Today I interviewed some embassy staffers about the status of the Ruhabat dacha community, which appeared on the OSM map of Ashgabat north of the Altyn Asyr (“new Tolkuchka”) bazaar. I have driven past it many times and never seen a house there, but the map shows a significant residential community. It turns out the Turkmen government ordered the entire community demolished in 2013, and by mid-2014 (before I arrived here) it had been eradicated. All houses were torn down and the rubble removed, ostensibly to make way for a new airport and zoological garden, neither of which was built there (the existing airport was expanded, and the zoo was moved to a new site southwest of the city).

I thus removed the point marker for the “town” of Ruhabat, since it has not existed for over three years, and redrew the outlines of the “neighborhood” to correspond to a small village on the northwest corner of the former Ruhabat community. I will have to drive up there to see if that community has a name.