Q: for a paper
A: There were many, but the really big ones were: 1) The Virgin Lands Project This was an attempt to turn steppe country into farmland. It was quite extensive, and was headed by Nikita Khrushchev (later head of the USSR). It produced crops for a few years, then land exhaustion set in and created a huge dustbowl. 2) The Aral Sea area cotton growing schemes The two rivers that feed the Aral Sea were extensively tapped for water to irrigate cotton plantations around their courses. Over several decades, this resulted in the Aral Sea shrinking to a fraction of its former size (it still has not recovered). 3) The Soviet Nuclear Programme Originally, this was based in the Urals area, near the Techa river. Careless dumping of wastes, plus an explosion at a waste storage facility (Kyshtym 40) turned the Techa river and surrounding area into a radioactive desert. Other less spectacular pollution incidents finally culminated in the explosion in reactor no. 4 at Chernobyl. Tracts of Russian and Ukrainian land are still radioactive. 4) Dams The Soviets initiated a number of hydro-electric power projects, building dams across several major rivers without regard to the effects of back-flooding or depleted river flow. 5) Industrialisation The Soviets created industry seemingly for industry's sake; this was accompanied by extensive mining (for coal and iron ore) and country-wide pollution. Huge scars and slag-heaps were left to mar the landscape.
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