The Aral Sea

Today, the Aral Sea is no longer the fourth largest lake in the world. In fact, a huge salt lake with a paradoxical name, which once belonged to the territory of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, no longer exists at all. And this tragedy has happened over the past decades right before our eyes.

Information about the depth, length and width of the reservoir, obtained by scientists in the 19th century, remained almost unchanged until the middle of the 20th century. However, in the early 60s of the last century, irrigation canals were put into operation, the construction of which had started thirty years earlier. From that moment on, the Aral Sea began to grind inexorably.

The area (before drying up in the 1960s) is up to 8,303 km2, the fourth largest lake in the world.
The volume of water is less than 75 km3.
The Aral Sea actually broke up into several separate bodies of water. The largest are the Northern (Small) The Aral Sea and the significantly reduced Southern (Bolshoe) Sea The Aral Sea, which, in turn, is divided into eastern and western basins. The total area of the water surface is constantly changing and is a small fraction of the original one.
Already in 1989, the Aral Sea ceased to be a single whole and was divided into the Small and Large Aral Seas, which are completely isolated bodies of water. Today, we can say that only the northern part of the Aral Sea and a narrow strip from the west remain. The southern part of the sea has completely dried up.

The consequences of this environmental disaster are certainly enormous.

Back in the early 80s, there were more than thirty species of fish in the Aral Sea, most of which were of great commercial importance. There were a dozen fish factories, several fish canneries and about a hundred fish reception points on the shores of the Aral Sea. Needless to say, after the almost complete drying of the reservoir, all the fish disappeared and the unemployment rate in the region increased enormously.

In addition, drying up, the Aral Sea left behind dozens of kilometers of land covered with sea salt. This salt, along with dust and pesticides, is carried by the winds throughout the area, destroying or slowing down the development of plants, including those that humans are trying to grow.

Due to the almost complete disappearance of the Aral Sea, the climate in these regions has become noticeably harsher: summers are now even hotter and drier, and winters last longer and temperatures drop lower in the winter months.

It turned out that the bottom of the Aral Sea held a lot of secrets. So, the mausoleum, which is now named Kerderi, was hidden under the water all this time. The oval hillock with an area of more than one hundred square meters and a height of almost 2.5 meters was built in the 11th-14th centuries from hand-baked bricks and decorated with decorative tiles. Numerous burials and remains of the ancient city have also been found around the mausoleum.

As part of the program to combat the final shallowing of the Aral Sea from the mouth of the Syrdarya River to the Kokaral Peninsula, the Kokaral dam was built: the hydraulic gate with which it is equipped made it possible to isolate the Small Aral from the Large One and thus regulate the water level. This measure made it possible to increase the water level in the Small Aral Sea and breed several species of commercial fish.

So now the Aral Sea is the remains of a sea in the middle of a vast desert covered with salt and shells. According to the careful admissions of scientists, a short stay on its shores and even swimming in its waters can not cause harm. However, anyone who ventures on a trip to the Aral Sea should understand that he faces an adventure full of dangers, for which he needs to prepare very seriously.