Publication Name

cal industry. Exploitation started at the beginning

of the 20th century along fairly traditional lines

and only switched to more industrial techniques

in the early 1930s. Annual production capacity is

enormous: 400,000 tonnes of sodium sulphate

(used in the glass industry, feed for livestock and

detergents), 100,000 tonnes of bischofite (a defoli-

ant used for machine-harvesting of cotton), 35,000

tonnes of epsomite (used in paper-making, tanning

– to treat leather – and the textile industry), 10,000

tonnes of glauberite (pharmaceutical industry) and

20,000 tonnes of sodium chloride (cooking salt).

From the 1930s onwards the drop in the level of the

Caspian and the change in the chemical conditions

led to a deterioration in the quality of the salt. As

the brine thickened it accelerated precipitation of

the salt as sodium chloride, a less valuable product

than sodium sulphate. In the 1940s and 1950s the

industry moved from the exploitation of open-air

reserves to underground resources trapped below

several metres of sediment.

The story came to a happy end. Well almost. After

destruction of the dam, the water flowed in at a

rate of 700 cubic metres a second and it only took

a few months to refill the lagoon (during which

time the level of the Caspian happened to go on

rising). The crust of salt dissolved and the pink

flamingos, ducks and pelicans returned. The Kara

Bogaz almost completely recovered its ecological

balance. Only the chemical industry, which de-

pended on a system of management that had dis-

appeared, did not survive this unusual episode in

the life of the lagoon.

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