Central Asia's 'picture perfect' Presidents

Perfect posture, white smile, smooth face paired with thick grey or shiny black hair: from Turkmenistan to Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, heads of state always appear in perfect shape and full of vitality in official images. Some even use Photoshop to add a few centimetres so as not to look out of place next to Donald Trump's stature.

Astana (AsiaNews) - In official images, the presidents of Central Asian countries always look perfect: ideal posture, snow-white smiles, smooth faces paired with thick grey hair, or even shiny black hair. If you compare these portraits with those in international news reports, the illusion quickly vanishes, and it becomes clear that the state representations are nothing more than the result of careful digital reworking.

The presidents' official photographers are often the subject of criticism, and not only for the events in which they are involved. Almost always, the images are retouched in every detail, smoothing out wrinkles, colouring hair, whitening teeth, sometimes increasing the leader's height and drawing a beautiful smile on their lips.

Sometimes these interventions are so obvious that the “retouched presidents” become the subject of ridicule and memes on social networks.

In Turkmenistan, where the cult of personality of leaders takes on an almost sacred meaning, iconic images are particularly elaborate, and the two Berdymukhamedovs, father and son, Gurbanguly and Serdar, never show any grey hair or wrinkles, always smiling even when their body language suggests otherwise.

Only the “father of the nation”, Arkadag Gurbanguly, since handing over the reins to his son, has a pleasant streak of wise greyness in his thick, dark, carefully combed hair. In photos taken at the Kremlin in Moscow or at the Akorda in Astana, his skin appears much less youthful, while his son Serdar's more rigid facial features and posture are often softened.

Journalist Toktosun Šambetov, from the editorial staff of Radio Azattyk, witnessed an almost live intervention when, at a meeting between Serdar and the president of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, immediately after taking the pictures, the Turkmen photographers “reworked the results for almost an hour”, cutting off Berdymukhamedov's head because of a rather unhappy expression and replacing it with a beautiful smiling face, taking details from the reserve photos and adjusting the height of the protagonists and the context. Sometimes, unexpected flaws slip through in these processes, such as a missing finger or a crooked ear.

The most retouched figure in Central Asian tradition was the first president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, whose entire face was not only smoothed out, but whose height was almost always artificially increased, as he was only 170 centimetres tall, while in photos he could reach up to 190 centimetres, as in a photo with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, himself 1.90 metres tall, and Karimov who matched him in comparison.

His successor, the current Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who is not particularly tall, also has his height increased by a few centimetres, but with greater moderation than Karimov, still managing not to look out of place alongside a giant of Donald Trump's stature.

The 72-year-old Kasym-Žomart Tokaev, President of Kazakhstan, always has his double chin removed and his cheeks, which are actually quite wrinkled, smoothed out, and in group photos, the surrounding figures are also cleaned up to give a general impression of freshness. These corrections used to be done by hand, but the advent of artificial intelligence today facilitates and greatly expands the art of photo retouching.

Vanity is not the only motivation behind this artistic work, which also serves to reinforce the image of leaders full of vitality and enthusiasm in their work on behalf of the entire population. This is also the case for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose retouched images have often given rise to speculation about the use of various lookalikes and avatars, given the significant differences compared to the natural image of the Kremlin leader.

The most natural of all the great leaders appears to be the President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Zhaparov, whose photographs are almost never retouched, sometimes being simple smartphone shots, and even the President of Tajikistan, who has been in office for over 30 years, Emomali Rakhmon, who seems not to worry too much about appearing old and a little unkempt, knowing that his stern gaze and cynical smile are enough to dispel any doubts about his eternal and unshakeable authority. Soon he will hand over power to his son Rustam Emomali, a young forty-year-old with a dazzling smile.