Ashgabat, Turkmenistan – When he was a teenager, Bekmurad Khodjayev used to hide from his parents to smoke. Fifty years later, the Turkmen pensioner is still hiding, but this time from the police. “I smoke in my apartment. But if I feel like smoking in town, I find a place without surveillance cameras to avoid a fine — an alleyway, a dead end, behind some tall bushes or trees, a deserted spot,” the 64-year-old builder told AFP.
The reclusive Central Asian state of seven million people, where the rate of smoking is already very low, has vowed to eradicate the habit altogether by the end of the year.
Khodjayev said he had already been fined for smoking near his home.
“Since then, I try not to get caught anymore,” he said.
The target of going tobacco-free was set in 2022 by the country’s supreme leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, a former dentist.
Only four percent of Turkmens smoke, according to the World Health Organization.
There are heavy taxes and restrictions on cigarettes and smoking in almost all public places is now banned.
Khodjayev said he buys cigarettes at private kiosks since state shops run by the ministry of commerce do not have them.
In his kiosk in the capital Ashgabat, seller Meilis said the cigarettes came from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Iran.
“Most of the time, I sell single ones. Not everyone can afford an entire pack, it’s too expensive,” the 21-year-old told AFP.
