I stood in the largest mosque in Central Asia at 12:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. Its domed prayer hall, with an alleged capacity of 20,000, was empty.

Outside, no one washed their feet and face in the complex of dancing fountains that lined the walkway to the front entrance. From the tops of crisp white poles, snapping green flags provided the only competition to the musical chant of Friday prayers, broadcast with crystal clarity from invisible speakers.

That this marble–and-gold shrine was vacant at Friday midday prayer time, the most important time of the week for observant Muslims, was actually not the most surprising thing about it.

The multimillion-dollar mosque, which was built by Turkmenistan’s leader-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov in his home village of Gypjak, rises from fields of alfalfa like a gold-plated UFO. Hardly a place of worship, it is an ostentatious, profane monument to one of the world’s most bizarre leaders in one of its few remaining closed societies.

The immense Gypjak Mosque is situated in Turkmenbashi’s hometown.

The nearby capital city of Ashgabat is a larger-than-life diorama showcasing Niyazov’s brand of cultish self-promotion and his unique approach to urban design.

Turkmenistan (population about 5 million people), which is bordered by Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea, is slightly larger than California, but with about 17 percent of the population.

Turkmenistan was once part of the kingdom of ancient Persia, and was later ruled by Arabs, in the 8th century. It saw the invasion of Seljuk Turks in the 11th century. Mongols such as Genghis Khan conquered the region in the 13th and 14th centuries, before Turkmenistan came under Uzbek control in the late 15th century. Annexed by Russia in 1881, it became a constituent republic of the U.S.S.R. in 1925.

Until 1991, Turkmenistan was an anonymous cog in the great wheel of the Soviet Union, supplying the empire with natural gas and oil from its prodigious supplies.

Formerly head of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, President Saparmurat Niyazov was “elected” with 99.5 percent of the vote when Turkmenistan gained independence. Now a committed nationalist, he wraps himself in the green flag of Islam, but rules with a Stalinist-style iron fist.

He doesn’t give an inch of political or press freedom, and human rights groups condemn his regime. Having renamed several planets after himself and his mother and humbly selected the name “Turkmenbashi,” which means “leader of all Turkmen,” he has established a personality cult of cosmic proportions.

Not only is Turkmenistan politically isolated from the rest of the world, it is cut off economically, despite its oil wealth. Aside from a few explorers poking at the riches beneath Turkmenistan’s soil and some pioneering Turkish firms, there is little evidence of Western consumer culture. Just before my arrival, the president had expelled DHL and Fed-Ex, arguing that Turkmenpochta (the country’s postal service) could do the job just as well.

I stumbled into desert-brown Ashgabat dirty from three days of bouncing around the dunes of the Kyzylkum Desert in the back seat of a spare Russian-made Waz jeep. After spending my days exploring the empty desert and my nights in roadside chai khanas (traditional tea houses) and yurts of desert nomads, I was ready for smooth pavement and a shower.

Berzengi is a strip of 10 or so mid-priced, modern, government-run hotels sitting at the base of the Kopet Dag mountains. I stayed at the Chinese-themed Asia Hotel, but could have just as easily ended up at the white marble Black Gold Hotel, the Persian-themed Oil Palace or the one with the replica of the old-style “nodding donkey” oil-drilling rig in front. Visitors have lots of accommodation options since almost all of the hotels are completely empty.

Ashgabat’s urban design is a Central Asian interpretation of Las Vegas. Turkmenbashi has ordered old houses and buildings in the central city razed, and replaced them with toilet plunger–shaped monuments, white marble high-rise apartments that no one can afford to live in and chattering fountains that suck water from the tired Amu Darya River, hundreds of miles away. City maps more than a few years old are worthless; too much has changed.

In case it wasn’t clear enough from the smiling photos and inspirational quotations plastered on walls and banners around the city, the 200-foot–tall (75 meter) marble tripod known as the Arch of Neutrality in the center of the city sends an unmistakable message: Ashgabat is the personal fiefdom of one man.