The river reversal project became notorious during Perestroika and ultimately failed due to the harsh backlash from the public. Let us remember what the Soviet Union aimed to achieve and examine some intricate details that often go unnoticed, considering the grand scale of this initiative.
It is quite interesting to revisit the river reversal project for several reasons:
The basic proposition was to partially redirect northern rivers such as the Ob', Pechora, Irtysh, Tobol, Ishym, and others towards the Russian South, specifically to the Volga Region and Central Asian Republics. One of the primary objectives was to stabilise and replenish the water reserves of the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea through its main inflows: the Amudarya and Syrdarya.
Thus, the water would not flow "to waste" into the Arctic Ocean and could support the much-needed agriculture in the region, with record crops of cotton, wheat, and corn. If fulfilled, the river reversal project could have become the greatest irrigation project of all time and, most likely, the greatest ecological catastrophe.
This idea was first proposed by a publicist Yakov Demchenko in 1868 and published in a book titled On Flooding the Aral-Caspian Depression to Improve the Climate of the Neighbouring Countries in 1870. The feedback in the press was caustic, to say the least.
However, in 1948, none other than Vladimir Obruchev, a geologist and a prominent author of one of the first sci-fi books about the Arctic—Sannikov Land—returned with this idea and proposed it to Stalin, to no avail. Some brochures later expanded on this idea and even proposed the creation of an artificial Siberian Sea.
The situation changed quite rapidly. The 'thawing' 1950s were characterised by rapid agricultural development. The growing population required more provision, and agriculture was designated as one of the state’s top priorities. Thus, the idea of developing unused soils emerged quite naturally.
Khrushchev was already dissatisfied with the state of the industry in the south of the country, stating that "in Kazakhstan, a hen gives more income than a horse." According to the initial idea expressed in Khrushchev's 1954 note, 13 million hectares of land were not being utilised and were not producing.
It was not in the Soviet mentality to miss an opportunity, as a Russian proverb suggests, to let something lie without cause.
The results were surprisingly high, despite the fact that the country was not exactly prepared for such an operation: logistics, transportation, and storage were inadequate; instead of appointed specialists, a significant portion of the labour was performed by students. However, in just two years, the project led to a boom in Soviet agriculture, with the initial plan of farmed 13 million hectares exceeded more than twice—to 33 million hectares—with the yield of cereal crops surpassing 135 million tonnes in 1956.
This accounted for 40% of the annual provision of the whole Union.
However, this success did not last long, as the rapid and brutal methods of agriculture on such a large scale led to soil erosion, droughts, and sandstorms, rendering the region less fertile and increasingly difficult to cultivate. Khrushchev later admitted in his memoirs that they had made a mistake, stating that they should have employed more "cultural" (in both senses) and more expensive methods, such as planting combined with tree lines. Nevertheless, this "virgin soil" bread was still considered "the cheapest" in the country.
The increasing tempo of agricultural exploitation led to heightened water consumption during the 1950s and 60s. The long-term impact can be most clearly seen in the example of the changing surface of the Aral Sea, whose inflows, the Amudarya and Syrdarya, were irrationally channelled for irrigation, disrupting normal evaporation levels. That, in turn, led to an ecological tragedy throughout next decades.
In the 1950s, representatives of the Central Asian Republics began to lobby for river reversal projects. As a result, the research stage of the project was officially launched in 1968, but it encountered significant friction at every step. Firstly, every decision required thorough research; secondly, the criticism was immense.
In 1984, it was officially announced by Konstantin Chernenko that the reversal programme begins, but two years later Mikhail Gorbachev cancelled the project. Over 20 years of scrupulous preparation, only parts of the project were realised: the Kulundyn channel and the Irtysh-Karaganda channel.
A lesser-known aspect of the project for the Kama-Pechora channel also featured an innovative digging method involving three nuclear blasts. A project called Taiga was ultimately deemed a failure...
Almost immediately, the idea of river reversal generated numerous adversaries among the Soviet intelligentsia. It was postponed in the 1960s by Alexey Kosygin after geologist Alexander Yanshin presented the potential outcomes of the project. Over the following years, Yanshin united a commission of environmentalists, geologists, mathematicians, and economists who identified errors in the project's calculations.
During the 1980s, the project also faced opposition from prominent figures in the Soviet Union, including actual literary stars, Vasily Belov, Valentin Rasputin, Viktor Astafyev, Yury Bondarev, Leonid Leonov, and perhaps the most famous academician of the Soviet Union—a philologist, Dmitry Likhachev. Following this, architects and historians also joined the backlash, deeming the river reversal idea dangerous for cultural heritage, as more than 490 objects of historic value were at stake.
Among the key reasons against the project was the fact that many settlements would be flooded and numerous ecosystems would be destroyed. There were also significant predicted economic effects in the area of operations:
Most likely, the project itself would not compensate for the damage caused to the economy of the USSR in its most strategic regions. What would this mean for the Arctic?
In a 1986 letter to the newspaper Soviet Russia, signed by the aforementioned writers, the Arctic was referred to as a "cauldron" of global weather. This statement rings truer now than ever. We know for certain that such a radical change in the environment would result in unexpected tragic consequences.
First of all, we can assume that a halt in freshwater influx would drastically alter the chemical composition of water in the Arctic Ocean, increasing its salinity.
Today, the thawing of glaciers actually does the opposite, introducing more freshwater and leading to the acidification of water, which diminishes its carbon-storing capabilities. Modern processes, however, occur at a much slower rate than the one that would abruptly cut a significant portion of the water supply after the project.
Researchers are still second-guessing the effects of acidification on the water, stating that it is not "fully understood" and could harm fisheries. We do not know what would happen if the water in the ocean were, conversely, more saline.
In that sense, the Arctic behaves very unpredictably. Even a seemingly stable situation regarding freshwater influx and 'icefication' may change from year to year, with the reasons remaining unknown due to the multitude of contributing factors.
Secondly, as a result of the project, the thawing permafrost in northern Russia and the ice cover in the Barents and Kara Seas would also change quite rapidly. The estuaries, natural fragile barriers between the freshwater and saltwater of the ocean, would be destroyed.
Thirdly, the traditional way of life of indigenous peoples in the North would be disrupted due to rapid changes in the flora and fauna that would follow the reversal of rivers.
All in all, we can surmise that the Arctic would attract the world's attention much sooner. One need only imagine how current climate change, with record-breaking hot summers, goes mano a mano with a deserted, dry Arctic. This would likely be a world that would have to contend with greenhouse emissions and thawing glaciers a few decades earlier.
While the project is now merely a story seldom politically revisited (though it is), it still has much to teach us today. This narrative exemplifies the importance of civil collaboration and highlights the necessity of sustainable practices in the face of contemporary environmental challenges.
Dmitry Tarasov
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