This is east of Ashgabat when we went out of town on our way to a horse farm. We didn’t have any stops at ordinary places. I took these photos from our moving bus so I could show a little bit of more normal Turkmenistan.

We were not too many miles out of Ashgabat in the first two photos. This area evidently had plenty of water and was heavily agricultural. You can see a vineyard in the first photo with more of the green-roof housing behind it. The green-roof housing is what passes for old housing in and around Ashgabat. The second photo is an alfalfa field. On this morning, the wind came up and there was quite a dust storm both in town and outside of town. You can see the dust storm in the background of the second photo as it almost blocks out the mountains.

The third photo is much further out of town. It’s still an agriculture area but not as much water. We saw several fields where two guys loaded up a truck like this, all by hand. One guy was on the ground and one guy was on the truck. The guy on the ground boosted the bales up and the guy on the truck pulled them up and stacked them. It’s not how we do it at home but it looks like it works for them.

The last two photos are farther out of Ashgabat and are the Kara Kum Desert (Karakum). Kara Kum in Turkic means Black Sand. The dirt and sand below the top sand is evidently very dark. The Kara Kum covers about 70 percent of Turkmenistan. It’s one of the driest places on earth and the desert is about 500 miles from east to west and about 300 miles from north to south. The Kara Kum is mostly rugged plains with dunes and sand ridges. Plateaus, lowlands, and plains that reach the mountain foothills divide the landscape. The ancient people were nomads. Plants are sparse but as you can see in these photos, there are quite a few plants. For that reason, I’m guessing that this area of the Kara Kum is one of the wetter areas. Animals can graze these areas for feed.