If you want to drive a car in Turkmenistan, you can, just as long as it is white, the nation's dictator has decreed.

The president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, a former dentist, likes white cars best, and that's what he wants people in his nation to drive, reports The Times of London.

To that end, Berdimuhamedov's regime in the central Asian dictatorship has now suspended imports of any cars that are not white into his country, blocking cars that are black, red, or dark blue. Further, exporters have been told that they are to ship only white cars to that country.

Police are also to refuse yearly inspector certificates to cars that are not the preferred color, a police officer told Radio Free Europe's Turkmen Service, but another officer denied that is happening.

In Turkmenistan, white is considered a lucky color, according to Vienna-based opposition website Chrono-tm.org, and it's not just cars that Berdimuhamedov want to be turned white.

The dictator has spent millions covering buildings in the nation's capital, Ashgabat, in white marble. Further, Berdimuhamedov is also pictured only wearing white and surrounding himself with white flowers or carpets, and even sometimes sitting on a white stallion.

The dictator also only uses white limousines to travel to official events, and his 160 senior officials have switched from black to white cars as well.

Turkmenistan is the smallest of five former Soviet republics in Central Asia.


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