City Aralsk 4K UHD - Ecological disaster zone - Cities of Kazakhstan - Once there was Aral sea

Aralsk (Aral) is a city in the Kyzylorda region of Kazakhstan, the administrative center of the Aral region.
The city has a railway station Aral Sea (Aral Tenizi). As of October 1, 2022, the population of the city was 36,793 people.
The Irgiz-Aralsk-Aiteke-Bi highway passes 2 km north of the city (section of the M-32 Samara-Shymkent highway). In 2009-2011, the road underwent a major overhaul, previously the road from Aralsk to the border of the region had an asphalt surface, then towards the Irgiz there was only a dirt road in a badly broken state.
The houses are predominantly one-story, adobe, in the center - two-story, stone. The main main streets are covered with asphalt, the rest are unpaved or gravel.
Alty-Kuduk village (Six wells) existed near present-day Aralsk since 1817, now it is a railway siding in the southern part of the city. Since the 1870s, it has been mentioned in sources as the Aral settlement. From the second half of the 19th century until 1917, this territory was administratively part of the Kazalinsky district of the Syrdarya region of the Turkestan governor-general.
The development of Aralsk itself began during the period of exploration and construction of the Orenburg-Tashkent railway (1899-1905). In 1905, a railway station was built (which still exists), and the official history of Aralsk has been counting down since that year.
In 1905, Russian merchants Lapshin, Ritkin, Krasilnikov, Makeev organized large fishing unions with their boats and created the Khiva joint-stock company in Aralsk, marking the beginning of industrial fishing in the Aral Sea. At that time, ship workshops, fisheries were created in Aralsk, facilities were formed to service the station and access roads.
After the revolution, the Aral Sea station with the adjacent village received the status of a village, the name Aralsk with the status of the center of the Aral region of the Kazakh ASSR. In the summer of 1919, the Kolchak Southern Army under the leadership of General Belov was stopped and dispersed near Aralsk. During the Soviet period, the two largest ships of the Aral Sea "Khan Khiva" and "Turkestan" were renamed "Kirov" and "Commune", decommissioned and destroyed in the 1980s.
Since 1930, the administrative center of the Aral region of the Kzyl-Orda region. Since 1938, Aralsk, together with the Aral region, became part of the newly formed Kzyl-Orda region of the Kazakh SSR and received the status of a city.
For most of the twentieth century, Aralsk was the center of fishing - a port on the Aral Sea. There was industry of local importance - an industrial complex, an asphalt plant. Before the degradation of the Aral Sea, which occurred in the second half of the 20th century, the main occupation of the inhabitants was fishing and fish processing. The maximum level of development of the economic and social development of Aralsk was reached in the 1970s, before the start of a sharp decline in sea level.
Since the 1990s, Aralsk has been officially included in the Aral Sea zone of ecological disaster. Due to the very high level of unemployment, young people leave the city, leaving for Baikonur, Kyzylorda and other cities.
In 2005, the construction of a dam near the village of Kokaral was completed, as a result of which the water level in the northern part of the Aral Sea (Small Aral) began to rise and has now reached an absolute mark of 42 m. Nowadays, fishing is being revived in the Aral region, flounder has been acclimatized, boat manufacturing has been organized. In the coming years, the border of the sea may come close to the city, which gives hope for solving the social problems of local residents, creating new jobs.
In Aralsk, the Kambala Balyk plant, the Aralbalyk joint-stock enterprise and the Atameken Holding plant are currently operating.
The area is a slightly hilly plain, the general slope of the area is towards the Aral Sea. The absolute marks of the relief are from 55 to 71 m.
The eastern part of the territory is occupied by hummocky-cellular sands fixed by semi-shrub vegetation. On flat areas, low places are occupied by takyrs.
There are no rivers with a permanent watercourse in the territory. In the south of the city there is a dry bay of the Aral Sea - Big Saryshyganak.
The vegetation is desert and semi-desert, represented by grasses (feather grass, wormwood, biyurgun) and semi-shrubs (tamarisk, dzhuzgun). Zhantak (camel thorn) is ubiquitous. There is little greenery in the city, mainly elm grows.
казахстан
overlanding
дороги казахстана
overland
цшдв кщфвы