📅 21st August 2025 📍Aral

Across the Steppe: From Sunflowers to the Shores of a Vanished Sea

The detour stretched wide across one of the largest countries on Earth—but to me, the road was familiar, almost like an old companion. I knew the bends and the long straight lines that sometimes disappeared into the horizon. Along the way, the Aral Sea and Baikonur stood out as milestones, each carrying its own strange gravity—one a symbol of human ambition reaching the skies, the other a reminder of how landscapes themselves can vanish.

What struck me most, however, were not the landmarks but the life pulsing along the highway. Tajik cars roared past, stacked with impossible towers of luggage strapped to their roofs—chairs, crates, blankets, sometimes nearly toppling, yet somehow holding firm. They looked like moving sculptures of resilience and necessity, swaying slightly with each gust of wind.

Then the fields opened up—endless seas of sunflowers, their blazing heads all turned as if worshipping the same invisible sun god. Dotted between them, honey trucks parked by the roadside. From their makeshift stalls, men sold honey not in delicate jars but in five‑liter plastic canisters, golden liquid sloshing heavily as it was handed over. It was raw and unadorned, but somehow more beautiful than any boutique store back home.

By evening, we reached the Aral Sea—or rather, what remained of it. Once a mighty inland ocean, it has shrunk into a haunting memory. We drove across the former lakebed, the cracked earth crunching beneath our wheels. Only a shallow pool of brackish water shimmered in the distance, like a faint shadow of its past. Standing there, I felt both awe and sorrow: a reminder of how fragile entire worlds can be.

Next stop: Tashkent!