How does the Aral live today - the sea that was sacrificed to cotton

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is hard to believe that some thirty years ago it was considered the fourth largest inland water space of our planet, but this is true. The ancient Aral Sea was full of fish, vacationers from all over the Soviet Union came to this seaside resort area. Now it has practically dried up, and only giant rusty ships remind of its past, which now seems so unreal.

The sea sacrificed to cotton

From the size that the sea was 60 years ago, only 10% remains, and this is not a matter of climate change. The older generation remembers well how the Soviet Union decided to implement a huge agricultural irrigation project aimed at developing the cotton industry in the area. From the large rivers that fed the sea, they began to take water.

The results of the man-made disaster made themselves felt 10 years later. The fish began to ache, the percentage of salt in the water increased sharply, every year the sea began to shallow.

Gradually, as the water receded, or rather, the water disappeared, a graveyard of abandoned ships began to form here, which now look like ghosts.

Dark romance

Today this place attracts tourists - lovers of romance and abandonment. Photographers come here, and graffiti of dubious artistic value can be seen on the surfaces of rusty ships.

Some tourists even decide to immerse their hands and feet in the remnants of water, not thinking that it contains a large concentration of harmful substances. The fact is that in the Soviet years, biochemical tests were carried out here. Until 1992, on the former island of Vozrozhdenie (18 years ago it connected to the mainland) there was a Soviet military laboratory, on the territory of which bacteriological weapons were tested on rodents, using pathogens of anthrax, plague, typhoid, smallpox, botulinum toxin and other terrible viruses, infections …

Many years after the closure of the landfill, soil samples from the burial grounds taken by Western scientists showed that the spores of the anthrax agent, despite disinfection, did not completely die. These and other microorganisms could well get into the waters of the Aral Sea.

By the way, until the 1940s (until the testing ground was made here) the island was a real paradise: herds of saigas grazed on its territory, and the fishermen who lived here brought huge catches of fish, which was found in abundance here. But with the arrival of the military, the entire population was evicted from the island.

The future is as ghostly as the sea itself

Due to the shifting rivers, the areas around the Aral Sea are still considered the world leaders in cotton production to this day. However, was it worth it to sacrifice a huge sea?

Alas, returning the rivers to their former place is problematic today: this will seriously harm the life of villages and farms that have managed to form here over the past decades.

And yet there are among the local residents those who advocate the salvation of the sea and its "return". Twenty-five years ago, five Central Asian states first created the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, and more recently, an Uzbek DJ decided to launch an electronic music festival à la Burning Man, which will be held at the Moinak Marine Cemetery. The event is aimed at drawing attention to the topic of the destruction of the Aral Sea. This will be the second such festival (the first took place a year ago).

In 2000, UNESCO presented a 25-year plan for the restoration of water supply in the region, and in 2005 the World Bank partially financed this project. Today, in the so-called North and South Aral Seas (when the reservoir dries up, it seems to be divided into two parts), there are still two dozen species of fish - as a symbol of the fact that life will always make its way for itself. Who knows, maybe something else can be changed?

Now this place is somewhat reminiscent of the famous Skeleton Coast. True, the latter has a completely different story.