I've translated into English a poem that is famous with people from Turkmenistan who live abroad. It sounds very funny, but it tells you what migrants feel: nostalgia, dreams for nothing and challenges to start a new life. You can find the Russian version on Ashgabat Community.

Home, Sweet Home

I don't need any flowerets,
Not to mention northern lights.
I'd go the desolate wilderness
Just to smell thorn at nights.

I'd go to the sun of Turkmenia,
To lizards, snakes, and hedgehogs.
I'd touch a shell of the tortoise
And embrace saxaul logs.

I'd feel sand on my drying lips
And wind uncurling the hair.
I'd go to the gorge in early spring
To take the mountain air.

I'd pick an armful of tulips
In the foothills of Kopetdag
Or fall asleep in red poppies
Making up a magnificent rug.

Should I admire birch wood?
Do I like European cuisine?
All my dreams are about Chuli,
But my heart is in Bezmein!

I'd prefer any motel in Geoktepe,
Even in August, unbearable heat.
At noon I'd go to Teke Bazary,
Which is opposite to the discreet.

It's forty in shade, but at home.
I prefer it to breezes abroad!
You can eat home-grown straw
And your tears are not so salt.

Ailantus's smell could be nice,
Although it makes me to sneeze.
There is neither rhyme nor reason
To love these honey linden trees.

I detest these severe seasons:
Sleet, mud rain, and frost...
Platan, aryk and takyr are the reasons!
I'd go to Mary...
But who is going to host?

It's pleasure to go to Kurtli,
To lie on the beach and drink chal.
I'd wake up with buzz of a bee
And feed a mosquito just off the canal.

If I stretched on a tapchan in shade,
Having left the depression aside,
I'd imagine bakhshi's destans,
Delivered as national pride.

What is Turkmen is always so dear!
I might go there. Who knows?
I'd change your blonde hair
For dark braids in four rows.

If only I had Bishkeshechka
Or Muradovna for ten minutes or so.
I wish I could hug Lyalyechka,
Or just drop in Irusik... Oh no!

***

You are calling me, dear Motherland.
Ok, I'll come, but what's next?
You are different, you are not my dream.
Your behavior makes me vexed.

Utter ruin. None of my friends.
No Martkevitchs. The Sokols are gone.
We are challenged to start it again,
The life at the crack of dawn.

Nostalgia has taken its rule.
It's my verdict, so that I'm mad.
I'm walking down Svoboda to Mir,
But it's a childish fad...

N. Basova, 14.03.2003
A. Annaev, Translation, 23.02.2007