In my case, that's literally true. I'd never heard of the man until yesterday, when I ran across this amazing account of a foray into Turkmenistan, and then lo and behold, when I pulled up the news wire this morning at the office, there was his obituary. No two ways about it; this guy was fascinating. I don't think he was as loony as he's made out to be, though. He may have had a staggering sense of self-importance, but he managed to keep Turkmenistan from descending into the sort of bloodbaths and power vacuums that other countries went through after the USSR fell apart. No mean feat, that.
Nevertheless, he was an unusually colorful guy (which is sort of like saying that Stalin was unusually forceful). Check out his legacy of weirdness here.
A more serious story here.
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