Fifty years ago the water disappeared from the shores of the Aral Sea, leaving behind it an ecological and economic wasteland plagued by toxic dust storms. Slowly, thanks to a new dam separating the sea into two, it has been creeping back in the northern Kazakh section. Before long, water could once again flow into the harbour at Aralsk, the former centre of a thriving fishing industry. The Kazakh steppe turns gradually to desert in the hundreds of kilometres of empty land separating Aralsk from the nearest major city. Cottages are smaller, the camels are scrawnier and clouds of dust almost obscure the isolated stations. In Aralsk, the wind howls from the empty shore, whipping up grains of sand against the whitewashed cottages. Even indoors, the wind whistles through cracks in the windows and moans through the plumbing. The region was once the Soviet Union’s fourth-largest producer of fish with a thriving processing industry. A mural at the railway station shows Lenin receiving the 14 tonnes of fish Aralsk sent to feed starving workers in the brand new Soviet Union. But this service received a harsh payback from Moscow. Back in the 1950s, the decision was made to divert the [...]