The Construction of the Grand Fergana Canal, 1939

Editor: Lieven Soete,
Update: 28-02-2004

www.katardat.org

The Construction of the Grand Fergana Canal
1939
Photos by Mikhail Grachev

Fergana, city in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southern edge of the Fergana Valley.
Fergana is about 420 km east of Toshkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

Fergana has been a center for oil production in the Fergana Valley since the region's first oil refinery was built near the city in 1908. Since then more refineries have been added, and Fergana is one of the most important centers of oil production and refining in Uzbekistan. Natural gas from western Uzbekistan is transported by pipeline to the valley, where it is used to produce fertilizer.

The Fergana Valley was the most important irrigated cotton region of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Cotton growing and processing has been the dominant economic activity here for centuries, supplied by water from small streams flowing from the surrounding mountains.

The Great Fergana Canal, built almost entirely by hand during the 1930s, passes through the northern part of the city.

In 1939 Sergei M. Eisenstein, the great soviet filmmaker, made a short color documentary «The Fergana Canal».