50 Manat 290th birthday of Makhtumkuli Pyragy

Makhtumkuli Pyragy, the 18th-century Turkmen poet whose ghazals became foundational texts of Turkmen national identity, spent much of his life under the shadow of Afsharid and later Qajar pressure on the region's tribal confederacies. His father, Döwletmämmet Azady, was himself a significant literary figure, and the two represent an unusually documented father-son intellectual lineage in Central Asian letters. Turkmenistan has issued commemorative gold for Pyragy repeatedly since independence, making him the single most commemorated figure in the republic's numismatic program.