We are still at the Halk Hakydasy Memorial Complex or “People’s Memory” Complex. Our bus drove us up to the top of the complex but we opted to walk down to meet the bus at the bottom of the stairway entrance. In the first photo, I’m standing at the back of the main complex area where the three memorial’s stand, looking back towards central Ashgabat. As you might be curious, the rocket-ship shaped building on the ridge across from the complex entrance is a twenty story, five star luxury hotel.

In addition to the three main memorials, the museum, the wall of history and perhaps some other things, this complex features many water fountains, flower beds, lawns, paved paths, benches, highly decorative lamps, and the entire complex is lit up at night as well. You can see some of this in the second photo.

I stood on the right side of the stairs, going down, to take the third photo. This is looking back at central Ashgabat. If you notice the tall flag in the third photo, it was the tallest flag in the world when it was built.

In the fourth photo, I looked off almost perpendicular to the stairs. There, you can see an example of the paths and water features and lawns and gardens and benches and lights. It really looked like a delightful place to be, especially since it was over 100 degrees. The people in the photo are gardeners.

The last photo is at the bottom of the stairs where we picked up our bus. Looking back up you can see all three of the major monuments. The WW II monument is in the center, the earthquake monument is on the left behind the fourth light standard from the top, and the motherland monument is on the right between the third and fourth light standards from the top. There were over 300 steps. Yes, I counted them.