Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

the country of Turkmenistan and specifically its president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov who is not to be confused with Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov who went to high school with everyone who was dating Taylor Swift over the summer no, we are talking about this government Ghoulie Berdimuhamedov he is In fact, recently was in the news after rumors circulated that he had died, something his government heartily rejected, first insisting he was simply on vacation and then posting a 25-minute video on state television showing everything he was supposedly doing. , from bowling to exercising. With his friends to this, as we know, our dear leader is very skilled in controlling a sports car, he drove his powerful off-road car around the crater and demonstrated the high professional driving skills of him.

Count me convinced that this guy is clearly alive and well, you can do it. Don't do donuts around a burning pit if you're dead, think of all the people who are dead right now Babe Ruth Galileo Marlon Brando Mother Teresa, the original Paul McCartney. Do you see any of them doing donuts around fire pits, of course not? You have to be alive now if Berdimuhamedov looks a little familiar to you, in fact we mentioned him before on this show during our segment on authoritarian governments

last

year when we showed you this clip of him being a literal strongman.

I hate to tell this to a fellow lifter but that shit is weak bro, you did one rep and it wasn't even weights on the bar, they even kept decreasing. I stacked more plates than I did in omakase, my body went into beast mode and there's no off switch you want. I know how I came to these shoulders in Boulder by spending time in my fortress of solitude. I'm just the same brother, take notes because I ran out of suits like Megan Markel, no mistake, Berdimuhamedov is even worse at governing a country. than he is pushing the plate, he is a fierce authoritarian and, according to Human Rights Watch, Turkmenistan remains one of the most closed and oppressively governed countries in the world or, as one NGO researcher put it, I would say it is probably one of the worst places to live. the world, so you know, the freedom of the press absolutely knows where you can express any kind of opinion, it is still practically a police state, one of the worst places in the world, which is quite a claim, especially considering that the world also includes Syria, North Korea and Twitter and It's not just a lack of freedom of expression, there have also been State Department reports of arbitrary arrests and detentions, endemic corruption and forced labor, making him a dangerous world leader, but That's not the reason we're talking about it, after all, a dangerous world.

There are currently a dozen leaders, it's just one of the many things that make being alive right now simply great. What makes Birdie Machamer Tov unique is that even among strong dictators it is truly deeply and compellingly strange, so

tonight

let's take a look at it. and as this story is going to get very strange, I promise you that in 20 minutes you will not be wondering so much why we are talking about Turkmenistan but why we would talk about anything else again and let's start with the obvious autocrat. stuff here he's been running symbolically for 12 years and in his most recent election he won with 98 percent of the vote and, like many autocrats, likes to show off his physical prowess, which I already knew about from watching him install a shower bar on hashtag arm masa and there's no shortage of videos online where you can see him shooting guns and throwing knives to impress his troops, but that's just the beginning because Berdimuhamedov takes those standard cult of personality antics and makes them a little weirder. . shorter by taking down targets while riding a bicycle, our great commander-in-chief once again demonstrated his physical preparation.

This became a moment where our dear leader, who is highly skilled in all trades, demonstrated the level of mastery of him, oh yes, total mastery, so beware of enemies. from Turkmenistan because Berdimuhamedov will not hesitate to slowly write a bicycle near you and shoot a gun in your vicinity before an editor makes it local, he actually hit you, but Berlin is not just throwing knives and walking around with guns. Berdimuhamedov is also an artist and his canvas. it's the human ear he went viral

last

year with a rap video recorded with his grandson about the importance of sports called sport lee turkmenistan his inspiration makes friends show up and show all nations gives you joy and racing spirit high points like you're 80 or healthy Anamika, relax, everything in that video is perfect, from the fact that clearly neither of them are playing their instruments to the fact that they just wandered through Turkmenistan with Turkmenistan oh, it's an anthem fun and catchy sports really worthy of jock jams vol 40, maybe sports suck but his musical talents don't stop there, he is also a DJ, plays the piano and is a guitarist who does everything he can to hide his incredible skills.

He looks like he's playing a duet with the smoke monster from Lost. That stage looks like the back entrance. to a church after a French meeting, so he's a strong man who likes to DJ, rap with his grandson and play guitar, but surprisingly we haven't even gotten to the really weird stuff yet because Birdy turned into a dog too He likes horses a lot. as the wrong amount, insofar as it distracts from everything he has done during his almost 13 years of presidency, just think how much Angela Merkel would have to like the Turtles for someone to go on TV and say that We don't have much time for that.

Let's leave aside everything he has done as Chancellor of Germany and focus on the turtle issue, that is, how much Berdimuhamedov likes horses and not just any horse, he is specifically a fan of the hidden echo, which is not in unusual self: beloved national. He is a symbol in Turkmenistan, but he not only gives cakes with a halter to other world leaders; He has written several books about horses, including The Horse, a Symbol of Faithfulness and Happiness, The Flight of Heavenly Racehorses and a Cal Tech, Our Pride and Glory until Recently, an official English copy of that book became available on Amazon , but unfortunately there was only one copy and it looks like someone bought it, shipped it to New York, and put it under their desk because would you like to listen to my favorite book? passage of this book is a bit because it is this and I quote witnesses who never tired of being amazed by the steed and human relations brought to total perfection, which I hope is a bad translation, but it is probably not because Berdimuhamedov has been involved in all stages of the horse's life cycle.

A few years ago the title of town horse breeder was awarded. He also banned changing a horse's name at Cal Tech during his lifetime, and a few years ago issued a presidential decree that instituted a beauty tradition. horse shows, which is definitely strange, but at the same time you have to admit that the outside K is a beautiful horse. I mean, he's a super horse. I'm not saying I'd like that horse. I'm just saying that if it was a horse, just to be clear, I would prefer that horse, John Oliver, the human, wouldn't be that horse, but John Oliver, the horse, would definitely be that other horses all the time, that's how they do it. new horses.

I guess what I'm saying is that if I were a horse and you said to me "marry, kill Mustang", I'll take a Clydesdale, there's no doubt in my horse mind, the Apple tech will marry the Mustang, said the Clydesdale to the glue factory, but again, if it were a horse, only if it were a horse and literally I've thought about this a lot, but definitely not as much as Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. Surprisingly, he reportedly owns more than 600, a Caltech ace, which is almost 10% of the world's total. He owns a plurality of them, which objectively is too many horses imagine owning 10.% of the world's total of anything and I say this as the owner of 100% of the inventory of Amazon, Caltech and our pride and glory.

Now earlier this year someone gave Berdimuhamedov another watch named Rho and he was so excited he wrote a poem about his new horse and read it on state television and this is real Peter Allen you are the worship and memories of ancestors ​​You are the passage from the past to tomorrow Your neigh is the melody of the heavens Roe look you are the hymn of my heart Wait, just wait, your neigh is the melody of the heavens, write a sonnet about a horse, do we strongly suggest You'd like to have sex with that horse, but writing the sonnet about a horse while sitting on a horse drawn between cabinets with horse details complements it? alongside a horse statue, a horseshoe, and a custom desk inlaid with gold horses, strongly suggesting that he actually already made it.

The point is that President Equus likes horses, but are horses like him? The answer and this is a direct quote is neigh and don't just take it from me look at his expression there which is not so much an expression but a physical manifestation of the phrase I can't even and this is not even the first time that a horse seems to have a problem with Berdimuhamedov just look at what happened when he participated in a horse race in 2013 and before I show you this I must say two things: first, remember that he runs a country where activists are missing in the prison system and which has hit the bottom of a number of human rights indices and, second, the horse you are about to see was fine here was fine so with those two things in mind look at this again the horse is alive and well you I can prove it here he is doing donuts around a campfire you have to be alive to do that case closed he laughs now, interestingly, when that race was broadcast on television in Turkmenistan, the footage was cut a fraction of a second before his fall, for What Berdimuhamedov really didn't want people to see was that footage, specifically this footage exactly, that's the footage he really didn't want people to see, in fact, he was so worried about people being able to see it, apparently the people were asked to see it. journalists to delete all photographs and footage taken of the incident and at the airport officials carried out additional checks of the cameras' flash drives and memory disks to detect any trace of the video and watch.

I'm not going to show you the same video again. I mean, why should I when I can show you a closer angle of the same incident again? The horse is fine and this is true, a hero, so to summarize here, when an authoritarian president of his stance is a strongman/dj with a creepy unrequited affection for horses and that is where this story ends or at least it was going to end until we found out about one last strange obsession of his and in the words of the Turkmen airport officials who were inspecting the luggage of foreign journalists we are going to have to undo it the president has a childhood obsession with collecting Guinness world records ashgabat has the record for highest density of buildings clad in white marble this tower once again won a world record for the largest architectural image of a star a Guinness record for the hotly contested title of the world's largest covered ferris wheel, firstly, The only thing worse than a ferris wheel is a covered ferris wheel, and secondly, the highest density of buildings with white marble cladding is simply a useless record, I understand that clearly. has an obsession with marble, the man even built a statue of himself on a golden horse atop a huge white marble cliff, but at some point one record is so strangely specific that it stops being impressive like the biggest one. : a plate of goulash eaten while looking at Fraser or the world.

Ansel Elgort, the tallest, impressive, also, by the way, the smallest Ansel Elgort in the world, but the thing is that, during his tenure as president, Turkmenistan has aggressively set a number of Guinness records, including the largest number of pools with fountains in a public space, the longest single-line bicycle parade in the world. the world's largest horse head statue of course, and the world's largest cycling awareness lesson, we actually found footage of him setting that record and he seemed pretty excited about achieving it. I would like to express my special thanks to a representative of the Guinness Book of Records for a certificate.

For the greatest cycling awareness lesson, this respected award is another in our country's collection of Guinness records. Well, first of all, a cycling awareness lesson seems completely unnecessary. Cycling is what you do when you want to lose a gunfight as slowly and imprecisely as You may not know it by now, but this is where the story will depart fromTurkmenistan for a minute, although I promise we'll come back because at this point we're starting to wonder what's not official Guinness World Records. doing in one of the most repressive countries in the world certifying records for an autocrat because this is supposed to be the fun-loving company that certifies outlandish records like and these are real most apples held in mouth and cut with a chainsaw in a minute or so male stripper is supposed to be fun, but when we started digging into it we discovered that in recent years a large portion of Guinness World Records' income now comes from helping companies and other clients invent and break new records for get publicity. working with General Mills to set the record for the world's longest taco line, basically, they can help design an event and even send an official judge like the one you just saw to award the record on the spot, but that doesn't happen.

It's cheap for a full service event they supposedly charge anywhere from twelve thousand to over half a million dollars and you might think that's okay, but who gives this? I'm not a nine year old waiting to testify in family court, why do I care about the Guinness Book of the World? Records, but the thing is, it's not just companies, they also work with authoritarian governments and Berdimuhamedov is not the only one Guinness World Records has also sent to Judah serves Saudi Arabia 234 Records as its world's largest flagpole and has repeatedly worked with the Dubai Police Force helping them break 11 records, including most consecutive formations made up of UAVs and if you're wondering what that means, this is what it looked like.

I might be a little more impressed by that drunken constellation of his own face, although I will say that it might actually be the most ethically defensible use of drones in the Middle East. What we mean here is that authoritarians love to get Guinness World Records and you can see why they reinforce a cult of personality and confer a sense of legitimacy on a global stage, which brings us back to Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov because he absolutely loves, so if he wanted to hurt him, they would actually be his weak point, the only question. It's if you wanted to shame these particular human rights of using horses, which disc would hurt it more.

I mean, it would have to involve some of his favorite things, wouldn't it be horses and white marble and also include a humiliating moment? that he didn't want people to know so hypothetically if you could make the world's largest marble cake with the image of him falling off a horse that would tick all the boxes there, I mean, of course, it wouldn't be easy. If the current record for the largest marble cake is around 160 square feet set by Betty Crocker, anywhere else except Saudi Arabia, ideally an official judge would come and certify the cake immediately and, unfortunately, here is where I have bad news. because we actually planned to bake a six hundred square foot cake that would make Betty Crocker's look like a mouse Twinkie, but when we contacted Guinness World Records and asked them to send someone, they refused saying and I quote unfortunately because our brand is aligned with children and families, this record attempt is not something for which we will be able to provide a judge, which is a real shame.

I guess we just didn't run a brutal enough dictatorship to meet the high ethical standards of Guinness World Records, they said. that if we fully documented the making of the cake they could certify us after the fact, unfortunately they wanted us to sign an agreement that could have prevented us from criticizing them in this story, which is clearly ridiculous, but then we realized we don't need Guinness World. Records for making a world record sized cake and if we did it we would not only be upsetting an authoritarian leader, but now we would be upsetting these guys too, so we baked it too.

I mean, I guess I really only have two questions for you right now. Point one, are you ready to make history? Who wants a cake? Tonight we're going to get weird. Good night. Our main story concerns Turkmenistan. You didn't expect the show to end 20 minutes later. We will be standing next to the largest marble in the world. cake that represents the guide for her. I have good news. Everyone in this audience will receive a cake. Roasted beasts will be delighted with City Harvest. We did it, guys, we did it. See you next

week

. Good night.