Silk Road and Aral Sea

Aral Sea

"Millions of years ago, the northwestern part of Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan were covered by a massive inland sea. When the waters receded, they left a broad plain of highly saline soil. One of the remnants of the ancient sea was the Aral Sea, the fourth largest inland body of water in the world. The Aral is an inland salt-water sea with no outlet. It is fed by two rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. The fresh water from these two rivers held the Aral's water and salt levels in perfect balance. In the early 1960's, the Soviet central government decided to make the Soviet Union self-sufficient in cotton and increase rice production. Government officials ordered the additional amount of needed water to be taken from the two rivers that feed the Aral Sea. Large dams were built across both rivers, and an 850-mile central canal with a far-reaching system of "feeder" canals was created. When the irrigation system was completed, millions of acres along both sides of the main canal were flooded. Over the next 30 years, the Aral Sea experienced a severe drop in water level, its shoreline receded, and its salt content increased" (internet sources).

Many Silk Routes

"The Silk Road (German: Seidenstraße) (or Silk Routes) is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, as well as North and Northeast Africa and Europe. The Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade, a major reason for the connection of trade routes into an extensive trans-continental network.[1][2][3] The term "Seidenstraße" (literally "Silk Road") was coined retrospectively by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 and has since found its way into general usage. In recent years, both the maritime and overland Silk Routes are again being used, often closely following the ancient routes" (internet sources).

Comments:
Some of you asked me for a map of the Silk Road and wondered whether or not we would visit the Aral Sea. Well, we had considered visiting the Aral Sea, or what is left of it. However upon reading Daniel Metcalfe's description of the area in his book, Out of Steppe (2009), and learning about Aralsk 7, we decided to skip the Aral Sea and instead will visit Nukus to see the Savitsky collection. (According to the Lonely Planet, the museum owns about 90,000 pieces of art. Many of the early 20th century Russian paintings that did not conform to Soviet Realisim were banned by Moscow but found protection in Uzbekistan. About half of the paintings were brought here in Soviet times by renegade artist and ethnographer Igor Savitsky. The 3rd floor is famous for housing "lost art". Of course, I'm very curious to see what's here).  The pollution, nuclear and biological testing in the Aral Sea area have rendered the soil, the air and the whole environment, hazardous! If recorded, morbidity and mortality must be staggering. You can google Aralsk 7 when you have time, and then think about eating, sleeping and breathing toxic, swirling, salty dust. The remains of anthrax and biological experiments and the pollution contamination will require considerable restoration efforts, but I'm not volunteering.

"The Silk Road" conjures in our minds all that is romantic about travelling and stimulates our imaginations: different ideas and ways of being; new foods and ways to eat them; people, their differences and similarities; ancient routes taken by so many others. I have longed to walk along those very old paths. I am hopeful that we will meet more good people than bad and that we will be able to communicate. Stefan, in addition to growing a white beard, has been studying Russian and has memorized the alphabet. He has a pretty good vocabulary and with the help of an amazing electronic translator, he should be able to ask the drivers to 'slow down' or request 'pit stops'. (If he holds the translator behind his head, he can be a ventriloquist). Corine will rely upon her "point at it picture book", charades and a hopeful smile. In Russia a few years ago, I worried about being attacked for "looking Asian". Now in Central Asia, maybe trying to speak Russian will cause more problems than "looking Asian" / "Han Chinese"!

We have just received an email to advise that one of our flights in Kyrgestan has just been cancelled and more borders are closing. It is a bit worrisome, but we are going to have to risk taking a very small local flight from Bishkek to Dushanbe, to avoid the civil strife still going on in Osh. I suspect that the aircraft will have seen better days and hope that Stefan might be able to fly the beast if we get into trouble. Sadly it seems that the internal civil strife in Kyrgestan is not settling down. Our original plans have changed several times since the uprisings of a few weeks ago. We will have to stay flexible and adjust our trip along the way. If it looks like civil war, we will have to make diversions. I suspect that the Takijs are worried about Kyrgz refugees crossing the borders.

The Central Asia corridor has been the focus of the Great Game played out among China, Russia and Britain (India) over so many years and a100 years later, with involvement of new players (the USA and the EU) really, little has changed. The ethnic tensions remain high, the promises of money, more money and aid continue, the regional war lords weave poppy into cash, and local people continue a life-long struggle to survive.

The next blog entry will be News from Beijing. (When you have time, dig out Pearl S Buck and reread her wonderful stories. No surprise that she was a Nobel Laureate). We plan to post to the blog as we find computers and wifi along the way.