The business card of the People's Artist of Turkmenistan, Mojek Charyyev, states that he is a member of the Union of Cinematographers and the Union of Artists of Turkmenistan. His creative fields are also listed as caricatures, painting, and animation.

We should also add that Mojek Charyyev is the author of the cute Alabay figurine, which became the main symbol of the Asian Games held in our country. As a child, Mojek dreamed of becoming... the director of a confectionery factory. His imagination painted a heavenly life: drink tea with sweets from morning to evening. But with age, he realized that there are many other, more useful things in life. For example, drawing. During breaks at the Bayramaly comprehensive school, when classmates were playing various games, Mojek would take out a pencil and paper. «You can easily convey movement», his drawing teacher once told him while looking at a wall newspaper. «You would make a good cartoonist». Mojek remembered these words and therefore in 1967 after graduating from the Turkmen State Art School, when his classmates went to storm the Repin and Surikov Institutes, he applied to VGIK. There were fewer applicants to the «artist-cartoonist» department than to the acting department.

– While submitting documents, one elderly man asked me to hand him a hammer to set up a still life, – remembers Mojek. – I deftly jumped over two tables and handed him the hammer. «You work great with your legs, young man, and I hope you work great with your hands too», the elder remarked. As I found out later, this man was the chairman of the admissions committee, Yuriy Ivanovich Pimenov. After the entrance exams, I spent a long time looking for my name on the list of those who did not get in, and only then decided to look at the list of those who did get in. I was among the seven lucky ones! I thought that my nimble legs probably played a significant role in this fact. That’s how I became the director and artist of the animated film «Bovenjik» – the first hand-drawn cartoon in Turkmenistan.

And this picture is one of the illustrations for the collection of fairy tales «Bovenjik», published in 1975.

We did not come across a self-portrait in the artist's studio; such a phenomenon somehow did not fit with the idea of artists. But we did find three portraits of Mojek Charyyev, made by his student Begench Orazov and artists Zakirjan Babayev and Anna Jumaniyazov. These portraits had one common feature: they did not look like the original.

- I noticed this too, - agreed Mojek. - And in this regard, I want to draw a parallel between a painted portrait and a friendly caricature. In a caricature, everything is much simpler: it is necessary to identify the most characteristic features of the face and add grotesqueness to them. For example, like in my caricature of the famous French film actor Jean Reno.

And here is my favourite painting - «Bagir». Once this landscape was colorfully and decoratively presented to the audience by Martiros Saryan. The landscape is the same, but I painted it differently - in discreet colours, using many subtle shades of gray and sand. I breathed the reality of existence into the landscape, and calm and measured music sounded in it. When I painted this work, I argued with Saryan, realizing that only the viewer can resolve our dispute, but he, perhaps, will say that every artist has the right to his own vision.

It is difficult to understand whether Mojek Charyyev is joking or speaking seriously, but the comparison with the landscape by Saryan himself certainly arouses special interest in the painting «Bagir». A heightened sense of humor is a characteristic feature of the artist's personality, which often helps him in his work. And it gives us the opportunity to be inspired by the positive from his works. Mojek Charyyev’s great merit to his compatriots was the creation of a cute Alabay as a symbol for the Asian Games. The Asian Games have passed, but Alabay remains. He already has his own independent life. Today he is everywhere - in shop windows and in municipal transport, on children's T-shirts and school supplies. An enlarged figure of the cute Alabay was installed on the territory of the Olympic Stadium. He was liked by the Turkmen people, because the artist put his good mood and kindness into him.