Uzboj (river)

Map of Central Asia from 1903, marked by the course of the already existing river Uzboj

There is no river present in Central Asia, flowing through today's Turkmenistan from Lake Sarykamysh to the Caspian Sea.

Presumptions about the existence of European science began to fall at the end of the 19th century, when the region of Central Asia was discovered by Russians and merchants after the penetration of the region by Russian scholars and merchants. Initially it was assumed that Uzboj was the Caspian Sea, and then that it was the ancient course of Amu-Darion as a whole. Contemporary research has ruled out both of these possibilities - in historical times, the Caspian Sea did not reach so far east, and the Uzbek Riverbed was too narrow to accommodate the entire Amu-dari waters. Uzbekistan was also linked to another possible historical course of Amu darya - the southern edge of the Turin Plain when its tributaries were Tenden and Murgab.

According to the prevailing hypothesis, until the sixteenth century, Amu-daria did not feed directly to the Aral Sea, but south of its present shore was divided into several arms. One of them, called Daria-suck, probably the most abundant in the water, echoed to the west and fed the freshwater lake Sarykamyskie. Uzboj flowed from this lake and the valley of Uzboj flowed southwest into the Caspian Sea. Early Middle Ages, Persian and European itineraries and chronicles describe the waterway from Mazandaran to Chorez and mention an artificial dam on Amu Dari near Urgench, which was demolished by Mongol troops in 1221. Historical sources confirm the existence in the Middle Ages of human settlements. The foot of the Balchik mountains, using an irrigation system whose axis was Uzboj.

In the 16th century, Uzbekistan dried up after the change of Amu Darya into today - an itinerarium of 1558 indicates that already the waters of Uzbekistan did not reach the Caspian Sea. Probably along with the drying of the Uzboju there was a gradual conversion of Lake Sarykamyskie into salt marsh and to a sudden transgression of Lake Arals. The study of the river and lake sediments around Lake Aral and in the adjacent desert areas of Kara-kum indicate that this change was sudden. Its reasons are unknown - it is possible that it was the result of human activities.

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