Join the Central Asia Program at George Washington University's Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies for an event on water in Central Asia and its usage by the tsarist and Soviet regimes.

Pipe Dreams explores the ways in which both the tsarist and Soviet regimes used fantasies of bringing the deserts to life as a means of claiming legitimacy in Central Asia, a process that ultimately led to the drying up of Central Asia’s Aral Sea. Maya Peterson argues that the disappearance of the Aral Sea, considered one of the worst environmental catastrophes of the late twentieth century, is deeply rooted in the dreams of the irrigation age of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time when not only Russians and Bolsheviks, but engineers, scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs around the world united in the belief that universal scientific knowledge, together with modern technologies, could be used to transform large areas of the planet from "wasteland" into productive land. The implications of this broader understanding of the Aral Sea disaster – the transnational aspects of which have often been overlooked in narratives focused on the hubris and folly of communist gigantomania and Soviet disregard for the environment – serve as a reminder that wise water management remains one of our greatest challenges today.

RSVP is requested; information can be found at this link.

Speakers:

Maya Peterson, associate professor of history, University of California, Santa Cruz

Artemy Kalinovsky (discussant), professor of Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet studies, Temple University

Marlene Lareulle (moderator), director, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies; director, Central Asia Program; co-director, PONARS-Eurasia; research professor of international affairs, George Washington University