Published on and written by Cyril Jarnias
Moving to Turkmenistan, whether for a job in the gas sector, a diplomatic mission, studies, or a humanitarian project, is rarely an expatriation experience “like any other.” A very closed-off country, limited internet, a small foreign community, a strong cultural shock… all the ingredients are present for homesickness to set in quickly and sometimes with great intensity.
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Up to 70% of people who move abroad experience homesickness, a normal reaction to losing one’s bearings.
In a context as particular as Turkmenistan, learning to tame this homesickness becomes a skill of emotional survival. This article offers a very concrete approach, informed by research on homesickness and the reality of life in Turkmenistan, to transform this painful nostalgia into an engine for adaptation and personal growth.
Understanding Homesickness in the Turkmen Context
Homesickness is often described as simply “missing home.” In reality, studies define it more as a reaction to the loss of several things at once: routines, attachment bonds, a familiar environment one controls, and an identity built within a familiar framework. In Turkmenistan, all these elements are disrupted simultaneously, sometimes brutally.
Why Turkmenistan Makes Homesickness More Intense
Several characteristics of the country amplify the classic factors of homesickness.
Culturally, Turkmen society is both very hospitable and deeply conservative. The extended family, strict respect for elders, traditional gender roles, state-framed religiosity, often indirect and hierarchical communication: all of this can make an expatriate feel permanently “out of place,” even when interactions are cordial.
Good to know:
Turkmenistan is a very closed-off state, with strict media control and limited freedom of expression. Many social networks and foreign news sites are blocked, the internet is slow and expensive, and the use of VPNs is regulated. For visitors accustomed to a permanent connection, this disconnection can heighten a feeling of isolation.
Daily life can also accentuate the gap. Infrastructure is uneven, the public health system is underdeveloped, English is very rarely spoken, especially outside Ashgabat. Most of the territory is desert, with scorching summers where the thermometer easily exceeds 40 °C (104 °F). The small size of the expatriate community, composed mainly of diplomats and oil and gas sector employees, naturally limits “spontaneous” encounters.
In this context, homesickness is not limited to nostalgia for a place; it reflects a need for security, familiarity, recognition, and control over one’s daily life. Acknowledging it is the first step in managing it.
Common Symptoms Among Expatriates in Turkmenistan
Studies on homesickness describe a set of signs that, in Turkmenistan, often take on a particular coloring:
Attention:
Adapting to a new country like Turkmenistan can lead to difficulties on several levels. On an emotional and cognitive level, this manifests as sadness, anxiety, irritability, a feeling of isolation, loss of confidence, rumination on the past, idealization of the home country, and systematic negative comparisons. On a physical level, sleep disorders, fatigue, headaches, digestive issues, muscle tension, and heart palpitations can occur, often exacerbated by extreme heat, variable healthcare quality, and environmental stress. On a social and behavioral level, one may observe withdrawal, refusal of invitations, overconsumption of content in one’s native language, a decline in work motivation, and disinterest in the host country, perceived as a temporary stage to endure.
This picture does not mean you are “fragile.” Research highlights that homesickness affects at least half the population at least once in a lifetime, and it is particularly frequent and intense during an expatriation to a culturally distant country.
Leveraging Turkmen Culture to Recreate a Sense of “Home”
A common mistake is to live in Turkmenistan as a parenthesis to be endured, protected behind a mental wall: on one side, “real life” (home, family, friends); on the other, the “temporary life” in Ashgabat or the regions. However, the more rigid this separation, the more the brain perceives the current environment as hostile, and the more homesickness persists.
The challenge is not to erase your country of origin, but to gradually let Turkmenistan enter your definition of the word “home.”
Understanding Codes to Reduce the Feeling of Strangeness
Learning the basics of local culture is not only a mark of respect; it is a powerful antidote to the feeling of not belonging.
Tip:
In Turkmenistan, respect for implicit rules is essential for smooth interactions. This includes removing shoes before entering a house or mosque, avoiding political topics, not pointing fingers, eating only with the right hand, dressing modestly, being discreet in public, and graciously accepting invitations for tea. Familiarity with these codes lightens mental effort during interactions and facilitates daily life.
Learning a few words of Turkmen and Russian, understanding gestures to avoid (showing the sole of your foot, gestures considered vulgar, loud laughter in the street) and those that are well-regarded (complimenting the food, using respectful titles, greeting elders first) reduces social fatigue and reinforces the feeling of controlling one’s environment.
Turning Hospitality into a Remedy for Homesickness
Turkmen society is known for its hospitality. Refusing an invitation for tea or a shared meal is often perceived as coldness or even a form of disdain. For you, these invitations are a precious opportunity: they allow you to experience warm moments, to laugh, to share a table—all elements that nurture the need for belonging, which is challenged by expatriation.
Example:
Accepting dinner invitations, arriving with a small gift like fruit or pastries, tasting every dish, and sincerely complimenting the hosts are key gestures. These actions gradually build relationships and emotional anchors. A regular dinner at a local family’s home can thus become an emotional anchor as important as a favorite café in your hometown.
Making Turkmen Places Your New Landmarks
Homesickness thrives on the feeling that “everything” is foreign. Conversely, the more you associate Turkmen places with positive emotions, the more your brain will categorize them as “familiar.”
This can be done through very simple routines:
– The same café in Ashgabat where you have tea one evening a week.
– A habitual stall at the Tolkuchka Bazaar (Altyn Asyr) to buy chorek bread or melons.
– A bench in a capital city park where you read in the late afternoon.
– A monthly visit to a cultural site (National Museum, Carpet Museum, ruins of Nisa, Merv, Kounya-Ourguentch).
This process doesn’t erase nostalgia, but it creates a second mental map of “home” that coexists with the first.
Creating a Bubble of Familiarity… Without Getting Trapped in It
Research on homesickness shows that recreating familiar elements from one’s original life is an effective tool, provided one doesn’t fall into the trap of total withdrawal.
Setting Up a “Refuge Corner” at Home
In Turkmenistan, many expatriates live in modest, sometimes aging, apartment buildings that bear no resemblance to what they’ve known. Personalizing your living space is then a powerful lever to feel less uprooted.
A few concrete ideas:
– Display photos of your loved ones, your city, landscapes from your country.
– Bring or buy a few symbolic objects (a blanket, a mug, a cushion, a poster) that evoke your world.
– Create a reading nook or a prayer/meditation space with your usual habits.
– Play music from your country during certain time slots (while cooking, for example).
This refuge corner should remain a “battery recharge,” not a fortress. If you spend all your evenings locked in this bubble ignoring the outside world, homesickness risks taking deeper root.
Advice for expatriates
Integrating Your Traditions into Your Life in Turkmenistan
Keeping your original holidays and customs alive is essential for your identity. You can:
– Celebrate major holidays from your country in Ashgabat (Christmas, Diwali, Lunar New Year, National Day…), inviting a few colleagues or neighbors.
– Cook your traditional dishes and share them with Turkmen people, while discovering their specialties (plov, manti, shashlik, somsa…).
– Organize movie or music nights centered around your culture.
This circulation between your traditions and those of Turkmenistan nurtures a dual feeling: you don’t renounce who you are, and you enrich who you are becoming.
Staying Connected with “Home” Despite Limited Internet
In most countries, expatriates are advised to monitor their use of social networks, because constant contact with “life before” can sometimes worsen nostalgia. In Turkmenistan, the situation is paradoxical: the connection is slow, expensive, heavily censored, many networks are blocked, and VPNs are regulated.
Result: what is elsewhere an excess of connection becomes here an anxiety-inducing scarcity. No longer being able to easily see family photos, missing video calls, or suffering from disconnections in the middle of an important conversation fuels a feeling of extreme isolation.
Organizing Scarcity Rather Than Enduring It
Research on homesickness shows that regular contact with loved ones alleviates distress… but that daily, obsessive contact can sometimes hinder adaptation. In a country with unstable internet, this opens an interesting path: rather than enduring frustration, you can choose to ritualize your communications.
For example, in agreement with your loved ones:
– Set one or two weekly slots for long calls (video if possible, audio otherwise).
– Plan shorter, lighter exchanges via messages when the connection allows.
– Use applications that work better on a slow network (often audio calls consume less than video).
– Accept that there will be missed communications… without experiencing them as a catastrophe.
Good to know:
It’s possible to reconnect with less digital forms of communication, like letters, postcards, or packages. Although delivery times are longer, receiving physical mail in your mailbox has an emotional charge and sentimental value that an instant message cannot offer.
Less is More, But Make It Quality
Studies conducted with expatriates in Europe show that the quality of exchanges matters more than the quantity. A call where you can speak deeply, share your difficulties without filter, laugh together, is better than several superficial contacts saturated with bugs or idealized images posted by others.
In a country with a capricious network, focusing on a few rich conversations, prepared (list of news, photos to show when the connection works, etc.) allows you to nourish the bond without being overwhelmed by technical frustration.
Building a Local Network, Despite a Closed Environment
All research on adaptation abroad converges: having a local social network – expatriates and/or locals – significantly reduces homesickness. However, in Turkmenistan, the small size of the foreign community, wariness towards Westerners, and widespread surveillance make building this network more delicate, but not impossible.
Using Existing Resources, However Modest
Several tools, even limited, can help you “get out of your bubble”:
Expatriate Networks in Ashgabat
Discover the main platforms and communities to meet other expatriates and facilitate your integration in Ashgabat.
International Communities
Platforms like InterNations offer an active community in Ashgabat with events, thematic groups (outings, gastronomy, reading, outdoors) and national circles (e.g., groups for Americans or Irish).
Online Forums
Expatriate forums (Expat.com, EasyExpat, ExpatWoman, etc.) allow you to contact people on the ground, ask questions, and get practical advice before or after your arrival.
Friendly Meetup Apps
Certain apps dedicated to expatriates, compatible with Ashgabat, organize duo meetups based on common interests to build connections easily.
Expatriate testimonies show that, in the absence of lively bars or major cultural scenes, most social life takes place in apartments: dinners, barbecues in residential compounds, board games, informal book clubs, pool parties in some diplomatic compounds. Being invited often depends on a first connection: a colleague, another parent from school, a neighbor.
Also Relying on Professional and Family Ties
In Turkmenistan, your work and, if applicable, your children’s school are essential social hubs. Colleagues can become hiking partners (in the Kopet Dag, towards Nokhur), for cultural outings (museums, ruins of Nisa, performances), for culinary discovery.
Good to know:
Parents of students at international schools, like QSI in Ashgabat, are a source of natural connections. Meetings, school parties, and sports events are opportunities to build relationships, often with other expatriates sharing similar challenges like homesickness.
Gradually Opening Up to Relationships with Turkmen People
The language barrier and political climate sometimes make Turkmen people cautious in their contacts with foreigners. Yet, in a private, non-political context, many are curious and warm. Anchoring points can be:
– Language classes (Turkmen or Russian).
– Sports activities (gym, swimming pool, informal football or running clubs).
– Social hubs like bazaars, tea houses, certain cultural associations (handicrafts, music, dance).
Again, the goal is not to “force” friendships, but to multiply micro-interactions: the vendor who starts to recognize you at the market, the neighbor with whom you exchange a few words regularly, the colleague who explains a custom to you. Any repeated interaction strengthens the feeling of no longer being a complete stranger.
Structuring Your Days to Regain a Sense of Control
Research on homesickness emphasizes the importance of routine: in a radically new environment, regaining a daily structure offers the brain a reassuring landmark.
Creating a Realistic Daily Structure
In Turkmenistan, your margin of freedom may be limited by a curfew, by controlled movements, by strong professional constraints. But even within this framework, you can structure:
Tip:
To structure your day and enrich your experience, incorporate these practices: start with a morning ritual including a hot drink, reading, and writing in a gratitude journal. Plan an outing or walk at a fixed time in a specific neighborhood. Take regular breaks to breathe, walk for a few minutes, and observe your surroundings. Establish an end-of-day ritual with a cool shower after the heat, music, a call to loved ones, and meditation. Also schedule a “Turkmenistan moment” dedicated to learning a few words, discovering a local recipe, or watching a documentary on the country’s history.
This structuring reduces the feeling of chaos and reinforces the sense of control, which diminishes the intensity of homesickness.
Setting Gradual Exploration Goals
The feeling of uprootedness feeds on the fact that every outing seems huge, risky. An effective strategy is to break down adaptation into micro-challenges, for example:
– First week: locate three small grocery stores and two cafés within a 500-meter radius.
– Second week: go to the bazaar on the weekend, learn to buy a few products there.
– Third week: visit a museum or historical site near Ashgabat.
– Later: plan an excursion to Merv, Kounya-Ourguentch, Yangykala, or the Door to Hell (Darvaza).
Each exploration becomes an opportunity to create a positive local memory, stored as a personal achievement.
Caring for Your Mental Health in a Fragile System
Available data shows that in Turkmenistan, healthcare infrastructure – and particularly mental health – remains limited: only eight psychiatric hospitals in the entire country, 134 psychiatrists and just one psychologist recorded nationally in a recent report, services mostly focused on hospitalization, little community-based care.
What One Can Reasonably Expect from the Local System
In an expatriation context, most organizations recommend international health insurance including the possibility of medical evacuation to a country with more suitable facilities. Even though we are talking more about serious disorders here, this recommendation also applies to mental health: in case of severe depression or suicidal crisis, local care options are limited and the language barrier can become a major obstacle.
This does not mean there are no resources:
Psychosocial Support Initiatives
Programs and services for mental health support developed with the support of international organizations.
Training for Professionals
Initiatives by UNDP, UNICEF, and WHO to train teachers, doctors, and social workers in psychosocial support.
Multilingual Online Training
Training program in mental health and psychosocial support for frontline workers, available in Turkmen, Russian, and English.
National Helplines
Cyril Jarnias is an independent expert in international wealth management with over 20 years of experience. As an expatriate himself, he is dedicated to helping individuals and business leaders build, protect, and pass on their wealth with complete peace of mind.
On his website, cyriljarnias.com, he shares his expertise on international real estate, offshore company formation, and expatriation.
Thanks to his expertise, he offers sound advice to optimize his clients' wealth management. Cyril Jarnias is also recognized for his appearances in many prestigious media outlets such as BFM Business, les Français de l’étranger, Le Figaro, Les Echos, and Mieux vivre votre argent, where he shares his knowledge and know-how in wealth management.
