Elvira Kadyrova, Ilmira Delmuhametova, Liliya Zhirnova and Tamir Shakirov
There was a time when going out to eat was mostly associated with particular occasions.
A celebration.
A wedding.
A formal gathering.
A visit to a restaurant was something one planned.
Today, eating outside the home has become part of a much broader culture of leisure.
A person can meet a friend over coffee.
A family can take children to a restaurant.
Colleagues can have lunch together.
Young people can spend an evening in a café.
A traveller can look for Turkish, European or other international cuisine.
A birthday can become an occasion for dinner rather than simply a meal at home.
The difference is subtle.
Eating has become part of going out.
This is one of those developments that does not always appear in national statistics, but it is an important indicator of changing urban life.
Modern shopping and entertainment complexes increasingly combine retail with restaurants and cafés. The Arkaç complex in Ashgabat, for example, includes restaurants and cafés alongside shops, cinemas, children’s entertainment, a fitness centre and other services.
This is significant because it reflects a broader change in the design of leisure.
A shopping trip does not necessarily end when the shopping is finished.
A family can eat.
Children can play.
Adults can have coffee.
A film can follow dinner.
The various activities are increasingly connected.
There is also greater variety in the cuisine available.
Contemporary Ashgabat has restaurants offering Turkmen, Turkish, Chinese, European and other styles of food. Current restaurant listings, for example, include Turkish and international establishments as well as cafés and other specialized venues.
Again, the important point is not that Turkmenistan has suddenly discovered restaurants.
Restaurants obviously existed before independence.
The change lies in the range, frequency and social meaning of eating out.
Food has increasingly become part of leisure and social life.
And that tells us something about quality of life.
When people eat only because they need to eat, food is a necessity.
When people choose where to eat, what cuisine they want, whether they want coffee afterwards and where they want to spend the evening, food becomes partly a matter of lifestyle.
That is a subtle but important transition.
It also creates a new service economy.
A restaurant requires cooks, waiters, cleaners, suppliers, delivery services, furniture, kitchen equipment, food-processing companies and logistics. A café creates its own network of employment and suppliers.
But again, we should resist turning the story into an economic report.
The more interesting question is what the restaurant means to the person sitting at the table.
It means that leisure can take place outside the home.
It means that meeting somebody no longer requires inviting them into your house.
It means that young people have another place to socialize.
It means that families can make an ordinary evening into an outing.
It means that food can be discovered rather than simply consumed.
And there is something else.
A restaurant is a place where different worlds meet.
A traditional Turkmen dish can sit on the same city’s menu as Turkish kebab, European-style dishes or international fast food. Local tastes interact with international influences.
That is another characteristic of the 35-year transformation: the expansion of the everyday cultural horizon.
The result is not necessarily that people abandon traditional food.
Quite the opposite.
A society can become more open to new tastes while retaining its own.
The point is simply that there are now more possibilities.
And that brings us back to the central theme of this series.
Quality of life is not measured only by how much food is produced or how many restaurants exist.
Sometimes it is measured by something much simpler:
Can I decide where I would like to spend this evening?
Thirty-five years ago, that question had a narrower range of answers.
Today, for many people, it has become a choice.
And sometimes the arrival of choice is itself a form of progress. /// nCa, 17 September 2026