When they talk about Persia, the first thing that comes to mind is King Xerxes, whom the Spartans fought in the Thermopylae Gorge during the Greco-Persian Wars. Meanwhile, we want to draw your attention to the fact that the Persians of that time were a fairly developed civilization, the legacy of which still declares itself.
Look at these strange holes in the ground - what do you think they are? Let's start with the fact that this structure is almost 3,000 years old and it was built before the war between the Persians and the Greeks, three hundred years earlier …
The structure is called qanat, or qanat, and it is located in the city of Gonabad, which is in modern Iran.
Qariz is considered one of the greatest inventions of the time! This plumbing system is capable of collecting water from underground horizons and transporting it to cities and irrigation canals. Thanks to this, Persia was able to exist and develop in an arid climate.
The hydraulic system includes a main well that receives water from an underground horizon, a system of tunnels that transports water to a specific location, and vertical ventilation wells along the entire route, which also allows moisture to condense. In addition, the underground water conduit significantly reduces the evaporation of precious moisture.
Promotional video:
The length of the Gonabad kariz is 33.113 meters, it contains 427 depressions for water. The structures were built using the knowledge of the laws of physics, geology and hydraulics, which only confirms the high degree of development of the Persians. Since 2007, Gonabad qariz has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
A similar method of obtaining water has been adopted by many other peoples and is found in Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Afghanistan. Kyariz is also in Evpatoria, in the Crimea. It is known that once upon a time it was built by the Armenians.
Eight thousand years ago, irrigated agriculture began to be practiced on the foothill strip of the Kopetdag, using the water of rivers and streams flowing from the mountains. Subsequently, the development of agriculture and steady growth demanded new water sources, which became qanats.
According to researchers, the first qanats in the territory of southern Turkmenistan and in the northern regions of Iran appeared in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Turkmen legends erect the construction of kyarises by the time of Alexander the Great. Even the ancient historian Polybius reported on the kanats of South Parthia, noting that whoever brings "spring water to the area, until then, unirrigated." Is given the entire area for use for a period of five generations. And this is no coincidence. Kyariz is a complex hydraulic engineering structure, which is a system of wells connected by underground galleries. The construction of qanats, the depth of which reached several hundred meters, and the length of the galleries - kilometers, was an extremely laborious task. Moreover, the craftsmen dug wells from the bottom up, which was a very dangerous occupation, because collapses happened quite often. The construction of one kyariz took years, sometimes even decades, but the water extracted from them irrigated tens of hectares of fertile land.
The chief master - karizgen had 4-5 assistants under his leadership. In the construction of wells and an underground gallery, the simplest tools were used: a pickaxe, a small shovel, a protective board, a lamp, a special headdress, a leather bag, a wooden gate, which was used to lower and raise craftsmen, bags of earth, tools, etc.
The depth of the well was determined by the head master using a simple level (rope with a weighting agent). The diameter of the wells did not exceed 1 m, the height of the gallery usually varied from 1 m 30 cm to 1 m 50 cm, the width reached 80 cm. When there was a lack of air, a forge was installed at the well and air was supplied to the gallery using a reed tube. The distance between the wells was about 20-30 meters, it was determined by the master himself. Both the construction of new kariz and repair and restoration work required not only great and long work, but also the extraordinary skill and perseverance of the karizgen masters. The masters and their assistants were immensely powerful. This can be seen at least by the size of the stones, some of which were 120 x 70 x 50 cm in size.needs a crane. How our distant ancestors managed to do this is still a mystery.
As the hydrologist G. Kurtovezov notes, the uniqueness of the method of groundwater extraction by kariz systems lies in the fact that these structures extract water from great depths with complex chains of underground galleries and vertical observation wells, by gravity bringing water to the surface of the earth, without using traditional energy sources.
Indeed, in the foothill and desert areas, the qanats were actually the only source of drinking water. The Turkmens carefully covered the wells with felts, saving them from desert sediments and masking them from enemies. In the Middle Ages, qanats were quite numerous on the territory of Turkmenistan. The ruler of Khorasan, Abdullah ibn Tahir (830-840), even instructed experts in religious law (fakikhs) to compile a special guide on kyariz. Author of the XI century. Gardizi writes that the compiled book "Kitab al-Kuni" ("The Book of Wells") continued to serve in his time, that is, 200 years after it was written. Unfortunately, the book has not survived to this day.
There were a lot of qarises in the etraps of Altyn Asyr, Ak Bugday, Rukhabat, Geoktepe, Bakharlyn etraps of our country. Large qanats operated in the Baharly etrap, which supplied the population with water until recently. These include the kyarises of Baharly himself, as well as Durun, Murcha, Suncha, Kelyata.
As noted in the “Review of the Trans-Caspian Region from 1882 to 1890”, at the beginning of 1890 there were 17 karises and 140 wells in Askhabad district alone. And in Ashgabat itself up to the 40s of the XX century. four large kariz systems operated. It is interesting that the engineer Y. Tairov points out that in 1892 42 kariz were working in the Askhabad district. Most likely, some of the old qanats were cleared and restored. A powerful kariz system existed at the Akdepe settlement in the town of Bikrova (now the Chandybil district of the city of Ashgabat). During the excavation of this monument, the author of these lines counted 38 heaped wells, stretching in a south-west-south arc and further south to the modern Autobahn. Apparently, there were much more wells, and they stretched from the foothills to the ancient settlement.
Kyarises are striking in their thoroughness and grandeur. For example, the underground gallery of the Kone Murcha kariz is up to 4 meters high and 2 meters wide! The Durun kyarises are striking in their length. In ancient times, they fed a water conduit made of baked brick, which stretched for tens of kilometers from the foothills to the city of Shehrislam, located on the border with the desert.
The waters of the kyariz set in motion numerous water mills and water-lifting devices (chigiri). One such chigir is mentioned in the 10th century. on the qanat in the region of Rabat Ferava (Parau). According to the researchers, we are talking about the Janakhir kariz in the southwest of Serdar. According to al-Khwarizmi, in the Middle Ages in Khorasan there were various types of chigiri (dulab, daliya, garraf, zurnuk, naura, manjanun), set in motion by draft animals. Sources indicate that only on the Amu Darya in the 20s. XX century up to 15 thousand chigiri operated, with the help of which about thirty thousand hectares of land were irrigated.
It is noteworthy that the Turkmens had a cult of Shahyzenna - the patron saint of well craftsmen, in whose honor sacrifices were arranged. After removing the top soil of the earth, the qarizgen masters called people to a sadaka in honor of Shahyzenna, so that digging would not be accompanied by misfortunes. Starting from the search for a favorable place for the well and until the very end of the work, the master prayed to Shahyzenna to send him good luck. Each shareholder paid for the work of kariz craftsmen, depending on his share of the daily rate of water.
Interestingly, one qanat could serve a large number of people. For example, more than 120 years ago, the Durun karises Khuntush and Ainabat provided water to 95 and 143 homeowners, respectively, while the Kone Murcha kariz supplied 53 homeowners with water. In some places people even remember the names of the masters of kariz affairs. Thus, the Janabat kariz was built over 160 years ago by Ernazar karizgen and his assistants.
Indeed, the original folk hydraulic engineering has been improved for millennia. And now, when powerful equipment and modern technologies have been put at the service of man, this invaluable experience of the past deserves attention and study.
Here is what they wrote in the magazine "Vokrug Sveta" in 1984 about the Turkmen kyarizniks:
Kyarizniki monitor the operation of underground water conduits, restore destroyed lines. This work requires endurance, remarkable strength, skill. Master-kariznik Durdy Khiliev is over fifty. At first glance, one cannot say that he is capable of wielding a pick and a jackhammer for four or five hours in a cramped gallery. Thin, angular, fine lines run across the forehead and sunken cheeks. But the hands are sinewy, knobby, and the gaze of blue eyes is tenacious. Durdy got into kyariz as a boy. It was a hard time then. With the first salvoes of the war, the village was empty. The men left to defend their homeland from the Nazis, their wives and sons remained to grow cotton. Then the old master-kariznik Ata Nurmukhamedov took a fancy to the smart, sharp-eyed lad. At first, Durdy, together with the women, dragged juniper from the mountains to strengthen the walls of the wells, twisted a heavy and bulky gate-char. And then the day came when he first descended into the qarez. More than forty years have passed since then. Durdy became the father of ten children, the aksakals respectfully greet him, and everyone in the district calls him Durdy's ussa.
Among the kyariznik masters there is no equal to Durdy Khilliev. But he began to grab his legs before the bad weather. But such is the fate of more than one generation of karizniks. After all, in the summer, you have to work under the ground up to your knees, or even up to your waist in water.
… As usual, resting his elbow on the side, the master holds a lamp in his hand and moves easily, smoothly along the dark corridor. I just can't manage to turn around in the narrow passage - I go back with small, goose steps. The water hits the legs, the current increases markedly. Probably, there was a collapse in this place and the clay rock narrowed the passage. Finally, I squeeze sideways between the concrete palan tiles that hold the gallery walls. Durdy cheers me up:
- A little more, now we will reach the fork, there we will rest.
Behind me I hear Rejeb grunting. And it's not easy for him. He became a kyariznik quite recently. Before that, however, he also dealt with water - he worked as a water irrigator on a collective farm.
It's more spacious at the fork. You can straighten up, catch your breath. I scoop up the water, rinse my face. Durdy fixes his lamp in a niche hollowed out in the clay wall and takes out cigarettes from under the cap covering his shaved head. Lights up from the lamp. You can hear the water splashing.
- Durdy, - I ask, - probably anything happened underground?
- It was, it was, it was a lot, - the master nods his head. - Then I'll tell you. Upstairs …
- Will we leave the lamps here or take them with us? - asks Rejeb.
- Yakshi, yakshi, - answers Durdy. It is clear - we will leave in the kyariz, tomorrow we will come down here again.
We approach the well. “Come on,” he slaps Durda on the shoulder and nods to a rope noose hanging over the water. I put a ball of rags on it and sit comfortably on the "donkey", as the kyarizniks jokingly call this simple device. The cable stretches and my feet are lifted off the water. I float slowly up. I try to keep myself freer and straighter - the shaft of the well is narrow, and nails stick out from the walls reinforced with juniper branches. The sun peephole of the qanat, which from below seemed the size of a nickel, was getting closer and closer. Finally I'm upstairs. I rest my hands on the neck of the well, trying to free myself from the loop, but my armpits immediately grab me, literally pulling me out of the dikan by the foreman I Zim Shikhmukhamedov. A few minutes later, Rejeb falls on the burnt-out grass next to me, and soon Durda's head appears over the well. The mouthpiece with a smoking cigarette is tightly clamped in my teeth …
The Kyarizniks began to fold the instrument. Above the valley is a languid midday heat. It was still only the end of April, but already wilted, the grasses withered, the poppies crumbled, blackened. High Mount Tagarev is covered with a dusty haze. Eagles soar lazily above the wrinkled brown foothills.
“Now we can remember,” draws out Durda’s words and sits on the grass. “In 1950, yes, exactly two years after the Ashgabat earthquake, we cleared the blockage in the kyariz. The usual thing - bale and bale with a pick. Suddenly the water will rush! I was knocked down, dragged. The gallery was flooded up to the ceiling. Then I don't remember anything … I woke up - in which direction the well, I can hardly think. Saved by the fact that the water immediately subsided …
- Do you remember how after a heavy rain a mudflow broke into the gallery? - Yazim frowns. He is a young foreman, and he wants to look solid and experienced in front of the foremen. Yazim now and then straightens his dandy black hat, keeps himself important.
- Yes, there was a case, - Durdy responded. - Day and night they dug a new kariz line to get to the old highway.
“By the way,” the foreman raises his finger, “each kyariz has its own name. We were now in Bukyri-kyariz. And there is also Keleta-kyariz, Tokli-kyariz, Dali-kyariz, Khan-kyariz. Usually the lines are named after the craftsman who built or restored them.
- Probably not everyone can become a kariznik? - I ask the foreman.
- They come and go. That also happens. I saw what kind of work it was. But that's not what I want to say. - Yazim gently touched my shoulder. - Look, you see a guy in jeans who pulls the collar to the car? This is my brother Khabib. Durda's son also works in our brigade. Now you decide for yourself who becomes a kariznik and how.
It should be noted that the Gonabad system is still in effect, although it was built 2,700 years ago. Today it provides water for about 40,000 people, which is a very impressive figure.