If you were still on this spot as late as the late 70's, you would have seen water all the way stretching out across the horizon, and that's because we're here on what was the shores of the Aral Sea. Let's go down to the sea bed and explore a little bit more.
For decades, these ships of the Soviet Union would head out in the mornings into the azure waters of the Aral Sea to get their daily catch. In the evenings they would return to port to send the fish to the canning factory from where it would be sent all over the former empire.
And life was good in ... Moynaq. It had the fishing industry, they had the canning factory. It's future was secure, until someone had an idea: Why don't we greenify the deserts of Uzbekistan and grow vast amounts of cotton for the Soviet industry, someone said? Good idea, they said. But where do we get the water from to irrigate the deserts? From the rivers that flow into the Aral Sea, someone said.
And so dams and irrigation channels were constructed that diverted the river waters away from the Aral Sea and instead to the central cotton fields of Uzbekistan, leaving the town of Moynaq and its fishing fleet hundreds of kilometers from the water's edge.
And that's the story of Moynaq and the Aral Sea. (
)
Hope you enjoyed the journey. Until next time, adios.
Bookmarks