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The Transcaspian Canal (Russian: Транскаспийский канал) was a proposed canal to divert the Amu Darya River from the Aral Sea and into the Caspian Sea. It was first proposed by Tsarist engineers and later considered by Soviet engineers.

Proponents argued that the project would return the Amu Darya into its supposed old bed. Several other similar proposals were made in the early 20th century, including a Kazakh-Turkestan Canal to connect Kazakhstan with the Black Sea. The projects were not seriously considered after the late-1920s, when a campaign was launched to ridicule "fantastic" hydraulic projects. In 1928, over a dozen hydraulic engineers operating in Central Asia were tried for mismanaging the irrigation system and devising unrealistic projects.

History

Rizenkampf (1886–1943) was one of the most ardent supporters of building a transcaspian canal

Multiple suggestions were put forward for the construction of a transcaspian canal. The who supported the project believed it would return "the [Khivan] oasis to cultured life".

Among the initial proposals was one presented by Aleksandr Glukhovskoi in 1868. He argued that such a canal would allow ships sailing down the Volga to reach Tashkent via Bukhara. Many of Glukhovskoi's original reports and proposals were lost during the Russian Civil War and a 1924 flood.

After the October Revolution, Georgii Rizenkampf (German: Georgi Riesenkampff) proposed to build a 1,600-km (1,500-verst) canal stretching from the upper reaches of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan through the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan all the way to the Caspian sea. In 1921, Rizenkampf published a 84-page book entitled "Trans-Kaspiiskii kanal (Problema orosheniia Zakaspiia)" (Russian: Транс-Каспийский канал (Проблема орошения Закаспия)) justifying the construction of a transcaspian canal. Arguing that the canal would support the growing of cotton, he predicted cotton would be the "fulcrum of life in Transcaspia".

In June 1925, the Water Section of the State Planning Committee discussed the project. Among the plans considered was one made by Gluvoskoi in 1893. However, by the late 1920s, a campaign was launched to ridicule such plans. In February and March 1928, sixteen water managers working in Central Asia, including those who had proposed a transcaspian canal, were tried in Tashkent. Historian Maya K. Peterson has argued that the trial was aimed to "distract from Soviet failings and fins scapegoats".

See also

• Eurasia Canal

References

Sources

• Kadyrov, Abrar (2011). Дума о воде – взгляд в былое и немного о будущем (PDF) (in Russian). Tashkent: Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia. Retrieved 4 April 2024.
• Peterson, Maya K. (2019). Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-46854-1.

External links

• Glukhovskoi's Transcaspian Canal (1921) (in Russian)