Moynaq, also is written as Muynaq and Muynak is a harbour town without the water at the former shoreline of the Aral sea in Uzbekistan. It is a small village in the Northwester part of Uzbekistan, located 220 km from Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan. Just 30 years ago it was a lively fishing town on the shores of a cozy bay at the Southern shore of the Aral Sea with a population of about 20 thousand people and with an active port for fishing vessels and transportation ships. The fish catches were further processed in the the famous Muynak cannery that supplied its products throughout the Soviet Union. Muynak muskrat (a rodent living in water) hats were also considered excellent gifts for the Soviet elite. 

Now all that remains of the former Aral sea at Muynak is a desert with spots of grass on the salty soil with seashells and rusty skeleton ships. The disappearance of the Aral Sea is one of the world’s worst man-made environmental disasters. As a result of the Aral Sea disaster, the shoreline has moved tens of kilometers North from Muynak but some water can still be seen where the Amu Darya river now runs along the old bottom of the sea. The population is gradually decreasing as people are leaving the city, only a few thousand inhabitants remain. Dark tourism has brought some badly wanted business to the town which now resides at the border of the newly formed Aralkum desert. 

At the old port site there is a restaurant and sadly they have recently built some walking paths around the ships after gathering them all next to each other just below the restaurant and the stairs going down to the old sea bottom. It makes seeing and experiencing the ships easier but the authenticity of the place is not as it was before. It is still possible to climb inside the ships but be careful as some parts of the ships are getting very fragile from the corrosion which for sure is affected by the salt in the soil left by the sea.