World Bunkhouse Radio

“Suw boyunda biten çynar jogap ber,

Meniň läläm suw almaga gelmezmi?”

Those are the words of the traditional Turkmen song, “Suw Almaga Gelmezmi?”, sung by Nuryagdy Tokgayew on Turkmenistani television, presumably during the late 80s or early 90s. He performed in a dull manner, just standing idly on the spot with no dance moves or anything, as he walked a bit every once in a while; his lips also barely moved, as though he were lip-syncing. The rendition of the song he sang was a slow jam, dominated by FM synthesizers and a drum machine as typical of the era.

The broadcast performance was forgotten about until years later, when a low-quality VHS recording was uploaded to YouTube on April 24th, 2016 by user Sagdan Çepe. The video received over 24,000 views as of August 2026, and it would also receive airplay via a program on the Turkmenistan state-owned channel Miras named Arhiwden (From the Archive).

Besides “Suw Almaga Gelmezmi?”, Tokgayew sang other tunes live on television during the era. These include the midtempo and very similar-sounding “Natdin” and “Semnidin (Yalan Soygi)”, and the Italo-disco influenced “Aksonam”.

Extremely little is known about Tokgayew outside of Turkmenistan. It is unknown whether his discography had any physical releases, though a various artists compilation CD-ROM containing 17 of his tracks surfaced on Discogs in recent years. Until then, we look forward to any interesting new revelations that may come to light.