Turkmenistan

A realm of blistering deserts and inhospitable mountains, Turkmenistan remains a backwater even by the standards of the region. This is probably why Saparmurat Niyazov managed to rise to dangerous and tragically comical levels of power between 1991 and his death in 2006. His antics as a leader in the country included, but were not limited to, renaming months after his family, rearranging the Turkmen alphabet, and requiring by law that students could only graduate from high school if they could prove they had read a book he wrote.
These sound like the antics of a supervillain with a sense of humor—and they are! The supervillain in this story is the spirit known as Prizrak Smekh (Laughing Ghost), who possessed Niyazov shortly after he came to power and enacted all of the strange and totalitarian edicts for which Niyazov is known. Since Niyazov’s death, Pizrak Smekh is loose again and wanders in its ghostly form in search of another suitable host. Pizrak Smekh has considered possessing Oculus in nearby Kyrgyzstan, but is unsure it is powerful enough to control the eccentric paragon.
During the Niyazov regime, native superhumans had to either hide or flee the country, because it was well known that the jealous despot would have any extraordinary beings killed—including normal humans with natural talents that could make them stand out on the world stage. It’s been less than a decade since his insantiy ceased, and so far only a handful of gifted children have appeared. It will be close to another decade before any of them reach the age to join the adult super-being community.

Type

Geopolitical, Country