The Remote Desert Land

The Soviet Union has been carved up, patched and expanded frequently, even in 2014.  Back in 1932, there was a small country, "Khoresm, that almost inaccessible part of the territory extending south from the Aral Sea along the Amu Darya Valley," Surveying through Khoresm: A Journey Into Parts of Asiatic Russia Which Have Been Closed to Western Travelers Since the World War" Lyman D. Wilbur, National Geographic Magazine, June, 1932, p. 753.  The author was an American engineer under contract to Russia "to investigate possibilities of reclaiming great tracts of rich, but spasmodically watered, country," (p. 753).  This area is now presently Turkmenistan and Uzebekistan, directly north of Iran.

Mr. Wilbur's party of ten included two other Americans and Russians. They brought their own "food and cooking utensils, for it was a poor country we were to travel through and there would be little food for us to buy" (p. 753).

The Amu Darya River and its valley was the wild river the party was sent to evaluate.  It typically flooded in the spring, had no dams in 1932, so was mostly useless for agricultural irrigating.  A major problem in the country was sand.  Some large dunes extended up to the water's edge.  Canals were rapidly filled with the blowing sand.  One irrigation project had been started but "huge quantities of sand are carried into the canals every year, requiring so much effort on the part of the population to keep them clear that they cannot properly care for their land" (photo caption, p. 761).  Nearly all farming methods were extremely primitive.  The Soviets planned on remedying this situation.

The engineers started their travel at the southern end of the river.  While on the river, the party passed two graveyards and noticed an unusual sight: "Beside many of the graves were poles to which red or white rags were tied.  The red flags signified that the occupants met violent death, and the white that they died from natural causes" (p. 765).''

Agricultural products of Khoresm included silk and cotton, although the Soviets were encouraging the farmers to stop producing food and plant more cotton.  Manufacturing methods have been changed: "The metal workers are now organized by the Soviet government, and no goods may be sold by an individual artisan.  The beautiful, carved brass basins, pitchers, teapots, etc., of former times have disappeared from the markets and in their place are cheaper sheet-copper utensils" (p. 770).  There were a half-dozen automobiles in the entire country.  Camels were the chief beasts of burden.

Again, as we have seen in many under-developed countries, in the rural areas the group faced dangerous bandits and were accompanied along various points by police.  "Before the present regime the natives reaped rich rewards by making raids into Persia and bringing back slaves to sell in Khiva and New Urgench" (p. 772).

The engineers finally reached the Aral Sea, boarded a boat headed for the northern end so as to take an express train.  Then, "only memories would remain of Khoresm and its battle with the river" (p. 780).