War, look at it! Such horror! The 20th Century has been a bloody and brutal century in which mankind, in his lifespan burdened with disasters, has rendered many losses and sacrificed many lives. There have been two World Wars, and tens of border wars and inter-state wars have occurred. Our Türkmen citizens have participated in those wars too. Sometimes it was against their will and sometimes voluntarily. In the Second World War alone, 740,000 Türkmens died at the hands of the German invaders. Tens of thousands of men were injured and maimed. To measure the loss of our citizens materially and financially is impossible. We have given the name of the hero of the Türkmen state to all the martyrs in this war. May their place be in the heavens and their graves fulled with divine light!

The war ended, the veterans returned to their homeland and it was as if a bright light had been ignited in the hearts of the people. But, it was not to last. God once more tested the Türkmen province. On the night of 6^th October 1948 Aşgabat was devastated by an earthquake which left our beautiful city in ruins. In one night, out of a population of 198,000 people in our capital city, 176,000 were martyred[1], the majority of the rest were injured or disabled. Our family also suffered in that disaster. When we went to our beds, there were four of us. My dear 33 year-old mother, my 10 year-old elder brother Nyýazmyrat, and my 6 year-old younger brother Muhammetmyrat all were martyred that night. The next day, when I broke down and wept over the ruined house, although I had not yet completed 8 years old, I knew I was alone. In this way, I sat through 6 lonely days and nights. On the seventh day, they came and carried away my dead mother and dear brothers to bury them in Ymam Kasym graveyard.