Turn of Siberian rivers

For the first time, the project of transferring part of the runoff of the Ob and Irtysh to the Aral Sea basin was developed by Y. G. Demchenko, a graduate of Kiev University, in 1868. He proposed the initial version of the project in his essay “On the Climate of Russia” when he was in seventh grade at the 1st Kiev Gymnasium, and in 1871 he published a book “On the Flooding of the Aral-Caspian Lowland to Improve the Climate of the Adjacent Countries” (the second edition of which was published in 1900).

In 1948, Russian geographer Academician V. A. Obruchev wrote about this possibility to Stalin , but he did not pay much attention to the project.

In the 1950s, Kazakh academician Shafik Chokin again raised this issue. Various institutes have developed several possible river transfer schemes. In the 1960s, water consumption for irrigation in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan increased sharply, and therefore all-union meetings were held on this issue in Tashkent , Alma-Ata , Moscow , Novosibirsk .

In 1968, the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU instructed the State Planning Commission , the USSR Academy of Sciences and other organizations to develop a plan for the redistribution of river flow. Among the most important problems of geographical research, the following are mentioned in the “Main Directions of the Development of the Natural and Social Sciences for 1971-1975” ^[1] :

• “Inter-basin transfer of different waters for water supply and regulation of the regimes of the Aral and Caspian seas” and
• “Combating secondary salinization, forecast of the general regime of the Aral Sea.”

May 24, 1970 adopted a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 612 "On the prospects for the development of land reclamation, regulation and redistribution of river flows in 1971-1985." "It declared the urgent need to transfer 25 cubic meters of water per year by 1985. " ^[2]

In 1968, the Irtysh - Karaganda irrigation and watering canal, commissioned by the Kazakh Scientific Research Institute of Energy , came into operation. This canal can be considered as a completed part of the project to provide water to central Kazakhstan .

In 1976, at the XXV Congress of the CPSU , the final draft of the four proposed was selected and a decision was made to begin work on the project. In the same 1976, Soyuzgiprovodkhoz was appointed as the General Designer, and the provision of project activities was included in “The Basic Directions of the Development of the National Economy of the USSR for 1976-1980.”

To consider the feasibility study “Territorial redistribution of part of the free flow of the Ob and Irtysh rivers” under the USSR State Planning Committee, the State Expert Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the State Committee for Science and Technology under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Gosstroy of the USSR was created. The Commission approved the feasibility study of the Ministry of Water Economy of the USSR.

On August 14, 1986, at a special meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee , it was decided to stop work. Numerous publications in the press of those years, whose authors opposed the project and argued that it was catastrophic from an environmental point of view, also played a role in making such a decision. A group of opponents of the transfer - representatives of the capital's intelligentsia - organized a campaign to bring to the attention of the people who made the key decisions (the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Council of Ministers) the facts of gross mistakes made in the development of all the project documentation of the Ministry of Water Economy. In particular, negative expert opinions of five departments of the USSR Academy of Sciences were prepared. A group of academics signed an acad project prepared by an active opponent. A. L. Yanshin (specialty - geologist) letter to the Central Committee "On the catastrophic consequences of the transfer of part of the runoff of the northern rivers." Academician L. S. Pontryagin wrote a personal letter to M. S. Gorbachev criticizing the project.

According to Nikolai Baibakov , A.N. Kosygin believed that the project would cause irreparable damage to the environment ^[3] .

In 2002, the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, urged the reanimation of the idea. On July 4, 2009, during a visit to Astana, Yuri Luzhkov presented his book Water and Peace. During the presentation of the book, Luzhkov again expressed his support for the project to transfer part of the flow of Siberian rivers to Central Asia ^[4] .

In September 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced the need to restore the destroyed land reclamation system: “Unfortunately, the land reclamation system, which was created in the Soviet period, degraded, was destroyed. We will need to recreate it now ” ^[5] . Medvedev instructed the Russian government to develop an appropriate set of measures, noting: “If the dry period continues, then we simply cannot survive without reclamation” ^[6] . President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev invited Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev to return to the project of transferring Siberian river flows to the southern regions of Russia and Kazakhstan , which was discussed in Soviet times: “In the future, Dmitry Anatolyevich, this problem may turn out to be very large, necessary to provide drinking water to the whole of Central -Asian region. " Medvedev noted that Russia is open to discussing various options for resolving the drought problem, including “some of the old ideas that were hidden under the cloth at some point” ^[7] .

The main goal of the project was to divert part of the flow of Siberian rivers ( Irtysh , Ob , Tobol , Ishim and others) to the regions of the country in dire need of fresh water. The project was developed by the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Resources of the USSR (Ministry of Water Economy ). At the same time, the grandiose construction of a system of canals and reservoirs was being prepared, which would allow the water of the rivers of the northern part of the West Siberian Plain to be transferred to the Aral Sea .

Project Objectives:

• Water transportation to the Kurgan , Chelyabinsk and Omsk regions of Russia for the purpose of irrigation and providing water to small towns;
• Transportation of fresh water to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for irrigation purposes;
• Opening of shipping on the channel "Asia" ( Kara Sea - Caspian Sea - Persian Gulf ).

Over 20 years, over 160 organizations of the USSR worked on the project, including 48 design and survey and 112 research institutes (including 32 institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences), 32 union ministries and 9 ministries of the union republics. 50 volumes of text materials, calculations and applied scientific research and 10 albums of maps and drawings were prepared. The project was managed by its official customer, the Ministry of Water Economy. The “Sredazgiprovodhlopok” Institute prepared the “Scheme for the integrated use of the waters of the Aral Sea basin”.

Siberia — Central Asia Channel

The Siberia-Central Asia canal was the first stage of the project and was the construction of a water channel from the Ob through Kazakhstan to the south - to Uzbekistan . The channel was supposed to be navigable.

• The length of the channel is 2550 km.
• Width - 130-300 m.
• Depth - 15 m.
• Throughput - 1150 m ³ / s.

The preliminary project cost (water supply, distribution, agricultural construction and development, agricultural facilities) amounted to 32.8 billion rubles , including: in the RSFSR - 8.3 billion, Kazakhstan - 11.2 billion and Central Asia - 13.3 billion The project benefits were estimated at 7.6 billion rubles in net income annually. The average annual profitability of the channel is 16% (according to the calculations of the State Planning Committee of the USSR (Zakharov S.N.) and Sovintervoda (Ryskulova D.M.)).

Anti-Irtysh

Anti-Irtysh - the second phase of the project. They planned to direct the water back along the Irtysh , then along the Turgai trough to Kazakhstan, to the Amu Darya and Syr Darya .

It was supposed to build a hydroelectric facility, 10 pumping stations, a canal and one regulatory reservoir.

According to the ecologists who specially studied this project, A. Yablokov , IWEP Director of SB RAS Yu. Vinokurov and others, the implementation of the project will cause the following adverse consequences ^[8] :

• flooding of agricultural and forest lands by reservoirs;
• rise of groundwater throughout the canal with flooding of nearby settlements and highways;
• the death of valuable fish species in the Ob River basin, which will lead in particular to a violation of the traditional way of life of the indigenous peoples of the Siberian North ;
• unpredictable change in permafrost regime;
• increased salinity of the waters of the Arctic Ocean ;
• climate change , ice cover changes in the Gulf of Ob and the Kara Sea;
• the formation on the territory of Kazakhstan and Central Asia along the canal route of arrays of swamps and salt marshes ;
• violation of the species composition of flora and fauna in the territories through which the channel should pass.

According to experts of the Committee on Water Resources of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan, by 2020 it is expected to reduce the available surface water resources of Kazakhstan from 100 km³ to 70 km³. When the war ends in Afghanistan , the country will take water from the Amu Darya for its needs, then in Uzbekistan, fresh water reserves will be halved.

At a press conference on September 4, 2006 in Astana, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev stated that it was necessary to reconsider the issue of turning Siberian rivers into Central Asia .

Current estimates of the cost of the Main Canal with infrastructure amount to about $ 40 billion.

In October 2008, Yuri Luzhkov presented his new book “Water and Peace”, dedicated to the revival of the plan for transferring part of the flow of Siberian rivers to the south ^[9] , however, according to the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Viktor Danilov-Danilyan , such projects only rarely turn out economically acceptable ^[10] .

In November 2008, a draft of the Ob - Syr Darya - Amu Darya - Caspian shipping channel was presented in Uzbekistan ^[11] . The channel passes along the route: Turgai Valley - the intersection of the Syr Darya west of Dzhusaly - the intersection of the Amu Darya in the Dashaguz region - then along the Uzboy canal goes to the port of Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea. Estimated channel depth 15 m, width over 100 m, design losses of water for filtration and evaporation not more than 7%. In parallel with the canal, it is also proposed to build a motorway and railway , which together with the canal form a “transport corridor”. The estimated cost of building the shipping canal and production facilities is 100-150 billion US dollars , the duration of the construction is 10 years, the expected average annual profit is 7-10 billion US dollars, the payback period of the project is 15-20 years after the construction is completed.

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• Gerasimov IP, Gindin AM The problem of transferring runoff from Northern and Siberian rivers to the arid regions of the European USSR, Soviet Central Asia and Kazakhstan // Environmental effects of complex river development. Boulder, 1977. P. 59-70.
• Koshelev A.P. On the first project of transfer of Siberian waters to the Aral-Caspian basin // Problems of the History of Natural Science and Technology , 1985, No. 3.
• Vorobyov D.V. When the state is arguing with itself: Debate on the project of “river turning” // Sri Lanka Reserve , 2006, No. 2 (46).
• Zelikin M.I. History of evergreen life. - M .: Factorial Press, 2001. - 144, [2] p. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 5-88688-049-6 .

• Some materials on the transfer of part of the flow of Siberian rivers to Central Asia .
• When will Siberian rivers flow to Kazakhstan?
• All the pros and cons of transferring the flow of Siberian rivers to Central Asia .
• Criticism of the idea of ​​transferring the waters of Siberian rivers to Central Asia .
• Water transfer from Siberia to Central Asia (analytical review) .
• Verkhoturov D. Water myth .
• Will the Siberian Ob River flow to Central Asia
• Water is a political tool. The position of Kazakhstan on the Ob-Center channel. Asia
• Zalygin S. Turn // New World 1987, No. 1. P. 3-13.
• Kara-Murza S. G. The project of "river turning" is a training ground for working out the undermining of "large programs" .
• Lebedeva N. A. Response to the article by S. G. Kara-Murza “The Black Myth of Big Programs” in the USSR: from the company against the “turn of the rivers” to the dismemberment of the “empire” .
• Morozova M. Yu. Western Siberia - Aral Sea Area: Revival of the “Project of the Century”? // East. 1999. No. 6. P. 92-104.
• Yaroshenko V. Asiaprop . // "Bulletin of Europe". - 2008. - No. 21.
• Pritvits N. Ob water - to Central Asia? // Science in Siberia. - 2002. - No. 50 .
• Ryskulov D.M. Trans-Asian development corridor: yesterday, today, tomorrow. M. Creative economy .. M ,: 2012. P. 248
• Rudashevsky V.D., Ryskulov D.M. Trans-Asian Development Corridor / NG-Energy / Independent newspaper. 09/11. 12
• Ryskulov D.M. Trans-Asian trade route. Journal of the Institute of Economic Strategies of the Department of Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INES). M .: No. 6 06/25/2011.
• Rudashevsky V. D., Ryskulov D. M. Meridional Trans-Asian Development Corridor. Eurasian integration in the 21st century. M.: LENAND, 2012.S. 200–219.
• Personal page of M. I. Zelikin (ecology)
• Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Director of the Academic Institute of Water Problems Viktor Danilov-Danilyan: How much would a turn of Siberian rivers cost?