Stihia festival
From 6-8 May 2022, an electronic music, arts and science festival was held in Karakalpakstan. Tourism Ambassador to the UK in Uzbekistan Sophie Ibbotson talks about what it was like to be there this time.
Photos by Feruz Rustamov, Sophie Ibbotson
Stihia means ‘force of nature’ and as the rain poured down and winds whipped up the sands of the Aralkum, it seemed that Mother Nature was understandably angry. The climate change which causes this kind of weather in Karakalpakstan is a direct result of the shrinking of the Aral Sea, arguably the worst man-made environmental disaster of the 21st century.
Stihia Festival takes place annually in Muynak, a once-prosperous fishing port which is now far from the water’s edge. Electronic music lovers from across Uzbekistan and beyond come here to rave with the dystopian backdrop of theShip Graveyard and the absent sea, but also, critically, to learn about the environmental and social-economic impact of the Aral Sea disaster. This year’s festival included the Stihia N+1 Forum, sponsored by German development organisation GIZ, highlighting conservation and development issues in the Aral Sea region.
With hundreds of other festival-goers, I flew to Nukus and then drove north into the Aralkum, the world’s newest desert. The sky was threateningly dark, but the outfits were bright and there was an air of excitement as we approached the festival site. Muynak’s lighthouse had been given a jaunty black-and-white makeover. A glass art installation made from a photograph of the Aral Sea taken by Nikita Makarenko, juxtaposed against the desert, was a poignant reminder of what has been lost.
Throughout the weekend, electronic music artists took to Stihia’s two stages from late afternoon until the early hours of the morning. Uzbek DJs like DJ Soft – who looked incredible in a traditional chapan woven with a Darth Vader pattern by textile artist Dilyara Kaipova – shared the programme with international artists from Georgia, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia, including Vladimir Dubyshkin and Wata Igarishi. Local families from Muynak joined in the party, making it a truly multicultural event.
