500 Manat Oguz Khan

Introduced three years after Turkmenistan adopted the manat as its national currency in 1993, this commemorative honors Oghuz Khan — the semi-legendary ancestor-figure whose mythologized lineage underpins Turkmen national identity as actively constructed under Saparmurat Niyazov's presidency. Niyazov, who styled himself Turkmenbashi ("Father of all Turkmens"), systematically deployed ancient Oghuz heritage in state symbolism throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in his 2001 book *Ruhnama*, which reframed Oghuz Khan as a direct spiritual progenitor of the Turkmen people.

The 500 manat face value was purely nominal — equivalent to a fraction of a US cent at 2001 exchange rates.