Karakalpakstan is a strange sort of place: a virtual nation dreamed up
by Soviet planners in the 1920's with no proper history of its own;
remote and isolated, surrounded by desert sands in every direction;
a population of traditional livestock breeders who raised cattle in the
waterways and reed beds of the Amu Darya delta and sheep, goats and a few camels
on the surrounding desert sands; transformed by communism into a land of
cotton monoculture, striving to meet the ever rising production targets
of Soviet Five Year Plans; the location of top secret chemical and biological
weapons testing sites during the Cold War, out of bounds to foreign eyes;
and now a poor and neglected part of independent Uzbekistan, trying to
come to terms with the increasing environmental damage caused by the shrinking Aral Sea.
A simple schematic map of Karakalpakstan. The separate province of Khorezm is part of Uzbekistan.
The populated areas are confined to the banks and delta of the river Amu Darya.
The initial impression of first time visitors to No'kis, the provincial
capital, tends to be negative and depressing. Those visitors who make
it to the ship's graveyard at Moynaq often find that experience equally
unsettling.
Macleod and Mayhew sum up their own impression of the place in their
"Illustrated Guide to Uzbekistan":
"Nukus is a grim, spiritless city of bitter pleasures whose gridded
avenues of socialism support a centreless town, only to peter out
around fading fringes into an endless wasteland of cotton fields
punctuated by the random, surreal exotica of wild camels loitering
in neglected apartment blocks. It is the capital of Karakalpakstan,
an ill-defined autonomous republic inside Uzbekistan and thus the
regional centre and transport hub of the republic."
The centre of No'kis, capital city of Karakalpakstan.
The journalist A A Gill penned an article for the Sunday Times Magazine
in 2000, describing Karakalpakstan as "the worst place in the world".
Gill was following in the footsteps of many previous journalists
who had paid a flying visit to No'kis and Moynaq following Uzbek
independence, only to churn out the same weary article about the countless
problems faced by the inhabitants of this remote and run-down province,
primarily as a result of the Aral Sea disaster. Gill deliberately took
the extreme view, exaggerating every negative aspect of the region to
create a one-sided and unbalanced picture. Even the photographs
illustrating his article were printed in black and white in order
to convey the bleakest impression.
Karakalpakstan is a poor country with more than its fair share of
problems. But not everything is gloom and doom. Of course, all
short term visitors to any country go away with a totally false
picture of the place they have just visited. It takes time to get
below the surface and to understand what life is really like. One
of the main reasons that first time visitors go away with such a
bad impression of Karakalpakstan is that most tour companies still
book guests into the abysmal Tashkent Hotel – certainly a prime
candidate for the worst hotel in the world. Had they enjoyed the
hospitality of a local family they might have left with a completely
different attitude to the region.
Karakalpakstan has two great assets – its people and its location.
The inhabitants of Karakalpakstan – Karakalpaks, Khorezmian Uzbeks,
Kazakhs and Turkmen - share the same great tradition of friendliness
and hospitality found throughout Central Asia. As a visitor, you
can arrive unannounced at a home anywhere in the delta and be welcomed,
invited to sit in the living room, be brought tea and snacks, and,
if you choose, spend the whole day with the family. People will gladly
show you their family photos or scant possessions and will even offer
to kill a chicken or a sheep so that you can stay longer and share a
meal with them. Can you imagine a similar welcome if you knocked on
a door unannounced in the West?
Life revolves around the family and community ties remain strong.
Even in the cities, three generations of one family tend to live
together in the same house and members of the extended family will
live close by. In small villages, the whole community may be
inter-related or at least belong to the same clan. Children are
brought up to respect their parents and their elders and in later
life will unquestioningly take responsibility for the welfare of
their ageing parents. This is not just a matter of tradition but
of economic survival in a country with minimal social security.
Families take responsibility for themselves.
Karakalpakstan is remote. To the east, the sands of the Qizil Qum
stretch as far as Bukhara. To the south the empty Qara Qum desert
reaches the foothills of the Kopet Dag and Ashgabat. To the west
the barren rocky plateau of the U'stirt extends to the shores of
the Caspian Sea. To the north, an enormous barren landscape of
desert and salty lakes eventually merges into the Russian steppes
and the frontier towns of Orenburg and Samara.
Karakalpakstan covers about the same land area as cotton growing
Oklahoma but has a population only half of its size. However in
Karakalpakstan, people mainly live in the irrigated regions close
to the Amu Darya, so most of the province consists of uninhabited
and remote wilderness: the flat white sands of the Sarykamysh delta,
the U'stirt plateau with its birds of prey and vast hordes of saiga
deer, the saxaul covered dunes of the Qizil Qum, and the strange
vegetation of the seashell covered Aral Qum – the dried out bed
of the former Aral Sea. Although the Aral Sea has lost 90% of
its water over the past half century, it is still covers a huge
area. Despite being labelled a disaster zone, it remains spectacularly
beautiful, bordered along its western edge by the dramatically
contoured and coloured cliffs of the tchink.
To watch the sunrise over a turquoise and aquamarine Aral Sea,
devoid of any vessel, port, town, village or other human being
is a humbling experience, never to be forgotten.
Return to top of page
Home Page
|
