Water Exports From Russia To Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
Arid but densely populated southern Kazakhstan and adjacent Central Asian states occupy somewhat similar position with respect to Russia's Siberia as the south-western United States do with respect to Canada. Siberian rivers, as well as rivers of northern European Russia flow "uselessly" into the seas of the Arctic Ocean, while that water could be much more profitably used for irrigated agriculture by Russia's southern neighbors. Not surprisingly, proposals for large-scale transfer of water from the Ob River in Siberia to the Aral Sea basin in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have been seriously considered by the Soviet federal government already in the 1960-80s, when all republics involved were members of the USSR. While welcomed by many in Central Asian republics, the project received severe criticism from many scientists as well as prominent writers and journalists in Russia, such as Valentin Rasputin and Sergey Zalygin, sometimes known collectively as the "Siberian environmental lobby"
Shelved in 1986 for both economical and environmental reasons, the idea of international water transfers has been raised again in the 21st century in the ruling circles of the now independent states. Both the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Uzbek President Islam Karimov expressed interest in such a water transfer scheme. While the Russian federal government so far remains non-committal on the issue, the plan met enthusiastic response from Moscow mayor and Russian presidential hopeful, Yuri Luzhkov.
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