Infrastructures of Empire in Central Asia

Abstract

There is a proverb from a retired Kyrgyz water engineer that I jotted down during fieldwork in the Ferghana Valley a decade ago: “It’s better to be the head of the water than the head of the people” (el bashchysy bolgucha, suu bashchysy bol ). The engineer who shared this piece of local wisdom had been describing the system of sluices that regulated the flow of water between the Isfara River and the Soviet-built irrigation canal that provided water for a swath of agricultural land downstream. In this mountainous corner of Central Asia, water is a materially scare and symbolically loaded resource. During the spring snowmelt, natural drainage channels often flood, leaving homes and gardens in peril. Limited summer rainfall can make sown fields and domestic garden plots dependent upon irrigation water that is distributed, household to household, by the hour. The skilled suu bashchy or mirob (the “head of the water”), the engineer explained, could anticipate flow depending on the season and snowmelt; he could predict demand according to the phase of the agricultural cycle. He and his fellow engineers, who regulated the allocation of water between river and irrigation canal at the headwater sluice, wielded considerable responsibility for sustaining local livelihoods and thus maintaining local peace. I was reminded of the water engineer’s comment, and the delicate challenge of “heading the water” to which he alluded, while reading the late Maya Peterson’s magisterial Pipe Dreams.1 Imperial and Soviet programs for transforming Central Asia through irrigation continue to haunt the region’s landscapes and livelihoods in myriad ways.2 Beyond the desiccation of the Aral Sea, which has come to serve as an icon of late Soviet hubris and environmental devastation, that ambition is visible in the crumbling concrete water