If we leave the Arabs here we will not be safe, my letter to the Jerusalem Post and How Jewish mobster Bugsy Siegel’s gamble on Vegas paid off after his murder and 13 Cool, Random Things To Know About Israel On Its 73rd Independence Day By Viva Sarah Press and Secrets Of The Aral Sea and Israeli Border Police arrest Molotov cocktail thrower, disperse riots at Rachel’s Tomb and The Jihad Within Israel By Dr. Mordechai Kedar and Shalom Pollock-The media is poisoning us
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Israeli Border Police arrested an Arab rioter suspected of throwing Molotov cocktails in the area of Rachel's Tomb on Wednesday night amid ongoing disturbances in the area.
Every night for the past week border police have been working to disperse riots at Rachel's Tomb, Rescuers Without Borders reports.
On Wednesday night, dozens of Palestinian rioters arrived, blocking roads, burning tires, and throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the grave site and at Border Police.
During the operation, the Border Police noticed a suspect holding a Molotov cocktail that he intended to throw. After a foot chase, the suspect was arrested by police.
A search of the suspect turned up a ready-to-use Molotov cocktail and a slingshot with which to apparently launch stones at the police.
The suspect, a 19-year-old resident of Bethlehem, was arrested for further investigation.
Also on Wednesday night, Arab terrorists threw Molotov cocktails into a structure at Oz Tzion in the Binyamin region, setting fire to it.
Four men were sleeping in the building when it was set on fire by the terrorists. They escaped by jumping through the windows. Two were lightly injured.
Since the start of Ramadan in mid-April, Jerusalem has been plagued with riots as Arab youth attack Jews, throwing stones at police and civilians and damaging property. After a brief calm that began Tuesday, police say the coming weekend will be a test of whether the calm, at least in the capital, will hold.
However, on Tuesday, in the heart of Jerusalem midday, a couple was attacked in their car on the way to pray at the Western Wall.
A mob of Arabs threw a block through their back windshield. They also smashed the front windshield and attempted to open the door. It took 10 minutes for the police to arrive, said Rivka Stern, who was in the car. Trapped in traffic, she and her husband managed to escape when a bus in front of them turned to the side to give them room to drive away.
When synagogues and religious seminaries are torched, it is a religious war.
When Torah scrolls are desecrated, it is a religious war.
When cars are torched only after verification that they belong to Jews, it is a religious war.
When Jewish drivers and passengers are dragged from their cars to the shouts of "Allah Akbar" and beaten up, it is a religious war.
When thousands of Muslims are rioting under the chant "With our blood and spirits we'll redeem the al-Aqsa Mosque," it is a religious war.
When mayhem is described and labeled as a jihad, it is a religious war.
And it is a religious war when rioters in the Israeli cities of Jerusalem, Lod, Jaffa and Acre, among many other localities, unite around such jihadist slogans as "Khyber, Khyber Oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return," evoking the slaughter of all men of this ancient Jewish community and the enslavement of their women by Islam's founder.
There are of course legions of commentators who will ascribe the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in general, and the ongoing explosion of violence by Israel's Arab citizens in particular, to territorial, national, economic, civil, or legal causes. Yet they overlook the conflict's deepest and most intractable cause: Islam's absolute rejection of the Jewish right to statehood.
In the Islamic order of things, Jews are not considered a People but rather members of a religious community that must be reduced (like their Christian counterparts) to the legally- and socially-institutionalized inferior status of "protected non-Muslim minorities" (Dhimmis) under the rule of Islam, the world's only true religion. As such, they have no right to independence existence in any part of Palestine, not least since this country in its entirety is an Islamic trust (waqf) that cannot be detached from its rightful place in the House of Islam (Dar a-Islam).
Indeed, from the onset of the Palestinian-Jewish conflict, it was run as a religious war. First by Hajj Amin Husseini, leader of the Palestinian Arabs from the early 1920s to the late 1940s, who was assisted in the 1930s and the 1948 war by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, then by the Brotherhood's Palestinian offshoots: Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza and the Islamic Movement in Israel itself.
Given Islam's pervasive entrenchment in Palestinian society (and for that matter in all Middle Eastern societies) – even Yasser Arafat and most of the PLO's founding generation were Muslim Brotherhood members in their young age – the acceptance of Israel's existence by Muslims communities, both within Israel and abroad, will only be feasible upon their realization of the Jewish state's overwhelming strength and invincibility. Only a powerful, well organized, highly determined and militarily invincible Israel can stand a chance of surviving in its violent and merciless neighborhood.
Israel is known for its innovation, its political perplexities, its religious holy sites, its amazing food and gorgeous nature. It is a small country but it's brimming with amazing finds, facts, and wonders.
In honor of its 73rd Independence Day, we're adding 13 fun, random things to know about Israel to everyone's trivia knowledge.
Here we go:
Scientists in Israel are growing date plants from 2,000-year-old seeds.
Israelis eat a whopping 64-kilograms (141 pounds) of poultry per person, the highest per capita consumption in the world according to OECD and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development statistics. The world average of chicken-per-person, according to the OECD report, sits at 31.3 kg.
In second place for most chicken consumed is the US, at 50.1 kg (110 pounds) per person. On the other end of the scale, Indians eat just 2.4 kg (5.2 pounds) of poultry annually.
The State Health Insurance Law states that in vitro fertilization treatments will be funded by healthcare organizations for couples who have no children (up to two children). The same law is applicable to any single woman interested in raising a family as a "one-parent family." The law is valid for women ages 18-44.
Meanwhile, Denmark leads the world in babies born through assisted reproductive technology, with some 10 percent of all births coming from the procedure.
Israel retained its top spot for research and development intensity in the 2021 Bloomberg Innovation Index for the fourth year in a row. This innovation nation also regained a top rank for research concentration, after placing 2nd in that category for 2020.
The world's first artificial cornea transplant took place in Israel.
Ra'anana-based CorNeat Vision, a clinical-stage, biomimetic implant and technology company, developed the first artificial cornea which completely integrates with the eye wall with no reliance on donor tissue. It was successfully implanted in a Haifa patient in January 2021.
Dubbed KPro, the artificial cornea enabled the patient to regain his sight and read text and recognize family members.
There are 157 beaches with lifeguard services in Israel.
There are 157 officially declared beaches in Israel, all with lifeguard services. Choose from sandy stretches bordering the Mediterranean, the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, or the Sea of Galilee.
"Israel is perhaps best known—and deservedly so — for its holy sites, but its standing as a stellar beach destination often goes unsung. With… everything from world-class scuba diving to ancient ruins to explore, the beaches of the Land of Milk and Honey have something for every type of sand lover," gushes a report in Vogue.
Israeli jewelers sold a Covid-19 facemask for $1.5 million.
Israel is known for its cut diamonds so it's not surprising that a wealthy Chinese entrepreneur from Shanghai custom-ordered a diamond-encrusted piece from Jerusalem-based jewelry brand Yvel. What is startling is that instead of a necklace or bracelet, the request was for a protective face mask to keep COVID-19 at bay. The mask was made of 18k gold and set with 3,608 natural diamonds at a total weight of 210 carats. The price tag: $1.5 million.
There are more Israeli-founded unicorns than from all of Europe.
As of April 14, 2021, there are 62 private tech companies founded by Israelis with a valuation over $1 billion. Investment banker Edouard Cukierman chairman of Cukierman & Co. Investment House Ltd. and managing partner of venture capital firm Catalyst Investments, says that number topples European-founded unicorns, telling Globes that the UK has 27, nine in Germany, seven in France, and in the Netherlands four. According to CB Insights, there are more than 600 unicorns around the world.
Israel's visual history is online.
Anyone can browse through Israel's visual history online, thanks to the Jerusalem Cinematheque – Israel Film Archive's initiative to digitize its entire collection and upload it to a website. The archive includes rare films from the late 19th century through today.
The searchable database includes one of the oldest known films made in the region: an 1896 Ottoman-era short film produced by cinema pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière. The website includes newsreels, home movies, and rare films.
93 percent of Israelis eat hummus every week.
Israelis love their hummus. And an amazing 93 percent eat this chickpea spread every week, and 45 percent of them will eat the dish more than twice in the same week. Israelis consume 40,000 tons of hummus annually, according to 2020 statistics. It shouldn't be surprising then that May 13 — International Hummus Day started in Tel Aviv nine years ago. The day brings together people from around the world to revel in all-things hummus.
The world's first autonomous beehive is made in Israel.
Israeli entrepreneurs are using robotics, innovative technology and an app to save the world's bees. The Beewise team reinvented the box and are helping to prevent colony collapse with a solar-powered device that takes care of bees in real-time. Their app calculates data like honey harvested, pollen flow, and scans of the bee colonies.
There are 33 species of bats in Israel.
Despite its small size, this country is home to 33 species of bats. There are 32 species of insectivorous bats and also the Egyptian fruit bat.
In 2016, the Israeli Bat Sanctuary came into being and set out on a mission "to protect, save, and help the fruit bats of Israel."
Israel boasts 9 Cultural World Heritage Sites as designated by UNESCO. They include: Bahá'i Holy Places in Haifa and the Western Galilee (2008); Biblical Tels – Megiddo, Hazor, Beersheba (2005); Caves of Maresha and Bet-Guvrin in the Judean Lowlands as a Microcosm of the Land of the Caves (2014); Incense Route – Desert Cities in the Negev (2005); Masada (2001); Necropolis of Bet She'arim: A Landmark of Jewish Renewal (2015); Old City of Acre (2001); Sites of Human Evolution at Mount Carmel: The Nahal Me'arot / Wadi el-Mughara Caves (2012); White City of Tel-Aviv – the Modern Movement (2003). There are an additional 18 sites on UNESCO's tentative list.
Happy Independence Day!
Viva Sarah Press is a journalist and speaker. She writes and talks about the creativity and innovation taking place in Israel and beyond. www.vivaspress.com
I am a big consumer of the media and I hear news all day.
The news is announced on the hour. We are presented hourly with a Hamas-issued quote of how many Gazan women and children were killed by Israeli airstrikes.
What am I supposed to do with this Hamas-issued information? What am I supposed to feel? Will this raise my morale as an Israeli facing a ruthless enemy or will it hurt it?
Will I have second thoughts about the rightness of our cause and question our army and our leaders. Will it make me feel guilty? Will it make me feel that this just cannot continue; that nothing is worse than enemy women and children killed. Nothing imaginable, not even our own losses. (After all, some of Israel's military leaders have said more than once, "better to sacrifice soldiers than kill enemy civilians".)
During this period of country-wide Arab uprising and pogroms against their Jewish neighbors, the mainstream media has found their calling. It is not to strengthen the moral and the sense of the rightness of the Jewish victims. Their efforts are to present a picture of "general violence" on "both sides"." We must and will live together."
Civil rights songs of the 1960s are played as if both the Jewish victims and Arab mobs equally just really want peace and brotherhood. Extremists on "all sides must be rejected". Bla Bla Bla.
Why does the Israel mainstream media do this?
Think about. If you know, please tell me.
Another observation;
Last Friday it was announced that news about the Gaza war will be broadcast continually on Shabbat and for those who "keep tradition" there will be a "Quiet broadcast".
"Keep tradition?
Is there a problem with using the words to use the words "Shabbat observers" or "Torah" or "mitzvah observers"?
I think there is.
I get the feeling that those very Jewish and obligatory terms are threatening for the secular elites who try to mold the country in their image, and that image does not include terms that sound "too Jewish".
Finally, for as long as I remember, all Israelis greeted each other with "Shabbat Shalom" whether they observed the Sabbath or not.
Lately, I have noticed many radio personalities prefer "have a nice weekend" to "Shabbat Shalom".
Hey, isn't that what they say in America? It must be right.
To me, it is clear that this phenomenon is just one of the subtle efforts in making Israel less a Jewish country and ultimately a country of "all its citizens".
That is ultimately the aim of the Left in Israel.
But don't worry, we have a promise from God no matter what you hear on the radio.
You will not find this article on Facebook. I am banned.
Shalom Pollack is a tour guide, filmmaker and writer in Jerusalem
For Jewish-American gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Las Vegas represented the gamble of a lifetime.
In the 1940s, Siegel poured the Mob's millions into what seemed like a quixotic scheme. He was convinced that the sleepy town in the Nevada desert would someday become a glamorous gambling center. To make that dream a reality, he and his Mob-connected girlfriend, Virginia Hill, built a casino hotel called the Flamingo that would rival anything in Monaco. Yet costs ballooned, and his gangster associates suspected him and Hill of skimming funds. On June 20, 1947, the 41-year-old Siegel was gunned down in Hill's Los Angeles apartment. The carnage left his eyeball spattered on the wall.
Siegel is the subject of a new book by Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Shnayerson — "Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream," part of the Jewish Lives series from Yale University Press.
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"On some level, Ben did want to be a good Jew, and I would dare say he hoped he might put his life of crime behind him and be a practicing Jew for the last years of his life," Shnayerson wrote in an email. "He just never had the chance."
Siegel's life was dramatized in the 1991 Warren Beatty film "Bugsy," starring Beatty in the title role and Annette Bening as Hill.
Michael Shnayerson, author of 'Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream,' part of the Jewish Lives series published by Yale University Press. (Courtesy Yale University Press)
"They had a wonderfully hot and steamy romance in the movie," Shnayerson told The Times of Israel over Zoom. "No doubt they had a wonderfully hot and steamy romance in reality. They clicked from the beginning. They really were kindred spirits."
Maybe, he speculates, the still-married Siegel found his match in Hill because both were born into poverty, Hill in Alabama and Siegel on the Lower East Side.
"You get that background," Shnayerson said of Siegel's tenement roots. "You have a better appreciation of why Ben became the street tough he did become, how it led to serious crimes."
Siegel is the first gangster to be chosen as a subject for the Jewish Lives series among its 50 titles to date.
All of the previous volumes were about "some admirable people," Shnayerson noted, "Supreme Court justices or scientists."
Yet, he said, "Jewish gangsters were part of the Jewish-American experience in the late 19th and early 20th centuries," including Siegel, his lifelong friend and partner in crime Meyer Lansky, and their Prohibition-era mentor, Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, who allegedly inspired the fictional mobster Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel "The Great Gatsby."
Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel, center, thanks his attorneys Byron Hanna, left, and Jerry Giesler after Siegel's indictment for murder was dismissed in Los Angeles, California, December 11, 1940. (AP Photo)
Shnayerson was raised Protestant but converted to Judaism seven years ago when he married his wife, Gayfryd Steinberg.
"I hadn't imagined that converting might make me a more appropriate candidate to write a book about Jewish gangsters," he reflected wryly. "But such [are] the coincidences that guide our lives, right?"
In another turn of events, one of Shnayerson's previous books is a 2015 biography of New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Following the recent allegations of sexual harassment and abuse against Cuomo, Shnayerson wrote a Vanity Fair article based in part on his notes from the book — including that during Cuomo's divorce from Kerry Kennedy, "there was an awful lot of tension between them. Kennedy spent more than one night living in her bathroom."
'Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream,' by Michael Shnayerson, part of the Jewish Lives series published by Yale University Press. (Courtesy Yale University Press)
Shnayerson added, "For three days afterward, I was fielding calls from TV news shows all over the world, all wanting to talk about Andrew Cuomo."
Another previous book led Shnayerson to the Siegel project. Shnayerson learned about the mid-20th-century world of casinos when he co-wrote a book on Harry Belafonte with the famed singer-actor. This led him to the opportunity to write about Siegel for Jewish Lives.
Shnayerson interviewed Siegel's granddaughter Wendy Rosen and read about the subject matter, including two books with memorable titles — "Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams" by Rich Cohen; and "But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters" by Tel Aviv University history professor Robert Rockaway.
Shnayerson even located the ship's manifest of the SS Etruria, which brought Siegel's parents, Max and Jennie (Riechenthal) Siegel, from Galicia to the US in 1900. They joined countless fellow Jews in Lower East Side tenement life. Max Siegel worked as a pants presser, barely supporting the growing family of seven — including Ben, who was born in 1906.
While still a teenager, he learned to shake down local pushcart vendors. The beginning of Prohibition in 1919 led him into the larger-scale world of bootlegging, especially after he made a fateful friendship with another young tough: Lansky, a Grodno native originally named Meier Suchowlanski.
"Meyer was sort of low-key, a studious guy," Shnayerson said. "He was not a guy who would pick up a gun and shoot you between the eyes. That was Ben. They complemented each other in a very useful way."
Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel is arrested in New York City, August 19, 1940, for the slaying of Harry Schacter, a chauffeur in Hollywood. (AP Photo)
Through their partnership, "the Bugs and Meyer Mob," Siegel became rich enough to move into the Waldorf-Astoria. Yet his nickname attested to both his hair-trigger temper and his being as crazy as a bedbug, Shnayerson writes in the book.
"He was really movie-star handsome, but at the same time a really tough guy with a famous temper, an incandescent temper," Shnayerson told The Times of Israel. "If it appeared, you were advised to exit the premises quickly."
After Prohibition ended in 1933, Siegel took his movie-star looks to LA, where he cultivated a Hollywood-style life. He became friends with gangster-turned-actor George Raft, star of the hit crime film "Scarface," and unsuccessfully sought a film career himself. His day began with a full grooming at Drucker's barbershop, continued with visits to the racetrack in expensive, monogrammed suits and ended at the sprawling mansion he built for himself and his family — wife Esther (Krakauer) Siegel and their two daughters.
"Even after dinner," Shnayerson said, "[Siegel would] take an eye mask on his face to be sure there were no lines in his complexion. He was very vain."
This is an exterior photo on June 14, 1997, of the home where, according to sources, Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills, California, on June 20, 1946. (AP Photo/Michael Tweed)
Siegel's liaisons included one with Dorothy Di Frasso, an American heiress who married into the Italian nobility. In 1939, Siegel and the Countess Di Frasso visited Mussolini to pitch a soundless explosive that Il Duce rejected after it did not work. The visit was reportedly in the presence of at least one infamous Nazi — Hermann Goring — that Siegel later regretted not killing after learning about the Holocaust. He also donated tens of thousands of dollars toward Israeli independence through meetings with Zionist diplomat Reuven Dafni.
The gang-style slaying of Benjamin (Bugsy) Siegel on June 20, 1947 took place in a palatial Beverly Hills, California, residence leased by wealthy and active Virginia Hill, pictured here, well-known film colony for her lavish parties. She was en route to Paris or already there when the killing occurred. (AP Photo)
Yet there was a dark side to Siegel, as the book notes in its subtitle. He held himself responsible for 12 deaths, including Tony Fabrazzo, a mobster he gunned down in front of Fabrazzo's father. Siegel was part of the infamous Murder, Inc. syndicate that left a death toll estimated at 400 to almost 1,000. He was also charged with rape by a former acquaintance who withdrew her accusation.
"No doubt, he did kill a lot of men as he worked his way up the crooked ladder," Shnayerson said.
The last rung on that ladder was Las Vegas, which legalized gambling in 1931.
People are shown at one of the gaming tables at the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, May 24, 1955. (AP Photo)
"It was the big turning point year in Nevada," Shnayerson said. "You could get married, get a quickie divorce, gamble. It all happened in that one year."
Siegel became a business partner in a venture to build a glamorous casino called the Flamingo. Shnayerson said that Hill was its namesake, perhaps through her rosy complexion while tipsy. Yet Siegel failed to see that his work crews were fleecing him. As costs rose by $5 million, his Mob backers soured on further support, suspecting him, Hill or both of skimming funds. In December 1946, as the Flamingo opened to a lackluster reception, a group of mobster associates — including Lansky — fatefully convened in Havana.
This is an aerial view of the Flamingo Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., in 1979. (AP Photo)
"Essentially, at that meeting in Havana, the gangsters decided either Ben was going to make good on all the money he'd blown or he was going to be killed," Shnayerson said.
The first half of 1947 witnessed numerous ups and downs for Siegel. His father, Max, died early that year. Hill left on a mysterious trip to Paris, where she reportedly brought 75 fur coats despite going in the summer. On a positive note, the Flamingo began turning a profit, and when Lansky came to visit, Siegel was feeling optimistic.
Instead, on the night of June 20, Siegel was shot to death with a rifle through the living-room window of Hill's LA mansion, which she had let him use during her absence.
"That was it for Ben," Shnayerson said. "It killed him almost immediately."
The crime was never solved.
A coroner bends over the slain body of Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel after it is placed on a stretcher on the living room floor of the Beverly Hills home on June 21, 1947. (AP Photo)
"The Flamingo itself actually prospered over the next few years," Shnayerson said. "In a sense, Ben's vision did come true. It was a second life for Ben."
"In the end," Shnayerson reflected, "you have to give respect and a lot of credit for the vision to build that casino in the first place. It was the beginning of Las Vegas as we know it."
Secrets Of The Aral Sea
In former times, the Aral Sea was one of the largest bodies of water on the planet. Now this sea is almost completely disappearing from the face of the planet, turning into a chain of individual lakes.
In 1989, the Aral Sea split into two separate bodies of water – the Northern (small) and Southern (large) Aral Sea. At the same time, the South Aral Sea was divided into two more parts: eastern and western. In 2014, the eastern part of the South Sea dried out completely.
The drying process of the Aral Sea by years
The name of the Aral Sea has changed several times. The first mention of this sea is found in the works of ancient historians. Herodotus in 448 BC described the Aral Sea as associated with the Caspian, calling it the "Saki Gulf of the Caspian Sea." In the XI century, the Arab geographer Istraha described the sea as "Lake Khorezm" in his book "Climate". In the XVII century, Russian scientists conducted a complete study of the Aral Sea, including it in the Big Drawing Book and a map of the Russian state. The Aral Sea was then called the Blue Sea. The current name of the sea appeared only in the twentieth century. When the sea decreased in size and several islands became immediately available to the eyes of local residents, it was called the Aral Sea, which means "island sea".
Aerial view of the Aral Sea, 2010
The Aral Sea islands have become a kind of natural reserves, and the unique location and inaccessibility has attracted the attention of the USSR authorities. At one time, these islands were called the most "closed" reserves of the entire Soviet Union because of the strict access regime. It is known that on the Renaissance Island in Soviet times there was a laboratory where scientists worked with the bacteria typhoid, plague, anthrax. As a result of testing bacteriological weapons, there was a ban on residents of neighboring villages from approaching the island for more than 60 km. This military facility operated for almost 45 years until 1992, until it was closed.
Once travelers who managed to visit there even before the shallowing, described the water surface of the Aral Sea infinitely blue and merging with the sky. It is not surprising that in Russian chronicles the Aral Sea was called the Blue Sea. It is believed that the famous wreck of the ships of Sadko (the hero of epics from Slavic mythology) took place there.
Satellite image of the Aral Sea, 2019
Satellite images of 2018-2019 show that the sea has essentially ceased to exist, having turned into a chain of separate reservoirs that are doomed to final drying out without feeding with river water.
Natural riddles of the Aral Sea
By the way, the Aral Sea is also called the "wrong sea". This was facilitated by a number of natural puzzles:
According to physical laws, due to the influence of the Earth's rotation, all seas, lakes, rivers and other bodies of water in the Northern Hemisphere deviate to the right. And the current of the Aral Sea, on the contrary, deviates to the left and moves clockwise.
Also, in all water bodies, with increasing depth, the oxygen saturation of the water decreases, and in the Aral Sea, the opposite happens – oxygen only increases in depth.
In the Aral Sea, sulfates and carbonates prevail (sea salt contains sulfate anions (0.82%) and calcium cation (0.03%). This means that the composition of its water is different from typical sea water, but it cannot be considered river. Thus, the Aral Sea is the only sea in the description of which the concept of semi-sea and semi-river water is used.
This amazing pond holds many other mysteries. On June 19-20, 1990, aerial photography was carried out at a level of the Big Sea of about 38 meters abs., That is, after a decrease of 15 meters. In photographs taken on a scale of 251 meters in 1 centimeter, hundreds of giant figures suddenly appeared, shining through shallow water and lying on the dried up areas of the seabed. A variety of figures consisted of single or several parallel lines of an unusual shape and suggested the idea of their artificial origin. Therefore, the figures were given the name "Traces of unknown activity at the bottom of the Aral Sea" or simply "Aral Traces". In the pictures, they cover an area of about 500 square kilometers, but it seems to continue beyond the boundaries of aerial photography. Before the sea level began to fall, the figures were at depths of 10-15 meters, and were not visible from the surface of the sea.
For different figures, the lines have a length from 100-200 meters to 6-8 kilometers, and their width, strictly constant within each figure, varies from 2 to 100 meters. Some figures can contain up to several tens of parallel lines resembling a stroke of a comb up to 1-2 km long.
Under water, the lines look like black stripes with narrow light fringes, similar to the dumps of soil of earth channels, and when drying on the shore, they become whitish, low-contrast. The black color of the lines along their length upon reaching the drained shore indicates their concave relief, similar to the cross-section of the channels, and their fullness with water. According to indirect signs in the pictures and measurements of two figures on the ground, it was found that the lines of the figures are furrows with an initial depth of 0.4-0.5 meters formed in sandy-silty soil of the seabed. Light spots on the surface of the water are sun glare. The black lines that come against their background are the convex parts of the furrows in the form of dumps of soil, towering above the surface of the water.
The age of the furrows, if it is supposed to be estimated on the pictures according to the degree of contouring of their contours and taking into account the relatively low rate of accumulation of bottom organic sediments, can be roughly determined up to several hundred years. And the pictures of mutual intersection of furrows (up to four times in succession) speak of cases of their successive formation (conduction) at different times on top of previously created ones.
Now it looks like this:
Parallel grooves at the bottom of the sea were also discovered, which appeared relatively recently, as the water receded. The nature of these furrows is not clear, but, in fact, these are recesses / furrows, the width of which is on average 100-200 meters.
The indicated location on the Goole Maps:
Interestingly, in addition to settlements, saxaul trunks are still found at the bottom, which grew 200-300 years before the arrival of sea water. These trunks are preserved and in some places protrude on the surface of a dry bottom, merging with the current steppe landscape. And only specialists understand the value of such finds.
Findings of saxaul at the bottom of the sea also shows that the Aral Sea is very young and formed by catastrophic processes, and its disappearance is not necessarily related to human activities.
Human settlements on the site of the Aral Sea
In the Aral Sea, there are about 60 historical and architectural monuments. According to the researchers, the sea water left there and replenished more than once before, in ancient times. Found at the beginning of the 21st century on the seabed, the remains of the Kerderi mausoleum dating from the 11th-14th centuries, and the Aral Asar settlement, which dates back to the Golden Horde period, testify to the medieval culture and civilization that once reigned there. Traces of caravan roads, stones, a brick workshop, candles and coins, large mill and granaries were also found on the seabed. In general, there are remains of ancient settlements and religious buildings from the 11th to the 16th centuries. Other architectural monuments reveal themselves gradually, as the Aral Sea becomes shallow. Therefore, the largest finds, according to archaeologists, are ahead. These places are called the Aral Atlantis.
Excavations of the Kerderi Mausoleum, the bottom of the Aral Sea
According to scientists, the ancient settlement, conditionally called Aral-Asar, covers an area of 6 hectares. The building structures of the city today are almost indistinguishable, they are blurred and smoothed by the waters of the Aral. But archaeologists in large numbers found household items: millstone, ceramic vessels and their fragments, fragments of iron and bronze products. Found 14 millstones and adjacent premises for the storage of flour – Khumdanov. Apparently, flour milling was developed. There was an irrigation canal 2-2.5 meters wide, passing through the hillfort, indicating a developed irrigation system and the fact that residents stretched water, apparently, from the channels of the ancient channels of the Amu Darya or Syr Darya for many tens of kilometers.
The evidence of those who lived in the south of the Aral Sea is also interesting. Here is what Viktor Lukyanov writes:
I remember that in the year 1972-76, my father's friend, a land reclamation machine operator who worked in the Ellikalinsky district of Karakalpakstan to develop virgin lands (it seems under rice cultivation), returned from the shift and said: "We remove the dune with a bulldozer, and there are beds! It turns out that before people lived and there was water! The desert turns out to be approaching. "
At about the same time, the tugboat captain, a distant relative who was transporting barges from Muynak to Aralsk, was surprised to note that at the bottom of the building are visible – the ruins of houses and duvals. Then the problem of drying out of the Aral Sea was already manifested and he noted what it means, in the past the sea was even smaller. Recently, scientists found a mosque on a dry bottom. There was a legend in that locality that the local khan defeated his neighbor Amudarya in dice for three days to water the land, but it was not possible to return it to its former course (Uzboy).
Two examples of the sandy settlements can still be seen on satellite maps in the Takhtakpyr district of Karakalpakstan (Republic of Uzbekistan) at coordinates 42.616329 61.200814 and 42.632005, 61.083315:
Of particular interest is the fact that bones of people and animals living in settlements are found at excavation sites within the boundaries of the former bottom of the Aral Sea. Their chaotic location at the time of death suggests that death came relatively quickly and inevitably, most likely as a result of some kind of cataclysm.
There is also reason to believe that the Aral Sea was filled and dried up not the first time. This gives hope that the water in the sea will return, perhaps in centuries. The cyclic nature of this process has not yet been studied.
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Geoglyphs of the Aral Sea
Around the drying up Aral Sea, a lot of talk arose about the manifestation of signs and symbols (geoglyphs), appearing from under the water column as it dries. However, the most common examples of such geoglyphs with more thorough verification turned out to be fakes.
The following message is quite common on the Internet:
In 1990, employees of the Kazakh Research Institute, surveying the coastal zones of the Aral Sea, took dozens of large geometric patterns similar to the famous images in the Nazca desert at a depth of 15 meters. Surprisingly correct geometric shapes were made in one direction and covered about 500 square meters, and the width of the drawings ranged from 2 to 50 meters. Immediately after the discovery of these mysterious geoglyphs, a sand dam broke, and the water flooded the place of shooting, and their origin was never found out.
All such messages are usually accompanied by photographs of geoglyphs of rather poor quality, without indicating their exact location. However, a deeper study of this topic will lead those interested in the following results:
1. The figure is visible on Google Maps at the coordinates 46 ° 40'50.0 ″ N 61 ° 26'13.0 ″ E (46.680556, 61.436944).
2. The figure is not observed on other cards, for example, on more detailed Bing cards.
3. The dimensions of the figure do not match what is given in the message. Actual dimensions: the figure is 250 meters wide and 230 meters high.
4. The thickness of the lines matches the standard width that a classic car leaves. It is significant that to the southeast of the figure a trace from the car is visible, part of the path of which is "painted over" in the same color as the geoglyph. As if in this place they trained or didn't have time to "finish" another geoglyph. It can be assumed that this could technically be done, for example, by tying something massive and heavy to the car, which would leave a mark on the steppe surface. There is nothing supernatural in this.
You can form your own opinion by examining the indicated location on the Goole Maps:
Another example is no less remarkable. Here is the source text of the message:
The most amazing and most understandable symbol is the "pointing arrow". Unfortunately, no full-scale studies of these formations have been carried out so far, which means where the giant arrow points and whether the rest of the symbols mean anything at all, remains a mystery.
Studies have shown that:
1. The figure is located at 45 ° 12'13.2 ″ N 58 ° 20'30.4 ″ E (45.203658, 58.341767). This is not the bottom of the Aral Sea, but the steppe on its western shore.
2. The figure was indeed "drawn" on the surface, but in such a way that it becomes less noticeable every year. For example, on Google Maps it is no longer visible, but on Bing maps it is still distinguishable.
This allows two conclusions:
The technology for creating a symbol on the surface of the steppe is less stable than traces from the wheels of cars, which quite nearby created a round shape with roads going to the sides.
If a figure became barely distinguishable in just a few years, it could not be created centuries or millennia ago – this is a remake.
Thus, the figure of the "arrow" is in fact real, but not having any relation to ancient symbols.
The image of another figure from the territory of the Aral Sea "wanders" on the Internet and causes various associations – this is the figure of a "star". Here is the image:
In fact, there is nothing mystical in it, since we are talking about the territory of the airport near the village of Aralsk-7 (Kantubek), the Republic of Uzbekistan. This is an abandoned closed city on the former Renaissance island. The city of Kantubek was an administrative-residential zone of the training ground, where 1.5 thousand people lived (employees of the training ground with families, as well as about 800 military servicemen). Currently, the city is uninhabited and is in ruined condition. From 1942 to 1992, a military biochemical training ground with the code name "Barkhan" operated on Renaissance Island.
3 kilometers west of the city of Kantubek in the early 1960s, a military airfield was built, consisting of four runways (initially unpaved) in the form of a wind rose. In the 1980s, aerodrome runways were equipped with concrete slabs.
The landfill with the city of Kantubek functioned until 1992. In October-November 1992, the military contingent (along with their families) was relocated to Russia (the city of Kirov), the biological laboratory was dismantled, the documentation and some of the equipment were removed, the rest was abandoned on the island and over time the city gradually collapsed.
What it looks like now can be viewed on Google Maps at coordinates 45.158434, 59.296239.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the Aral Sea is indeed a very interesting and mysterious place where many mysteries remain. But these riddles are mostly natural and such that require more in-depth scientific research with field expeditions.
