.tm - a hundred years of solitude

Dear Khabrasoobshchestvo, let me congratulate you on the occasion of Nauryz (this is a steppe new year). Many of you will have to go to work tomorrow, but residents of the Central Asian countries of the CIS will be able to rest this week more than usual. And if it seems strange to foreigners that there are two new years in Russia, a new year and an old new year, then in Kazakhstan it is very difficult for them to understand that we have three new years. This topic is devoted to the development of the history of the Internet in Turkmenistan. I think it will be interesting for many to look at how the Internet would develop if the iron curtain over the USSR had not collapsed. The Turkmen Internet allows you to roughly imagine such a situation.



In fact, the DPRK is probably the best prototype for modeling an iron curtain on the Internet, but I am very unfamiliar with the situation in it and will talk about the situation with the Internet in one of the former countries of the union of indestructible free republics. The reason for writing the post was a conversation with one of my Turkmen friends studying with us in Almaty. He spoke about the realities of the Turkmen Internet, and I think it would be interesting for the habrasoobshchestvu.
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The collapse of the USSR, which seemed to bring with it freedom of speech, freedom of communication, and many other freedoms that in some territories were formerly part of the USSR had no effect on the situation in terms of access to means of communication and new technologies. Turkmenistan is a separate story in this regard.

From the very beginning of the existence of Turkmenistan, the course was taken towards self-isolation of the country from the world community. The hard power established by Turkmenbashi suppressed all attempts of open intercourse of citizens with foreign countries and regarded any attempts of the outside world to influence the situation in the country as attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of the country in order to overthrow the government. That is why all the media are under strict censorship and the information in them is not much different from information from other media.

The Internet, as a means of obtaining information by citizens, in an almost complete information vacuum, plays an important role. But he is under such strict control that the Chinese never dreamed of. Here is an example from a year old article:

“Censorship is one of the key problems of the Turkmen Internet. The situation is well illustrated by such a dialogue: “I don’t understand,” the American embassy official was surprised at one of the meetings with local journalists, “I go to any Internet café in Ashgabat and calmly read news from the sites - Fergana, Central Asia, for example ... why are you complaining that you do not have access to them? "

“But you, when you come to the cafe, you must submit your passport, right? - calmly objected to him one of the participants of the meeting. - Here you personally, as a foreigner, and connect the wireless Internet. And Turkmen residents can go mainly to local sites. All undesirable for our authorities web resources are disabled ... "

Access to Russian news resources is closed, not to mention Western. And as practice shows, it works great. I am sure that very few habra people know what is happening in Turkmenistan, how people live there and whether there is any Internet there.

All connections by country are modem. ADSL and other technologies are not for Turkmen citizens. In addition to Turkmentelecom, the Russian MTS provides access to the network, but its cost is also very high. Do not forget that the level of income and the price index in the country is completely different. In general, the whole economic scheme is very different from other countries and it is very difficult for us to understand it. It was just as difficult for the Americans to understand our economic system.

After the new President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov came to power, the situation seemed to have changed for the better. The cost of Internet in clubs has decreased, the number of clubs has increased. Began to connect home users. But Turkmenistan is hopelessly behind the rest of the world in the IT field and even from its closest neighbors. But as you can see, this does not embarrass the country's leadership at all. “Since childhood, the phrase of the father has hit the mind:“ Never run to a place where you can just walk, ”the new president explained in his policy in an interview with Turkmenistan magazine. So it’s impossible to count on the explosive growth of the turnnet (probably it is called this way).

The domain zone .tm was created in 1997, perhaps later than all other domains of the countries of the former Soviet Union. But from the fact that the domain was created almost nothing has changed. Most of the sites in this domain zone are sites of foreign companies that buy sites in this domain zone because of its beautiful. .tm is the same as the English abbreviation trade mark.

There are very few Turkmen sites directly in this area. Yes, and this domain is worth 100 per year, and you can buy for at least 10 years, so you have to pay 1000 for its purchase. If, in a search, among domains .ru, .com, .org no-no, yes .kg, .kz, .by domains are skipped then .tm I have never seen in life.

I hope this small topic has slightly opened the iron curtain and at least a little clarified the situation with the situation in the field of IT in Turkmenistan. I would like to congratulate the Turk brothers with the Nauryz holiday, I hope Habr is not blocked in Turkmenistan =)

PS Update on Internet prices in Turkmenistan:

Now in Turkmenistan, the Internet costs $ 30 for 1.5 GB (this is an EDGE with a permanent connection, 128 Kbps, provided by MTS - www.mts.tm/services/internet/gprs/gprs_pack ), or 40 cents per hour (State Dial-up and ADSL provider), or $ 20 / 1GB (3G, permanent connection, speed - 1 megabit, provided by another local provider), ADSL is just beginning to develop prices are also more or less tolerated, connection is free.