
Waiting for the sea - edward
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31588720
======
madaxe_again
I visited Aralsk a few years back (it's Aralsk, not Aral - the locals call it
Aralsk, the signs all say Aralsk), and it's a gobsmackingly depressing place.

The main industry there is now "sitting and waiting", and the old waterfront
is a dismal shadow of a bustling fishing port.

One thing that we found interesting was North Korea's involvement - there are
quite a few buildings in Aralsk emblazoned with Kim Il Sung - it turns out
they invested in the cotton boom, and provided "labourers" to the USSR.

Tourism is practically non-existent - the only way to get there is a long,
long drive (or cycle... we bumped into an Aussie cycling from Shanghai to
Dublin (we were en route from London to Bishkek)) through barren desert.

It's hard to see how Aralsk will continue to exist, with or without the return
of the Aral, as the population is overwhelmingly old (although we did see a
rather extravagant Kazakh wedding parade while there), and levels of
corruption in Kazakhstan are pretty astounding, meaning that getting any
concern off the ground is a challenge for your average person, unless they
happen to be the son-in-law of the local police chief.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when the Baikonur lease is up (most
there believe this will happen much sooner than 2050), as it's a major source
of revenue for the region, and provides much of the raison d'etre for the
surrounding towns and cities. Most people we met between Aktobe and Kyzylorda
were either in some way involved in supporting the operations there, or were
subsisting, or providing auxiliary services to people directly involved in
Baikonur.

One final thing that seems to generally be missing from people's understanding
of the Aral sea - it hasn't "dried up", so much as "gone underground" \-
there's still a vast amount of (severely polluted) water there - if you wander
down to the old sea floor, most of it is several-yard-deep mud - very little
of it is dusty and dry.

------
vkb
Anyone interested in a more thorough and context-ladden history of Aralsk,
Uzbekistan, and the transition from the Soviet Union to a sovereign country
should check out Tom Bissell's great, great book, Chasing the Sea [1], about
his time a Peace Corps volunteer there and afterwards. Great writer, really
interesting topic.

[1]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/233072.Chasing_the_Sea](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/233072.Chasing_the_Sea)

------
mrcarrot
I read this on my iPad this morning and, although I like the idea behind the
presentation, I found it really annoying that when I scrolled the line of text
I was reading to the top of the screen, it would often start to fade out while
it faded in the next section further down the screen - it was like reading
with the screen brightness turned right down.

Altough, looking at it again now from desktop Chrome, I can't reproduce this,
even at a small screen size.

------
dennisnedry
It's amazing how quickly the Aral dried up (well 90% of it).

~~~
arethuza
Worth noting that the Mediterranean dried up (or got close to drying up) a few
times in, at least in geological terms, the fairly recent past:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_salinity_crisis)

------
PlzSnow
These "immersive" stories will disappear once the realization that the RIO on
them doesn't work. Who actually sits down and passively consumes media in this
half passive/half active way?

The only companies left using them will be those with no concern about ROI
such as here; the state-funded BBC.

~~~
andyjohnson0
_the state-funded BBC_

The BBC is not funded by the state. It's funded by the people in the UK who
pay for a TV licence, plus some income from selling its products outside the
UK.

Its definition of ROI is different to that of a purely commercial player.

~~~
d_theorist
Of course it is state-funded. The state has made a law that requires anybody
who wants to own a television to pay money to the BBC.

~~~
teh_klev
>Of course it is state-funded.

The BBC is not state funded, state owned and state controlled perhaps - but
that's a whole other discussion. Television owners can elect to pay or not pay
for a TV License which is what funds the BBC, there is a choice. What is state
funded are the 4 million or so licenses which are free to anyone over 75.

> The state has made a law that requires anybody who wants to own a television
> to pay money to the BBC

Not quite correct. You can own a television and decline to pay the TV license
provided you don't watch or record live broadcasts. This means I can watch
stuff on iPlayer on my Roku/PC/Android etc and the BBC can't force me to pay a
license.

I ditched my TV license back in 2006 for political reasons, I've had a couple
of visits from the TV License "enquiry officers" (who are in fact employees of
Capita, a public limited company). You don't have to permit TV License staff
access to your home or provide them with any personal details. In fact you can
permanently deny any TV Licensing representative from setting foot on your
property. This is known as "Withdrawing implied right of access" [1][2].

[1]: [http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-administering-the-
lic...](http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-administering-the-licence-fee-
AB20)

[2]:
[http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Withholding%20implied%20right%20...](http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Withholding%20implied%20right%20of%20access.htm)

