The town where a vanished sea became a tourist attraction

Moynaq, a town in Uzbekistan’s Karakalpakstan region, is an unusual tourist destination due to the disappearance of its sea. Once a bustling fishing port, Moynaq now stands as a stark reminder of the Aral Sea disaster. The town’s reliance on fishing dwindled as Soviet irrigation projects siphoned water away from the Aral Sea, causing its shoreline to recede.

By the 1990s, Moynaq was no longer near the sea, and its fishing fleet lay abandoned in what has become the Moynaq Ship Graveyard. Today, visitors can walk on the former seabed, explore the dried desert landscape, and tour museums detailing the region’s historical transformation. The town also hosts an electronic music, art, and science festival, turning the bleak setting into a platform for raising awareness about the environmental disaster.