FROM ISSYK TO MEDEU

Faced with this threat, the people of Almaty developed early defenses. They built small dams, known as gabions (metal or woven mesh cages filled with stones), along mountain rivers. These structures allowed water to pass through while holding back mud and large debris. In the 1870s, they created a diversion from the Malaya Almatinka (the Kishi Almaty) River to the Vesnovka (the Esentai), thanks to which the western part of the city gained access to irrigation water and acted as a safety valve. It was now possible to regulate and redirect the flow of the Malaya Almatinka River and drain excess water in the event of a mudflow. It was a crude but effective system, one that would shape how Almaty survived as a city for generationsiА. Лухтанов. Город Верный. 2011.

Despite these early efforts, the city could not escape nature’s fury when the Malaya Almatinka River unleashed a devastating mudflow on 8 July 1921. In hours, a catastrophic torrent of debris had impacted approximately 7 per cent of the city’s population. The scale of the devastation was almost unimaginable: 65 homes, 174 outbuildings, 18 mills, a beekeeping station, a tobacco factory, and 2 leather plants were destroyed. An estimated 500 people were killed or went missing, 80 were injured, and 149 bodies were recoverediА. Лухтанов. Город Верный. 2011..

For a city with a population of about 30,000 people, these were enormous losses. For several years afterward, residents suffered from typhoid and cholera due to a severe lack of clean drinking water. Even today, a century later, reminders of that day endure. Along modern-day Dostyq Avenue in Almaty, massive boulders rest near the Kazakhstan Hotel, permanently deposited there by the mudflow.

In the mid-twentieth century, there was a serious shortage of places to swim both Almaty and its surroundings. The Qapshaghay Reservoir would not be completed until 1970, and reaching Lake Issyk-Kul meant enduring more than eight hours of a stuffy bus ride through the dusty Kordai Pass. Thus, to offer a summer getaway for the residents of Almaty, in 1958, the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR issued a decree titled ‘On Ensuring Cultural Recreation for Workers at Lake Issyk’.

Within a year, a recreational park opened at Lake Issyk, complete with a hotel, restaurant, boat station, and dance floor. A wide asphalt highway was laid to the lake, and a bus terminal with a large parking lot was built. On weekends, scheduled buses departed from Almaty every half hour. Photos of the lake were printed on postcards and featured in tourist brochures, which referred to it as the ‘Kazakh Ritsa’iLake Ritsa is a glacial-tectonic mountain lake in Abkhazia..

Lake Issyk quickly became the primary leisure destination for Almaty residents, especially during the summer heat, drawing thousands of visitors. Although the water was cold and unsuitable for long swims, this didn’t deter anyone. People could rent pedal boats for a ride on the lake or simply sunbathe on the beach. The vacationers seemed blissfully unaware of the disaster in the area in 1921 or that history could repeat itself in the blink of an eye.

The high-altitude Lake Issyk was formed around 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, when an earthquake triggered a massive landslide. The falling rocks created a natural dam approximately 300 meters high, trapping the waters to form a narrow, deep lake. Initially, the lake was 1,850 meters long, and 500 meters wide, and its depth varied with the seasons—it was about 50 meters in winter, swelling further in the summer due to glacial melt.

On a hot Sunday in July 1963, the lake was crowded with vacationers; the lake's tranquil surface belied the catastrophe about to unfold. The first wave of the mudflow struck at 2 p.m, and the water in the lake frothed and began to rise with terrifying speed. Twelve successive waves would pound the valley, carrying between 6 and 7 million cubic meters of mud and pulverized rock.

The third wave proved most devastating—where the valley narrowed, its towering wall of debris and water reached staggering heights of 30–40 meters, sweeping away everything in its path with unimaginable forceiС. Сафонов. «По следам селевого потока». — «Ленинская смена», 10 сентября 1963 года..

At the time, the director of the Issyk tourist base was Ivan Grigoryevich Aushev. His recollections of the mudflow were first published in the newspaper Trud about a month after the tragedy and later reprinted in Ogni Alatau:

And forty years later, in 2003, he gave a detailed interview to the Karavan newspaper, and his testimony is one of the most important firsthand accounts of that tragic day.

Today, sixty-two years after the tragedy, Ivan Aushev is no longer alive, but his memories live on, shared now by Oleg Mikhailovich Aushev, his nephew. On that fateful July day, Oleg’s father and nine-year-old cousin had joined Ivan Aushev, who was on duty, for what should have been a pleasant lakeside outing.

The Soviet media maintained a calculated silence about the disaster. In fact, for the first few weeks, there wasn’t a single word printed about the tragedy itself. Instead, they were filling their pages with international pieces about the oppression of ‘Blacks’ in the US, an American jet crashing into a children’s camp in Pennsylvania (ironically on 7 July, the very same day), the conflict between Cuba and America, military actions in Iraq, Algeria’s independence day, and the fortieth anniversary of the founding of Soviet Buryatia.

The first article about the incident appeared in the Ogni Alatau newspaper almost twenty days later on 25 July 1963. It was titled ‘What Is a Mudflow?’ and focused on the protective measures being taken to shield Almaty from potential danger. The Issyk tragedy and its victims were mentioned in the article, but only briefly and vaguely to say ‘There were also unfortunate incidents.’

To this day, the death toll remains disputed, with estimates ranging wildly from 50 to 2,000 victims. The authorities’ silence wasn’t absolute; rather, it was deliberately ‘selective’. By autumn, several articles had been published about the aftermath of the mudflow. But the newspapers of that time preferred to ‘focus on the positive’. While no publication mentioned the number of victims of the Issyk disaster, Soviet newspapers diligently reported that 2,000 people had been saved.

The bureaucratic response, however, moved with uncharacteristic speed. By August 1963, the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR had already issued a resolution, ‘On Measures to Protect the City of Alma-Ata from Mudflows’, demonstrating that while public acknowledgment might have been almost non-existent, the government recognized the urgent need for preventive action.

Archived meteorological reports indicate that only light rain fell in the mountains on 5 July, and there was no rain at all on 6 July, proving that the mudflow was not caused by a downpour. The Issyk mudflow had a glacial origin—it came from the moraine lake JarsaiiA moraine lake is a body of water that forms behind a natural dam made of glacial debris or moraine.. Due to intense heat, the glaciers were actively melting, causing the lake to fill with water. Once the lake had overflowed, it burst through its natural dam, releasing a torrent of mud and rocks that rushed down toward Lake Issyk.

Along its path, the mudflow destroyed natural barriers, gathering more and more mud and debris. That’s why it reached the lake in successive surges (or waves). In mere hours, successive mudflow waves obliterated the lake, literally displacing all of its waters.

The mass of water, mud, and rocks poured down onto the town of Issyk. Fields that had been planted were seriously damaged, two streets were affected, and several industrial facilities near the river were destroyed, including warehouses of the Issyk winery. The mudflow reached the Kulja Highway, more than 50 kilometers from the lake. As a result of the disaster, the Issyk River changed course.

Twenty years would pass before restoration efforts began at the lake site. A dam and spillway structures were built, but the lake has still not returned to its original size. Nevertheless, the area remains just as beautiful as it was before the mudflow. Today, almost no reminders of the 1963 tragedy exist at the site except for a cross and a Muslim memorial at the site of the former Issyk tourist base.

After the 1963 mudflow, it became impossible to ignore the risk of a similar catastrophe occurring in the upper reaches of Almaty. While Issyk had a population of around 21,000, the capital had more than 650,000 residents, meaning that the potential loss of life in the event of a mudflow would be vastly greater. Moreover, the risk of glacial mudflows had significantly increased, in part due to warming temperatures. Glaciologists noted an alarming trend: the volume of the moraine lake near the Tūiyqsu Glacier was rapidly growing. Between 1963 and 1971 alone, it expanded from 76,000 to 250,000 cubic meters, reaching 300,000 by 1973. Soon, the threat of the lake bursting was clear, and it was crucial to begin constructing a dam above Almaty as soon as possible.

Events were hastened not only by the alarming activity of the moraine lake. The fact was that Dinmukhamed Kunaev had personally witnessed the mudflow at Issyk in 1963. On that day, he had brought A. Kosygin, a member of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers, to the lake, and they managed to leave the disaster site shortly before the bridges collapsediКунаев Д.А. «От Сталина до Горбачева»..

Unsurprisingly, after the Issyk tragedy, the dam project was launched immediately. However, the abnormal rise in water levels in the mountain lake made it clear that traditional methods, requiring several years of work, would not be fast enough. A mudflow could strike at any moment.

A decision was made to construct the dam employing a controlled explosion. In fact, the idea had first emerged in the mid-1950s, and preparatory work had already begun in the Medeu gorge. But in the late 1950s, the project was frozen, in no small part due to sharp criticism from the scientific community. The idea had many opponents: biologists who warned of the threat to rare species of flora and fauna, and members of a government commission who feared the consequences of a massive explosion just 15 kilometers from Kazakhstan’s largest city. And their concerns were justified. Never before in global history had such a powerful blast been carried out so close to a major cityiДуйсенов Е.Д. Алма-Ата. 1968..

In October 1966, the first explosion thundered through Almaty. Residents experienced tremors similar to those of a magnitude 4 earthquake. For safety reasons, people, animals, and valuable property were evacuated in a 9-kilometer radius zone, and the area was cordoned off.

The second explosion took place in April 1967. The collapsed rocks formed a dam barrier 67 meters high and a mudflow reservoir with a capacity of 6.5 million cubic meters. Today, it is easy to understand the original height of the dam: the observation deck with white ‘checkmarks’, where the Lastochka Café was built, was its highest point.

Initially, the plan was to build a taller dam and two reservoirs, but at that time, it seemed that the problem had been solved. The dam not only made Almaty famous but also secured the city a place among the world’s major sports venues. As soon as construction began, it became possible to build a full-fledged arena for the Medeu skating rink, which had opened back in 1951 on natural ice. However, building a complete sports complex had been extremely risky: in the event of a mudflow, this expensive ice surface would have been the first to suffer. Therefore, until work began on the mudflow protection dam, the Medeu rink project had not been pursued.

In 1972, the dam was put into operation. Newspapers celebrated the victory over the elements—the city could sleep peacefully, no longer fearing mudflows:

Many societies undergoing rapid industrialization have a rather utilitarian view of nature, and the Soviet Union was no exception. Mountains were to be conquered, the elements tamed, rivers reversed if necessary. There had been plans to erect a monument to the construction of the dam—a large sculpture depicting an explosion. But nature interfered with those plans.

Ten years later, on 15 July 1973, which was also a Sunday, the moraine lake at the Tūiyqsu Glacier burst. The mudflow risk of this lake had been discussed as early as the 1960s, and special siphon spillways had even been installed to pump out the excess water. However, the dam’s construction and the expensive maintenance of the spillways caused water pumping from the lake to stop in the early 1970siР.К. Яфазова. Природа Селей Заилийского Алатау. Проблемы адаптации..

In less than ten minutes, the mudflow reached the Myñjylqy Dam and destroyed it. It then swept away a protective structure and part of the Gorelnik tourist base, where people were enjoying themselves at the time. The flow continued to gain strength and reached the Medeu mudflow reservoir, filling it almost entirely within a few hours.

The dam withstood the colossal impact, but engineering flaws soon began to appear. Stones and other debris quickly clogged the drainage channels, causing the water level to rise. The Lastochka Café was transformed into an emergency command center for several days. Immediate tasks had to be addressed: save the city, divert the threat from the newly opened skating rink, build an additional dam, reroute the Malaya Almatinka River through a pipeline, and install pumping stations.

At the same time, workers from Promventilation Trust used ventilation shafts to dry the leaks in the dam and simultaneously reinforced it with cement. To prevent new mudflow surges, a special team dropped smoke grenades near the Tūiyqsu Glacier from a helicopter. The smoke screen was intended to shield the glacier from the sun, thereby slowing down the heating and melting of the glacier.

The first emergency relief pumps only began operating on 20 July. By the end of the day, the water level slowly started to recede, and it became clear that the threat had passed. However, it also became evident that the forces of nature could not be fully tamed: once again, the Soviet press remained silent about the number of victims of this new incident.

Thirty years later, in 2006, the journalist Oleg Kvyatovsky, who had been at the scene of the tragedy, published his memories in the newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda in an article titled ‘Alma-Ata in the Dragon’s Embrace’:

After pumping the water out, it was decided to increase the dam's height by another 40 meters and the reservoir’s capacity to 12.6 million cubic meters. Two more levels of stairs were built above the Lastochka Café. The idea of building a monument to the explosion was never discussed again.

According to scientists’ calculations, the force of the 1973 mudflow was four times greater than that of 1921. Moreover, based on scientific forecasts, mudflow activity is expected to increase rapidly in the coming decades due to global warming. The reinforced dam stands today as both protector and potential time bomb, its massive concrete walls waiting for the next inevitable confrontation with the mountain's wrath.