The rivers
Although Uzbekistan is one of the only two countries in the world to be doubly landlocked, i.e. it is necessary to cross two borders before having access to the open sea, and despite the great aridity of the region, the country has long been abundantly fed by the Zeravshan, Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which originate in the high mountains and mark the limits of the ancient Transoxian. The Syr Darya flows almost entirely in Kazakhstan, while the Amu Darya marks the southern border with Afghanistan and part of Turkmenistan. The Syr Daria is born in the Ferghana Valley, a few kilometres south of Namangan, by the meeting of the Naryn and Kara Daria rivers. It flows for more than 3,500 km and flows into the northern Aral Sea on the Kazakhstan side.
The Amu Daria, which is formed by the confluence of the Vakhsh and the Piandj at the Tajik-Afghan border, joined a little further by the Kokcha, is 2,500 km long and is also lost as a delta in the Aral Sea, but on the Uzbek side. Its tumultuous course has earned it the nickname of jayhun, or "indomitable river". Throughout history, the whims of this river have led men to move their homes, or even their cities, to stay close to its banks. This is the case of Kunya-Urgentch, in present-day Turkmenistan, which the Amu Darya abandoned to move closer to Nukus, in Uzbekistan.
Unfortunately, the indomitable river no longer deserves its nickname. From dams and diversions to meet the ever-increasing irrigation needs of the cotton crop, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya have long since ceased to reach the Aral Sea.
A third river supplies water to the country, between the two previous ones, the Zeravchan or "Golden River", 741 km long. It originates in the Turkestan Mountains in Tajikistan and flows between the Turkestan and Zeravshan massifs, bordering Samarkand and disappearing into the Kyzyl Kum desert at Bukhara, in a marshy delta. Like those of the Syr Daria and Amu Daria, the floods of the Zeravshan (more than 200 days of high water) have enabled the development of artificial irrigation over thousands of years and the appearance of relatively rich and developed sedentary agricultural civilizations.Domesticated lands
The desire to extend cotton monoculture and the consequent high need for irrigation led the Soviet authorities to launch a vast land domestication operation to make the desert suitable for cultivation. Between Tashkent and Jizzakh begins what the Soviets dubbed the "hunger steppe". Formerly a vast desert area stretching largely over Kazakhstan, which the Russians, in a plan to conquer and exploit virgin land launched in the late 1950s, transformed into a fertile and once again largely irrigated area. The population of the hunger steppe is estimated to have grown from 5,000 in the 1950s to over 1 million today. The steppe extends between the Nourata Mountains and Lake Aydar Kul, north of the road linking Jizzakh to Nourata from the north.
Poorly managed irrigation
It is known that the extensive irrigation of the land, and the vast waste of water it caused, directly led to the disappearance of the Aral Sea, changing the entire regional landscape. But elsewhere, other lakes, which had become very important, appeared on the maps, from which they were absent until the 1980s and 1990s. This is the case, for example, of Lake Aydar Kul, north of the Nourata Mountains, extended to the east by Lake Tuzkan Kul, which formed in the early 1970s in the Kyzyl Kum desert, north of a Jizzakh-Navoi line. Since then, its surface area has been growing steadily. It was created following the opening of the Chardara Reservoir in Kazakhstan in 1969, which holds the waters of the Syr Daria. Its water is salty. Year after year, the water level keeps rising and it is quickly impossible to recognize the landscapes around this lake which is more than 150 km long. Today, the volume of water in Lake Aydar Kul exceeds that of the Aral Sea. The beauty of the landscape created by this gigantic lake with the Nourata Mountains as a backdrop is breathtaking. Unfortunately, the water that created this lake has carried with it a lot of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and swimming is not really recommended.
The desert
Despite this irrigation policy, the desert survived. The Kyzyl Kum (literally "red sand") covers nearly 300,000 km2 in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It covers two thirds of the country's surface area and extends into Turkmenistan, in the south, with the Kara Kum (or "black sand"), while in the north, in Kazakhstan, it merges with the infinite steppes. In the east, Tashkent and Samarkand, at the foot of the mountains, are the starting points before approaching the desert, which only ends in the west towards the Aral Sea. The Kyzyl Kum is not only made of sand, it is covered with an important vegetation and there are even forests, such as that of Bala Tugaï, about thirty kilometres from Urgentch, on the banks of the Amou Daria. Although there are many farms and kolkhozes in the desert, the density of habitation is obviously very low and, apart from the road linking Bukhara to Urgentch, only one other road goes deep into the desert, from Navoi to Zeravchan and Uchquduq, in the heart of the desert.
The green lung of the country: the Ferghana Valley
In the east of the country, shared by the three republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the Ferghana Valley is in fact a vast plain 300 km long and 170 km wide, sandwiched between the foothills of the Tian Shan mountain range in the north, the Ferghana Mountains in the east and the Alay Pamir range in the south. The Ferghana Valley has always been the most fertile area in the region. Even today, Andijan still has the highest cotton productivity. The Ferghana Valley is also abundant in fruits and vegetables of excellent flavour. Orchards and vineyards alternate with cotton fields and the many industries established by the Soviets in the most densely populated oasis in Central Asia.
