Today I spent about 4 hours cruising the Täze Köşi, Parahat 7, and Gaža neighborhoods of Ashgabat to collect GPS traces of new streets and to identify new schools, kindergartens, and other public buildings. As the onset of the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games looms (due to begin September 17) a final big push is underway to commission new construction, so there are large numbers of changes in the city every week. In addition to GPS traces on my Garmin Nuvi, I collected imagery using Mapillary and am presently uploading it. There is also a new headquarters building for Rysgal Bank, plus two buildings flanking that building that include a shopping center and supermarket. I mapped them, too, along with the alleys and parking lot serving them.

After a short break I put in another couple of hours driving. I buzzed up to Choganly to collect house numbers in the new development that was commissioned last week, plus finished off the search for street names in Gämi, at least for now–there are a few streets with no signs at all on them, so they will have to wait. I also checked out the new apartment buildings in Anew and added the alleys behind them, now that they have been occupied. I finished with a run down Kulyyew to collect GPS traces on the newly opened frontage roads between Bitarap and Baba Annanow. All in all it was a productive Saturday. The Mapillary upload will take a while.

The mystery building in the middle of Täze Köşi now has a sign, Saglyk Öýi, which identifies it as a clinic (what in Russian is called a поликлиника or in English an outpatient clinic). One more puzzle solved!