Central Asia still remains an unexplored and little-known region for most Europeans. The places here are beautiful - the steppes, the Pamir and Tan Shan mountains, the Karakum desert...
But the most significant objects in these places are the rivers. The Syr Darya and Amudarya are the two largest water arteries in Central Asia, which contribute to the preservation of life in a difficult climatic region. Both rivers flow into the Aral Sea, which, unfortunately, has almost completely dried up over the past 50 years.
It is also worth noting that on the map the Syrdarya is located to the north, the Amur Darya to the south, but both rivers seem to flow from the same place and practically in the same direction, flowing into the same body of water, albeit a former one. So, in this sense, these rivers can be compared with different Turkic peoples: Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Turkmens, Uzbeks, Tajiks. They come from the same root and “flow” in the same direction. And despite the differences between themselves, they, like these rivers, are very similar. Let's take a closer look at each artery and their former refuge - the Aral Sea.
“Cheese” in the first part of the river’s name can be translated from local Turkic dialects as “mysterious”, “secret”. And “Daria” means river.
A water stream more than 2000 km long originates in the western part of the Tan Shan Mountains and is formed at the confluence of two rivers: Naryn and Karadarya.
Compared to the major waterways of the world, the Syrdarya is not the deepest - about 700 m3/s. But thanks to the melting of ice and snow in the mountains in the spring, the river floods heavily.
There are three states on the path of the Syrdarya water flow: Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Also, a large number of tributaries of the river are located on the territory of Kyrgyzstan. In winter, the river is almost completely free of ice by April.
The main part of the flow flows through the territory of Kazakhstan. On the river there are cities such as: Baikonur (Baikonur), Zhosaly, Kyzylorda. Relatively close to the river - about a hundred kilometers - is the city of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.
Many irrigation canals were built on the river and its tributaries, such as the Big Fergana, Northern Fergana, Akhunbabaev Canal and many others. Due to the large withdrawal of water from the river and the tributaries that feed it, the Syr Darya does not reach the Aral Sea and the actual flow of the river ends approximately 150 kilometers from the former Greater Aral. The city of Kazalinsk, with a population of slightly less than 7,000 people, is actually the last settlement along the river’s path to the Aral Sea. Then the river dries up.
The second major water artery in Central Asia. The length of the stream is about 1400 km, but the water flow near the Amu Darya compared to the Syr Darya is about 3 times higher - about 2000 m3/s.
"Amu" is part of the name of the city of Amul. This is a historical city, it does not exist now, it was located on the territory of modern Turkmenistan. More precisely, there is a city, but it is called Turkmenabad, and in the Soviet years it was called Chardzhou.
The river originates in the Pamir Mountains, formed at the confluence of the Pyanj and Vakhsh rivers. The Amu Darya occupies one of the first places in the world in terms of turbidity. More than 80% of the river flow is generated in Tajikistan, as well as in northern Afghanistan. The river flows along the border of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, crosses the northeastern part of Turkmenistan and then flows again through the territory of Uzbekistan.
Unlike the Syr Darya, the Amu Darya freezes only in the upper reaches. In its lower reaches it passes through the warm and dry regions of Central Asia.
The most famous derivative of the Amu Darya River is the Karakum Canal.
The canal begins near the city of Kerki in Turkmenistan. Its total length is comparable to the length of the Amu Darya itself - about 1400 km. After its source, the canal flows south, crossing the Karakum Desert. Further on the path of the flow, there is the so-called Murghab oasis, which has existed for a very long time and is a historical place in this region of Central Asia. The canal passes through the city of Ashgabat and ends approximately 400 km west of the capital of Turkmenistan near the city of Balkanabad or Nebit-Dag (the Soviet and modern name of the city). The Karakum Canal has a width of up to 200 meters and is 7.5 meters. The water flow of the canal is about 600 m3/s, which is only slightly less than the level of the Syrdarya.
The canal is important for Turkmenistan. Water is used as drinking water after purification in large Turkmen cities. Agricultural lands have been created along the banks of the canal.
But there is also another side to the coin. Due to significant withdrawal, the Amu Darya water does not reach the Aral Sea. The actual mouth of the river is located 200 km from what was previously the Aral Sea.
Now let’s try to deal with the Aral itself.
Aral Sea
Once upon a time it was a huge and deep body of water - a real sea. I heard in one program that before the shallowing of fish there was so much fish in the Aral Sea that they even used it to heat the stoves in the settlements located nearby the lake.
Shallowing began after the main canals were opened in Central Asia. On the one hand, dry areas received an influx of water. Cotton and other crops began to be grown there, and on the other hand...
50 years after the “improvement of life” for the residents of Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan), by and large, all that remained of the Aral Sea were memories and huge accumulations of salt, which spread hundreds of kilometers around, causing considerable harm.
Until the 60s of the 20th century, the surface area of the Aral Sea exceeded 60 thousand square kilometers, which corresponds to the size of the Tambov region of Russia. By 2010, this figure had dropped to 10-13 thousand km2, that is, approximately 6 times. What remains is a narrow strip of water in the western part of the former lake.
A huge number of fish died, including special species, such as the Aral sturgeon.
If we take and calculate objectively what we gained and what we lost... They built canals and grew so many thousands of tons of cotton, but at the same time they lost millions of tons of fish and received dust storms and toxic chemicals that spread hundreds of kilometers around... Restoring the lake is only possible in in the event that the main channels of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya are inoperative.
And it turns out that Turkmenistan, which operates the Karakum Canal, receives its main income through the sale of natural gas; agriculture in this country is symbolic, except for livestock farming. Uzbekistan, of course, is an agricultural country, but even there, state budget revenues are determined by oil and other sources of raw materials. Cotton plays an important part in the income of Uzbekistan, but the main flow of the Syr Darya would be quite enough to grow cotton along its banks...
In short, there are suspicions that the massive construction of canals in Central Asia during the Soviet era was a mistake. There is not as much benefit from this as harm.
So, Syrdarya and Amu Darya. Central Asian. And here lives a relatively united ethnic people - the Turks.
Like these rivers, the people have a lively but violent disposition. Heavy river floods in the spring can be compared to the vibrant emotional character of the local population. At the same time, like rivers, people live in rather difficult conditions of an arid climate with large differences in average annual temperature.
Here in Central Asia there is a lot - mountains, deserts, rivers, oases, a huge amount of undiscovered natural resources, oil and gas and much more.
But, as elsewhere, it is important not to get carried away by human pride, which wants to conquer nature, so as not to harm ourselves.
Amudarya River
(Tajikistan-Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan)
The sources of this great Central Asian river lie, strictly speaking, outside the CIS. From the slopes of the sky-high Hindu Kush ridge in Afghanistan, from under a glacier located at almost a five-kilometer altitude, a stream flows, swift and turbulent due to the steepness of the fall. In its lower reaches, it has already become a small river and is called Vakhandarya. A little lower, Vakhandarya merges with the river The Pamir takes a new name - Pyanj, and for a long time becomes a border river, separating the three Central Asian republics of the CIS from Afghanistan.
Most of the right bank of the Pyanj is occupied by Tajikistan. The river gnaws through rocky ridges in this area, has a rapid current and is absolutely unsuitable for either navigation or irrigation. It’s just a stormy white stream in the abyss, and even the roads along it have to be laid in places on concrete cornices hanging over Pyanj.
The mountains of Tajikistan tirelessly feed the river with meltwater from glaciers flowing from their slopes. Gunt, Murgab, Kyzylsu and Vakhsh, having flowed into Pyanj, make it so full of water that below Vakhsh, having finally changed its name to Amu Darya, the river already carries more water than the famous Nile.
But even before this, the “Central Asian Volga” meets on its way the first curiosity that nature has scattered along its banks with a generous hand. On the right bank of the Pyanj, just above the confluence of the Kyzylsu, rises the unusual, one-of-a-kind mountain Khoja-Mumin, consisting of... pure table salt.
Geologists call such formations “salt domes.” They are found in many places in the world: off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in Iraq, in the Caspian region, but everywhere they are more like hills - their height does not exceed tens, or at most hundreds of meters. And KhojaMumin is a real mountain peak with steep slopes, gorges and even caves. The height of this extraordinary mountain is one thousand three hundred meters! Rising nine hundred meters above the surrounding plain, it is visible for tens of kilometers.
The surrounding residents have been mining salt here since ancient times. Now science has managed to unravel many of the secrets of this mysterious natural anomaly. Khoja-Mumin, it turns out, is a huge massif composed of salt, and at the top and in places on the slopes covered with a thin layer of soil formed from dust brought by the wind. At ground level, the area of the massif reaches forty square kilometers, and further down the salt column sharply narrows and goes to depth in the form of a column with a diameter of about a kilometer.
The slopes of the mountain are not white, as one might expect, but pale pink, greenish or bluish, depending on the impurities trapped in the salt layer. In some places they break off with sheer walls up to two hundred meters high. In some areas of the slopes, rainwater washed deep caves with huge halls and beautiful smooth-walled passages. And the places where the soil cover has formed are covered with low thickets of thorny bushes.
Hidden in the depths of the mountain are gigantic reserves of table salt - about sixty billion tons. If it were divided among all the inhabitants of the Earth, each would receive almost ten tons! Penetrating deep into the thickness of the mountain, rain streams dug long tunnels and wells into them and, having passed right through the mountain, emerge at its foot to the surface in the form of unusual salty springs. Their waters, merging, form many (more than a hundred!) salty streams running across the plain to the nearby Kyzylsu. In summer, under the hot rays of the sun, part of the water in the streams evaporates along the way, and a white salt border forms along their banks. As a result, a peculiar semi-desert landscape is formed, reminiscent of science fiction films about Mars: a brown, scorched plain along which poisonous-reddish watercourses with lifeless whitish banks meander.
Surprisingly, but true: on the flat top of Mount Khoja-Mumin there are several sources of absolutely fresh water! Geologists say that it is possible that layers of other, insoluble rocks are sandwiched within the thickness of the salt dome. It is along them that, under pressure from below, the water rises to the top, without coming into contact with the layers of salt and maintaining a fresh taste.
Thanks to her, grasses grow on the mountain (of course, only where there is soil). And in the spring, among the rocks sparkling with snow-white salt crystals, scarlet carpets of tulips appear on the top of the mountain.
Having left the borders of Tajikistan, the full-flowing Amu Darya receives the last major tributary, the Surkhandarya, on Uzbek territory and rapidly rushes further to the west. Behind us is the green city of Termez with its unique, southernmost zoo in the CIS. Here at the latitude of India, the warm climate allows even elephants all year round live in the fresh air, without knowing stuffy enclosures. True, polar bears have a hard time here. They are saved only by the icy mountain water in the pool.
Having parted with Uzbekistan, the Amu Darya soon says goodbye to the left-bank plains of Afghanistan, turning to the northwest and entering the territory of Turkmenistan on both banks. From here, two thousand kilometers, all the way to the Aral Sea, it flows along the border of the two main Central Asian deserts: Kyzylkum and Karakum. From the city of Chardzhou, where the first (and only) bridge across the wide river was built, motor ships already travel along the Amu Darya.
The countries lying along the banks of the river - Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - use the waters of the generous Amu Darya to irrigate their cotton fields and orchards. To the right, to the Uzbek Bukhara, the Amu-Bukhara Canal is laid, and to the left, into the sultry sands of the Karakum Desert, the wide navigable channel of the Karakum Canal, or the Karakum River, as it is also called, goes.
The Karakum Desert occupies three quarters of the vast territory of Turkmenistan. When you fly over it on an airplane, below you see an endless sea of golden sands with green beads of oases scattered here and there.
And from the south, the border of Turkmenistan is high mountains. From there, two large rivers run down to the plain - Tedzhen and Murghab. They flow for several hundred kilometers across the country, irrigating the surrounding lands, until they are finally “drinked up” by numerous canals-aryks. Ancient agricultural civilizations existed in these places before our era; the most valuable fine-fiber cotton, luxurious melons, fragrant juicy apples and grapes are grown here and now.
Nature has generously endowed Turkmenistan with fertile lands, but, as the local proverb says, “in the desert it is not the earth that gives birth, but the water,” and that is precisely what is lacking. And hundreds of thousands of hectares of excellent land lay scorched by the sun, deserted and barren.
The Karakum River changed life in Turkmenistan. The canal route stretches for one thousand two hundred kilometers across the entire republic. He filled the Murgab and Tejen oases, Ashgabat, Bakharden, Kizyl-Arvat and Kazandzhik with Amudarya water. Further, to the oil workers' city of Nebit-Dag, water flowed through the pipeline. The land of the Karakum now produces cotton and vegetables, watermelons and melons, grapes and fruits.
And the Amu Darya runs further - to the fertile gardens and cotton fields of the ancient Khorezm oasis stretching beyond the horizon. The power and width of the huge water artery in these places is simply amazing, especially after a two-three-day trip by train or car across a dry, waterless plain.
Already near Turtkul the river is so wide that the opposite bank is barely visible in the distant haze. A gigantic mass of water rushes towards the Aral Sea with enormous speed and power. Slanting, some irregular, although quite high waves constantly rise on the surface of the Amu Darya. This is not a wave that is blown by the wind, it is the river itself that oscillates and boils from fast running along an uneven bottom. In some places the water boils, foams and bubbles, as if in a boiling cauldron. In some places, whirlpools form on it, drawing in fragments of boards or bundles of reeds floating along the river. In the evening, in the slanting rays of the setting sun, their ominous spirals are visible from afar from the deck of the ship on the river surface shining from the sunset light.
It is not surprising that the channel laid by the Amu Darya among the low-lying plain is not always able to hold this wayward flow within its banks. Here and there the river suddenly begins to wash away the bank, usually the right one. Block after block, huge pieces of loose rock that make up the plain begin to fall into the water. At the same time, they produce a deafening roar, reminiscent of a cannon shot. No force can hold back the furious pressure of the river.
The Amu Darya has long been famous for its whims. It is known that in the old days it flowed into the Caspian Sea. Then it changed its direction and began to pour into the Aral Sea. Its ancient channel, called the Uzboy, can still be traced in the sands of the Karakum Desert, and in the Krasnovodsk Bay on the Caspian Sea you can easily find a place where all the signs of a large river flowing into the sea have been preserved.
Even the Arab medieval historian al-Masudi said that in the 9th century large ships with goods descended along the Uzboy from Khorezm to the Caspian Sea, and from there sailed up the Volga, or to Persia and the Shirvan Khanate.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Amu Darya was divided in the area of the current river delta into two branches: one of them, the eastern one, flowed into the Aral Sea and the western one into the Caspian Sea. The latter gradually shallowed and dried out until, in 1545, it was finally covered with moving sand dunes.
Since then, the once densely populated area along the banks of the Uzboy has become a desert, and only the ruins of ancient cities remind of the quarrelsome nature of the capricious and violent river.
Actually, the channel changed periodically even above the delta - starting from the steeply bending Tuya-Muyun ("Camel's Neck") gorge. The river flow here is fast, the banks are composed of loose clays and sands, easily washed away by water. Sometimes a continuous zone of deigish stretches for several kilometers along one of the banks - this is what they call the destructive work of the river here. It happens that in three to four weeks of high water, the Amu Darya “licks away” up to half a kilometer of the coastline. It is very difficult to fight this scourge.
Even in the 20th century, catastrophic situations occurred in the lower reaches of the river. So, in 1925, the Amu Darya began to erode the right bank in the area of the then capital of the Karakalpak Autonomous Republic of Uzbekistan - the city of Turtkul. In seven years, by 1932, the river “ate” eight kilometers of the coast and came close to the outskirts of Turtkul, and in 1938 it washed away the first quarters of the city. The capital of the republic had to be moved to the city of Nukus. Meanwhile, the Amu Darya continued to do its dirty work, and in 1950 it did away with the last street of Turtkul. The city ceased to exist, and its inhabitants were moved to a new town built further from the river.
But finally, the lands of ancient Khorezm stretching along the left bank were left behind, the domes and minarets of the pearl of Central Asia - the unique Khiva, disappeared in the haze, which, like no other Asian city, has preserved the flavor of the Middle Ages, not disturbed by typical modern buildings. In this regard, even the famous Samarkand and Bukhara cannot be compared with Khiva.
And the Amu Darya hurries forward to the Aral Sea. However, before flowing into its light blue expanse, the wild river presents another surprise: it spreads into a dozen channels and forms one of the largest river deltas in the world - with an area of more than eleven thousand square kilometers.
There is no exact map of this huge tangle of riverbeds, channels, canals, islands and swampy reed jungles. Since the fickle river changes its course every now and then, some channels dry up, others, previously dry, fill with water, the outlines of the islands, capes and bends of the river change, so that it is impossible to cultivate the lands of the delta, despite the presence of water. Here lies the kingdom of tugai - dense thickets of two-three-meter reeds and bushes, where even the formidable Turanian tigers lived fifty years ago. And even now the tugai forest is a real paradise for birds, turtles, wild boars and muskrats that were recently brought here. Fishermen sometimes pull out two-meter catfish on a spinning rod.
And beyond the green sea of the Tugai, the Aral, suffering from lack of water, awaits the Amu Darya, which has almost completely lost its recharge from the waters of the Syr Darya, the second most important river in this region. Almost all of its water is used for irrigation, and it flows into the Aral Sea only during high water. So Amu Darya has to water the drying sea alone.
This is how this amazing river with three names, which has fed three CIS republics, ends its journey from the distant glaciers of the Hindu Kush. To be precise, over two and a half thousand kilometers of its tireless running we saw three different rivers: a mad mountain stream, a mighty water artery in the endless desert and a web of channels in the reed labyrinths of the delta. This changeable, formidable and fertile river, which four countries and five peoples call by the ancient name Amu Darya, will remain in the memory as diverse and unusual.
From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (AM) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (KR) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (MA) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (MU) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (OB) by the author TSBMa (river) Ma, Song Ma, a river in northern Vietnam and Laos. The length is about 400 km. It originates on the slopes of the Shamshao ridge and flows into Bakbo Bay, forming a delta. High water in July - August; in the lower reaches it is navigable. The Delta is densely populated. On M. - Thanh Hoa city
From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (TA) by the author TSBMur (river) Mur, Mura (Mur, Mura), a river in Austria and Yugoslavia, in the lower reaches of the Mura there is a section of the border between Yugoslavia and Hungary; left tributary of the Drava (Danube basin). The length is 434 km, the basin area is about 15 thousand km2. In the upper reaches it flows in a narrow valley, below the city of Graz - along the plain.
From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (UF) by the author TSBOb (river) Ob, one of the largest rivers in the USSR and the globe; the third most water-bearing river (after the Yenisei and Lena) in the Soviet Union. Formed by the merger of pp. Biya and Katun in Altai, crosses the territories of Western Siberia from the south to the north and flows into the Ob Bay of the Kara Sea. Length
From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (CHI) by the author TSBTaz (river) Taz, a river in the Yamalo-Nenets National District of the Tyumen Region of the RSFSR, partially on the border with the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Length 1401 km, basin area 150 thousand km 2. It originates on the Sibirskie Uvaly, flows into the Tazovskaya Bay of the Kara Sea in several branches. Flowing
From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (EM) by the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (EN) by the author TSBChir (river) Chir, a river in the Rostov region of the RSFSR (lower reaches in Volgograd region), right tributary of the Don. Length 317 km, basin area 9580 km2. It originates on the Donskaya ridge and flows into the Tsimlyanskoye Reservoir. The food is predominantly snowy. Flood at the end of March -
From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (YL) by the author TSBEms (river) Ems (Erns), a river in the north-west. Germany. Length 371 km, basin area 12.5 thousand km2. It originates on the southwestern slopes of the Teutoburg Forest mountains, flows through the North German Lowland, flows into Dollart Bay of the North Sea, forming an estuary 20 km long. Average water consumption
From the author's bookRiver A river is a watercourse of significant size, flowing in a natural channel and collecting water from the surface and underground flow of its drainage basin. The river begins at the source and is further divided into three sections: the upper reaches, the middle reaches and the lower reaches,
Far from the plains of Khorezm, in the Pamir and Gin-dukush mountains, at a huge altitude - 5 thousand m - are the sources of the Amu Darya. Actually, Amu Darya is not there. There is the Panj River. And only after the Vakhsh River flows into the Pyanj River does the Amu Darya get its name. There, in the mountains, the river has many tributaries, but when it reaches the plain, it has none. The Amu Darya is the largest river in Central Asia and one of the wildest and most volatile rivers in the world. It has one feature that distinguishes the river (as well as the other great Central Asian river - the Syr Darya) from most other rivers. There are two floods on the Amu Darya. One in April - May, during the period of rains and melting of low-mountain snows, the other in June - July, when the river is fed by powerful high-mountain glaciers and snow. The water of the Amu Darya is chocolate-colored. The river annually carries up to 200 million tons (0.2 cubic km!) of silt dissolved in its water. The Amu Darya water contains twice, and at the beginning of the summer flood, even three times more silt than the waters of the Nile (we note, by the way, that the Amu Darya silt is more fertile than the Nile). Sometimes in just one year, the river leaves a layer of sediment up to 20 cm thick on the surrounding plains. Over hundreds of years, both in the riverbed and valley of the river, and along it, such an amount of sediment accumulates that the river bed does not pass through the lowest place here, as in “ordinary” rivers, but along the crest of a huge, many-kilometer-wide shaft. It turns out that, contrary to all laws, the river flows as if along a watershed. This is the peculiarity of the Amu Darya. And if the river is not constantly kept in its channel, then during one of the floods it can slip out of it, roll down to a lower place and lay a new channel there. For centuries, the population living on the banks of the Amu Darya fought against the violent river. Tens of thousands of people, armed only with ketmen (Ketmen is an agricultural tool such as a hoe), erected many kilometers of ramparts along its banks. Dozens of traditions and legends are connected among the inhabitants of Khorezm with the Amu Darya. It is interesting that in the solemn mass prayers that took place earlier during the days of palace festivities in the Khiva Khanate, the words were repeatedly repeated in prayers: “May the Darya be abundant in water, may it flow in its own channel.” And this was not a simple traditional phrase. Residents knew very well that after a bad flood the canals would not function normally, the earth would dry out and crack. No wonder the old proverb says: “It is not the earth that gives birth, but the water!” But a change in the riverbed threatened no less trouble. The head parts of the canals no longer touch the river, the water does not flow to the fields. And where the riverbed went, there are destroyed ditches, washed away villages and gardens. Khorezm Uzbeks are familiar with the word “degish”. The river, pressed by its own sediments to one of the banks, begins to quickly erode it. Huge pieces of the shore, made up of loose sediment deposited by the same river, break off and fall into the water. This is “degish”. Day after day, month after month, the destructive work of the river continues. She does not spare anything that comes her way. The riverbed goes several kilometers to the side, and in its former place, on fertile and highly moist soil, tugai trees, dense, jungle-like bushes, grow wildly. “Degish tushty” - degish began to act - these words used to terrify the Khorezmians. At the end of the 10th century. The Amu Darya completely washed away the capital of the Khorezmshahs, the city of Kyat. And in 1932, she came close to the then capital of the Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the city of Turtkul. Turtkul - then it was called Petro-Alexandrovsk - was founded in 1873. Fifteen years later it became clear that the location for the city was not entirely well chosen, and the authorities were warned about this. But the tsarist administration did not pay attention to this warning. The city continued to grow. And the river was getting closer. In one decade (1905 - 1915) in the area slightly below Turtkul, it moved the banks six kilometers to the east. And in the early thirties, immediate danger loomed over Turtkul. Work to strengthen the banks could have been successful if the river had not continued to actively destroy the areas above the fortified areas. It was irrational to erect expensive structures on a very large line. It was cheaper to build a new city in a new location. Here is what an eyewitness to the events, Tashkent archaeologist Professor Ya. G. Gulyamov, says: “The raging flow of water washed away the steep bank. A crack formed 3-4 m from the shore, which expanded every minute. A few minutes later, a large section of the coast covered by a crack collapses into the water with a roar. The surface of the water is covered with a cloud of dust. At the same moment, a roar is heard again: a few steps away, half of the destroyed house falls into the water. Logs, reeds and other remains of the building float in the raging waves. In another place, a huge tree goes under the water, shading a large sufa (Sufa is a low adobe pavement, in most cases wall-mounted, usually covered with a carpet or felt. Served for relaxation, tea drinking, etc.) on the bank of the hauz, where they usually rested on a hot afternoon collective farmers. An hour later there is neither house nor sufa left... 8 years have passed. In the summer of 1945, the author of these lines witnessed a new spectacle: steamships and kayaks (Kayuk - a large sailing boat) moored in the middle of the city's market square; The town's theatre, post office and former government building now no longer exist. The southern half of Turtkul has been washed away, the roar over the river continues. On the city’s coastline, work is in full swing day and night to dismantle buildings.” If a visitor now disembarks from the ship at the pier, then in half an hour he gets to the city by car. There are thick, shady greenery on both sides of the straight streets. There is a large cotton-growing district around the city. This is the new Turtkul, the regional center of the Turtkul region of the Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. And “degish” is not so scary now. The capricious nature of the river has been well studied over many hundreds of years. And now dozens of researchers from different specialties continue to study it. The Khorezmians are armed in our time not only with ketmen; Modern technology came to their aid. Bulldozers and scrapers, excavators and dump trucks work along the river and on canals. Old irrigation systems are being reconstructed, new canals and other hydroirrigation structures are being built. Of course, even today it happens that the insidious “degish” can cause harm to coastal collective farms - wash away fields and melons. But they are already more relaxed about “degish”. And this ancient word was remade in a modern way. “The river is dehydrating,” they sometimes say now.
But where does the Amu Darya flow?
“To the Aral Sea,” you will answer without hesitation. Indeed, the delta channels of the river seem to have attached themselves to the southern tip of the Aral Sea with tentacles. The huge delta of the Amu Darya, heavily humidified and swampy, with lush tugai and reed vegetation, is cut into a giant triangle into the yellow desert plain. But the famous Greek geographer and historian Strabo writes about the Amu Darya as a large navigable river along which Indian goods are transported to the Hyrcanian Sea (in Strabo’s time this was the name of the Caspian Sea). But this, you say, was two thousand years ago. And can one completely trust a Greek geographer who has never seen the Amu Darya himself? It's right. But other scientists also wrote about this. The Khiva khan-historian Abulgazi, who lived in the second half of the 17th century, in his famous historical work “The Family Tree of the Turks,” argued that quite recently, in the 16th century, the Amu Darya flowed into the Caspian Sea, and on both banks of it, up to the Caspian Sea itself, “there were arable lands, vineyards and groves.” Only on the map of the Caspian Sea published in 1720 in Paris (only about 250 years ago!) is the Amu Darya not shown for the first time among the rivers flowing into it. Even the violent Amu Darya could not have changed its course so dramatically in such a short period of time and formed a new vast delta. And the archaeological sites in the modern delta date back to a fairly early period: some of them date back to the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e. And they, without a doubt, were connected with living, deep channels. What's the matter? We will return to the question of whether the ancient writers are right or wrong, whether they can be completely trusted, a little below. And now let’s turn again to the deserts and modern Amu Darya. If we could take in at one glance the vast spaces to the west and east of the Amu Darya in its lower reaches, then we would see an extremely picturesque picture of the “travels” (or, as geographers say, migrations) of the river. We would see fragments of dry riverbeds, sometimes wide, sometimes making their way into a narrow canyon through rocky places, branching bunches of deltas. And all this is many tens and even hundreds of kilometers from the modern deep riverbed. As a matter of fact, the entire huge Karakum desert (and some part of the Kyzylkum desert) is the result of the activity of the Amu Darya. In the vast expanses of the desert, traces of ancient currents can be found almost everywhere: sand-filled valleys, coastal ramparts, basins of riverbed lakes. As scientists have established, the mineralogical composition of the sediments that make up the Karakum Desert is no different from the composition of the sediments of the modern Amu Darya. Geologists and geographers, scientists of many other specialties examined all the old rivers of the Amu Darya. To the east of the modern delta, Akcha-Darya stretches like two fans standing above each other. This now dead Amu-Darya delta begins from the city of Turtkul and, with its numerous channels, abuts the small Sultanuizdag mountain range in the north. Having stumbled upon the rocks, the river could not break through them. But she didn’t back down. The channels approaching Sultan-Uiz-Dag turned to the east and here, uniting into one stream, they made a narrow path to the north. The water ran for seventy-five kilometers along a narrow channel (this section of the delta is called the Akcha-Darya corridor) until it broke free and divided again into many branches. The northeastern branches join the old rivers of the Syr Darya, and the northwestern branches touch the modern delta. To the west of the modern river delta there is a huge Sarykamyshin depression. Its area is about 12 thousand square meters. km, and the maximum depth reaches 110 m. From the east, a dense network of dry channels of another ancient Amu Darya delta, Prisary-Kamysh, approaches Sarykamysh. From the southern bay of the Sarykamysh depression it originates and after 550 km ends at the Caspian Sea, in the Krasnovodsk region, the dry channel is Uzboy. For the most part, it is so well preserved, so “fresh” that it seems as if water flowed along the Uzboy yesterday. Uzboy is already a completely independent river, connecting two closed water basins - Sarykamysh and the Caspian Sea. The famous Soviet geographer E. Murzaev compares it with the Volkhov and Svir, rivers-channels between lakes. The channel of the Uzboy was once formed by the waters of the Amu Darya, which filled the Sarykamysh basin to such a level that the water began to overflow over its low, southern edge and rushed first to the south, and then to the east, to the Caspian Sea. Scientists - geographers, geologists, historians - have been interested in the mystery of dead riverbeds for a very long time. None of those who saw them had any doubt that they were once rich in water, if they were able to cross such vast spaces, saw through rocks, and fill large reservoirs without getting lost in the sands. But there are many dead riverbeds. It was clear that they could not all exist at the same time. No matter how abundant the Amu Darya is (it is estimated that it currently brings over 50 cubic km of water to the Aral Sea annually), even its reserves would not be enough for all known channels. And how many of them, filled with sediments and covered with sands, are hidden by the Karakum Desert! When were they laid, when did the rivers flow here and why did they disappear forever, leaving in their place a waterless sandy desert? Geographers and geologists, who have long and persistently studied the history of ancient riverbeds, have been able to answer many of these questions. However, some important details still remained a mystery. This was especially true of the final stages of the river’s history, when people settled on the banks of its numerous channels. Historians turned to the works of ancient authors. Perhaps an explanation can be found in ancient geographical descriptions, reports of campaigns, notes of travelers and merchants? After all, Amu Darya is often mentioned on the pages of works of this kind. The modern name of the river is of relatively recent origin. In ancient sources, the Amu Darya appears under several names. The main ones are the Greek - Oke and the Arabic - Jeyhun. The Amu Darya was first mentioned by the famous Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century. BC e. When describing the campaigns of the Persian king Cyrus, he reports that one of its branches, the Amu Darya, flows into the Caspian Sea. Other writers also report about the confluence of the Amu Darya into the Caspian Sea, including Strabo, whom we have already mentioned. However, many of those who studied the evidence of ancient authors were constantly faced with one circumstance that was strange at first glance. The further, the more contradictions accumulated in the reports that claimed the river flowed into the Caspian Sea and already provided some specific information about its lower course. Strabo, for example, pointed out that the distance between the mouths of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya is 2400 stadia, that is, approximately 420 km. And this corresponds to the distance between the modern mouths of these rivers along the eastern shore of the Aral Sea. Somewhat later, in the 2nd century. n. e., Ptolemy even gives the geographical coordinates of these mouths (again, in his opinion, Caspian), and again they approximately coincide in latitude with the modern Aral. Now the reason for such contradictions is clear to historians. The fact is that in the time of Herodotus, information about the deep Uzboy River flowing into the Caspian Sea was still alive and fresh in memory. However, the idea of the actual Aral mouth of the Amu Darya was gradually reinforced by new data. The struggle between old, traditional ideas and new, more accurate information, apparently received from Khorezm travelers and sailors, gave rise to some rather fantastic ideas about the Amu Darya, the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea. Ancient geographers themselves understood the contradictory nature of the information they knew. It was necessary to somehow explain them, to coordinate with each other. And so the idea of the Caspian Sea appeared as a huge water basin stretching not from north to south, as in reality, but from east to west. The Aral Sea seemed to them like a large eastern gulf of the Caspian Sea. Only in the 4th century. historian Ammianus Marcellinus clearly writes about the confluence of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya into the Aral Sea. However, the old tradition turned out to be very tenacious. In medieval sources, in the works of geographers and historians written in Arabic and Persian, completely reliable information about the lower reaches of the Amu Darya, often with detailed descriptions of settlements along it and the channels into which it was divided, is often combined with traditional ideas about its Caspian mouth But fresh and accurate information wins. And only after the Mongol conquest of Khorezm, when many cities and dams were destroyed and water flooded part of the country, contradictory but persistent information about the flow of the Amu Darya to the west, to the Caspian Sea, again appeared on the pages of works. The already mentioned Khiva Khan Abulgazi in his work states that only in 1573 did the Amu Darya completely turn into the Aral Sea. At the end of the last century, the famous Russian historian-orientalist Academician V.V. Bartold collected together all the evidence of ancient authors about the lower reaches of the Amu Darya and analyzed them. In 1902, his book “Information about the Aral Sea and the lower reaches of the Amu Darya from ancient times to the 17th century” was published in Tashkent. Having compared data from written sources, he came to the conclusion that during the period of the Mongol conquest, the Amu Darya, as now, flowed into the Aral Sea. But in the period between the XIII and XVI centuries. the river waters turned towards the Caspian Sea along the Uzboy riverbed. However, other researchers, based on the same data, came to slightly different conclusions, and some, for example, the Dutch orientalist De Goue, to the exact opposite. By this time, science already had quite abundant and interesting information about the lower reaches of the Amu Darya, received from specially organized expeditions. The question of ancient river beds began to acquire increasing practical interest. About the first of the expeditions, dating back to the beginning of the 18th century. and which ended tragically for its participants, I would like to tell you in a little more detail. In 1713, the foreman of one of the Turkmen clans, Khoja Nepes, was brought to St. Petersburg to Tsar Peter I. Having made his way to Astrakhan with Russian merchants, Khoja Nepes declared that he wanted to convey important information, but only to the Russian Tsar himself. This is how the Turkmen foreman ended up in St. Petersburg. Here Khoja Nepes spoke about the Amu Darya, which once flowed into the Caspian Sea, but then was allegedly blocked by a dam by the Khivans and diverted in the other direction. According to the Turkmen, along the banks of the Amu Darya there were rich deposits of gold-bearing sand. Peter I was more interested not in gold, but in the opportunity to build a water trade route to Khiva and Bukhara, and from there to Afghanistan and India. Therefore, in 1715 In St. Petersburg, an expedition was equipped with the task of “finding a water route to India.” The expedition was headed by Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky, a Caucasian prince who had been raised in Russia since childhood and had studied “navigation sciences” abroad. In the same 1715, Bekovich-Cherkassky explored the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea. In a report to the Tsar, he claimed that he had managed to find the former mouth of the Amu Darya in the Aktam area, on the shore of Krasnovodsk Bay. The first expedition of Bekovich-Cherkassky was important in one respect - it was for the first time discovered that the Amu Darya flows not into the Caspian, but into the Aral Sea. In 1720, based on surveys carried out by order of Peter I by a number of Russian researchers, a map of the Caspian Sea was published in St. Petersburg. Peter, “in respect of his geographical information about Russia,” was elected a member of the Paris Academy, delivered this map to her. And in 1723, on the basis of a Russian map, the already mentioned map was published in Paris, where for the first time in the history of Western European science the Amu Darya was not shown among the rivers flowing into the Caspian Sea. In 1716, Bekovich-Cherkassky was again in Astrakhan. He is actively preparing for a new expedition. In his papers there are instructions from Peter I: “Go to the Khan of Khiva as an ambassador, and have a path near that river and diligently inspect the flow of that river, as well as the dam, if it is possible to turn that water back into the old pasture; besides, close the other mouths that go to the Aral Sea and how many people are needed for that work.” In the deep autumn of 1716, after sailing along the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, Bekovich-Cherkassky’s detachment reached the Krasnovodsk Bay and moved deep into the desert. However, he was unable to fully examine Uzba for a number of reasons. Leaving a large garrison in the Krasnovodsk fortress, he returned to Astrakhan. The following summer, a huge caravan leaving Guryev moved through Ustyurt towards Khiva. This was the embassy of Bekovich-Cherkassky to the Khiva Khan. The embassy consisted of a squadron of dragoons, two companies of infantry, two thousand Cossacks, five hundred Tatars and several cannons with servants and artillery officers. Two hundred Astrakhan merchants also traveled with the embassy. The path was difficult. People suffered from heat and thirst. There wasn't enough water. At each of the rare wells encountered along the way, several dozen more wells had to be dug each time to water the people, horses and camels. Camels and horses died due to lack of water and bad water. One night all the Kalmyk guides disappeared. The caravan had to be led by Khoja Nepes. In mid-August, the detachment reached the riverside lakes of the Amu Darya. It was no more than a hundred miles to Khiva. Warned by the fleeing Kalmyks, the Khiva Khan sent a twenty-four thousand horse detachment against the Russian caravan. We had to almost continuously fight off the fierce attacks of the Khivans. In Khiva, as the Russian detachment approached, panic began. They were expecting a siege of the city. But Bekovich-Cherkassky had no intention of conquering Khiva. And the strength for this was clearly not enough. Then the khan sent envoys to Bekovich, who stated that the military clashes allegedly occurred because Khiva did not know about the peaceful intentions of the Russians. Khan invited Bekovich-Cherkassky to his place, promising to receive him with honor. With a guard of five hundred people, Bekovich entered Khiva. The rest of the embassy was also lured there, with the Russians stationed around the city in separate small groups. At night, the Khivans attacked the fragmented Russian detachment and killed it. Not far from Khiva, Bekovich-Cherkassky himself was overtaken and hacked to death with sabers. Hodja Nepes and two of the Cossacks escaped by chance. The research of Bekovich-Cherkassky that ended so tragically was of great interest. The first reliable information that he and his comrades received about the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, in particular about the Krasnovodsk Bay and Mangyshlak, was of great importance for science. Russian geographers and engineers did especially a lot to study the old channels of the Amu Darya, in particular the Uzboy, in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries. These studies were primarily related to practical interests - the expansion of irrigated agricultural areas, and issues of navigation. The book of one of the main researchers of Uzboy, A.I. Glukhovsky, was called: “The passage of the waters of the Amu Darya River along its old bed into the Caspian Sea and the formation of a continuous waterway from the borders of Afghanistan along the Amu Darya, Caspian, Volga and Mariinsky system to St. Petersburg and the Baltic Sea." Expeditions brought new material. Many issues previously considered controversial were finally clarified. And at the same time new disputes arose. In numerous articles by mining engineer A. M. Konshin, who worked a lot in the Karakum Desert, the idea that the Uzboy was once a river was categorically rejected. “No,” said Konshin, “these are traces of a large sea strait that once connected the Aral and Sarykamysh basins with the Caspian Sea.” The most prominent Russian geologist, Academician I.V. Mushketov, who, however, did not see Uzboy himself, was inclined to the same opinion. Konshin’s views were resolutely opposed by the then young researcher, future outstanding geologist and geographer V. A. Obruchev. In the third year of his work in the Karakum desert, he ended up in Uzboy. Subsequently, he wrote that, judging by the size of the channel, the excess of Amu Darya water flowing from Sarykamysh to Uzboy, being “significantly less than the amount of water in the Amu Darya, was still several times greater than the amount of water in modern Murghab.” Research that unfolded during Soviet times fully confirmed the point of view of V. A. Obruchev. A special role in this belongs to the tireless researcher of the Central Asian deserts and ancient rivers of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, geographer Alexandra Semyonovna Kes. But one of the main mysteries of the Amu Darya remained unsolved. It was unclear when these now dry riverbeds actually lived. Historians who studied the news of the ancients, as we have seen, did not come to a consensus: the sources were too contradictory and confusing. Scientists from other specialties also turned to the testimony of ancient authors. Here is what the famous Soviet geographer, expert on the Karakum and Uzboya V.N. Kunin writes about this with great humor: “Naturalists who used the same historical evidence always acted quite definitely. If this evidence coincided with their conclusions based on the study of the testimony of nature, they accepted them and strengthened their evidence with them. If this evidence contradicted their interpretations of natural data, they rejected this evidence as dubious and contradictory." So, the researchers of the Amu Darya, having studied the areas of the river’s “travels,” were faced with a seemingly insoluble problem. Geography and geology data were clearly not enough to finally resolve the issue. The study of ancient written sources in a number of cases only confused the matter. But how could one talk about the history of the Amu Darya without knowing the chronology of all its “travels”? Here we will open another page in the history of the study of the river, a page that, according to scientists, is extremely important and interesting.
Amudarya River - largest river in Central Asia, one of the symbols of Uzbekistan. In the Middle Ages, the river had other names: Jeyhun in the Muslim world, Oxus among European peoples. The length of the river from the mountains of Tajikistan right up to the drying Aral Sea reaches 1,415 km, and the basin area is 310 thousand km2. Find out where it leaks here.
The Amu Darya is formed as a result of the confluence of the Vakhsh and Pyanj, then flows along the Uzbek-Afghan and Turkmen border. In the middle course, three right-bank tributaries flow into it - Sherabad, Surkhandarya, Kafirnigan, as well as one left-bank tributary. From here, not a single river flows into the Amu Darya to the Aral Sea.
Nutrition comes from glacial meltwater. Flowing through flat fertile land, the river loses huge volumes of water for irrigation, as a result of which the Aral Sea does not receive enough liquid to stop shallowing.
Fishing on the Amu Darya and other tourist attractions
Fishing on the Amu Darya is developed and loved by local residents. In the waters of one of the muddiest rivers on earth there are such species of fish as salmon, carp, asp, and barbel. The population of the latter is so large that it allows fish to be caught on an industrial scale. Recreational fishing without restrictions continues from May to October.
In addition to barbel, in the upper reaches there is osman, which has related roots with trout. For tourists, local residents are ready to organize amazing trips along the river bed from the mountains of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan to the drying Aral Sea. Who wants to order.
The Amu Darya attracts rafting enthusiasts. Just a few hours drive from Samarkand, Karshi, and you find yourself at the camp site, where extreme expeditions start. Peak season is September and October.
In the 2500-year-old Termez, next to which the Amu Darya runs, you can go to explore unique sights. We recommend visiting the ancient settlement of Airtam, Dalverzintepa, the Buddhist monastery of Kara-Tepe, the Kyrk-kyz palace, and the architectural ensemble of Sultan Saadat.
In Khiva and Urgench, located near the Amu Darya delta in the western part of Uzbekistan, you can plunge into the world of an oriental fairy tale. Khiva is a city included by UNESCO in the register of world cultural heritage. Ancient rickety minarets, majestic khan's palaces, rich merchant houses, adobe slums - everything is incredibly harmoniously combined here.
In Urgench, the hometown of Anna German, you can complete your journey along the Amu Darya by visiting the Avesta monument, unique history museums and ancient settlements near the city.
Amu Darya makes a strange impression on a person who sees it for the first time. On flat terrain there is a rapid, turbulent current, like a mountain river. Cocoa-colored water, in which torn roots, karchi and garbage rush, spinning. An innumerable number of whirlpools, tides, the continuous roar of the banks being washed away and falling - all this has a somewhat overwhelming effect on a person.
No wonder the locals call this river “mad”, “violent”. The Amu Darya has one more feature: the flood here begins at the end of April and ends in mid-August. This is explained by the fact that the nutritional regime of the Amu Darya is glacial.
However, despite these unpleasant features, the Amu Darya has many fans among sports fishermen who know how to cheer themselves up. From April to November, many anglerfish can be seen in countless backwaters, branches and channels of the river. True, within the city of Chardzhou itself the river is not rich enough in fish.
Four species are of greatest interest in sporting terms: carp, barbel, catfish and scaferingus. This latter is of particular interest to athletes, since, in addition to the Amu Darya, it is found only in the Mississippi River basin. And yet, despite the small number of fish species, our fishermen have no shortage of intense sporting experiences, impressions and sensations.
It is not uncommon here to catch carp weighing from 5 to 10 kilograms, barbel up to 12, catfish up to 30 kilograms and even more. True, special gear is made for this - “pockets”. The carmack consists of a specially strong cord attached to the end of a long pole, which is installed on the edge of the bank at an angle of 45 degrees. The pole must be springy, for which a special support is made. A carp or barbel weighing from one to three kilograms is attached to the hook.
Karmak is usually installed where the catfish spawned, since this fish protects its offspring and drives away all living things that appear near the spawning area. Very large catfish are caught on the pocket. I myself saw how two Turkmen fishermen pulled out a catfish weighing 120 kilograms. It took them four hours of hard work to do this.
The usual equipment of a Chardzhou amateur fisherman is three or four donks with bells and one or two float rods. A favorite fishing spot is a backwater with a barely noticeable current.
On the river itself you can only fish by launching. Common baits for fishing are boiled dumplings mixed with rye flour (for large barbel and carp), earthworms and woodworms, fry, grasshoppers and mole crickets. It must be said that the Amu Darya barbel and carp readily catch fry in the fall, but I personally have not caught carp larger than one kilogram using fry. Usually you come across carp weighing from 200 to 500 grams.
The nature of Turkmenistan is poor: sand, reeds and thorny bushes along the banks of the river; occasionally there are groves of elm or elm, known locally as “dzhidy”. However, for our fishermen there is no greater pleasure than sitting at night with fishing rods on the shore of the backwater. Fresh air, silence, hot coke tea and the most intense fish bite - what else does a true amateur fisherman need?
By one o'clock in the morning the most crucial moment comes - the bite of large carp begins. A single combat with a large carp will be remembered for a long time by the fisherman. And although the carp often wins in this fight, and the excited and annoyed fisherman curses himself and his gear, swears that he will never set foot on the river bank again, except for swimming, yet from Wednesday he begins to prepare his gear again, so that on the night from Saturday to Sunday “one more time” we can sit in the treasured place.
One of these amateur fishermen is my friend Misha K. He is already well over thirty, but everyone calls him simply and affectionately - “Misha”, for his naive, ingenuous character and childishly enthusiastic love for nature, for animals and birds. He is always unlucky when fishing: sometimes he breaks the tackle, sometimes he forgets the coucan with the fish, sometimes he breaks his glasses. And yet he is ready to go to the river again and again at any time of the day or night.
One September Saturday in 1958, Misha and I agreed to go to the backwater, which is about five kilometers from the city of Chardzhou. We got woodworms and earthworms, cooked dumplings, and at four o’clock in the afternoon we were on the shore of the backwater. By this time the heat had already begun to subside. Only occasionally could the breath of the red-hot Kara-Kums reach the river. Having had a quick snack, we settled down about 15 meters from each other. Our task is to catch small fish and live bait by six o'clock in the evening. I unwound two float rods. I put a worm on one and dough on the other: we need to find out which fish prefers what today. Misha prepared one float rod and two donks.
Before I had time to cast the fishing rod with the worm, the float immediately jerked and went under the water. A sharp hook, and in my hands I have a 50 gram barbel. The second cast - the same picture. Small barbels, one after another, either knock down the nozzle or are spotted. I cast a second fishing rod with a stiff dough on the hook. After about five minutes the float wavered slightly, then moved to the side. I hook, and I feel a pleasant heaviness on the line. Carp! I calmly take him out. We, Amu Darya fishermen, believe that the Amu Darya carp has no equal in beauty and taste.
By six o'clock in the evening I already have 3 carp from 200 to 400 grams and six barbel up to 150 grams, not counting the little things - live bait. Misha has approximately the same picture. We take out the fishing rods, clean the fish, cook the fish soup and boil the tea. Evening came. It became completely quiet. We lay on the river bank at the foot of the sandy mountain Kelle-Yumalanda and recalled the stories of old-timers about the Basmachi who lived here 25 - 30 years ago. According to legend, on this mountain they cut off the heads of their victims: Kelle-Yumalandy means “severed head.”
Having rested a little, we began to prepare for night fishing. There was no moon, so we had to light the bat lanterns we had brought with us.
I placed four donks. Two of them had dumplings as bait, one had woodworms and the last one had live bait. Misha also placed four donks. Southern night comes quickly. The sun had barely set when many stars poured out in the dark velvet sky. Somewhere in the distance a jackal began to cry, a second, a third answered him. Several jackals responded not far from us. We know the nature of these cowardly and impudent animals well, so we had to drag all our property closer to the lanterns.
While we were doing this, a bell on one of my donks rang. As I approached, I saw that the bite was on the bottom with wood worms. The bell had already calmed down and, confident that the fish had left, I did not check the fishing rod. Suddenly, on the same donk, there was such a jerk that the line, along with the plaintively tinkling bell, was torn out of the split reed and dragged into the water. I cut sharply. There is not much resistance, and I decide to pull the fish out immediately, without reeling. It turned out to be a little cat weighing about two kilograms. Within an hour and a half after that, I removed four more catfish. There were no bites for dumplings.
We decided to go to Misha to see how things were going with him. Two carp and a small catfish - that’s all he could boast of. The time was approaching one o'clock in the morning. The most crucial moment was coming. The catfish stopped pecking. I put dumplings on all four donks and waited. The fish didn't take it. About two hours later, the bell on the far right donk rang twice and suddenly the line whistled into the water.
After a hasty hooking, I feel that on the bottom he is a large carp... I gradually bring him to the shore, try to let him take a breath of air, after which the carp usually become quieter. Twice I had to let go of the forests, 5-6 meters long. Finally, I put a net under the carp and there it was, a golden beauty weighing 2.5 kilograms, already on the shore. This is not a very rich catch, but it’s nice to “calm down” even such a brawler. We must pay tribute - he resisted desperately.
A little more time passes. There are no bites. Suddenly I hear Misha’s excited voice. “Yeah, gotcha!” Then noise, splashes of fish. For about thirty minutes Misha was fiddling with landing the carp. Then the noise died down, and a minute later suddenly there was a new heavy splash and a desperate cry: “Vladimir, here, quickly!” I run up and see Misha helplessly floundering in the water. I give him my hand, help him get up and almost pull him ashore. "Glasses?" - he asks me. The glasses are nowhere to be seen. Misha sat down on the sand and, apparently forgetting that he was all wet and that he should change clothes, began to tell a sad story.
It turns out that he hooked a large carp, weighing at least 10 kilograms, walked it for about thirty minutes and successfully pulled it to the shore. What appeared, in his words, was a “large, piglet-like” head. This is where Misha made a mistake. Firstly, he decided that the carp, since it easily approached the shore, was already quite tired, and secondly, Misha, by his own admission, was somewhat confused - he had never happened to pull out such giants.
Holding the line with one hand, he reached for the net, not noticing that his right foot fell into the ring of the line he had chosen, which lay on the shore. Taking the net, he began to bring it under the fish, but at this time the carp turned sharply and rushed into the depths with such force that it pulled the line out of Misha’s hands. The ring of the line swept his leg and Misha flew into the water. True, one circumstance helped the carp: the shore was steep and consisted of loose sand. It is very difficult for a person to stand on such a shore...
In the water of the forest, she slipped off her leg and swam away along with the carp. “It’s a pity for such a carp,” Misha repeated plaintively. He apparently still did not realize that he had only accidentally escaped great danger. It turned out that it was not Misha who caught the carp, but the carp almost caught Misha. And it is not yet known how this story would have ended if the strong scaffolding had tightened tightly around Misha’s leg.
After grieving for another half hour, Misha began fishing again. Before seven o'clock in the morning we caught several more small carp. Misha came across a one-kilogram little catfish. The catch was not very big, but we had such a wonderful time in the fresh night air, next to the water, by the fire.