One of the world’s least visited countries is slowly opening up

In Turkmenistan, a nation widely seen as one of the world's most isolated and secretive countries, an e-commerce startup is quietly making waves. Azat Seyitmuhammedov, 38, runs Wabrum from a brightly lit, open-plan office, a venture he founded almost a decade ago. While such a business would be commonplace in Berlin or San Francisco, its very existence in the Central Asian republic is considered truly groundbreaking.

"This may sound normal in Europe ⁠or the United States, but for Turkmenistan this is new," the father of six stated. "E-commerce here is still in its very early stages, and we consider ourselves pioneers."

His company is part of a flowering of savvy, well-connected private businesses emerging in the largely desert country, which shares borders with Iran and Afghanistan.

Wabrum's operations see couriers fanning out from an on-site warehouse, delivering mostly Turkish-made clothes and shoes across the former Soviet republic. This burgeoning digital economy is unfolding as Reuters was recently granted rare, unescorted access to report freely on the nation's developments. Yet, this embrace of technological progress exists alongside a tightly controlled political environment, where President Serdar Berdymukhamedov and his circle maintain firm authority.

After independence from Moscow in 1991, President Saparmurat Niyazov - "Turkmenbashi" or head of the Turkmen - declared Turkmenistan "permanently neutral" and shut its doors to most visitors, adopting one of the world's strictest visa regimes. It remains largely in place two decades after Niyazov's death.

Turkmen officials frame their country's ⁠isolation as a response to its challenging geography, citing the need to protect it from Islamist militants and drug smuggling from neighbouring Afghanistan.

Under Niyazov, an elaborate ​cult of personality ⁠grew around the president, while the capital city, Ashgabat, was rebuilt ‌as a marble showcase, funded by Turkmenistan's natural gas reserves, the world's fourth-largest. Under subsequent presidents, the system has largely remained unchanged.

But since 2022, when President Serdar Berdymukhamedov took over from his father, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, there have been signs of a modest thaw.

Turkmenistan, which state statistics say has about 7.7 million people, has said it ‌wants to simplify its visa regime, join the World Trade Organization, and diversify the largely state-run economy.

The ‌new president has strengthened Turkmenistan’s diplomatic ties, travelling abroad more often than his predecessors did.

Some foreign diplomats in Ashgabat told Reuters there is a sense of change, albeit slow, driven by generational change inside the ruling elite.

One Western diplomat based in Turkmenistan said parts of the elite were interested in reforming the country, and that personal freedoms had modestly increased in recent years.

Even so, Turkmenistan remains difficult for foreign investors. ⁠It maintains both official and unofficial exchange rates for the dollar, while its politics remains opaque.

The international firms that do operate here are mostly Turkish. Linguistic affinity and a large diaspora in Turkey also mean that Turkish is widely spoken by younger Turkmens.

But away from politics, Turkmen society is changing, nowhere faster than online, though the country has a relatively low rate of internet usage.

The internet in Turkmenistan is slow and heavily censored, which officials say is necessary to counteract militant Islamist ideas that have spread online in other Central Asian countries.

However, social media sites such as Instagram and TikTok, still blocked but accessible via VPNs, have gained popularity in recent years.

In Ashgabat's high-end shopping malls, teenagers record dance routines on their smartphones for TikTok, cheered on by friends in the red folk-inspired uniforms that female ‌university students are required to wear.

Social media influencer Enejan Velmuradova took up Instagram in 2020 to promote her travel agency, arranging holidays for wealthier Turkmens ​in Europe and Southeast Asia.

In her spacious city-centre office, decorated with social media certificates and fridge magnets from across the world, Velmuradova said she ‌was glad that her country was opening up.

"As a resident of ⁠Turkmenistan, I am also very happy that stereotypes are finally being broken, (the idea) that Turkmenistan is closed," she said.

At an Ashgabat sports school, Muhammet ⁠Bayramgulyyev teaches breakdancing to teenagers in his spare time.

Bayramgulyyev told Reuters that the street dance style, which emerged in New York, was a largely underground phenomenon in Turkmenistan in his youth.

"It was around the year ‌2000. Back then, we didn't have breakdancers. We only ​watched it on cassette tapes, on television — we saw how it was done and ‌wanted to do it ourselves."

Now, he said, the classes he gives in ​a brand-new studio are oversubscribed and breakdancing has gone mainstream.

"We want our guys, our Turkmen athletes, to compete — for example, at Asian championships, world championships. And in the future, God willing, at the Olympics too," he said.