According to Khudaiberdy Orazov, the former Head of the Central Bank of Turkmenistan, the original idea for what became the Ruhnama came during the last days of the Turkmen SSR, when during a convention of Government officials, the Dean of the Department of History of the Turkmen State University mentioned that his department had been quietly collecting historical, cultural, and folkloric information about Turkmenistan for almost 20 years and thought it would be beneficial to write a Comprehensive History book about the Turkmen People, which until then was almost non-existent or written entirely in the context of Soviet Historiography.