Admin

Beginnings 2019, Non-Human

Tanais and Tal

BY Admin

“Tanais and Tal”

This book tells the story of the water being Tanais and her love for Tal, a willow tree that grows on the river bank. One day Tanais wakes up and cannot find her beloved Tal in her usual place. Tanais sets out in search of her: she flows long distances, resisting people who want to divert her to irrigate their rice fields. She encounters friends, meets reed beds and finally meets a little girl. The girl tells her that Tal could not have run away, since trees cannot walk. What happens next to Tanais, overwhelmed by grief?

(In Russian)

Beautifully illustrated by Deniz Nazarova, “Tanais and Tal” was written for the river exhibition by children’s author and social scientist Altyn Kapalova.

A video version of this tale is available in Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Russian (see our YouTube channel)

Beginnings 2019

Confluence, 2019

BY Admin

Deniz Nazarova

Visual diary

“Confluence” is the story of the project inspired by the discoveries made by the scholars of the ‘social life’ of the Naryn-Syr Darya river. In collaboration with artists, they decided to gather in Naryn aiming to share their findings as an exhibition. During these 10 days, we taught each other, expanded the limits of our imagination, discovered Naryn from the ethnographic point of view, and shared a lot of other experience, the most interesting of which appear in this diary.

Human, Naryn

An Imagined Bridge Biography

BY Admin

1840: It is spring. The steeply wooded valleys along the Naryn ring with the sound of axes as men in boots and chapans fell 40 m high Tian Shan firs. They drag them to bank of the river and strip them of their bark. The huge trunks dry as the sun wheels into autumn and winter. When the ice has grown strong on the Naryn, the men return to harness the huge logs up to horses, and drag them 20 km downriver to where the At Bashy valley leads up to the Torugart pass. Here, where the Naryn is at it’s very narrowest, they raise the logs across the escarpment, one by one, creating a new path across the water.

Continue reading →

Kazaly, Non-Human

Tiger and Catfish

BY Admin

The Syr Darya has been an indispensable source of livelihoods for local tribes living along its banks. At the same time, the mighty and unpredictable waters of the river inspired artists, singers, and storytellers. For example, the local songs and legends tell about local people, animals of the Syr Darya, as well as about the river itself.

Tiger and catfish

(a folk tale from the Syr Darya Delta)

Continue reading →

ThreeStories

Alternative

BY Admin

What kind of alternative river life we can imagine

According to the researchers’ analysis, the find dates to 2350 AD. and consists of a dinner plate with the remains of plastic food. The untouched food was left behind suddenly in the home for unknown reasons.

Dinner in Naryn in the Year 2350

We held an online drawing workshop for the children of Shamaldy-Sai. Pupils from local schools could fantasize about the underwater world. They were guided by an artist Cholpon Alamanova and organized by the local administration and school teachers.

How do Children Imagine the Underwater World?

Historically in/ability to swim reflected the existing structures of inequality – women often do not have access to the same resources and skills as men, including the resources and skills linked to the rivers and other bodies of water. At times, this denial of access to the river and inability to swim may cost women lives.

Access Denied

Baiterek is an emblematic building of modern Qazaqstan. By making Baiterek out of reed, we wanted to make a claim that common reed holds a great potential for becoming a building material of the future.

Baiterek, 2019

This gallery shows the role of reed in the everyday life of delta communities and tries to make a claim that common reed holds great potential for becoming a building material of the future.

Reed Economy of the River Delta

ThreeStories

Non-human

BY Admin

Bridges make people independent of the river, they assure a crossing. Bridges are so important that they are often named after the decision-maker or sponsor who initiated their building.

Bridges of Naryn

Fishing in Shamaldy-Sai is more of a hobby than a livelihood. Men fish at the “Nachalka/Nachalo” – the beginning of the canal that comes out of the Naryn and flows through Shamaldy-Sai.

Other Living Beings

Tiger and Catfish

The recordings in this exhibition are part of a project entitled “Aral Sea Stories and the River Naryn”. It concerns the disappearance and partial restoration of the Aral Sea in Central Asia since the 1960s. Because The River Naryn is one of the primary sources of water for the Aral Sea it is also vital to the story.

Aral Sea Stories and the River Naryn

This book tells the story of the water being Tanais and her love for Tal, a willow tree that grows on the river bank. One day Tanais wakes up and cannot find her beloved Tal in her usual place.

Tanais and Tal

Virtual water refers to the amount of water needed to make a product. Its “virtual-ness” is realized when the product is traded outside of the area, effectively exporting the water from the region.

Virtual Water

ThreeStories

Human

BY Admin

Human experiences with the Naryn and Syr Darya

I have a shape now, a span across the water. I settle into my new bed, my logs adjust to their rope moorings, and start to bleach in the sun. The river below me shifts as the ice starts to crack in spring. As summer comes, swallows nest under my arms and the Naryn cools my belly.

An Imagined Bridge Biography

It is not only all over Central Asia that one can hear people exclaiming ‘Water is the Source of Life’. Along the Naryn river in Kyrgyzstan, one can often see such slogans decorating the protective walls around drinking-water infrastructure or irrigation – as here.

Naryn is water-rich, Naryn is water-poor?

“In the flow” is a cyclic structure, illustrating the various flows circulating between Shamaldy-Sai and Moscow. These two distant places were once linked by ambitious projects of modernization.

In the flow, 2019

Mirabs

Gendered norms of modesty and chastity for women define the water’s edge as the space where the rules of sexuality and gender are at risk and therefore need to be more strictly enforced.

River and Sociality

This historic footage produced by the Soviet Qazaqstan TV journal shows how Qazaly dam had been built and entered service. This dam is located in the Basqara village of the Qazaly district (Qyzylorda province of Qazaqstan). Qazaly dam entered service in 1970.

Construction of the Kazaly Hydroelectric Complex

Photography by Toma Peiu, Luiza Pârvu

River Flows is a photographic series capturing everyday landscapes from the Aral Sea basin.

Message in a Bottle

Jeanne Féaux de la Croix, Deniz Nazarova, Cholpon Zhumanalieva, Aidar Zhumabaev

Archival and Contemporary Photographs

A bridge is a piece of magic. They make things possible that were not possible before. Thinking a bridge assumes that there is something you want to step over, across, not have contact with.

The Untold Life of Bridges

Sites

Kazaly

BY Admin

Kazaly district of Kyzylorda region is located in the lower stream of Syrdarya River. Kazaly district is home to about 80 thousand people. The majority of the population lives in Aiteke Bi, a small town established around the railroad station. The railroad plays a major role in the local economy. The main livelihood of the rural population is rice cultivation, livestock breeding, fishing, reed harvesting, and melon gardens.

Continue reading →

Sites

Khujand

BY Admin

Khujand is the city in the north of Tajikistan and the administrative center of the Sughd region. It is the second largest city in Tajikistan in terms of population after its capital city – Dushanbe. According to the census data, as of the 1st of January 2019 181, 600 people resided in Khujand city. Khujand is one of the most ancient cities in Central Asia. Just like many other ancient cities it was founded by the river – the great river of Syrdarya.

Continue reading →

Sites

Ferghana

BY Admin

MIRABS

Traditional water managers in Central Asia used to be called “Mirabs.” The profession of “mirab” has disappeared in its traditional understanding from the Central Asian region. The closest parallel today are municipal workers who perform the duties of “mirabs” these days. Traditionally, “mirabs” controlled the flow of water through irrigation canals and ditches, making sure that crops and green areas/pasture were watered on time. Canals running through the village also cooled down the area during hot summers. Mirabs also monitored the timely cleaning of the irrigation canals and sustainable use of water. Skills for this vocation and position were passed down through generations in some families…

The video consists of archival footage of real-life mirabs and interviews with contemporary irrigation specialists

Over the course of a thousand years, the population living along the Syr Darya River has accumulated a rich body of ecological knowledge. This includes traditional knowledge of water, related to local livelihoods dependent on irrigated agriculture. However, the riparian ecosystems have been degrading over the last hundred years.

Continue reading →