Altyn Asyr is a city in

Tejen District Tejen District is a district of Ahal Province in Turkmenistan.It covers an area of 12,000 km2 with an estimated 110,000 people in 2006. The main city is Tejen, located near the Hanhowuz Reservoir. The main highway is the M37 highway (Turkmenistan), ...

Ahal Province Ahal Region ( tk, Ahal welaýaty; from fa, آخال, Axāl) is one of five provinces of Turkmenistan. It is in the south-center of the country, bordering Iran and Afghanistan along the Kopet Dag Range. Its area is and population 939,700 (2005 ...

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...

. Its main economic activity is cotton farming.

Etymology

The words ''altyn asyr'' mean "golden age" in

Turkmen Turkmen, Türkmen, Turkoman, or Turkman may refer to: Peoples Historical ethnonym * Turkoman (ethnonym), ethnonym used for the Oghuz Turks during the Middle Ages Ethnic groups * Turkmen in Anatolia and the Levant (Seljuk and Ottoman-Turkish desc ...

. The phrase is used to describe the post-Soviet era of Turkmen independence, particularly during the reign of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Saparmurat Niyazov Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov; tk, Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow, in Cyrillic: Сапармырат Атаевич Ныязов (19 February 1940 – 21 December 2006), also known as Turkmenbashi, was a Turkmen politician who rule ...

History

The municipality was founded on the basis of the Soviet-era cotton-producing "Tejen"

state farm State Farm Insurance is a large group of mutual insurance companies throughout the United States with corporate headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois. Overview State Farm is the largest property and casualty insurance provider, and the la ...

. Following independence, state and

collective farms Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...

were redesignated villages and towns. The Tejen State Farm was designated a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

and initially named Bereket ("fertile"). In 2000 it was renamed Altyn Asyr ("Golden Age") and made the administrative center of a new district of the same name formed from parts of Sarahs District,

, and

Kaka District Kaka District is a district of Ahal Province, Turkmenistan. In ancient times the area was a fertile agricultural plain to the north of the Kopet Dag mountain range. A number of important Bronze Age sites exist in the area, such as Ulug Depe Ulu ...

. On 28 April 2016 Altyn Asyr was further upgraded, to city-in-a-district status, by parliamentary decree. The Altyn Asyr District was abolished by act of Parliament on 5 January 2018 and its territory was transferred to Tejen, Kaka, and Sarahs Districts. The city of Altyn Asyr was reassigned to Tejen District.

People associated with Altyn Asyr

A director of the former state farm, Chary Hanamov ( tk, Çary Hanamow, russian: Чары Ханамов), wrote a memoir of his life and times. Hanamov was recognized as a

Hero of Socialist Labor The Hero of Socialist Labour (russian: links=no, Герой Социалистического Труда, Geroy Sotsialisticheskogo Truda) was an honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It repre ...

in 1976. Hanamov's son,

Nurmuhammet Hanamow Nurmuhammet Çaryýewiç Hanamow (Russian: Нурмухаммед Чарыевич Ханамов, ''Nurmukhammed Charievich Khanamov'', born 1 January 1945 in Tejen, Ashkhabad Oblast, Turkmen SSR) is a Turkmen politician. Although he served as t ...

, served as independent Turkmenistan's

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

and subsequently went into exile as an opposition leader.

Transportation

Altyn Asyr is located between Turkmenistan's main east–west motor route, the M37 highway, and the P-7 highway that links

Tejen Tejen (older spellings: Tedzhen, Tejend, Tejent) is an oasis city with district status in the Karakum Desert, in Ahal Province of Turkmenistan. It lies along the M37 highway, between Dushak and Mary, by road southeast of Ashgabat. It has a po ...

and

Sarahs Sarahs (, also written Saraghs, Serahs, Sarakhs, Saragt, or Serakhs, the last a backformation of russian: Серахс) is an oasis city in Ahal Province, Turkmenistan, and the administrative center of Sarahs district ( tk, Sarahs etraby). It is ...

Appearance in motion picture

In 1969 the "Tejen" state farm was the subject of cinematography.

References

Populated places in Ahal Region {{Turkmenistan-geo-stub