SOVIET-YAB IRRIGATION CANAL, IN AREA OF MAIN TURKMAN CANAL, BEING STRAIGHTENED AND WIDENED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP07-02247R000200170009-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: R
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2011
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: May 27, 1952
• Content Type: PHOTO

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A seismological station of the Razanjik-dizboi geophysical expedition moves to anew location. A tractor helps it negotiate the sand h!I!s
Below: She seismological party at work. They are studying the structure of the geological strata by measuring tremors caused by explosions
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 eofton cultivation; and to provide a water supply for
another 7,000,000 hectares of sandy wastes, which will be
turned into pasture lands for Turkmen kolkhozes. Hydro-
elecfric power plants will be built to provide cheap power
to new industrial enterprises, towns and kolkhozes.
Gigantic as the scope of the projeefi is, it is to be
completed in five years Time, by 1957.
This spring has .seen a substantial expansion in the
scale of work on this great construction undertaking of Gom-
munism. During. the year and a half that have passed since
the Government, decision on the Mairi Turkmen Canal, a
great deal has been accomplished along the route of the
future waterway: seftlemenfs and roads have been built. and
a. sawmill, machine shops and cultural and public service
institutions have been .set up. The work has been steadily
picking- up .pace, as may be judged if only from the fact
that. the program for the last quarter of 1951 was consid-
erably bigger, than the sum total accomplished during the
previous nine months. The plan was carried out well ahead
of time and by the end, of the year the builders had fulfilled
'an additional program of work besides.
A still greater program faces the builders this year,.
which, incidentally, we call the year of preparation for fihe
general offensive against the desert. And it will be a truly
gigantic offensive. Apart from doing a good deal of build-
ing, we shall extend surveying and prospecting operations
along the canal route. Numerous expeditions worked through
the winter on the route from Tahia Tash to Krasnovodsk,
studying the regime of the Amu Darya and the behaviour of
the sands, and doing the groundwork for fhe final project.
Much was also- done to investigafie natural local deposits of
the building materials which will be needed in tremendous
quantities in constructing. the principal installations of the
future waterway.:
With the coming of spring the scale of surveying has
increased- still further. Research centres-ii{stitutes'and acad-
emies-are also- expanding their activities in conjunction
with building work. For instance, the Academy of Sciences
of the USSR sent a party of research workers to Tahia Tash
on April 8. This group has already held a joint session with
the Academies of Sciences of the Uzbek .and Turkmen Repub-
lies to discuss problems .connected with surveying, project-
ing and construction.
The 1,100-kilometre stretch of the Main Turkmen Canal,
an irrigation network totalling over 60,000 kilometres
in length is to be laid out. The enormous expanses of the
great .Central Asian desert, thus come to life, will have to
be brought under cultivation, turned into plantations of
cofton and other crops. This has posed substantial tasks
before the Ministry of Forestry, which is to create great
forest shelter belts and carry out large-scale afforestation to
anchor the drifting sands. The Ministry of Cotton Growing
of the US5R and other ministries and departments also have
their work cut out for them.
Particularly intense, is the activity on the key sections
of the canal job. For instance, in Tahia Tash, which is to be
the life of a major hydrotechnical development, new blocks
of dwelling houses and cultural and public service institu-
tions are being commissioned from month to month. By the
end of March the place had acquired. a bread factory, a
large- restaurant, a kindergarten as well as a bathhouse and
laundry establishment. The water and sewer systems are
being expanded.
In Tahia Tash a club and other cultural amenities are
being built. Following up the experimental planting of
trees last autumn at this outpost on the edge of the .Kara
Right: , A stone quarry .near Tahia lash, which is to
be the site of major hydrotechnical installations. Tip-
ping lorries haul the- stone to the construction site
Nearly twenty-five years ago Aktelpek Nogiev took part in the famous ride from
Ashkhabad to AAoscow made by a group,of.Turkmenian horsemen. Now he is a
brigade leader on one of the sections of the Soviet-Yab Canal construction job
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Aff?restation workers in ICunya-Urgench district cheek up on sand anehorirag effeeted by cast year's free planting
the newly-built railway has added another ,
route to that provided by the Amu ?arya River
for supplying maehines and materials to the
construction site. lfiere a fresh consigntraen# of
maehines is being unloaded in fhe freighf yards
Kum, foresters will plant 250,000 9?rees of various kinds here
this spring. From here the wooded belts will start their ad-
vance into the heart of fhe desert.
The theatre of operations. is extending deeper and deep-
er into the Kara Kum proper. Construction work is being
considerably expanded in Wesfrern Turkmenia where the
town of Kazanjik is being built as a new hub of the build-
ing industry. Only half a year ago surveyors drove in the
first stakes here to mark the routes of streets still io be
created, and now whole blocks of dwelling houses, cultural
and public service establishments, industrial plants and auxil-
iary enterprises of all kinds are going up, roads are being
laid and a power plant built. In the nearby Kurin Dag Hills .
extraction of building materials has been started.
The Leningrad braneh of the USSR Academy of Archi-
tecture is designing dwelling houses and public buildings
for the new sefflemenis to be set up along the canal route.
Local climatic conditions and fhe specific features of Central
Asian architecture are being taken into account in design-
fng buildings. For instance,- in view of the hot climate and
the low preeipitation, open premises, for summer-,use .are
widely planned, particularly for office and other: public
buildings. Hospitals will have loggias and verandas protected
from the wind, and einema theatres will have open-air' audi-
toriums which can 6e used for nine months of the year. A
great deal of greenery is to be planted around both dwell-
ing houses and public buildings.
This .year .work on the canal line and excavation at
Tahia Tash will be started, and in preparation for this a huge
amount of equipment of all kirids, including suction dredges,
excavators, graders and bulldozers, have already been
delivered to the eonstruction site, and the electric power
-_ py~pp- ,
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supply has been considerably expanded. Indeed, the Soviet
Land has seen to it thaf,, like the .other huge construction
undertakings on the Volga and the Dnieper creating the
material foundation of Communism, the great project in the
Kara Kum lacks for nothing.
The .workers of the Sormovo Works have delivered two
powerful suction dredges ahead of schedule and are now
assembling them qn the spot. These machines herald the
mighty fleet of dredges that will work on the Kara Kum ca-
nal job.
Soon the builders will be moving deep into the desert,
and measures are already being taken to provide them with
everything they need, water and housing, and machinery
and building materials.
The men and women engaged on the job are fully
aware of the great responsibility that rests upon them. With
each passing day the number of workers distinguishing
themselves on the job is growing. Prominent among the
many who have received bonuses for exceeding their plans
for several months running are the proud holders of Excel-
.lent Workers' Pennants Rozy Taganov, a Turkmen bricklayer,
and his entire .team of young wgrkers, and also carpenter
Fedenev, joiner Valiev, and fitter Yangibayev.
-- In March the railway builders completed the Urgench-
Tahia Tash line as far es the Tahia Tash Station; and by the
beginning of May the tracks reached the construction site.
This greatly speeded up freight delivery fo the builders.
Soon a regular through passenger service between Moscow
and Tahia Tash will be opened.
The builders of the Main Turkmen Canal are eager to
complete the project-one of the greatest of the Stalin
epoch-as quickly as they possibly can and thus bring water
to the deserf, which Soviet men and women wilt turn into a
Thriving, fertile land.
The experimental station of The USSR Planf Breeding Insfitufie in Kara Kala is engaged on selec-
tign of. subtropical fruits suifable for cultivation in soil the Main Turkmen Canal will irrigate
they are plotting out tracts earmarked for tree planting along the canal
33
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Drofessor Efremov (leff(, who was awarded a Stalin Prize in AAarch of this gear for
his treatise "Taphonomia and the Geological Record," and Professor Flerov, director
of the AAuseum of Paleontology of the USSR dcademq of Sciences. Below is a skele-
~on of a Dinosaurus-Saurolophus, found bq Soviei paleontologists in the Gobl Desert
Bq Professor 1. EFREAAOV,
Stalin Prize Winner
Fossilized remains of extinct animals and plants consti-
tute aunique chronicle pregnant with meaning for the in-
vestigator.
Constantly changing in order to adapt themselves to
their environment, assuming different forms in each era of
the Earth's history, living organisms have gone through
countless changes in the course of the hundreds of millions
of years since they first made (heir appearance. This grad-
..
ual development from the simple to -the complex may be
traced by the petrified remains of long-eztind organisms,
by subjecting their structure to a detailed si dy and com-
paring them with existing species. .
The .study of the. history of the animal and plant worlds
has an immediate bearing on practical geoldgy today and
serves to promote the .further development of our country's
Socialist economy. Knowing the order in ,whiff h diverse liv-
ing organisms came into being, we can establish by .the
structure of their remains the geological age of,,the deposits?
in which they are found and determine the order of strati-
fication, which is of signal importance .for he geological
study of the. country, the compilation of geological charts,
and practical prospecting and development of mineral de-
posits.
In the vast multiformity of animal life both present and
pass the vertebrates occupy a relatively small but highly
important place. Their complex organisms h~lp the investi-
gator to trace changes brough//t. about in the process of,
adaptation, while their fossifizdd skeletons give us a gen-~
oral idea of their appearance and. provide a vlisual illustration'
of the historical development of the animal world and iis~
full conformity to the laws of materialist dialectics.
By studying the structure and purpose of diverse organs
of an animal one can reconstruct a picture of the conditions
in which it lived, the climate and geography of bygone
ages. But just as it is possible to penetrate to the conditions
of life of an organism on the basis of its structure so can we
do the opposite-explain the structure of thle given organ-
ism by an analysis of its environment. In other words, the
geological data obtained by ,studying, fossl "cemeteries"
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. Skull of. the ~Bafrachoseuela), L~nthanosuchus,
which lived some 200 million gears ago. This
skull In the cbllectlon of the AAuseum of Paleon-
tology in AAoscow is the onlq one in euistence