500 Manat Gurbandurdy Zelili

Gurbandurdy Zelili was an 18th-century Turkmen poet whose works circulated orally for generations before being formally collected — part of a classical literary tradition that the post-Soviet Turkmen state aggressively promoted as evidence of deep national roots. This coin belongs to a broader commemorative silver program launched under Saparmurat Niyazov, the autocratic first president who styled himself "Turkmenbashi" and made cultural mythologizing a central instrument of governance.

The 500 manat face value was largely symbolic by 2003, the currency having suffered severe devaluation through the 1990s.