After serving the community for two decades , the House of Worship was expropriated by the Soviet authorities in 1928 and leased back to the Bahá ' ís . This lasted until 1938 , when it was fully secularized and turned into an art gallery . The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake seriously damaged the building and rendered it unsafe ; the heavy rains of the following years weakened the structure , and it was demolished in 1963 and the site converted into a public park
1948 Ashgabat earthquake
1948 Ashgabat earthquake
Bahá'í House of Worship