Back on the 1960s with the cotton industry established, and the area designated to provide cotton to the whole of the Soviet Union, they needed bulk water to grow it. So they created 150 water channels to take water from the Aral Sea in the north west, and then piped it to various areas of the country. Unfortunately the term Aral Sea is a misnomer. It’s actually the Aral lake.
At 66000 sq kms it was the 4th largest lake in world. By the fall of the Soviet Union some 30 years later there was only 8% of the water left, and it won’t ever recover as the rivers that feed the lake are in Russia, and the water has been diverted for their own use. It’s really now the Aral pond.
You may have seen pictures or documentaries about it. Whole fleets of boats are stranded on what is now dry land in the middle of the countryside. Sand blows across the country, and the remaining water is now salty, which has affected crops and vegetable growing around the country. It’s one of world’s biggest ecological disasters, and will have long lasting consequences for the whole country, and for Kazakhstan which shares the lake.
Several of our party are suffering from diarrhoea after two weeks of strange food and water, but our guide, Arnold, seems to be afflicted by diarrhoea of a different type. Today was five hours in the bus, and he could have gone the whole time without stopping talking or taking a breath. Mercifully his phone kept ringing. Seems that two of our group left their passports at our last hotel.
Lots of older people prefer the old soviet rule in Uzbekistan and the conditions then with guaranteed pensions, but if they were invaded like Ukraine I’m sure that the sentiment would change overnight. The trouble is that COVID has decimated their economy. 7 million tourists per year dwindled to nothing and everybody jacked up their prices to get enough income to live off. Inflation is running at 25% but the pensions which everybody came to rely on from Soviet times haven’t kept up. The government is now subsidising tourism for local people by 50% in an effort to kick start the economy again.
Long drive with only a few toilet breaks. Early lunch at a reasonable sized town, where we went for a walk to keep up our exercise, then onwards again.
Onto Shahrizabz where we visited the 14th century summer palace of Emir Temur. Temur is reputedly the conqueror who conquered the 4th most territory of anybody behind Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar. The huge gates were originally 75 metres tall but earthquakes have reduced them to only 38 metres today.
The size of the palace grounds is huge. Think China’s Forbidden City. We saw several mausoleums, the mosque and lots of gardens as we walked from one end to the other.
Our guide gave one of his usual definitive answers when asked how much the toilets would be – “2 or 1 or maybe 3”. We’ll that answered that question.
Long drive from the Summer Palace to our hotel in Samarkand , and we didn’t arrive till 7pm well after dark. Just dropped our bags and straight back on the bus to go for tea.
Samarkand City Hotel