The Kaplankyr Plateu

In the Karakum desert in the north of Turkmenistan the uplifted plains seeming to be boundless always end with pronounced spurs - chinks. In places they are not only steep, but beetle as lacerated cantilevers, i.e. have negative inclination. One can walk along these unassailable precipices for tern of kilometers before a place suitable for ascent is found. The largest chink rises from the north over the salt-marsh hollow of Karaskhor . Its almost perpendicular wall in height approaches a one hundred-storeyed skyscraper - about 300 metres. Such plateaus with sharp boundaries are outcomes of exclusively desert nature and have local name « куr». The greatest in the world kyr is the Usturt plateau that stretches between the Caspian and Aral seas and that the Turkmens call as Kaplankyr (the plateau of cheetahs). Almost all of its vast area is covered with a thick layer of salts blown by winds from salt-marsh. Being affected by a very hot weather a soil gypsum is formed — light, white and extremely porous. Such ground is practically useless for plants. It is not a surprise that only about 150 species of two thousand bushes and grasses growing in the Turkmen deserts are registered here. But it is sufficient for feeding of herds of jeirans and kulans brought here from the Badhyz sanctuary for the population spreading.
And one more type of the northern Turkmen land­scapes is a dordkul that means «quadrilateral». These are names for mountains with gentler slopes than chinks have, and flat, like a table, tops being formed by horizontal layers of hard rocks. To the east of Usturt a real country of small flat-top and uninhabited mountains stretches - Djantak. There narrow long kyrs are changed by deep close pits with sand and salt- marsh in the bottom.
In the north of Turkmenistan a boundless water mirror is available - a bitterly salt lake of Sarykamysh. It has emerged quite recently after a gigantic Sarykamysh cavity was filled that bad been formed millions of years ago as a result of depression of the earth crust. Lakers bottom is 38 metres lower than the sea level! In the distant past the Amudarya more than once crossed Sarykamysh flowing west­ward to the Caspian sea , and only some centuries ago real oases blossomed around the lake. Even today a dense network of ancient irrigation channels within the zone of Daudan and Daryalyk is noticeable - the former beds of the Amudarya that dried up long ago and are partly filled with drainage waters of Dashoguz velayat.
The entire zone from Kaplankyr to Sarykamysh is a part of Kaplankyr reserve - the greatest in Turkmenistan (750 thousand hectares).