Niyazov's favorite food was melons. Apparently, he loved melons so much that the second Sunday in August each year became "Melon Day", a national public holiday to extol delicious melons. There's no end to all the queer decrees that Niyazov set up, including no lip-synching, forbidding news anchors from washing their hair or wearing makeup, banning tobacco because he had cancer and was practicing abstinence, constructing a 6-lane freeway between the capital and his hometown, Gypjak (nix users,) and building a zoo with only penguins in the middle of the desert. Also, in Turkmenistan was built a giant golden statue in Niyazov's image. In fact, this statue was made to rotate full circle in 24 hours, so that it would always face the sun.