- Where
- Karakalpakstan, north-west Uzbekistan
old south shore of the Aral Sea - Coordinates
- 43.768° N
59.021° E - The sea
- About 150 km away
(Wikipedia; the shore moves) - Aral Sea since 1960
- 88% of its area, 92% of its volume lost
(Philip Micklin, via NASA) - From Nukus
- About 200 km
(Uzbekistan’s tourism board) - Population
- 18,196 (2012)
(Wikipedia) - Advisory
- Uzbekistan Level 1
The ground ran pale and flat in every direction, a camel was nibbling a bush, and there was sand on the wind. Below a monument on a low bluff, fishing boats sat upright on the desert, rusted to a deep fox-red, their bows still pointed out to sea. Shells crunched underfoot. I sat in the shade of a hull and tried hard to picture the water. It would not come.
The short answer
Moynaq (Muynak; Uzbek Moʻynoq) is a town in the Republic of Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic in north-west Uzbekistan, and the seat of a district of the same name. Uzbekistan’s national tourism board describes it as once a rich port on an island in the delta of the Amu Darya, “the main sea gate of Uzbekistan”, where ships came in with fuel, fish and food and left with bales of cotton. The Aral Sea it served began shrinking in the 1960s. Wikipedia now puts the town about 150 km from the water, in the Aralkum, the desert that has formed on the dried seabed; the figure moves as the shoreline does. The hulls of the town’s former fishing fleet lie rusting on the sand below a memorial on the old shore, and a small museum keeps paintings and photographs of the harbour when it was full.
Why it's worth knowing
Moynaq is the place where the loss of the Aral Sea can be seen at the scale of one town. NASA’s Earth Observatory explains the cause: in the 1960s the Soviet Union diverted the region’s two great rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, to turn the desert plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan into farms for cotton and other crops. The sea, which had no outlet and depended on those rivers, began to shrink. Philip Micklin, a Western Michigan University geographer whose figures NASA quotes, reckons that since 1960 it has lost 88 per cent of its surface area and 92 per cent of its volume. In August 2014 NASA’s satellite images showed the eastern basin of the southern sea completely dry, which Micklin called the first time in modern times and likely the first in 600 years.
The town’s fishing and canning industries went with the water. Wikipedia describes dust storms raised by strong winds from the dried, chemically polluted seabed, and the chronic and acute illnesses among the people who live with them, and a climate no longer moderated by the sea: hotter summers and colder winters. In April 2010 the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, visited Moynaq and called the shrinking of the sea “clearly one of the worst environmental disasters of the world”. Standing on the old shore, UN News reported, he could see only “a cemetery of ships marooned in the sand”.
The town did not leave with the sea. Wikipedia gives its population as 13,000 in 1991 and 18,196 in 2012, most of them Karakalpaks, with Uzbeks, Kazakhs and smaller communities beside them. Its museum shows the town in its prosperous years, when it also had fur farming and made mats from the rushes of the shore.
The field notes
The boats on the sand
The ship graveyard lies at the north end of town, around the Aral Sea Memorial on a bluff above the former shoreline, by Wikipedia’s account. Uzbekistan’s tourism board calls it the town’s defining sight: fishing vessels left where the sea left them, turning slowly to rust. Wikipedia observes that the graveyard is also a reminder of the sea’s economic cost, which discussion of the environmental disaster tends to overlook.
A festival on the seabed
Since 2018 Moynaq has held Stihia, which Wikipedia describes as the largest electronic music festival in Central Asia; Vice called it “a techno rave in an abandoned ship graveyard”. Wikipedia records about 10,000 people at the 2019 edition, a programme of talks on art, science and technology alongside the music, a stated mission of raising awareness of the Aral Sea, and a closing ceremony at which a ten-metre installation of the letters S-E-A is burned.
What the north kept
Not all of the Aral is gone. In 2005 Kazakhstan completed the Kokaral dam to hold water in the North Aral Sea, and by 2008, Wikipedia records, its level had risen 12 metres above that of 2003, with salinity falling and enough fish returning for some fishing to be viable again. That recovery is in Kazakhstan, far to the north-east of Moynaq. Nearer the town, Wikipedia notes, the brackish pools of the old delta lie on a bird migration route; the Sudochye wetland is an Important Bird Area, and saiga antelope still range the surrounding desert.
Rusting hulls standing apart on the dry ground at Moynaq, seen from above, October 2023.
Photograph: MarjonaKhidirova · CC BY-SA 4.0
Five rusting fishing boats on sand and scrub that was once the floor of the Aral Sea.
Photograph: Arian Zwegers · Moynaq, Aral Sea (6226842732) · CC BY 2.0
The bare ribs of a hull whose plating has rusted away.
Photograph: Ташова Ширин (Tashova Shirin) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
A main street in Moynaq. The town lost its harbour, not its people.
Photograph: Adam Harangozó · CC BY-SA 4.0
A hull of the old fleet broadside among saxaul bushes, August 2018.
Photograph: Adam Harangozó · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Climb up to the monument first and look out over the old seabed, so you know the size of what is missing.
- Walk among the boats slowly, and stay off the decks.
- Eat in the town and spend your money in its shops. The boats are not the only ones who stayed.
- Find the little museum and the paintings of the harbour when it was full, and stand in front of them for as long as you stood by the boats.
- Write the sea at the top of the list. It is the first item I have ever added that I cannot go and do myself.
A fishing boat on the sand. One of the hulls of the town’s old fleet, sitting on its keel on what used to be the floor of the Aral Sea, below the memorial on the former shore. Its paint has gone and its steel has rusted to a deep red-brown, and the wind piles sand against one side and scours the other. It worked out of this harbour, and it is still in the harbour; the sea is out of sight in every direction.
Tally, in the marginFrom the bluff it looked braced against the wind, the way a boat leans into weather. Close to, it was sitting perfectly level on its keel, and all of the leaning was the sand's.
Getting there
How to get there. The gateway is Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, which has an airport with flights from Tashkent. Uzbekistan’s tourism board gives Moynaq as about 200 km from Nukus by road. Wikipedia describes public transport as infrequent shared minibuses and private taxis, so most of the journey is easiest with a hired car and driver or a tour from Nukus; the tourism board lists yurt camps near Moynaq and trips on across the old seabed towards the present shore.
When to go. Spring and autumn. Summers here are hotter and winters colder than when the sea was close, by Wikipedia’s account, and the wind raises dust off the seabed.
What to arrange ahead. Transport from Nukus, and a bed in Moynaq or a yurt camp if you plan to go on towards the water. Leave a day in Nukus for its museums.
Safety and health. The State Department has Uzbekistan at Level 1, exercise normal precautions, describing it as generally a safe destination, with no area-specific warnings. The dust blown off the dried seabed carries salt and agricultural chemicals; cover your mouth and nose on windy days.
Mark this place
Common questions
Why is Moynaq so far from the sea?
Moynaq was a fishing port on the southern shore of the Aral Sea. From the 1960s the Soviet Union diverted the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which fed the sea, to irrigate cotton and other crops, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory, and the sea shrank away from the town. Wikipedia now puts the water about 150 km from Moynaq.
How much of the Aral Sea has disappeared?
Since 1960 the Aral Sea has lost 88 per cent of its surface area and 92 per cent of its water volume, according to the Western Michigan University geographer Philip Micklin, quoted by NASA’s Earth Observatory. In August 2014 NASA images showed the eastern basin of the southern sea completely dry for the first time in modern times.
What is the ship graveyard at Moynaq?
The ship graveyard at Moynaq, in Uzbekistan’s Karakalpakstan, is a group of rusting fishing boats from the town’s former fleet, lying on the dried seabed below the Aral Sea Memorial on the old shore. In April 2010 the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon described the view there as a cemetery of ships marooned in the sand.
Do people still live in Moynaq?
Yes. Wikipedia gives Moynaq’s population as 13,000 in 1991 and 18,196 in 2012, most of them Karakalpaks. The town lost its fishing and canning industries with the sea, and Wikipedia records chronic illness linked to dust storms from the dried seabed.
What is the Stihia festival?
Stihia is an electronic music, art and science festival held at the ship graveyard in Moynaq, Uzbekistan, since 2018. Wikipedia describes it as the largest electronic music festival in Central Asia, records about 10,000 attendees in 2019, and says it closes by burning a ten-metre installation of the letters S-E-A.
How do you get to Moynaq?
Moynaq is reached from Nukus, the capital of Uzbekistan’s Karakalpakstan, which has an airport with flights from Tashkent. Uzbekistan’s tourism board gives the road distance as about 200 km. Shared minibuses run but are infrequent, by Wikipedia’s account; a hired car or a tour is simpler.
Is the Aral Sea recovering?
Only in part. Kazakhstan’s Kokaral dam, completed in 2005, raised the North Aral Sea by 12 metres by 2008, according to Wikipedia, and fish returned in numbers enough for some fishing. The southern sea, the one that once reached Moynaq in Uzbekistan, has not recovered.
Is Moynaq safe to visit?
The U.S. State Department has Uzbekistan at Level 1, exercise normal precautions, its lowest level, with no area-specific warnings (advisory dated 22 January 2026). In Moynaq the main health concern is wind-blown dust from the dried Aral seabed, which carries salt and agricultural chemicals.