Walking toward the shrinking remnants of what used to be the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was like entering hell. I reached the edge of one of the scattered lakes which are all that remain of this once-great body of water. In the nearby town of Muynak, black and white newsreels in the local museum, and pictures in the family photo albums of residents, tell of better times. During the Soviet era, fishing communities like Muynak ringed the sea, thriving off its bounty: sturgeon, flounder, caviar and other staples of Soviet dinner tables. But over the decades, Soviet authorities diverted rivers that flowed into the sea to irrigate cotton and other crops.

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Persons: Oktyabr Dospanov, ” Locations: Uzbekistan, Muynak, Michigan