“…one must never be deterred from doing what one wants for lack of money don’t you agree?” (Nancy Mitford to Robert Byron)
On the late President Turkmenbashi of Turkmenistan:
“Stories trickling out of the country described a tyrant with the flair of Liberace and the savagery of Stalin”. (Eric Enno Tamm, The Horse that Leaps Though Clouds)
On Xinjiang: “The province’s traditions of hospitality are all its own, and the death- rate at banquets appalling”. (Peter Fleming)
There is a huge, gold-plated statue of Turkmenbashi in the capital which rotates to face the sun.
Peter