Classical route from Ashgabad to Kunya-Urgench.

«Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves»

Jean-Jacques Roussea.

Tourism in Turkmenistan.

Karakum Canal – The Karakum Canal in Turkmenistan is one of the largest irrigation and water supply canals in the world. The canal opened up new tracts of land to agriculture, especially to cotton monoculture heavily promoted by the Soviet Union.
The canal is also a factor leading to the Aral Sea environmental disaster. The current Karakum Canal was not the first major attempt to bring the Amu-Darya water to the Karakums, in the early 1950s, construction began on the Main Turkmen Canal, which would start at a much more northerly location, and run southwest toward Krasnovodsk.
The canal would have used around 25 percent of the Amu-Daryas water, the works were abandoned after the death of Joseph Stalin, the current Karakum Canal route being chosen instead. Reservoirs such as Hanhowuz Reservoir were created to regulate it

Authority:
S. L. Mirkin.

Literature:
Mirkin S. L., Water managements in the USSR and a way of their development, M., 1960; Greenberg L. M., Karakum Canal, Ash., 1963; Amanov H., Batyrov A., the Karakum Canal - a celebration of the Lenin ideas of irrigation, "Hydraulic engineering and melioration", 1969, No. 6.