TURKMENISTAN DISTILLERIES INAUGURATE NEW VODKA TO HONOR PRESIDENT 

MOSCOW (AP) -- Turkmenistan's president, the center of a Communist-style 
personality cult, has streets, schools, towns,
farms and even children named after him. Now there's a vodka, too. 

State-produced Serdar (Leader) vodka is a present to President Saparmurad 
Niyazov for this month's fifth anniversary of
Turkmenistan's independence, the Communist newspaper Pravda-5 reported 
Friday in Moscow. 

It wasn't clear how the decision to produce a vodka could be reconciled 
with Islam, which Niyazov -- a former atheist -- now
embraces. Islamic culture frowns on the consumption of alcohol. 

Adding to Niyazov's official title of Turkmen-Bashi, or the Father of All 
the Turkmen, officials in this predominantly Muslim
republic of Central Asia recently have started comparing him to a 
prophet. 

"Turkmen-Bashi and the Motherland are indivisible for us," said Mered 
Kutliev, the newly appointed state railways chief.
"When our president put his highest confidence in me, appointing me to 
head the railways, I couldn't hold back the words:
Allah is in heaven, but it's only you here on Earth!" 

Niyazov, Turkmenistan's former Communist Party boss and its president 
under Soviet rule, was re-elected in June 1992 for a
five-year term. 

He quickly uprooted all dissent and shut down the few independent 
newspapers. In a nationwide referendum in January 1994,
99.9 percent of Turkmenistan's eligible voters approved allowing Niyazov 
to stay in his post until the year 2002.