Turkmenistan operates under perhaps the world's most absurd automotive regulation: a ban on black cars enforced through mandatory repainting, fines, and vehicle confiscation. The policy, introduced around 2015 during the rule of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and continued under his son and successor Serdar, requires residents of the capital Ashgabat to drive white or occasionally silver vehicles, with darker colours including black, dark blue, and red restricted or outright prohibited.
The black car ban emerged from President Berdymukhamedov's reported personal preference for white, extended from his clothing choices and palatial décor to encompass the entire nation's automotive fleet. According to reporting by international media including Quartz and Radio Free Europe, authorities justified the restriction by claiming white vehicles suited Turkmenistan's hot climate by reflecting heat, though the policy's real motivation appeared rooted in the president's aesthetic whims rather than practical considerations.
Enforcement proved ruthless. Traffic police in Ashgabat began stopping black vehicles around 2015, informing owners they had limited time to repaint their cars white or silver or face fines and potential confiscation. The repainting costs, ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 depending on vehicle size and paint quality, represented catastrophic expenses for average Turkmen citizens earning approximately $200 monthly according to World Bank economic data.
"I received notice that my black Toyota must be repainted within two weeks," explained one Ashgabat resident in testimony provided to human rights organization Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights in 2017. "The cost quoted was $1,500, equal to seven months of my salary. I had no choice. The alternative was losing the car entirely through confiscation."
The policy extended beyond private citizens to government officials and state enterprises. Photographs from Ashgabat during the late 2010s show government motorcades, taxi fleets, and commercial vehicles uniformly painted white, creating surreal streetscapes where colour diversity disappeared entirely. Even foreign diplomats faced pressure to comply, though embassies generally resisted, creating occasional tension over vehicles with diplomatic plates that violated colour requirements.
The white car mandate fits within Turkmenistan's broader cult of personality surrounding Berdymukhamedov, who ruled from 2006 to 2022 before installing his son as successor while retaining substantial power. The elder Berdymukhamedov cultivated an image centered on white: white clothing, white horses, white palace interiors, and Ashgabat itself, rebuilt during his tenure using white marble to create what Guinness World Records recognized as the city with the world's highest concentration of white marble buildings.
This obsessive whiteness extended to bizarre extremes. Berdymukhamedov commissioned a golden statue of himself atop a white horse, published books praising white Akhal-Teke horses native to Turkmenistan, and reportedly banned dogs from Ashgabat partly because their varied colours clashed with his aesthetic vision. The black car prohibition represented merely one manifestation of this pathological colour preference imposed on an entire nation.
International observers and human rights groups condemned the policy as emblematic of Turkmenistan's authoritarian absurdity. The country, ranking among the world's most repressive according to Freedom House assessments, operates under totalitarian controls affecting virtually all aspects of daily life. Citizens face restrictions on internet access, foreign travel, religious practice, and political expression that make car colour restrictions seem almost trivial by comparison.
However, the automotive policy carried genuine economic consequences for ordinary Turkmen people. Forcing vehicle repainting destroyed resale values, as buyers outside Ashgabat or internationally showed little interest in cars repainted from factory colours. The repainting process often proved substandard, with cheap paint jobs deteriorating quickly under Central Asian sun and creating maintenance problems. Citizens who couldn't afford repainting faced losing their primary transportation, affecting employment and family logistics.
The justification that white cars suit hot climates holds minimal scientific validity. While lighter colours reflect more solar radiation than darker shades, reducing interior heating when parked, the effect proves modest and hardly justifies mandatory repainting. Air conditioning systems in modern vehicles easily overcome colour-related temperature differences, and many hot-climate countries including Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Australia show no preference for mandating white vehicles despite considerably hotter conditions than Turkmenistan experiences.
The policy also created perverse secondary markets. Reports from Turkmen exile media suggested that paint shops in Ashgabat charged inflated prices for mandatory repainting, with profits potentially benefiting officials connected to the Berdymukhamedov family. The absence of competition or alternatives allowed these shops to extract maximum revenue from citizens with no negotiating power.
Enforcement varied across Turkmenistan's regions. Ashgabat faced strictest controls, with traffic police actively stopping and documenting non-white vehicles. Provincial cities and rural areas saw more relaxed enforcement, allowing black and other coloured cars to operate with less interference, creating geographic inequality where wealthier urban residents absorbed costs that poorer rural citizens avoided through lax provincial enforcement.
The restriction eased somewhat following the elder Berdymukhamedov's formal retirement in 2022, though his son Serdar maintained many of his father's policies while supposedly representing a new generation of leadership. Reports from 2024 and 2025 suggest that black car enforcement has relaxed marginally, with some dark vehicles appearing on Ashgabat streets, though white still dominates overwhelmingly and authorities retain discretion to enforce colour restrictions when convenient.
No other country operates comparable colour-specific vehicle bans tied to dictatorial aesthetic preferences. North Korea restricts vehicle ownership itself, limiting who can drive rather than what colours they choose. China briefly restricted certain luxury vehicle features but never banned specific colours. Various countries regulate vehicle modifications and safety equipment, but Turkmenistan alone appears to prohibit car colours based on presidential whim.
The policy reveals how authoritarian systems create arbitrary rules that serve no public interest beyond satisfying leadership vanity. Democratic governments certainly regulate vehicles extensively through safety standards, emissions controls, and taxation, but these rules theoretically serve public welfare goals. Turkmenistan's white car mandate serves only to satisfy one man's colour preferences, demonstrating the absurd extremes of unconstrained executive power.
For car manufacturers and importers, Turkmenistan presents unique challenges. Why produce or ship vehicles in varied colours when only white sells legally in certain regions? Some reports suggested that vehicle importers began stocking only white cars to avoid customers facing repainting costs, though this limited consumer choice even for those who might legally drive other colours outside Ashgabat.
The global automotive industry largely ignored Turkmenistan's peculiar requirements given the country's tiny market. With population around 6 million and limited vehicle ownership due to poverty and import restrictions, Turkmenistan barely registers in global sales statistics. Manufacturers design for major markets including China, Europe, and America, where colour diversity remains standard, making Turkmen requirements irrelevant to production planning.
The white car policy also created environmental concerns, though these barely registered given Turkmenistan's broader environmental disasters including draining the Aral Sea and widespread pollution from natural gas extraction. Repainting millions of vehicles required toxic chemicals and generated hazardous waste, while discarding original paint finishes wasted resources. The environmental cost, while significant, paled compared to the regime's other ecological damages.
Turkmen citizens adapted as populations under authoritarian rule always do, finding ways to navigate absurd restrictions. Some kept cars outside Ashgabat to avoid repainting requirements, commuting to the capital via public transport or shared taxis. Others purchased already-white vehicles when replacing older cars, accepting colour limitations as unavoidable. A few wealthy individuals maintained multiple vehicles, repainting one white for Ashgabat while keeping original colours for use elsewhere.
The international community, largely indifferent to Turkmenistan's internal affairs beyond concerns about natural gas exports and geopolitical positioning between Russia and China, ignored the car colour policy as minor compared to serious human rights violations including political imprisonment, torture, and forced labour. Western governments occasionally criticized Turkmenistan's authoritarianism in general terms but rarely mentioned specific absurdities like colour restrictions.
The policy's future depends partly on whether younger Berdymukhamedov maintains his father's aesthetic obsessions or gradually relaxes restrictions as he consolidates power independent of his father's influence. Early indications suggest modest liberalization in various areas while retaining authoritarian fundamentals, possibly allowing colour diversity to return gradually without formal policy reversal that might suggest his father erred.
Turkmenistan's white car requirement stands as monument to dictatorial absurdity, demonstrating how unchecked power creates arbitrary rules that serve no purpose beyond satisfying leadership vanity. Citizens forced to spend months' salary repainting perfectly functional vehicles to match presidential colour preferences learned harsh lessons about living under authoritarian caprice. The rest of the world observed from distance, bemused by a policy so absurd it barely seemed credible, yet another data point in the catalog of bizarre dictatorial quirks that make Turkmenistan among the world's strangest nations.
Henry Ford apocryphally said customers could have Model T's in any colour as long as it was black, a business decision about production efficiency later recognized as limiting consumer choice. Turkmenistan's president went further, mandating white as the only acceptable colour, backed not by business logic but by police enforcement and confiscation threats. Both demonstrate colour restriction consequences, though one was temporary business practice while the other represents ongoing authoritarian control. The difference matters, particularly to Turkmen citizens still navigating their nation's peculiar relationship with automotive paint.