Visiting The Aral Sea, Uzbekistan, 2017

Moynaq: The Town Haunted By The Ghost Of The Aral Sea

The Republic of Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, is little known, and seldom visited by Western travelers. A part of the former Soviet Union until 1991 when it gained independence, Uzbekistan has the distinction of being one of the two double landlocked countries on Earth. In other words, all five of the countries that border on Uzbekistan are landlocked themselves.

Despite its steadfastly continental geographic status Uzbekistan was, up into the late 20th century, home to a bustling port city called Moynaq that was the center of a large and thriving fishing industry. Moynaq once sat on the southern shore of the Aral Sea which was the fourth largest inland body of water in the world. Today Moynaq ia surrounded on all sides by the Kyzyl Kum Desert and what’s left of the Aral Sea is more than 150 km away.

The recent history of the Aral Sea is a tale of one of the greatest human-caused environmental disasters of all time. It is also a story of governmental arrogance, ignorance, and greed.

At its peak the fishing industry in Moynaq was very large-scale. In the 1920’s during a famine in the Volga region of Russia, Lenin personally appealed to the fishermen of the Aral Sea for help to feed the starving. Within just days, over 20,000 tons of fish was harvested and shipped westward to to the famine zone saving many Russian lives. One-sixth of all of the fish harvested in the Soviet Uinion once came from the Aral Sea. Forty thousand people used to be employed in Moynaq’s fishing industry. So what happened to Moynaq and the Aral Sea?

In the post war years the government of the Soviet Union hatched a plan for a gigantic irrigation project that would allow the Kyzyl Kum Desert in Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan’s most westerly region and where Moynaq lies) to produce a variety of crops. One crop in particular – cotton – was given priority over all others as it could be exported and return hard currency for the Soviet treasury. The waters of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers that fed into the Aral Sea were diverted into a network of irrigation channels. Soviet planners gave no consideration to either the health of the Aral Sea or to the welfare of the people living near it.

The irrigation channels were rarely waterproofed and vast amounts of water were allowed to seep into the ground before reaching the fields of crops. The desert sun caused the evaporation of even more of the water. It was estimated that from the Qaraqum Canal, the largest in the region, that between 35 – 75% of its water was wasted in this manner.

To make matters worst, proper crop rotation was generally not employed and this resulted in a rapid depletion of soil nutrients. To counter that problem progressively increasing amounts of artificial fertilizers were dumped in the fields. That, along with heavy use of pesticides and herbicides led to groundwater contamination and toxic runoff into the Aral Sea.

By the 1970’s the Aral Sea began to exhibit serious signs of distress from the loss of its sources of water. The shoreline receded more each year. As the volume of water in the Aral Sea shrank, its salinity increased in proportion and the concentrations of poisonous agricultural effluent rose in tandem with the salt.

As the Aral Sea continued to lose water much of the nearby farmland became too saline due to over-irrigation. Windblown salt from the now dry, exposed sea floor and the hazardous levels of agricultural chemicals in the environment led to an epidemic of tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses. Alarmingly high rates of anemia spread through the populace of Karakalpakstan. These and other diseases remain widespread in Karakalpakstan to this day.

By 2007 the Aral Sea had lost 90% of its original volume and its salt concentration was ten times that of the world’s oceans. Saline levels that high cannot support life. The shrunken Aral Sea was a dead zone. What was once an oasis had become an extension of the desert.

I visited Moynaq in May of 2017. I day-tripped to Moynaq in a shared taxi from Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan. Along with myself and and the driver was a fellow traveler from Finland. I never got his name. It was difficult to get him to talk at all although I was able to determine that he spoke fluent English so there was no language barrier preventing him from conversing with me. Some people just don’t like to talk I guess.

Our first stop in Moynaq was at the small museum dedicated to chronicling the town’s former past as a fishing port. By stroke of luck a group of local boys and girls were out in front dressed in traditional Karakalpak attire and they were quite happy to let me take photos of them. The girls especially were keen to pose for the camera. With practiced poise they assumed several impromptu poses. It was obvious that they were quite accustomed to being photographed.

The main (only?) real attraction making Moynaq worth a visit is to see the rusted-out hulks of former fishing boats that now lie on the former bed of the Aral Sea. There is a collection of these wrecks at the foot of a bluff that overlooks what was once the shore of the Aral Sea. Most of Moynak’s fishing fleet was sold off as scrap metal but the ones collected near the bluff were saved as relics for curious tourists such as myself to come and view.

Standing atop the bluff and gazing down at what appears to be an endless expanse of sand and scrub brush stretching out into the horizon, you can’t help but feel a real sense of loss. That a huge inland sea and its entire ecosystem is now nothing but a waste land is heart rending to see. And it all happened in less than a lifetime!

There is a sturdy stairway from the crest of the bluff down to where the remains of Moynaq’s fishing boats lie in the sand. Therefor it’s easy to get up close to those spectral vessels. In one case there was even some metal steps leading from the ground up onto the deck of one of the boats. During my visit there were a few Uzbek tourists, and of course the reticent Finn, also present. Even so it felt like a lonely place.

After our foray to see the wrecks our driver took us to a local house where lunch had been prepared for us. The luncheon had been arranged in advance through the hotel in Nukus. Me and the Finnish guy were led into a room with a large wooden table and many chairs. Soon a middle-aged woman entered the room carrying tea and soup for us. Like the Finn she seemed reluctant to speak or to really acknowledge our presence at all. The two of them would have made a good match for each other. She returned to the dining room twice more carrying more food to the table both times. The meal was good but there was too much food for two people to eat. We left most of it uneaten.

Today Moynaq is a dusty, impoverished town with only a fraction of its former population. It has only the ghostly remnants of its former glory and its unenviable status us a disaster tourism destination going for it.

Despite the terrible environmental devastation inflicted on the Aral Sea and the related health disorders spread through the people of Karakalpakstan, the government of Uzbekistan has continued the same destructive agricultural practices of the Soviet era. The Uzbek government has an absolute monopoly over the cotton industry in that country. Cotton production has remained an important, money-making endeavour for Uzbekistan. Rather than spend the funds on modernizing mechanization, the Uzbek government ensures the continued profitability of cotton by using a system of forced labour to bring in the annual cotton harvest. Each Fall more than one million Uzbeks are forced out of their routine lives and ordered to help pick cotton. For this they are paid a pittance or, in some cases, nothing at all. Pickers receive pennies for each pound of cotton gathered. It’s not uncommon for the workers to spend more on transportation to the cotton fields than they’ll receive in pay for their work.

Thankfully the Uzbek government isn’t the only legislative body with control over the Aral Sea. The northern portion of the Sea is in Kazakhstan ( yeah, where Borat is from ). Kazakhstan is another former part of the Soviet Union but unlike Uzbekistan, the government of Kazakhstan made the decision to try to prevent the complete disappearance of the Aral Sea. In 2005, with assistance from the UN, the government of Kazakhstan completed construction of the 8 mile wide Kok-Aral Dam project that was built to once again divert water from the Syr Darya River into the Aral Sea. The project met with great success. Over time a huge volume of water was re-introduced into Kazakhstan’s portion of the Aral Sea. As water levels rose, salt levels dropped and concentrations of dangerous chemicals were literally watered down to the point where fish could be stocked and not only survive, but thrive. The so-called “Small Sea” in Kazakhstan even supports a fishing industry once again. This success story does not mean that the Aral Sea will return to its former self but it does mean that a concerted effort to save at least a fragment of the Sea is underway and is making a positive difference. The sad saga of the Aral Sea holds some reason for continued hope after all.

I made use of the following websites to help write this post:
(1) www.edgekz.com/revival-aral-sea-kazakh-world-efforts-restore-island-sea/
(2) https://www.britannica.com/place/Aral-Sea
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

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