On the road to Rogun Dam, Tajikistan’s ‘greatest dream’

Rogun, Tajikistan – From Dushanbe, the travel to Rogun begins similar galore journeys successful Tajikistan. You attack the edges of the superior with its wide, quiescent streets and tidy parks, past the urbanisation begins to fade. The roadworthy turns into a agelong ribbon that climbs and bends betwixt rocky hills and tiny villages, earlier the Vakhsh River appears beneath similar an aggravated bluish thread slicing done the valley.

There are nary touristy scenes connected either broadside of the roadworthy – nary luxury hotels, nary ample billboards, and nary restaurants competing to invited passersby. Only soundless mountains, dense trucks and workers heading towards a expansive task astir each Tajik has heard about: the Rogun Dam.

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In a state that knows the existent meaning of wintertime cold, powerfulness outages and harsh geography, the thought of this dam has go overmuch much than a specified partition holding backmost water. It has go a committedness of truthful overmuch more.

Indeed, the $5bn Rogun project, primitively launched successful the mid-1970s to tackle Tajikistan’s chronic vigor shortages, has been described by President Emomali Rahmon arsenic a substance of “life oregon death”.

The country, which has agelong suffered from wintertime powerfulness shortages, sees the dam arsenic an accidental to trim the seasonal deficit, amended powerfulness supplies, and possibly yet export the surplus to neighbouring countries.

Rogun dam is not built connected casual terrain. Everything seems difficult: access, excavation, transport and controlling the stream [Al Jazeera]

Narrow mountains and a large dream

It takes astir 2 hours to thrust from Dushanbe to Rogun. The roadworthy itself is conscionable portion of the story. Every crook opens up a caller scene: crisp rocks covered successful green, heavy valleys, scattered houses, and a stream that ne'er stops flowing.

Along the way, trucks loaded with stones and dense materials walk by, and it is progressively wide that this task is not being built connected casual terrain.

Everything seems difficult: access, excavation, transportation, and controlling a stream that rushes down from the heights of Central Asia.

Approaching the site, the features of Rogun statesman to appear, not arsenic a implicit representation each astatine once, but arsenic scattered pieces of a overmuch larger scene: ungraded roads, elephantine equipment, excavated mountains, passageway entrances until, finally, the dam takes shape.

Rogun is not conscionable a partition holding backmost water, but an full web of tunnels, diversions, canals and facilities nether and astir the upland [Al Jazeera]

The archetypal happening visitors to Rogun volition announcement is not conscionable the sheer tallness of the dam, but the immense size of the full operation, which resembles a moving metropolis suspended betwixt the upland and the river.

As the sounds of machinery echo done the rocks, particulate rises and workers determination arsenic if portion of a colossal, restless machine.

The upland appears to person opened from the inside. There is nary azygous facade for the project, but alternatively aggregate levels, entrances and pathways. One roadworthy descends arsenic different rises towards the enactment area, and a 3rd leads to the opening of a acheronian passageway that appears arsenic a doorway to the bowels of the earth.

Rogun is not conscionable a partition holding backmost water, but an full web of tunnels, diversions, canals and facilities beneath and astir the mountain. The h2o does not travel up against factual alone; it passes done analyzable engineering designed to tame the Vakhsh River and person its powerfulness into electricity.

The Rogun Dam task includes hydraulic tunnels with a magnitude ranging betwixt 1,100 and 1,500 meters [Al Jazeera]

At the passageway entrances, the harsh exterior airy recedes, the aerial becomes colder, and the dependable of machinery takes connected a heavy metallic echo. Inside, you can’t spot the river, but you tin consciousness it arsenic it is directed, diverted, pressurised and past released done these arteries towards the turbines that powerfulness homes, factories and schools.

The task includes hydraulic tunnels ranging successful magnitude from 1,100 to 1,500 meters (3,610 to 4,920 feet), and an underground powerfulness presumption lodging six units.

The Rogun dam task features monolithic turbines that rotation nether immense pressure, past person the question of h2o into energy [Al Jazeera]

Turbines awaiting water

In the portion of the task designated for the powerfulness plant, the imaginativeness for each this becomes overmuch clearer.

This is wherever the h2o that has descended from the mountains is released with calculated force, and sent hurtling towards the tremendous turbines which rotation nether unit and person the water’s question into electricity.

That energy volition powerfulness cities and villages, factories and homes, hopefully providing immoderate alleviation from the harsh winters, and possibly an system little babelike connected the extracurricular world.

Engineer Andreas from the institution overseeing the task says that erstwhile the task is completed, the dam volition beryllium 335 meters (1,100 feet) high, making it 1 of the tallest successful the satellite [Al Jazeera]

Dreaming successful numbers

Close to the operation site, Italian technologist Andres – portion of the squad from the Italian institution Webuild, which is overseeing the main works astatine the Rogun Dam – speaks with enthusiasm.

Pointing to the upland and past to the riverbed, helium tells those contiguous that upon completion, the dam volition basal 335 metres (1,100 feet) high, making it 1 of the tallest successful the world. The powerfulness works has besides been designed with six monolithic units susceptible of producing astir 3,600 megawatts of electricity.

This, helium explains, is simply a implicit integrated system: a dam with a clay core, hydraulic tunnels, an underground powerfulness plant, and colossal turbines that volition gradually travel online arsenic the project’s phases are completed.

It has virtually harnessed the spot of the mountain, helium says. “We are not gathering implicit nature; rather, we are trying to recognize it and harness its vigor safely.”

For Tajikistan, Rogun is the ‘project of the century’ [Al Jazeera]

Today, Rogun occupies a spot successful the nationalist imaginativeness arsenic the “Project of the Century”. This mountainous federation whitethorn deficiency immense lipid reserves, but it possesses thing else: rivers cascading down from upland peaks, which tin beryllium converted into power. Thus, the dam represents Tajikistan’s gamble connected its ain geography, and an effort to crook adversity into strength.

Yet, this gamble is not without risk. As its Italian manager says, a task of this magnitude requires monolithic funding, meticulous management, stringent information guarantees and a delicate equilibrium with downstream countries, which are intimately monitoring h2o flows.

Geographically and politically, the h2o gathering down the dam does not beryllium to Tajikistan alone; it is portion of a delicate determination h2o system.

“The upland present is not simply an obstacle, but a portion of the project’s strength. We are not gathering implicit nature; rather, we are trying to recognize it and harness its vigor safely.”

On the mode backmost to Dushanbe, the mountains gradually statesman to recede, but the representation of the dam lingers. The acheronian tunnels, the waiting turbines, the dense trucks, and the stream flowing stubbornly betwixt the rocks; unneurotic they sum up Tajikistan’s narration with water.

Arriving successful the superior successful the evening, the lights radiance on Rudaki Avenue, and it is hard not to spot them differently. Electricity is not conscionable an mean utility. It is an hold of that distant river, that unfastened mountain, and those tunnels wherever men enactment unseen by astir of the population.