| ID | 091043 |
| Title Proper | Finding mutual interests in nature |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Smil, Vaclav |
| Publication | 2009. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | During the 1950s, Stalinist planners (whose modest slogan was "We order the wind when to blow, the rain when to fall!") wanted to flip the direction of several voluminous north-flowing rivers of Western Siberia (Irtysh, Ob, Yenisei) and use them to change the Soviet Central Asia into an irrigated communist paradise. Fortunately, Stalin died and Khrushchev had other problems, but before 1960, the megaproject propensities of the Soviet experts working in Mao's China left a deep imprint on China's water engineers. Soviet experts helped plan a number of audacious water projects but only one, the first dam across the Huanghe, or Yellow River, at Sanmenxia, was completed before their withdrawal. The dam turned out to be a major disaster, and the rapid silting of the reservoir was solved years later only by creating large outlets at the dam's bottom and drastically reducing its electricity-generating capacity. |
| `In' analytical Note | Far Eastern Economic Review Vol. 172, No. 8; Oct 2009: p.44-47 |
| Journal Source | Far Eastern Economic Review Vol. 172, No. 8; Oct 2009: p.44-47 |
| Key Words | Communist ; Yellow River ; Siberia ; Central Asia |