20 Manat Oguzkhan

Turkmenistan's silver coinage from this period reflects the state's aggressive program of commemorative issues tied to national mythology — Oguzkhan being the semi-legendary ancestral khan from whom Turkic peoples broadly, and Turkmens specifically, claim patrilineal descent. The cult of Oguzkhan was heavily promoted under both Niyazov and his successor Berdymukhamedov as a pillar of state-constructed national identity, making coins bearing his name instruments of official cultural policy as much as anything else.