Precious Water

Clean drinking water is a basic life necessity. Yet a shortage of this vital resource threatens to become the main ecological problem of our time, in urgency and significance even surpassing the uncontrolled decimation of forests and the melting of polar ice caps and glaciers.

Russia is far from immune to the most difficult water issues before us: desertification, pollution, shortages of clean drinking water, and the extinction of aquatic species. While the whole country has serious problems to grapple with, it is safe to say that nowhere in Russia has the problem reached such critical proportions as in the South.

The Kalmyk Desert

When you drive through the Kalmyk steppe, you barely notice how fast you are going. Only rarely can you make out a lonely tree in the distance, latch your eyes onto it, and not let go until it recedes from view. Pale yellow, sun-scorched earth stretches to the horizon in every direction.

Some bodies of water that are indicated on maps are now, in reality, only lush blotches of greenery: desert oases consisting of nothing more than reeds in a ravine.

In Kalmykia, drought has long since been a common occurrence. Practically no rain falls from March to September. The locals take this in stride – they are used to being self-sufficient, even if it means bending the rules from time to time.

Alexander Basanov is an inspector affiliated with the Ministry of Natural Resources, meaning he monitors the republic’s land and water resources and enforces the laws governing their use.

“In order to drill an artesian well one has to purchase a mineral license,” Basanov explains, “but many people dodge this requirement to avoid the paperwork.”

It is his job to search out illegally drilled wells and issue fines. People are allowed to drill a well down to 20 meters on their own land without permission, but the ground water here is extremely polluted, so it is only used for industrial purposes.

“Some particularly enterprising landowners,” Basanov continues, “put a lock on their wells and sell water to their neighbors.”

It is difficult to get your bearings in the steppe: there are no maps, nor is the internet accessible. A multitude of roads lead to our destination, their beaten tracks writhing about like snakes etched on the face of the steppe. We count the yellow kilometer markers that follow the Caspian oil pipeline, and turn after the fifth one, a cloud of dust twisting in our wake.

The air here is so dry it seems like you are breathing sand. Here and there tiny tornadoes appear, whizzing and whirling off into the distance. Wind erosion accelerates the degradation of the soil in an arid and semi-arid climate – wherever the average annual precipitation is just 210-420 mm (8-15 inches) per year.

This Black Lands zone (which does not freeze in winter) was once an exceptional pastureland for raising livestock. But in just the past 70 years, 600,000 hectares (2,300 square miles) of Kalmykia has been turned into a lifeless desert. In 1993 the UN declared the region an ecological catastrophe: Kalmykia had created Europe’s first anthropogenic desert.

Today, the only reminders of former economic glory are a grandiose monument sparkling under the blazing sun to Soviet merinos (a breed created in 1938 by crossing local, coarse-wooled sheep with their fine-wooled relatives), and the occasional flock of merino sheep lazily crossing the road.

In the 1960s, in accordance with the ambitious Soviet agricultural plan, about a million sheep were imported to Kalmykia. Selected for their long, thick wool, Merino sheep seemed a wise investment. Yet their sharp hooves, evolved to help them thrive on mountain slopes, delivered a cruel blow to the region’s delicate, dry earth. In the span of just 20 years the sheep population here rose to some five million heads. This was far beyond the land’s carrying capacity. In fact, the sheep’s impact on the delicate pastureland exceeded its regenerative capacity by a factor of three.

The pastureland’s inability to support its fauna was compensated for by cultivating crops, including in regions that were not suitable for ploughing. This led to erosion and the creation of wide expanses of sand. Then, due to improper irrigation and the absence of drainage, huge stretches of salinated land began to appear – solonchaki.

By the end of the 1980s, all these factors combined to produce an almost complete desertification of what had once been the Black Lands zone and a massive decline in herds. The collapse of the Soviet Union was the final blow to the region’s economy: the kolkhozes went into decline and the number of sheep fell to pre-Soviet levels.

There are just under 100 head of sheep at Safar’s farm.

“This year, due to the drought, there is practically no feed; nothing but wormwood and saltwort [a plant of the goosefoot family that typically grows in salt marshes, it is rich in alkali and its ashes were formerly used in soap-making] remain,” says Safar, leaning on his shepherd’s crook. “People can plant as much jungle and winter sage as they like, in hope of holding back the spreading sand, but the desert will still take what it wants. Seedlings are expensive, and how many would you have to plant? You couldn’t plant that many…”

In 2012, the appointed head of Kalmykia, Alexei Orlov, put forward a plan to reverse desertification by constructing a large reservoir in Gashun Salah, located close to the eastern slope of the Yergeni Hills, 14 kilometers from the capital of Elista, with water pipelines extending to major population centers. The reservoir was to be built in just six years, solving the republic’s water problem by 2018. But construction faltered and finances went astray. At present, only the most optimistic predictions have the reservoir opening in 2020. And it is not clear if its water will be suitable for human consumption.

On top of that, in a political move many interpret as an effort to boost flagging support for the ruling United Russia party in advance of this fall’s elections, President Vladimir Putin sacked Orlov in March 2019, replacing him with Batu Khasikov – a professional kickboxer who has won several world titles.

Feeling as rushed and anxious as if we’re part of a race, we head to the village of Artezian, in the Chyornozemelsky District. We do not want to stop or slow down, for fear that we might get hopelessly stuck for a day on some sand dune. Not being locals, we are totally incapable of finding our way in the steppe. Which means we have to get out of the car frequently and ask for directions, or try to decipher barely perceptible landmarks.

Finally, in the distance we spot the outlines of some houses that turn out to be Artezian, a town that owes its existence to the railroad (Kizlyar-Trusovo) that was built here in the 1940s, and to the drilling of an artesian well.

Mohammed (he asked that his last name not be used) is the reservoir manager, overseeing the water supply. He is the person in the village in charge of deciding when water is disbursed and keeping the level and pressure in the reservoir at optimal levels.

“Drinking water arrives by rail, in cisterns, for those who sign up for it,” Mohammed explains. “When we have enough people signed up to fill an order for a cistern, the train comes.”

The residents of Artezian are lucky – most villages and hamlets do not have a railway station.

In the scorching heat of July when, according to locals, the temperature can reach 40º C or even 50º C (104-120º F), all waking thoughts and every activity are inextricably linked to water: preparing food, washing clothes, watering the animals or the garden. Every cubic meter counts.

Svetlana has lived for most of her life in the village of Ketchenery.

“There is a well in every yard here,” she says. “Some have good water, for others it is salty – it’s a matter of luck. Sometimes you brew Kalmyk tea, and just as you add milk, it curdles. The people and cattle have all gotten used to it. When things get really bad, you hire a water truck. A 3-4 cubic meter canister can last a family a week.”

The fact that the water in Elista, capital of Kalmykia, is brimming with hydrogen sulfide is immediately apparent when you turn on the tap. No mint toothpaste or scented soap can overpower the pungent odor of rotten eggs. After the water runs a bit, it gets somewhat better. Or perhaps your nose just gets used to it. Elista residents won’t even drink their tap water boiled, preferring to buy bottled water in stores or haul five-liter canisters to a filling station. Yet there are folk medicine adherents who drink sulfur-rich water to treat their kidneys.

When asked in a March 2019 WWF survey to rate their region’s environmental situation, respondents in the republic of Kalmykia placed their region dead last, with low marks for both water quality and plastic waste.

At the Troitsky water pipeline, on the outskirts of Elista, there is a line of Kamaz water trucks from early morning to late at night. Some are filling orders for water, others arrive to pick up smaller cisterns for their gardens. The station filters the water so that it is potable.

“You can get five liters here for seven rubles, although some people get their canister filled ‘out of friendship,’” says the driver of a water truck. “Those same five liters will cost you 70 rubles in a store. That’s the way it is – you save at the well, you pay at the store.”

More than half the republic lives in and around Elista. Most villages arose in proximity to wells or bodies of water that are vitally important for the economy, which is almost entirely agricultural. The absence of water means that people have to leave the steppe and move, bringing unemployment in the Elista region to critical levels. After the collapse of the USSR, the population of Kalmykia fell by 15 percent. This hemorrhaging of population gives new context to the word “kalmyk,” which is derived from the Turkish adjective kalmak – “those who stayed.”

In 2018, the journal Nature published the results of a NASA study that examined 14 years of satellite data to map the state of fresh water on the planet – where it is changing and why. The study concluded that Earth’s wet regions are getting wetter and its dry areas are getting drier, due to a variety of factors, including human water management, climate change, and natural cycles. It found that there are 19 crisis spots in the world where there is a real threat of fresh water shortages in the near future. They included India, the Middle East, China, California, and Australia.

“Fresh water is rapidly disappearing in many agricultural regions of the world,” according to Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at NASA. “Human beings are causing irreversible changes in the global hydrological cycle.”

The Volga basin, Caspian Sea, and their adjacent regions were also designated as under threat. Due to long periods of drought and excessive irrigation, southern Russia is losing about 18 gigatons of water each year; the Caspian is losing about 24 gigatons per year.

Meanwhile, in May, the Russian government revealed it is reexamining the idea of creating a Caspian-Azov canal for economic and security reasons. Such a project has been on and off planners’ books since the early 1930s, but now interest from regional actors and, notably, China, may have it back in the planning stages. The 700-km canal (1,000 km shorter than the current path through the Volga-Don Canal) would pass through Kalmykia and Dagestan and have a significant impact. As Paul Goble wrote in Modern Tokyo Times, “It would be 6.5 meters deep, have few locks, and would be capable of carrying more than 75 million tons of cargo annually. Such a project… if completed, would transform the geo-economics and hence geopolitics of the region.” Analysts in Russia and Kalmykia are against the plan, saying it would cause further environmental devastation, requiring even more water to be diverted to other purposes.

Astrakhan

There are three of us in the little motor boat, heading out of the Astrakhan Preserve and into the sea. We pass huge reeds that tell the history of the Volga delta in the same way that a tree’s rings tell its story. Since the start of the twentieth century, the area covered by these reeds has expanded from just over three square kilometers to well over 27. Beneath us we can see young lotus plants that have yet to reach the surface, and a dead carp, its belly glinting in the sun.

At the end of June, the water is now rarely more than a meter deep at low tide here, drying out the silt at the water’s edge and making it difficult for fish to spawn. Our guide, Pyotr Pavlovich, is an excellent ornithologist, telling us about every passing bird, pointing out to our inexperienced eyes local animals hidden from view.

“All of the members of the food chain are vital to one another,” Pyotr says. “If you remove one or the other from the chain, that forces some other member to migrate away.”

The local preserve is doing all it can to keep the fragile ecosystem in balance, but external factors are having an impact. The northern Caspian Sea is at its shallowest where it adjoins Astrakhan Oblast. In many places, it is less than five meters deep, and over the past 20 years it has been falling nearly seven centimeters per year. At that rate, within 75 years, the northern portions of the Caspian could share the fate of Russia’s Aral Sea. Once the world’s fourth largest lake, the Aral dried up in 2014 after decades of catastrophically short-sighted water management policies.

The Caspian, meanwhile, supports a multitude of animals, some of which have existed here since the Mesozoic Era (from 250 million to 65 million years ago), when the Caspian was part of the Tethys Ocean. Today, many fish species are in varying degrees of danger.

“The condition of the Caspian is directly tied to the Volga’s water level,” says Biologist Natalya Sudakova, a professor at Astrakhan State University. “And that level is regulated by dams and the hydroelectric stations that use the water to turn their turbines. As a result, the water’s natural routine is disturbed. If the water level is low, then the water will get too warm, the river bottom will silt up, and the water will begin to bloom, which makes it harder for fish to spawn, and will worsen the survival rate of the fish fry.”

The exotic beauty of the lotus blooms on the Volga attracts tourists from all over the world. Yet what is beautiful for humans can be devastating for other species. To the many fish beneath the waters, these expanding blooms can be life threatening.

The northern waters of the Caspian are also the breeding grounds for the world’s largest sturgeon population. Astrakhan has long been the world’s beluga caviar capital, which can cost up to two thousand dollars per kilogram. Yet the sturgeon population has declined by 90 percent since 1970 and is critically endangered. Its harvest is strictly controlled by authorities. But of course this does not stop profit-seeking poachers.

Less well known is the sad fate of the Caspian seals. A century ago, over a million seals inhabited the shorelines and islands of Baku Bay in the Caspian. But decades of development and pollution has led to massive die-offs and no consequent action. Today, just 100,000 seals are thought to remain.

Meanwhile, the Caspian boasts vast energy reserves – 50 billion barrels of oil and 300,000 billion cubic meters of natural gas, by one estimate, giving the region great geopolitical and economic significance. Yet pollution from extraction processes, combined with declining water levels, could spell environmental disaster. The UN Environment Programme warned that the Caspian “suffers from an enormous burden of pollution from oil extraction and refining, offshore oil fields, radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants and huge volumes of untreated sewage and industrial waste introduced mainly by the Volga River.”

Volgograd

On a sultry, windless day, everyone walks around surrounded by a tickling halo of relentless midges. If you hesitate for a moment or stop walking, they are in your eyes, ears and mouth.

You really have to love Mother Volga to endure Volgograd in June.

In desperation, I immerse myself completely in the yellow-green river waters. Apparently, no one in their right mind voluntarily swims in the Volga directly in front of the Volga Hydroelectric Station – the largest hydropower plant in Europe. Yet, despite warning signs and admonitions from environmentalists, whole families spend their holidays and weekends on the river here.

According to the station’s press bureau, fishing is categorically forbidden in the reservoir within half a kilometer of the dam. But many fishermen ignore this prohibition. Such was the case with one fisherman we met who asked to remain anonymous. “Everyone looks out for themselves,” he says. “There’s huge demand for electricity in winter, and they let water out of the dam without waiting for spring. But in the spring the fish fry need water, and there’s nothing left to release. But someone had a nice hot winter.”

The 725-meter-long hydroelectric station spans the width of the Volga, assuring stable, high water pressure to generate electricity. The system also acts as a buffer reservoir to support an optimal water level and temperature in the river during periods of drought. Yet it was the construction of this dam – completed in 1961 – that set in motion the environmental changes most responsible for the precipitous decline in sturgeon.

And it is the Volga’s position at the heart of Russia (its watershed covers 8 percent of the country) that has placed the river as a whole at risk. Some 45 percent of the country’s industrial might and 50 percent of its agricultural production is in the Volga basin. Fully 65 of the country’s 100 most polluted cities are in the basin.

As if that were not enough, according to experts, no fewer than 3,000 sunken and abandoned oil, passenger, and cargo ships – their tanks often full of fuel and oil – lie on the Volga river bottom. The Volga-Don Canal and the Volga-Baltic Waterway are the only outlets that the land-locked Caspian and the Volga have to the world’s oceans that allow the region to trade with the outside world. As a result, fully two-thirds of all of Russia’s river traffic takes place along the Volga. Oil, coal, metals, wood, grain, and all sorts of other goods are transported along the river on large ships, which of course increases pollution in the waterway.

A few years ago, Russia’s Institute of Ecology for the Volga River Basin released a lengthy study that found that more than 50 percent of fish in the Volga had some form of mutation due to the high levels of pollution.

In some areas of the Volga, mutation was found in 90 percent of fish caught, although many of these were subtle variations too minor to be observed without expert autopsy. Most of the fish with serious mutations suffered shortened lifespans with limited ability to reproduce, negatively affecting the population in the river system.

Over the coming decades, the Russian government has pledged to devote particular attention to the Volga’s ecological conditions, especially to the segment of the river that stretches between Volgograd and Astrakhan. Under its “Project Ecology,” the government has pledged to reduce the volume of sewage dumped in the river by two-thirds, and to retrieve some 95 sunken vessels from the river bottom.

Saratov

The start of the Marx-Engels irrigation canal in Saratov Oblast is elevated, so all that is visible from the road is a noisy group of boys in swimming trunks, laughing as they perform flips near the intake pipe. Every year someone is sucked into the pipe, but every year a fresh echelon of fearless divers shows up.

Water from the canal pours into a system of pipes that distributes it to fields of beans, chickpeas, and other crops.

Saratov Oblast’s irrigable land totals 257,300 hectares, but just 160,000 hectares are actually irrigated. According to data from the Department for Land Reclamation and Agricultural Water Supply, some 315 million cubic meters of water are used for irrigation annually, and another 80 million is sent to Kazakhstan.

Hydrotechnologist Andrei (who also asked that his last name not be used) is responsible for irrigating the fields in Engels.

“In a single cycle, the irrigator travels from one side of the field to the other,” he says. “The design is very fragile and awkward, so you have to watch it closely, so that it does not get stuck or bent. Otherwise, irrigation will come to a stop.”

Excessive irrigation of land that does not have proper drainage causes the water table to rise, and salts come to the surface through capillary action. This leads to secondary salination – the accumulation in the topsoil of easily soluble salts, such as sodas, chlorides, and sulfates, which remain on the surface after evaporation.

Crop yields can be dramatically affected even by slight salination – a problem shared in many arid regions throughout the world. According to Valery Lotosh, professor of environmental economics at Ural State Economic University, almost the entire irrigated territory of the Lower Volga is under threat of secondary salinization.

By any measure, life is out of balance in Russia’s southern Volga basin – the country’s heartland, breadbasket, and industrial powerhouse. And it is not an overstatement to say that how Russia addresses its water issues in the south – cleaning up the Volga, dealing with industrial pollution, agricultural mismanagement, declining supplies of safe drinking water, and the imminent extinction of critical species – will shape the country’s future development. Yet policymakers need just one simple Russian proverb to chart their path: “Water is dearer than gold.” (Вода дороже золота.)