Some people just take being vain to the next level. The president of Turkmenistan, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, decided that the country needed more of him—so he had a giant statue of himself built in the center of the capital city. The statue is comprised of a cliff made of white marble, with the president depicted riding a golden horse. It sits in downtown Ashgabat and was revealed in 2015. President Berdymukhamedov’s reasoning for having the statue be built? He says it’s what the people were asking for. The president maintains that the people of Turkmenistan put together a proposal to honor him with a statue in honor of over a decade as president.
The statue, which stands at a whopping 69-feet, is reminiscent of the Bronze Horsemen statue that honors Peter the Great in St. Petersburg. It joins several other massive tributes to world leaders, one of which is in the same country. Saparmurat Niazov, the president of Turkmenistan before Berdymukhamedov, had a golden statue built of himself years earlier. When Berdymukhamedov came to power after Niazov’s death, he immediately had the golden statue moved to the edge of Ashgabat.