Having a car repainted is very expensive, but now, when this ban was made, prices shot up even more. “When I came to the car service, I was told that the repainting my car would cost 7,000 manat, but in a week the price would rise to 11,000 manat,” one Ashgabat resident who had his car impounded told Radio Azatlyk.
“My salary is 1,000 manat, so even if I save up all of it, I will be forced to spend all my annual income on this paint job.” To understand better, one manat is $0,59, so the price in USD for repainting a black car will be almost $4,000.
The annoying thing is that Turkmenistan’s government will probably never announce the ban on black cars officially, because this ban is linked to president Berdymukhammedov due to its personal preference.