Yyldyz Hotel

The Yyldyz—'star' in Turkmen—is Ashgabat's architectural exclamation mark: a 107-metre teardrop of curved blue glass rising from the Kopet Dag foothills on the city's southern edge, its form inspired by a drop of water and visible from across the capital. Where the rest of official Ashgabat is white marble, the Yyldyz shimmers, and staying inside the landmark is much of the point.

The elevated site delivers the city's best views: rooms on the north side look down across the whole improbable panorama of marble avenues, golden domes and fountains spread along the valley floor, spectacular at night when the monuments are floodlit. Interiors are glossy in a heavily gilded, state-luxury manner—polished stone, patterned carpets, chandeliers—with rooms that are spacious and well equipped if ornate in taste. Service follows the state-hotel pattern: polite, formal and best approached with patience.

Facilities include an indoor pool, sauna and treatment rooms, a panoramic upper-floor restaurant, and grounds landscaped into the hillside. The location requires drives to anywhere in the city, which suits Turkmenistan's guided-travel reality. As an experience of Ashgabat's theatrical urbanism—arguably the world's strangest capital—no other hotel participates so completely in the spectacle.