He’s on the cusp of slamming shut the “Door to Hell”, and he’s just thrown open the “Gates of Paradise”. It’s turning out to be quite a decent year for Turkmenistan’s “Leader of the Nation” Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

To recap and explain, in late June, Turkmengas announced it has devised, on Berdimuhamedov’s orders, a way to extinguish the famously fiery and hellish Darvaza gas crater that has burnt relentlessly in the Karakum Desert for half a century. And, as if that wasn’t enough to be going on with for the wacky dictator, on June 29—Berdimuhamedov’s 66th birthday—Turkmenistan declared open its spanking new $6bn futuristic “smart” city of Arkadag, billed as a residential heaven for the 73,000 lucky enough to be thrown the keys to one of its gleaming new apartments.

Dedicated to Berdimuhamedov—Arkadag, which serves as Berdimuhamedov’s honorific, translates as “Patron” or “Protector”, or more literally as “Behind mountain”—the city has plenty of curious features, as you’d expect in the tightly controlled desert nation, where the personality cult of the dictatorship can hold sway over even minor facets of life (Berdimuhamedov’s predecessor, late president Saparmyrat Niyazov, or Turkmenbasy—“head of the Turkmen”—banned beards, ballet and the circus, wrote a holy book, and renamed the months of the year, January after himself and April after his mother).

Still a work in progress, Arkadag’s buildings are entirely white and all its apartments are seven storeys high, with seven considered lucky.

Only electric vehicles are permitted in the city (a Turkish EV sent by Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among Berdimuhamedov’s birthday presents), built in an earthquake zone in the foothills of the Kopet-Dag mountains close to the native village of former dentist Berdimuhamedov.

Arkadag is dotted with imposing monuments, including a sculpture in honour of Berdimuhamedov, sat atop an Akhal-Teke horse, the prized Turkmen breed that is the horse lover’s favourite.

Thousands of state employees were brought to the new city from all over gas-rich-but-poverty-stricken Turkmenistan for the opening ceremony, though Arkadag himself was not there, having set off for the Muslim holy city of Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage.

The opening ceremony and exalting of the “Protector” was performed by Serdar Berdimuhamedov, Berdimuhamedov the elder’s son, who succeeded his father as president in March last year. And that’s a detail that recalls Arkadag’s third great achievement of the year so far. Back in January, clearly not thrilled with how the division of powers between himself and Serdar was turning out, Berdimuhamedov mounted what some observers described as a coup against his own son, changing the Constitution to bring in the new role of “Leader of the Nation”, a position that subordinates the presidency.