Moynaq, the Aral Sea and the Pansies

While en-route to Moynaq, we stop to change cars at Kungrad and decide to organise a car to the Aral Sea. If we go through a tour agency, the car will cost $600USD, our plan, in true Russian style, is to approach any driver with a suitable vehicle and offer them money to take us.

Remembering how good a driver Yura (Inylchek Geology Expedition) was, Gianluca and I negotiate with the driver and friend of a Vassick and head off to Moynaq.

Welcome to Moynaq, a former fishing town on the coast of the Aral Sea. In 1978, this place was a huge resort town in the USSR, the beaches were filled with holiday makers in a bigger version of Issyl-Kol in Kyrgyzstan.

Now, all that remains is a shell of its former self. A desert of abandoned fishing ships, rusting away, abandoned buildings and the new coast of the Aral Sea over 150km away.

A man approaches us as we’re taking photos of the ships in the desert. Sayvul used to work in one of the tugs currently rusting away (second one pictured with skeleton visible). He now looks after the monument and the ships and gives some background on the area to incoming tourists.

Sayvul, the Karakalpak groundskeeper (Photo taken by Gianluca)

The story of the memorial is incredibly infuriating. President Karimov ordered a monument dedicated to the Aral Sea be built in Moynaq. One side shows the 1960 map of the Aral Sea, the other from 2008. The winning bidder for the contract, in order to cut costs, decided not to build a new monument. Instead, they painted over the Moynaq WWII monument, repurposing it as the Aral Sea monument. All of the soldiers that were sent from this town to the front lines in World War 2 were listed on the memorial and have now been removed by a fresh coat of paint.

Our river show up to take us to the new Shore of the Aral Sea, some 150km away. We make a stop at a spot just ten kilometres from the town, a small pond of the former sea, so incredibly saline, its similar to the dead sea experience.

A small pool of the former Aral Sea.

Swiming in the former Aral Sea, an extremely salty pool. The salinity increases your buoyancy to let you play superman in the water.

One of our friends after a swim in the Aral Sea. The white on his skin is dried salt.

After we finish the Aral Sea teaser experience, we head off to the new shores of the Aral Sea, only to find our car stuck in the sand. After pushing it out, we all hop back in and start driving. Two minutes later, the drivers say they don’t know the way (obviously, we figured that we could find it as we went, hence the load of food and water we bought prior to the trip), they’re too scared to try and risk driving out in the desert without directions (pansies) so they give up and turn back. I am fuming that this incompetent pair would agree to taking us to the sea for a sum three times the average salary, only to turn back and quit the first moment there are problems.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to organise another car and driver, and thus are unable to drive out to the Aral Sea.