Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov gave Vladimir Putin an alabai.

And now there's a 19-foot statue of a golden alabai in the center of a big traffic circle in Ashgabat. 

Here's video from The Guardian ("Turkmenistan leader unveils giant gold statue of local dog"):

 

 Here's weirder video: 

  

I like that there's a homophone for "alibi." And we've been talking about bad public monuments lately, so I must say a golden dog is not so bad. Maybe we'd do better here in the West with dog statues instead of the usual human beings and, alternatively, abstractions. But the antagonism toward public art is so great in the United States these days that a dog statue would probably be regarded as a monument to white supremacy and torn down by some high-minded citizens.

ADDED: For more about Ashgabat, here's a 2018 article in The Guardian, "Inside Ashgabat, the flashy but empty 'city of the dead'/Film-maker and ‘dark tourist’ David Farrier visited Turkmenistan’s newly built capital, designed to cope with anything – as long as it’s preplanned":

The capital city of Turkmenistan, is blisteringly dry and hot, dumped in the middle of the desert. It also holds the record for the highest density of buildings made from white marble, which bounce the sun right back in your face, blinding you.... 

Somehow Turkmenistan had negotiated to host the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, an official Olympic event for which it constructed a $5bn (£3.8bn) village. Huge stadiums, a monorail system, indoor and outdoors sports arenas and giant sprawling highways were surrounded by brand-new hotels, apartments and malls. 

Also: "Turkmenistan has the world’s fourth-largest natural gas reserves, more than the United States...."

And look at that "wedding palace"! Photo cc Kalpak Travel. You can get married inside that globe at the top: