AFP - Almost a decade after Turkmenistan's leader banned circuses as "alien" culture, the circus reopened in Ashgabat on Friday with a show of clowns and elephants watched by the current president.

The Central Asian country's authoritarian and eccentric leader Saparmurat Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi, closed the circus in 2001 after declaring it "alien culture" and "contrary to the Turkmen mentality."

Niyazov, who died in 2006, also closed cinemas, village libraries and the country's opera and ballet theatre in a bid to erase outside influences from the national culture.

Friday's show, attended by Niyazov's successor, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, featured Turkmen "Dzhigit" riders, who perform daring stunts, as well as clowns from Iran, Russia, China and Austria.

The audience of around 1,500 children also watched events featuring camels, elephants, pythons and even a crocodile.

Berdymukhamedov called for a review of Turkmenbashi's policies after his death and a revival of the banned cultural institutions in the isolated but energy-rich former Soviet republic.

"The state allocated 17.9 million dollars from the budget to reconstruct the circus building, which was built in the 1970s," a government source said.

The Bolsheviks embraced circuses as proletarian culture and the Soviet Union opened state circuses across its republics, usually located in fixed buildings rather than big tops. Turkmenistan's circus opened in 1985.

Circuses in the former Soviet Union have come under fire from animal rights campaigners for continuing to use performing animals.

In October, one person was killed and another wounded when an ice-skating bear attacked his Russian handlers at a circus in Kyrgyzstan.