Uzbekistan

24th April 2024

"Mumma, you have to see this video on YouTube. This is a real transformation! I mean with timelines and all, a disaster converting into a tourist spot, wow!

There is one man who has witnessed a major part of it. And the guy who visited that place got to meet him and know it all from him! How cool is that!?"

"Okay, Aaroh, I think, first finish your breakfast and then share the link to that YouTube video with me. I will watch it on my way to work, in the cab. Lunch is kept in the refrigerator, heat it in the microwave before eating. Leaving now, bye!"

Anita boards the cab and the phone beeps. She opens the link and the video starts playing. "Not for the first time, out on the salt pan, my mind had turned to death. It must have been 140 degrees on the crystalline surface of Barsa-Kelmes. The very air had a poisonous tang. How long could a person last out here? A week? A day? I wasn’t sure I’d endure an hour. I could barely reconcile this with my other observation, which was that the salt was beautiful, like a sea of gemstones stretching to the horizon.



A shape caught my eye amid the glitter: a small butterfly encased in the salt. It lay on its side, the mottled brown wings sealed together. Crystals had started to progress over its head and thorax. I could see that the creature had died with its proboscis fully extended, searching in vain for some sustenance as the salt had sucked the moisture from its exoskeleton.

In 1969, Shadinov was 18 years old, just starting as a fisherman himself, when the older men began murmuring that something was wrong with the lake. It wasn’t the water level, not yet. It was the taste. The lake was getting saltier.

Now 73 years old, with an avuncular twinkle, Shadinov is one of the dwindling number of Moynaq residents who lived through this transformation. We met in Future Moynaq, a recently opened library-cum-learning-center. Its wallpaper showed a verdant forest scene, which felt simultaneously pleasant and cruelly ironic, given the desiccated environs of the town outside.

This post is a part of the #BlogchatterAtoZ challenge.