Red Corner: The Aral Sea(less)

by Neil Woodburn on

Spare a moment for the fisherman of the Aral Sea.

50 years ago they pulled 50,000 tons of fish out of this body of water annually. Today, the water is all but gone and the fish replaced with camels.

Located mostly in Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea was once one of our planet’s largest bodies of water–until, that is, the Soviets started dabbling with Mother Nature. In the 1960s they began tapping into the rivers that fed the Aral and diverting their waters eastward to grow cotton in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These were not natural cotton growing regions; they were mostly desert. But the Soviet decided to force the issue nonetheless.

Over the next 30 years, the sea shrank to half its size, causing the salinity of its waters to increase to the point where fish could no longer survive. By the 1970s they had all died off. Flounders–which thrive in high salinity–were eventually introduced to the waters, but this wasn’t enough. So much of the sea had disappeared that one can stand on old docks and see nothing but sand, camels, and ships marooned in the desert. In fact, many young people who live in Aral City, once a thriving fishing town on the shoreline, have never even seen the ocean it has receded so far away.

I tried visiting about ten years ago to check it out for myself, but every Uzbek I met told me how the region was rife with disease and airborne toxins blowing through the desert.

Although the Aral Sea catastrophe is truly one of mankind’s greatest ecological disasters, there is now a slim sliver of hope. The LA Times is reporting that a new dam has recently been built on the Kazak side. It has raised the water level and fishermen are starting to dream again. But a dream it will remain. There are no plans or money to increase the dam to a size which would return the waters to the levels they once were. The Aral Sea will remain dead and lifeless for many years to come and the bizarre sight of fishing vessels buried in sand dunes will continue to amaze.

Red Corner: Borat gets Reprieve

by Neil Woodburn on

Sacha Baron Cohen has pissed of an entire country. That’s what happens when you create a comedic persona that is wickedly funny, politically incorrect and mocks the 15 million people of a former Soviet republic. Cohen’s masterful creation is none other than Borat Sagdiyev, a misogynist, anti-Semitic TV reporter from Kazakhstan who bumbles his way through interviews and drops such inappropriate lines as, “How many punch it take you to kill cow? For me my record is 11.” Check out his hilarious website here.

As Erik reported a few months ago, the Kazakh government grew so angry at Borat they shut down his Kazakhstan home page and threatened to sue Cohen for his unkind portrayal. Borat himself responded with the statement, “I’d like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government’s decision to sue this Jew. Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world. Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear the blue hats, and the age of consent has been raised to eight years old.”

It’s never wise to battle a comedian since they will always get the last laugh. Apparently the Kazakh government has finally learned this lesson and will now roll with the punches. Dariga Nazarbayeva, the daughter of Kazakhstan’s president who also runs a major television studio in the country, has just publicly voiced her disagreement with the censorship of Borat/Cohen.

Is this a move towards freer speech in authoritarian Kazakhstan? Probably not. It’s more likely that Nazarbayeva has merely learned about the power of negative media-as is evident by her comment; “This Internet site has caused less damage to our image than its closure, which was covered by all international news agencies.” And it has, good or bad, raised awareness about a country very few people have ever heard of before.

Red Corner: Peter Hopkirk’s Central Asia comes Alive

by Neil Woodburn on

Until just recently, Central Asia had all but disappeared from the world’s consciousness. Swallowed up by the Soviet Union in the early part of the 20th century, places like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan simply vanished anonymously from the world stage.

After gaining their independence towards the end of the century and struggling through a period of economic hardship, however, the ‘Stans of the former USSR are back in the spotlight thanks to oil deposits and large Muslim populations.

Back in the spotlight, you ask? When was a place like Kazakhstan ever in the spotlight?

Central Asia was actually a major center of conflict and interest in the 19th century as Russia and Britain fought over the region in a long running series of affairs known as the Great Game. While this conflict has mostly been forgotten by the modern world, one amazing author has struggled to keep it alive through a series of commanding books that are some of the finest historical reads you’ll ever come across. Author Peter Hopkirk has written a handful of novels dealing with the Great Game which are now, according to The Telegraph (UK), being re-released due to increased interest in the region.

Hopkirk’s finest work, appropriately titled The Great Game, is such an amazing read involving spies, espionage, and double-agents that it is almost impossible to accept the fact that everything mentioned is true. If you’re planning on traveling through the region, be sure to read it; Hopkirk referenced nearly ever place I visited in Uzbekistan. If you become a fan, and you will, you can move on to Foreign Devils on the Silk Road and Trespassers on the Roof of the World-two books whose alluring titles should whet your appetite for more.

Red Corner: Crazy Kazakh Capital

by Neil Woodburn on

It is not so often that the capital of a country is up and moved, but if you’ve ever been to Almaty you’d understand the desire to do so.

Almaty is a boring, nondescript town that was the capital of Kazakhstan during Soviet times. But, when communism fell and Nursultan Nazarbayev, a strong-armed dictator, took control of the country, he decided to move the capital to an even more boring and nondescript town by the name of Astana. It was a strange thing to do at the time but years later, the decision became very clear: it offered Nazarbayev a blank canvas upon which to build a utopian capital.

Kazakhstan is one of those rare ex-Soviet republics that is actually rolling in the dough, thanks to some rather large oil deposits. Although the combination of oil and dictatorship rarely results in any good (and indeed the general population remains very poor in Kazakhstan) Nazarbayev is spending the money to build an overzealous, Albert Speerian capital.

Based upon a Kisho Kurokawa master plan, the new city is becoming awash with a fantastic array of crazy monuments, religious shrines, hospitals, apartment complexes and enormous government buildings.

These aren’t just slipshod architectural efforts, either. Some of the world’s greatest architects are pitching in to help, including Norman Foster whose funky Palace of Peace pyramid will be completed later this year.

I’m not sure what the city’s final look will resemble, but judging by similar megalomaniac efforts in similarly oil-rich countries, I’m just know I’m going to feel a whole lot worse every time I fill up my gas tank.