Leader’s Gates of Hell stunt quells rumours of death

State television in Turkmenistan has shown the country’s eccentric president driving near a flaming gas crater in the first footage of him since rumours of his death last month.

Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who last appeared in public on July 5, was shown on a Sunday news broadcast behind the wheel of a rally car streaking through the desert of the gas-producing former Soviet republic near Iran and Afghanistan.

The car was then seen spinning in the dust and driving circles around the Gates of Hell, a 70m-wide collapsed natural gas field that has been burning continuously since 1971.

The daring exploit was the culmination of 28 minutes of vainglorious footage that also showed the dictator riding a horse and a bicycle, singing, showing government ministers how to lift weights and apparently shooting bullseyes in a target with an assault rifle. He appeared to roll three strikes in a row while bowling with the mayor of Ashgabat, the capital, although cutaway edits made it impossible to tell how many he actually achieved.

Berdymukhamedov’s overblown TV antics with fast cars and high-powered firearms are such a fixture of the media in the repressive Central Asian country that any undue absence causes confusion and gossip.

They distract from the dire economic performance of Turkmenistan, which is suffering hyperinflation and food shortages, the London-based Foreign Policy Centre reported in June.

The presidential press service announced last month that Berdymukhamedov was on a month’s holiday and published a video of him playing with cats and his grandchildren.

Less than a week later, rumours began on social media that he had died of liver failure.

Berdymukhamedov, 62, came to power in 2006 and established his own personality cult.