Balkanabat

Balkanabat is a young town on very old ground. The Yomut Turkmen grazed these plains and the slopes of the Big Balkan for centuries, and caravan routes between the Caspian and the Khorezm oases passed nearby, but there was no settlement of any size here: the plain has no river and almost no water.

Oil changed that. Seepages near the Balkhan range had long been known, and prospecting in the late 1920s and early 1930s proved commercial fields at Nebitdag and Goturdepe, in the desert between the mountains and the sea. A workers' settlement grew beside the wells and the railway from 1933 as Neftedag, 'oil mountain'; it became a city in 1946, was renamed Nebit-Dag in the Turkmen form of the same words, and became the centre of the Turkmen oil industry. Everything had to be brought in — building materials, food and above all water, which arrived by rail and pipeline before a canal and desalination schemes improved supply.

The town was laid out in the Soviet manner, with straight avenues, apartment blocks, a theatre, a palace of culture and shaded parks kept alive by irrigation, and its population came from across the Union as well as from Turkmen villages. In 2001 Nebit-Dag was renamed Balkanabat after the mountains, and it is the capital of Balkan province, the largest province in the country. Since then the centre has gained marble-faced public buildings in the national style, while the oilfields that created it continue to work the desert around.

This is Yomut country. The Yomut are one of the main Turkmen tribal groups, long established across the west and along the Caspian, and their weaving, in deep reds and plum browns, is known to carpet collectors everywhere. Carpets are still made, given at weddings and treated as family property rather than decoration.

The town's other identity is industrial and Soviet. Oil brought Russian, Azerbaijani, Armenian and Tatar families as well as Turkmen from the villages, and although many left after independence the town keeps a mixed, orderly character in which Russian is still heard. Engineers and oil workers give the place a professional, slightly transient air, with people moving out to field camps on shift rotations.

Religious life turns on family observance and pilgrimage rather than public display. The shrine of Gozli Ata, in the desert some 90 kilometres away, is among the remotest and most respected in the country, and visits to holy graves are a normal part of family life. Weddings remain the great social occasions, held on a large scale with music, dancing and a bride in heavy embroidered red, and national holidays are marked with organised concerts, sport and displays in the central squares.

About 120,000 people live in Balkanabat, making it the largest town in the province and its administrative centre. The oil and gas industry provides most of the work, directly in the fields and service companies and indirectly through the offices, schools, hospital and colleges of a provincial capital. Many residents work shifts at desert installations and return home between rotations, so the town's population feels larger during changeovers.

Most people live in apartment blocks from the Soviet decades or in newer buildings near the centre, with courtyards, satellite dishes and air-conditioners defining the view. Water and greenery are the marks of status and care: the watered avenues, parks and verges take constant effort in a place that receives very little rain, and shade is valuable. Summer routines start early and pause through the worst of the heat.

The bazaar is the centre of daily exchange, busiest soon after dawn, and much of the food comes from the irrigated lands to the east or from the Caspian coast. Energy work pays better than most employment in Turkmenistan, but jobs are controlled by the state and its partners, and younger people often move to Ashgabat or abroad. Water supply, dust and the long heat are the constant practical concerns.

Western Turkmen cooking is mutton, bread and the tandyr oven. Ishlekli is the dish the region claims as its own: a large round pie of chopped mutton, onion and pepper sealed in dough and baked in hot ash, cut into wedges and shared. Palow, rice cooked with mutton, carrots and onions in a cast-iron cauldron, is the dish of weddings and honoured guests; chorba is a mutton and vegetable soup; and dograma, bread, meat and onion torn up and mixed with broth, belongs to festivals.

Everyday eating is simpler. Shashlyk grilled over charcoal is sold at the bazaar and by the roadside, along with gutap, thin fried pastries filled with meat, pumpkin or greens, and the noodle dish lagman and steamed manty dumplings borrowed from neighbouring kitchens. Chorek, round bread baked on the wall of a tandyr, comes with every meal and is treated with respect. Fish brought up from the Caspian, fried, grilled or dried, appears in the market and on menus.

Melons are the summer luxury here as everywhere in Turkmenistan, piled on roadside stalls with watermelons, grapes and pomegranates from the irrigated oases. Green tea, gök çaý, is drunk constantly, hot even in the heat; chal, fermented camel's milk, is the herders' drink of the desert, and gatyk, a thick sour yoghurt, is a breakfast staple.