Many names come to mind when discussing appalling dictators of history -- Hitler, Stalin, Kin Jong-un, etc. However when you hear the name Saparmurat Niyazov, only a select few can tell you who that is. But what if I told you that this man literally sent the book that he wrote into space, so that aliens could convert to his own religion? And that is only the tip of the iceberg! The deceased president of Turkmenistan has done a ridiculous amount of ludicrous things that the world has failed to recognize.
Here is a list of just a few notable things that the man has done while in power of a third-world country:
1. Changed the word for Bread to the name of his mother -- Gurbansoltan.
2. Outlawed beards on men.
3. Outlawed makeup on women.
4. Also outlawed lip-syncing because that was just the most absurd thing to him.
5. Built an ice palace in the middle of a Turkmenistan desert.
6. Declared that Turkmenistan will never get involved in any foreign affair (be it cultural, political or economical)
7. Created a brand new language for Turkmenistan.
8. Abolished algebra and physics.
9. Removed all stereos in cars - making it illegal to listen to them.
10. Banned all dogs from the capital... because he thought they smelled bad.
11. Banned gold teeth. So if you already had gold teeth, they HAD to be extracted.
12. Passed a law that declared that if you were a foreigner, you had to pay a $50,000 to marry a Turkmen woman.
13. Wrote a book, Ruhnama, in which he fabricated the history of Turkmenistan - dating it back to Noah's Ark.
14. Demanded that the book was studied in every elementary and middle school.
15. Declared that reading the book three time from cover to cover will guarantee the passage to heaven.
16. Added questions correlated to the book to the driving license test.
17. Sent the book out to space - obviously so that aliens could also educate themselves on the history of Turkmenistan.
18. Built a 50-foot statue of Ruhnama, because why not?!
19. Won two presidential election with 99.99% of the vote.
