Muynak

Muynak

Muynak is a city in North Karakalpakstan, an Autonomous Republic of Uzbekistan. The city, the seat of the Muynak district, was once a thriving fishing community and Uzbekistan's only port city with a population of tens of thousands, is now 150 kilometers from the rapidly shrinking shoreline of the Aral Sea. Fishing has always been part of the region's economy and the city has become a hub for industrial fishing and canning. In the 1960s, however, the Soviet government diverted the Amu Darya and Sir Darya rivers sapped the Aral Sea of its inflows, which caused much of the lake to dry up, leaving the area at risk of economic collapse. This caused the sea to evaporate, leaving the remaining water with an extremely high salt content, which made it toxic and resulted in the ecological disaster that is ruining the sea and killing the inhabitants of the surrounding towns, including Muynak. Today, the area is a disaster tourism destination. The main attractions of the area are an armada of rusting hulks that once made up the fishing fleet in the Soviet era, and a one-room museum dedicated to Muynak heritage as a fishing industrial center. Saiga Antelope can still be found in the wild in the area, and Muynak lies on the migratory corridor for birds to and from Siberia, and the brackish basins between the town and Lake Aral are good birdwatching sites. Around 230 species of birds can be seen in the region, about half of which breed in the Sudochye Wetland, an internationally recognized Important Bird Area. Of these bird species, 24 are rare or vulnerable and 13 are on the IUCN Red List.