Below is the translated Abdulgamid’s post from the Russian part of our blog.

Ashgabat-Mary-Turkmenabat highway is one of the longest and busiest traffic arteries in Turkmenistan. Tens of thousands cars drive daily on this highway connecting three largest Turkmen cities. Unfortunately not all of the get to the point of their destination. Every 2 or 3 km you literally can see funeral wreathes or self-made memorials pointing out the places of fatal car accidents.

The reason is that this inter-city highway was built a few decades ago, and currently it’s not complying with any minimum technical and safety standards. The bumpy road pavement is only 4-5 m wide, which makes it difficult for 2 Kamaz trucks to go through, so one of the drivers has to run the car offroad to let another drive. There is neither traffic dividing lines, not road marks on the highway. The vehicles driven towards by speed-loving Turkmen at 140 km/h run in 20-30 cm from each other.

Once a driver decides to go ahead of large-size Turkish or Iranian cargo truck, he signs up not only for the driving skills test, but also for the cat and mouse play with death.

The real extreme when night comes. Not all of Turkmen drivers got used to switch the high beam light. So sometimes the halogen lights on a “supercool” jeep can strike you blind just in a second. This second is enough for you either to drive out into ditch, or not to get a sight of an old slowly-moving tractor with no marker lights or beam reflectors.

The construction of the new 1st Class modern highway with two lanes (each - 30 m wide) was started in 2004. The highway is designed to allow for 6 rows of vehicles passing through in both directions and it is supposed to be divided by a planted dividing line, as well as covered with asphalt-concrete pavement meeting the highest international standards for heavy-duty traffic highways and road safety.

But, so far there are about 10 km of the new Ashgabat-Mary-Turkmenabat highway built out of the planned 600 km.