The leaders were arrested. Niyazov said they were drug addicts who had lured teen-age students to the rally with vodka and marijuana. Ordinary Turkmens used to look somewhat smugly at Russia and other former Soviet republics, where democracy and free markets appeared to spawn mainly ethnic unrest and organized crime. Turkmenistan's economic and political stability, many said then, was worth the absence of freedom. Those sentiments appear to be waning.
People talk about their problems among themselves, but that's as far as it goes.