The Flight of Celestial Race Horses Book Review

In all my years spent reading, I’ve read some books that were indeed bizarre. These include Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergei Dyachenko and Transcendence by Shay Savage. Today, I can now add another title to that group: The Flight of Celestial Horses by Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, the former president and current Chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan. It’s a cult of personality picture book wrapped up in a horse fetish.

Normally, I would describe the plot of The Flight of Celestial Horses right here, but there isn’t much to it. It’s a book celebrating the beauty and agility of the Akhal-Teke – the national horse – and praising what the government (when I mean government, I mean what Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow) is doing to preserve that specific breed for the culture.

Vita Nostra and Transcendence are weird because they were written in that way intentionally. The Flight of Celestial Horses was not. I say this because of the man who wrote it. Berdimuhamedow created this book to show the people how much of a good leader he was in 2011 by preserving the animal in question. Keep in mind that he has committed so many humanitarian crimes that it would fill up a football field and has desperately tried to prove to people how much of a strongman he is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Pduhdgkjk as one example). And those aren’t the most unique aspects about this dictator. Berdimuhamedow is so obsessed with horses, specifically the Akhal-Teke one, that I swear to God he wants to have sex with them. On top of that, he has written other books about this kind of equine like Akhalteke – Our Pride and Glory.

But what if a reader has no idea of any of this context surrounding Berdimuhamedow? Well, they will figure out pretty quickly that he is a dictator who is obsessed with Akhal-Teke horses. For starters, there’s this quote:

“Riding on horse, driving plane steering wheel, sea liner, driving powerful KAMAZ, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow not just demonstrates wonderful physical shape and high professional skills in every business, he fixes in people’s mind the image of modern jigit [strongman in the Turkmen language], who has to do a lot. He must be well-educated, physically strong and esthetically erudite. It is not just good desires” (p. 116).

What is worse is that the horses in the pictures taken look like they want to be anywhere else but near him. On top of that, many of the solo horse shots have a clear view of their penises. Ironically, much of the text discusses how one must keep that breed pure. I’m not making this up.

Propaganda is still propaganda, but I’ve noticed that people will tend to look the other way if it is presented in an effective manner. Think of Triumph of the Will or Top Gun, how they made their subjects look, and their impact on their audiences. There’s a reason why people still reference them in various works. I can’t say the same thing with The Flight of Celestial Race Horses because even if one is able to push aside Berdimuhamedow’s disturbing obsession with the Akhal-Tekes, the text and pictures are not well put together.

The book contains text in between the equine photographs. They do exactly what one expects a horse-engrossed leader would do: praise the Akhal-Tekes in all of their beauty and skills and celebrate its president in ways that are definitely not suspicious. I had to reread some of these passages because of how clunky they were when I read them out loud. Granted, this is probably because it was originally written in Turkmen, so the text didn’t quite translate as well as it should. With that being said, the people who put this book together could’ve at least had an outside person who could look it over before it was officially published in English. There are plenty of grammar and spelling errors. For example, I counted a handful of times, in which two words were stuck together like in this caption of a horse photo, “Look, Ahalteke horse, look, your star has risen, and we believe that it light your way and will neverdie out!” (p.126).

I understand that it has also been translated into Russian, but I don’t know if it contains the same problems listed here.

The photographs themselves are probably the most enjoyable part of the book. They are some nice ones of the horses and the sites in Turkmenistan if you politely ignore how bad the photoshop is. I have some skill in altering digital pictures, yet even I knew how poorly edited these were. Many of the horse models’ shadows looked off. There’s even one where I believe the people involved had to forcibly insert Berdimuhamedow while riding an Akhal-Teke horse at the 2010 Victory Day celebrations in Moscow. I know he was there at that event (go to the 32:45 mark of this video to see for your self), yet the placement of him on the horse looked so awkward. The equine pictures contain captions that detail the name of the horse model as well as their birth year and their lineage. Did I mention that the former president of Turkmenistan is obsessed with the Akhal-Teke horse?

All in all, The Flight of Celestial Horses by Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow is one that I wondered how it came to exist. It’s a clumsy propaganda book written by a dictator who wanted to show off how strong of a leader he was by preserving a horse breed that he clearly wanted to have sex with. Even if one politely ignores the authorial intent, there are plenty of grammar issues and bad photoshop that will turn off readers. The only people I would recommend this book to are the ones who are able to read this ironically and want to laugh at dictators. It’s enjoyable in those aspects. If not, then I would suggest this video instead.

Before I go, I want to let you all know that the latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast is out now It involves how a special guest and I would try to adapt this very book, and you can listen to it here!

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