On the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, a few kilometers from the city of Turkmenbaši, five-star hotels, services of all kinds, an international airport and various leisure, sports and gastronomic facilities have been built. There really is everything, except now the sea is missing.
Ashgabat () – The Avaza complex, in Turkmenistan, has been the jewel in the crown of the country’s tourism industry for some years, with enormous investments poured between 2007 and 2017 to create a first-class tourist center on the eastern shore from the Caspian Sea, a few kilometers from the city of Turkmenbaši, in the Balkan region. Five-star hotels, services of all kinds, an international airport and various leisure, sports and restaurant facilities: in Avaza there really is everything, except now the sea is missing.
The water level of the Caspian Sea has been falling for many years, leaving vacationers dry, who are usually the big names in Turkmen politics and society, starting with President Serdar Berdymukhamedov himself. Where the beach used to be, there is only a long stretch of sand, and to get to the water you have to walk several dozen meters, almost a mirage in the desert, and in any case the depth of the sea does not go beyond your knees, whereas until three years ago you could completely dive.
One of the main causes is the reduction in the flow of the Ural and Volga rivers, which are exploited to feed hydropower projects in Russia, as well as the increasingly evident decrease in rainfall. Instead of splashing in the waves, vacations in Avaza consist of long walks along the dried coast, with a growing sense of melancholy. An attempt is made to reorganize the beaches away from the traditional coastline, with transportation services to reach what little water remains, and the hotel pools are expanded, but the quality of the stay is far from being what was desired.
Turkmenistan has never revealed the amount of money spent on the construction of the Avaza center, solemnly called the “National Tourist Zone”, and only a few luxury hotels have required an investment of between 40 and 50 million dollars each. The receding waters have also harmed the functionality of the Turkmenbaši port itself, one of the newest in the country, which was itself renovated without sparing any expense and inaugurated with great pomp in 2018. Attempts are being made to excavate to lower the seabed around it. from the port, sucking sand with large hydraulic pumps, with very ineffective results.
The port is supposed to facilitate trade with Azerbaijan, and along the entire route attempts are being made to preserve the necessary depth of the waters, using various types of machinery and techniques, mostly imported from Russia, always at great expense, according to specialists tell reporters from various media outlets, taking care to maintain anonymity. At the time of the port’s opening, authorities had announced that Turkmenbaši’s capacity was up to 17 million tons of cargo and 300,000 passengers per year, but no statistics on the actual movement of goods and people were subsequently published.
The new port could have started a new relationship between Turkmenistan and other states, overcoming the traditional closures of the regime’s policy, but for now we have to settle for the old, narrow port, two kilometers from the new facility, which allows small excursions. sea views to vacationers in the area. The inhabitants and workers of Avaza and Turkmenbaši doubt that their grandchildren will ever see the Caspian Sea, and tourists will be forced to travel hundreds of kilometers to get their feet wet in the largest salt lake on the planet, the ancient “Hyrcan Sea.” » or «closed sea» due to its extraordinary size, into which the great rivers of the Volga, the Urals and the Kura flow. It is the true border between Europe and Asia, and between many different peoples of Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, which symbolically now becomes the desert that distances and separates them.
Photo: Wikipedia / AltynAsyr
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