How Russia Drained A Sea

The Aral Sea was the fourth-largest lake in the world in 1960. Today about 10% of the Sea remains. It’s been called ‘one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters’ and has affected millions across Central Asia. In this video, Andy looks into what the USSR discovered in the region that was so important that they were willing to drain the Aral Sea and if there is any hope to reverse the damage done.

Faultline is produced by Andy Burgess

Speical thanks to Didier Bizet

Faultline was launched in the summer of 2022 by documentarian Andy Burgess. He has spent the majority of the past decade travelling across the world, producing, hosting, filming, and editing videos for himself and brands like Red Bull, Helly Hansen, & Terra Matter. He started making short-form content on Snapchat and was nominated for a Shorty Award in 2018, before moving the focus of his stories into video journalism, guiding audiences through stories from across the world. His series ‘Origins’ with Red Bull explored the history of extreme sports, the communities behind them and how they have gone on to affect the cultures of today. Faultline is a channel that combines on-the-ground reporting, research, and filmmaking telling human stories through geography

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Time Stamps:
0:00 The Aral Sea
1:52 The Conquest
3:04 White Gold
6:50 The Fall Out
9:19 Life on the Aral Sea
12:50 Saving the Sea
15:52 Maybe you can you help

#aralsea #ussr #geography

[Faultlinevideos]

Hey guys thanks for checking out this video. Just want to issue a correction about one of our map animations. At 5:27 & 7:56 we mistakenly show a map of the Russian Empire when discussing the USSR. We failed to spot this issue in the edit, of this video.

[PersimmonHurmo]

here in central asia we have not forgotten, my grandmother told me there was so much fish back then that would feed the entire region, that has been stolen from us

[everett_fex]

5:34 - wow, how did Poland and Finland become a part of the USSR?

[John_Weiss]

Those 2 rivers that fed the Aral Sea? You know what feeds those rivers? Glaciers and snows in the Tien Shan mountains. You know where that snow came from? Mainly from the clouds that evaporated from … the Aral Sea. Not many clouds get that far inland to replenish losses [because some of that snow in the mountains is going to run into rivers flowing _east, _ away from the Aral Sea watershed, too].
The Soviet Union disrupted a closed-system. Now, the people using the waters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya are living on relic-water that's not going to last forever, and will take _millennia_ to restore.

The water _will_ run out. And then, those countries that have continued to drain the Amu & Syr Darya will turn into giant sandboxes.

Classic case of killing the goose that laid the golden [cotton] eggs.

[patrickuotinen]

7:57 You have coloured Finland being part of the Soviet Union. Just to inform you, we were part of the Russian Empire as an autonomous grand duchy till 1917, but we NEVER were part of the Soviet Union.

[philipalcazar]

ha - I remember creating a video on this topic. My jaw dropped when I learned about the Soviets taking nature transformation to the next level. There were even plans to nuke(!) arctic rivers in order to refill the Aral Sea!

[mlchallenges]

I can't. believe I did not know about the Aral sea! The fourth largest lake in the world has almost completley dissapeared!!! Humans effect on the planet can be so big and in such short time periods!! Really shocking.. Another fantastic documentary however, the story was told so well, Andy and the Faultline guys you should be proud!!

[CliffCardi]

Back in the 1960’s some Soviet climatologist called the Aral Sea “a useless evaporator” and claimed nothing bad would happen by diverting water to the cotton fields.

[logank]

To have a beautiful inland sea with beaches and fishing to a toxic mess. Insane how people can destroy something beautiful. I live in Michigan we came close to destroying the Great Lakes

[CAEgerius]

It would be more accurate to say USSR than Russia. It was soviet style policies that lead to the collapse.

[aye]

Very interesting. First time hearing about the Aral lake/sea.

[MrMeriloto]

Wrong!! If anything, Soviet Union, NOT “Rusia”.

[raymondperez]

The lake will never come back to its full life again the people moving back there thinking they will return to a life of fishing again are only on borrowed time.

[MTTT]

I recently read an article somewhere, that the two countries with the contributary rivers also had renovated the canals that were taking waters from the rivers. When they were constructed decades ago, they apparently were not built that well, not truly watertight, so a ton of water was seeping from the canals into the environment, so they would take out even more water so that it would reach the cotton fields. Now that these canals have been made much more water proof so that less water had to be taken from the rivers, and new irrigation techniques in the cotton fields have been applied as well, all in an effort to prevent water wastage. And if I recall from the article, the amount of water in what was left of the lake increased from 2% of the original lake content to 3%. Or something along those lines, I cannot recall 100% the article I read there.

[shiron]

So what does this have to do with Russia?

[Matt-bpvy]

I saw at least three videos about that sea but this one is by far the best one in the only one that explained the future the future might be a little bit brighter

[koriuk]

"Look at this place... 40, 000 people used to live in this town... now its a ghost town..."

[Chichi-slmq]

I find it sad how a country would choose short term money over generational stability. Well done to the North Aral Sea.

[darkmatter]

So it's USSR when it's good but Russia when it's bad? Got it.

[pattobyo]

After watching realifelore's video a while back, I was wondering what new perspectives I would gain from this video. I wasn't let down! Faultline's ability to but a human spin on any story is quite remarkable!