memorial was perched at the edge of the sapphire Aral Sea, once

the fourth-largest inland body of water in the world. The monu-

ment made for a picturesque setting where relatives could pay their

respects and leave a bouquet of flowers in the fresh sea air, while

waterfowl flew overhead, shorebirds probed the water’s edge, and

cormorants dove for minnows in the shallows.

The war memorial at Muynak has since become a less inspiring

place. The towering obelisk sits atop a dry thirty-foot cliff overlook-

ing a sprawling scrub-brush desert that stretches for miles beyond

the horizon. The cool sea breeze has been supplanted by a hot

desert wind; the crashing waves have been replaced by aimless

drifts of desert sand. At the base of the cliff, cattle wander among

sparse vegetation, and off in the distance one can see the remnants

of a ship graveyard, where Muynak’s once-mighty fishing fleet was

left to die after the waters of the Aral Sea faded away. At one time

there were more than a hundred old fishing boats in this nautical

cemetery—surreal rusting hulks beached awkwardly in the desert

sand—but barely a dozen remain. Local officials had most of the

boats dismantled for scrap, partly for money, and partly to remove

these sad reminders that Muynak was once one of the most produc-

tive fishing villages in all of the Soviet Union.

T h e A r a l E x p e r i m e n t

23

Photo 2.2. The ship graveyard at Muynak. (Photo by Peter Annin)