The Blacklist That Took Us Down
While sorting through my personal archives, I came across a letter sent from Ashgabat on April 12, 2009. The author—an acquaintance of mine and a writer who had once participated in drafting a blacklist of creative figures, only to later find himself targeted by that very system.
In his letter, he shared his joy at news that Annamyrat Poladov, another member of the late president's inner circle, had been dismissed as editor-in-chief of the Türkmenistan newspaper, expressing hope that the state's blacklist might finally be dismantled.
"After 1991, the late Niyazov entrusted the press to self-serving, intellectually shallow figures like Sapar Orayev and Annamyrat Poladov—men who stumbled into literature and journalism by chance and acted as executioners of the truth," he wrote. Curiously, while condemning both men, the author singled out Poladov as the chief architect of the blacklist.
According to the letter, Poladov—while serving as editor-in-chief of the Nesil newspaper—and his associates waged a covert campaign against writers and journalists who refused to produce praise for Niyazov. They orchestrated character assassination campaigns, spreading rumors among officials that these independent voices were actively conspiring against the state and the president.
The author described how these rumors reached Niyazov—a leader notoriously receptive to flattery and paranoia—through high-ranking channels, prompting the official blacklisting of Turkmenistan's creative intelligentsia. The reprisals were swift and ruthless: dissenters were fired, barred from publishing, and occasionally imprisoned, while their families faced systematic harassment.
"There was only one option left: stay silent. If you couldn't manage that, prison was waiting," the writer noted, explaining the pervasive silence among the nation's journalists.
The letter further alleged that Poladov—an uneducated former market vendor—cunningly leveraged his authority to transform himself into a prominent publicist. He routinely struck coercive deals with actual writers: "Ghostwrite a series of timely articles under my name, and I will ensure your other works get published."
"After Niyazov died under obscure circumstances in December 2006, Poladov was appointed editor-in-chief of the nation's flagship newspaper, Türkmenistan, giving him complete dominion over the country's press corps. Now, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has ousted him. Will the blacklist Poladov built over eighteen years finally be scrapped? Will the full extent of the harm he inflicted upon our creative community ever come to light?" the writer asked.
He pointed out that many top editors hastily appointed during Poladov’s tenure (with the backing of Kakamyrat Ballyyev, Niyazov's long-serving press secretary) remained in power or had simply been shuffled into equivalent roles. In reality, every one of them had enabled corruption, bribery, and the complete suppression of free speech.
I cannot recall precisely what I thought of that letter back in 2009. I knew Annamyrat Poladov personally; we had studied together at university for five years and shared many meals. Perhaps naively, I never suspected he would cause such immense harm to the Turkmen statehood.
At the same time, I was well acquainted with the letter's author, as well as the other veteran writers who had turned their backs on free expression, ultimately driving the country into its present state of ruin...
Poladov—who began his media career at the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting as an apprentice to Sahy Mammedov (father of Gulshat Mammedova, the former parliamentary speaker and mayor of Arkadag)—caused a massive sensation when he resurfaced.
On August 23, 2010, sixteen months after being fired, he was appointed Deputy Head of the Turkmen State News Agency (TDH).
I remember Sahy Mämmedow well. Back in the Soviet era, he produced television features celebrating cotton farmers who had met their state quotas, conducting long, flattering interviews with veteran farm workers. Years later, when we visited those same villages as young journalists, locals would tell us with a grin that if we made programs like Mämmedow's and got them on the air, people would give us a sheep, too. We used to laugh about it, half-jokingly observing that he had truly mastered the essence of journalism...
A Turkmen proverb wisely observes: "If the apprentice fails to surpass the master, the craft itself will be lost."
Reports indicated that Poladov’s initial April 2009 dismissal was triggered when his younger brother, a customs official, was implicated in drug smuggling—though it was officially framed as a resignation due to "health issues." It came as a profound shock when Berdimuhamedov, who had built his political rhetoric around combatting drug abuse, welcomed Poladov back into the top ranks of state media.
Under the unwritten personnel rules established in the 1990s, an official ousted from high office in Turkmenistan was permanently blacklisted, alongside their children and relatives. Yet Poladov not only escaped the blacklist—on July 9, 2011, he was reinstated as editor-in-chief of Türkmenistan.
After that, I heard nothing more of Poladov. Years later, however, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry upon meeting an English teacher in Prague who had studied alongside his daughter at the Turkmen-Turkish University in Ashgabat. She recalled how the young woman was chauffeured to class in a state-owned Mercedes, never wore the same dress twice, and made a point of arriving three or four minutes late every day—seemingly just to flaunt her expensive designer wardrobe before her less affluent classmates.
By the way, I have been blacklisted in Turkmenistan myself since 1993, facing numerous attacks in the state-run press...