Turkmenistan: Ashgabat – Halk Hakydasy Memorial Complex

Halk Hakydasy Memorial Complex translates as Peoples’ Memory and is a combo memorial for WWII and the Earthquake of 1948. The war memorial has Eternal Flame and granite spires and commemorates soldiers from Turkmenistan who died in the war (although military action happened in Turkmen territory actually). The Earthquake Memorial is dedicated to the victims of the devastating 1948 Ashgabat earthquake, which struck on October 6 with a magnitude of 7.3. It killed an estimated 110,000 people (approximately 10% of the Turkmen SSR’s population at the time). There is a monument with a bull and a woman holding a golden baby (the latter is often through to be the former first president Niyazov whose mother and all siblings were killed in the earthquake.