There were always going to be two countries on the Oxus Expedition route which would be logistically and bureaucratically challenging: Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Unlike its southern neighbour, the latter keeps a low profile on the international stage and seeks little engagement with the outside world. Accurate information about Turkmenistan and how to travel there is hard to come by, and requirements change with little notice.
When I entered Turkmenistan in September 2024, the country had not long since re-opened after its COVID-19 lockdown and still required international arrivals to take a PCR test. Foreigners are not allowed to travel unaccompanied in Turkmenistan, unless they are in transit, so I asked the highly professional Stantours to arrange my paperwork and meet me at the border. It was just as well that I did, as guide Dima had a lot of explaining to do. Very few tourists visit Turkmenistan, and
they tend to follow a standard route to Ashgabat, Merv, and the Darvaza Gas Crater. The immigration officials were perplexed at my proposed itinerary, travelling along the river and far away from these popular (relatively-speaking) destinations. Why did I want to visit X? Where would I stay? How would I register the authorities? Dima was calm, persistent, and consistent, and having exchanged quite a few dollars for a pile of forms and receipts, I was allowed to enter the country.
The closest city to the land border post was Turkmenabat, the modern name for an ancient settlement. People have lived here since time immemorial because it was one of the easiest places to cross the Oxus; Silk Road caravans heading south from Bukhara towards Afghanistan followed this route. It was important to defend such as strategic location, and so from the 1st century AD onwards the Kushans built Amul Fortress. It is thought that the Amu Darya (literally “Amu River”) — the name commonly used for the Oxus as it passes through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan — is derived from Amul.
Substantial remains of the fortress still lie within the boundaries of Turkmenabat. From a distance, it looks like a dusty hill, rising up beyond the new mosque, but once you get closer, you realise that the structure is manmade. I climbed from the parking area up into what’s left of the citadel, the shape of the bricks still visible. Amul was surveyed by Soviet archaeologists in the mid 20th century but hasn’t been fully excavated; there are shards of glazed ceramics just lying on the surface, and goodness knows how much else is hidden in the layers beneath. Like Italy or Greece, there are countless archaeological sites in Turkmenistan, many as yet undiscovered and unexplored. But so far there is neither the interest nor the money to launch all the necessary scientific expeditions to excavate them, let alone to properly preserve what is found.
From Turkmenabat we drove east to Kerki along the northern bank of the river, and then turned back west, driving this time on the southern side. There are a small number of mausoleums here, dedicated to medieval saints like Astana Baba, but what was more interesting was the irrigation networks which turn a strip of the desert green. September is the height of the cotton harvest; we saw workers in the field, tractors and trucks on the roads, and huge white pyramids of raw cotton piled in walled enclosures awaiting processing. Unsustainable agricultural practices are arguably the greatest treat to the Oxus, but that’ll be the subject of a future blog.
Nowhere was this issue more evident than at the point just east of Turkmenabat where the Amu-Bukhara Canal begins. In scale and importance, this is one of Central Asia’s great canals, carrying fresh water from the Oxus to the city of Bukhara in Uzbekistan. Bukhara depends on this canal for its agriculture, but also for drinking water, and bilateral agreements are in place between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to ensure it is properly maintained, with adequate water flow.
On the northern side of the river, there are several vantage points along the cliff. Dima’s 4×4 was rugged enough that we didn’t have to worry about the lack of road, so we could head out to wherever the views were best. I look down at the chain of pumping stations cleaning silt and other debris from the canal. I looked across at the place where the river bifurcates; from this angle it was impossible to see if the river or the canal received the majority of the water flow. Either way, a significant proportion of the water was entering the canal, and thus depleting the volume of water in the Oxus. And this is by no means the only canal in the river system: it is a situation repeated over and over again. Of course there river is shrinking.