Aral Sea Tours & Holidays

Left behind by the retreating waters of a vast inland ocean, the Aral Sea was once the fourth largest inland body of water on the planet. Fed by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers, its fragile ecology was kept in perfect balance, making the region a haven for sturgeon and muskrat and providing local people with a rich source of food and income.

In the 1960s, however, a Soviet plan to divert the waters of the two rivers to fertilise the surrounding desert and make the Soviet Union self-sufficient in rice and cotton proved to be an environmental disaster. Over the following decades the level of the Aral Sea dropped dramatically, whilst its saline content increased to the point where no life could survive. But whilst the rusting hulks of a once prosperous fishing industry lie littered across the desert landscape, plans are underway to try to salvage something from this ecological catastrophe.

A successful dam project has seen the water levels in the North Aral Sea, in Kazakhstan, rise by 12 metres and its salt content drop to its lowest level since the beginning of the century. Fish are beginning to return in numbers sufficient to make fishing a viable prospect again. However, the South Aral Sea in Uzbekistan is still in trouble, and steps are being taken to boycott Uzbek cotton in efforts to help preserve this hugely valuable sea.