I do not like caged birds. I do not like animals imprisoned in circuses and zoos. I hate what they have done to the Colorado River. But that did not make me an environmentalist. Yet my visit to the Aral Sea just might have done it. It ripped my heart right out.
We came to see the Aral because I miscalculated our visa dates and we had too much time to spend in Khiva. I have heard about Aral Sea before; in the 60s the Soviets diverted the two rivers feeding the sea to irrigate the land in order to produce cotton. By the 80s Uzbekistan was one of the major growers of the cotton and the Aral Sea was drying out.
We drove from Khiva over 400 km to the former island in the sea called Moynag. But if you expect to see the advantages of the irrigation throughout the land, you might as well put your tooth under your pillow this evening. By now there are only a few cotton fields, with most of the land covered by either desert shrubs or by bulrush - neither one edible for any animals living there. The old canals seem to seep more water through its muddy banks than they transport to the fields anyway. So instead of the previous arid land you have a useless land. Beats me how this helps...
We got to Moynag, took the obligatory pictures of the boats in the former harbour, now sitting on the salty sand with no sea to be seen, and then took a ride with Volodya and Sergey to the edge of the sea. Volodya lived there for over 70 years so he still remembered the Aral Sea full of fish, with an average depth of about 16 meters, where as soon as you started fishing you had enough fish to eat for a week and where hundreds of thousands of Saiga antelopes ran through the green vegetation of the Amu-Darya river. Even discounting for the fisherman's folklore and the old man's memories of his great youth, the picture he painted was very different from the one outside the windows of our off-road vehicle. There were no Saigas out there, just the dried-out mud and sand full of salt with a thick baked crust on the top. The only vegetation was hardy little desert brush, similar to the one growing in the Nevada desert.
We drove through this inhospitable land for more than 120 km before we reached the edge of the current Aral Sea. Let me repeat it: 120 km. In almost a straight line. From the former island in the sea. Once again: 120 km. Everywhere there used to be water; sometimes 10, sometimes 20, sometimes 30 meters deep. The first feeling is a mixture of awe, helplessness and anger. Only on my way back the next day I felt like crying over all this destruction. Because there is no hope for the poor sea. While the communist planners converted a beautiful land into a salty dumping ground, the future will not bring anything good to the sea either. You know, the Aral Sea, now the Aral Desert, have a significant reserves of natural gas that is being currently drilled for and processed. And it is always easier to drill for oil and gas from the ground surface that drilling in the sea. And Uzbekistan needs revenues.
Of course we swam in the lifeless sea where the saltiness of it pushes you to the surface all the time, we slept in our sleeping bangs under the stars and saw the lightning whitening the sky somewhere far away, but none of it is important. And on the way back I did not cry. Because maybe you can cry me a river, but you will never cry me a sea.
We came to see the Aral because I miscalculated our visa dates and we had too much time to spend in Khiva. I have heard about Aral Sea before; in the 60s the Soviets diverted the two rivers feeding the sea to irrigate the land in order to produce cotton. By the 80s Uzbekistan was one of the major growers of the cotton and the Aral Sea was drying out.
We drove from Khiva over 400 km to the former island in the sea called Moynag. But if you expect to see the advantages of the irrigation throughout the land, you might as well put your tooth under your pillow this evening. By now there are only a few cotton fields, with most of the land covered by either desert shrubs or by bulrush - neither one edible for any animals living there. The old canals seem to seep more water through its muddy banks than they transport to the fields anyway. So instead of the previous arid land you have a useless land. Beats me how this helps...
We got to Moynag, took the obligatory pictures of the boats in the former harbour, now sitting on the salty sand with no sea to be seen, and then took a ride with Volodya and Sergey to the edge of the sea. Volodya lived there for over 70 years so he still remembered the Aral Sea full of fish, with an average depth of about 16 meters, where as soon as you started fishing you had enough fish to eat for a week and where hundreds of thousands of Saiga antelopes ran through the green vegetation of the Amu-Darya river. Even discounting for the fisherman's folklore and the old man's memories of his great youth, the picture he painted was very different from the one outside the windows of our off-road vehicle. There were no Saigas out there, just the dried-out mud and sand full of salt with a thick baked crust on the top. The only vegetation was hardy little desert brush, similar to the one growing in the Nevada desert.
We drove through this inhospitable land for more than 120 km before we reached the edge of the current Aral Sea. Let me repeat it: 120 km. In almost a straight line. From the former island in the sea. Once again: 120 km. Everywhere there used to be water; sometimes 10, sometimes 20, sometimes 30 meters deep. The first feeling is a mixture of awe, helplessness and anger. Only on my way back the next day I felt like crying over all this destruction. Because there is no hope for the poor sea. While the communist planners converted a beautiful land into a salty dumping ground, the future will not bring anything good to the sea either. You know, the Aral Sea, now the Aral Desert, have a significant reserves of natural gas that is being currently drilled for and processed. And it is always easier to drill for oil and gas from the ground surface that drilling in the sea. And Uzbekistan needs revenues.
Of course we swam in the lifeless sea where the saltiness of it pushes you to the surface all the time, we slept in our sleeping bangs under the stars and saw the lightning whitening the sky somewhere far away, but none of it is important. And on the way back I did not cry. Because maybe you can cry me a river, but you will never cry me a sea.