1000 Manat Gorogly Beg Turkmen

Görogly (or Köroğlu) is a legendary hero of Turkic oral epic tradition — a bandit-knight figure whose cycles of verse exist in distinct regional variants across Turkish, Azerbaijani, and Turkmen literary traditions. The Turkmen variant differs meaningfully from others, and the Berkarar state under Niyazov aggressively promoted such distinctly Turkmen cultural touchstones as instruments of national identity following independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

This coin was issued under Saparmurat Niyazov — "Turkmenbashi" — just months before his sudden death in December 2006.