Water Stories
Kyrgyzstan
Resettling the people of
the valley
Karybek is one of a forgotten army of internally displaced persons who have been living in the mountains of
Kyrgyzstan for more than four decades. In 1970, his family and their neighbours were evicted from the KetmenTube Valley to live in a cold mountain village to make way
for a reservoir for the Toktogul hydroelectric dam.
“We were resettled, but never received any kind of fiDam Building
nancial compensation. We were given land, but no water
The Toktogul Dam houses a power station, but elecsupply. As a result, we live next to the water – right next
to a giant reservoir – but have no way of raising a normal tricity was only a secondary concern for the Soviet planners who came up with the idea. Their main goal was to
crop of grain or anything else,” he says.
In winter things are even more difficult. “The canal ensure irrigation water for the Kyrgyz part of Fergana
freezes, and to get water we have to melt snow or ice,” Valley and to regulate the flow for the Naryn and the
mighty Syr Darya, which it joins further downstream.
says Karybek.
The prospect of being flooded and re-housed did not go
down well with the locals, but the regional party nomenklatura pushed forwa ɐ