Kazakhstan: Aralsk
The town of Aral or Aralsk is in a very remote area of Kazakhstan – over 1,000 km from the capital Nur Sultan and 1,400 km from Almaty. It used to be fishing port and a harbor on the shore of the Aral Sea before one of the largest man-made ecological disasters shrank the sea. A railroad was built here in 1899 and Aralsk rapidly grew into a major fish supplier for near and far. In 1905, a major fishing company came here full force and shipbuilding and commercial fishing launched full force. When the Aral Sea retreated as a result of brutal irrigation projects to produce cotton in this desert, the city rapidly fell into decline. To make things worse, several incidents of spillage of biological and chemical weapons happened here in the 1970s, including the weaponized smallpox infection. The slowly decaying town is has few Soviet-era attractions like the old railroad, a bunch of monuments, and dusty desert streets.
