Garabogazkol Basin

Garabogaz was called Bekdash until 2002 and is a nearly-abandoned Soviet industrial city next to the strait connecting the lagoon to the Caspian Sea. It is probably the harshest settlement in Turkmenistan, filled with vacant apartment blocks gutted for anything usable. The city is surrounded by surreal-looking salt lakes, the remains of a once profitable sodium sulfate leftover business. The livelihood of the town is still based around sodium sulfate. This is a long-standing industry, developed in the late 1920s, which depends on the concentration of salts in Garabogazgol. 

Waters from this are are led into a series of natural depressions around the town, relying on the power of the Turkmen sun to further increase the salt concentration. The outcome of the process is sodium sulfate and other salts which can be shoveled up into 500kg sacks. The workers who carried out this tough labor under the burning sun were praised as heroes in the Soviet period, a sign at the entrance to the town features one masked sulfate collector proudly bearing his spade like a rifle. But the industry is facing difficult times. Sacks of sodium sulfate fill warehouses and railway wagons around the town for want of markets, the workforce has reduced, and many of the apartment blocks of the town stand half-empty. From here is a 40-minute drive to the Kazakhstan border on a rough dirt track.