allows military assistance. Its neutral foreign policy has an important place in the country's constitution . Turkmenistan has diplomatic relations with 139 countries, some of the most important partners being Afghanistan , Armenia , Iran , Pakistan and Russia . Turkmenistan

18354-421: Was formed from it. 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, amounting to two-thirds of the city's population. During the next half-century, Turkmenistan played its designated economic role within the Soviet Union and remained outside

18492-442: Was named interim head of government, won a non-democratic special presidential election held in early February 2007. His appointment as interim president and subsequent run for president violated the constitution. Berdimuhamedow won two additional non-democratic elections, with approximately 97% of the vote in both 2012 and 2017 . His son Serdar Berdimuhamedow won a non-democratic snap presidential election in 2022, establishing

18630-465: Was officially dissolved on 1 January 2024. As a result, Artsakh ceased to exist as a landlocked de facto state and the Nagorno-Karabakh region was reintegrated into Azerbaijan. As of 1 April 2024, there were 44 landlocked countries and three landlocked de facto states ( Kosovo , South Ossetia , and Transnistria ) in the world. Historically, being landlocked has been disadvantageous to

18768-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between

18906-504: Was the upper chamber of the National Council of Turkmenistan. Outside observers consider the Turkmen legislature to be a rubber stamp parliament. The 2018 OSCE election observer mission noted, The 25 March elections lacked important prerequisites of a genuinely democratic electoral process. The political environment is only nominally pluralist and does not offer voters political alternatives. Exercise of fundamental freedoms

19044-703: Was then part of the Russian Empire , which had both ocean and sea access. With the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918 and creation of an independent, landlocked Austria , Liechtenstein became the sole doubly landlocked country until 1938. In the Anschluss that year, Austria was absorbed into Nazi Germany , which possessed a border on the Baltic Sea and the North Sea . After World War II, Austria regained its independence and Liechtenstein once again became doubly landlocked. Uzbekistan, which had been part of

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