BOAT GRAVEYARDS

It's hard to imagine, strolling along the empty streets of this city swept by desert sand, that it was once a thriving port city. And yet, during the Soviet era, Aralsk was the main transit center for cotton: produced in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, it arrived in Aralsk loaded onto large ships that crossed the Aral Sea, before being transported by train to Russia. The town of Aralsk itself is home to a small ship cemetery, where the port once stood. A few rusting hulks lie beside panels bearing poems dedicated to the Aral Sea. You can also venture out onto the sand in the harbour, to wander among the rusty plates, engine parts, pieces of ship's hulls... As you go further on, many more silhouettes of beached boats loom on the horizon, some of them truly impressive in size. Since the fish have disappeared, the wrecks have been taken over by cows and camels, which gather along the hulls in the hottest hours to take advantage of the shade. As the sea retreated, other wrecks remained isolated in what is now a desert. Some are visible, notably around the village of Zhalanash, but you need a 4x4 to venture there. As for the wrecks themselves, don't expect to find them whole: many have been cut up to recover their metal parts.