The Past Lives in the Present: How Soviet Colonial Legacy Still Hunts the EECCA Region’s Environment
Author: Zurab Kochladze
Editor: Mariam Kvaratskhelia
“Save Svaneti”
Protest banner opposing the construction of the Khudoni Hydropower Plant, Georgia, 1980s.
“Colonialism tortured me. And independence tortured me too.” This quote is from Amara Lakhous’s novel The Fertility of Evil. It is confessed by a character named Driss Talbi, a lawyer, human rights activist, and fighter in the Algerian Revolution. His words perfectly capture the overlooked experience of citizens of former colonies. If previously local communities were subjugated by foreign rulers, nowadays they face the same fate under their own governments. However, one can argue that this suffering did not and does not stop with humans; it extends beyond them and includes Mother Nature in the formerly colonised lands. She, similarly to humans, was usually severely exploited under colonial rule and continues to suffer in these now-independent nations.
The region of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA region) is not usually the first that comes to mind when colonialism is discussed. However, it is increasingly recognised as one due to a shared unwillingly imposed Soviet past. Being a former colony is more than a label, as it means that a country may continue to wrestle with legacies left by colonial rule, affecting every pillar of society from institutions to social attitudes or ideas regarding normality. Naturally, this legacy also spreads to the environment, another victim of the colonial era. The pattern of environmental subjugation has clearly outlived the Soviet regime, where decades of central planning treated local ecosystems as mere tools for ideological and industrial ambitions. This article explores how environmental issues that originated under Soviet control, such as hydropower development in Georgia and water mismanagement in Central Asia, persist today. Particularly, this paper examines how Soviet colonial legacies continue to influence decisions, landscapes, and local communities.
Soviet Colonialism in Brief and Its Environmental Dimension
In general, the main reason the former Soviet republics can be classified as former colonies is that, during Soviet rule, Moscow subjugated them and restricted their political, economic, and cultural autonomy in different ways (1) (2). For example, culturally, the creation of “New Soviet Men” was prioritised (3). At the same time, Moscow decided who would specialise in what and managed the republics' economies by setting fiscal budgets or trading their resources with foreign countries. Politically, even though each republic was led by native leaders (serving as first secretaries of their communist party branches), Moscow could easily remove them if they showed any sign of resistance to the Metropole.
This cultural, political, and economic domination also dictated how environmental resources were managed in the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks rarely prioritised environmental protection, often exploiting nature with little concern for long-term impacts (4). Like capitalism, Moscow’s planned economy lacked any mechanism to account for environmental harm and focused solely on maximising economic output, treating natural resources as free and limitless inputs.
Typical of colonial domination, this approach excluded local communities from having any say over their environment. One of the clearest examples of this malpractice is the Semipalatinsk nuclear site in Kazakhstan (5). Moscow decided that the Kazakh steppe could act as a good periphery to test its nuclear weapons. This decision was taken without consulting local communities or the Kazakh government. Furthermore, the authorities labelled the land as 'uninhabited’. The tests were secretive, leaving many locals uninformed that they were being exposed to dangerous experiments.
Although one could guess that with the Soviet regime’s collapse, this model of top-down governance would disappear in now-independent countries, it did not happen. Over the years, ignoring local communities' needs and interests became normalised in the former republics of the Soviet Union. Of the many possible examples in the region, one is Armenia, where the government permitted the Amulsar gold mine to begin operations despite protests from local communities due to perceived health threats and environmental concerns in the area, especially regarding the culturally important Lake Sevan (6). Decisions like this may indicate how the Armenian government prioritises economic output over the environment and the safety of local communities, reminiscent of the Soviet past. As one can conclude, independence and even democratic reforms have not been enough to break the colonial legacy. And if the governance model has not changed, environmental problems that began under the Soviet regime would not have been solved either.
Repeating the Mistakes of Its Oppressor: Unsustainable Hydropower Development in Georgia
One of the most evident environmental challenges traceable to the Soviet era is hydropower development in Georgia, which can be described as highly polemic and problematic. As electricity demand rose in Soviet Georgia and, more broadly, in the Union, Moscow decided to build large-scale hydroelectric power plants in Georgia. Initially, it was planned that the first mega-hydro project would be built on the Bzyb River close to the Georgia-Russian border in Abkhazia. However, since its construction threatened to cause beach erosion in Nikita Khrushchev’s favoured resort area of Pitsunda, without consulting local communities, the project was relocated to the Enguri River instead, leading to the creation of the Enguri Hydroelectric Dam.
This decision had far-reaching consequences: the dam blocked natural river sediment from reaching the Black Sea coast, resulting in severe beach erosion in the resort town of Anaklia and the nearby village of Ganmukhuri. At the same time, according to local communities in Mestia, a city in the mountainous region of Svaneti, the dam has increased humidity in their area (7). The plant’s construction also created barriers that obstruct sturgeon migration and spawning (8). Five historical villages and the surrounding forest were submerged. Tellingly, despite forty years of operation, there is little known research on the Enguri Dam’s long-term environmental impact, underscoring how environmental concerns remain a low priority in independent Georgia.
With the collapse of the Soviet regime, other planned large hydropower plants such as Khudoni and Nenskra were never completed. However, even in independent Georgia, nearly every political leader has continued to advocate for these mega-projects. Ironically, the current ruling party, Georgian Dream, an active supporter of large-scale hydropower development today, campaigned in 2012 on a promise to ban the construction of large-scale hydropower projects. This stance resonated with local communities who, since the 1980s, have mobilised against them after witnessing the impact of the Enguri Dam firsthand. For example, building the Khudoni project would submerge the historic village of Khaishi, which still has residents (9). Additional environmental risks include the loss of biodiversity, such as the Caucasian black grouse and the Caucasian snowcock, due to forest and habitat destruction. River species are also likely to decline, and, together with the Enguri Dam, local humidity levels will likely rise even further.Yet, the reality remains that the government continues to insist it knows what is best for local communities and maintains that large-scale hydropower plants will inevitably move forward, even as local communities are resisting them.
“This is no longer the Soviet era. De jure, today every large project has to undergo a mandatory environmental impact assessment, which includes public consultation. Moreover, international financial institutions that often co-finance such high-risk projects also require consultation. However, the government may claim that consultation took place simply because an agency visited a village and presented the project including situations where only one person was present. Even if the entire community opposed it, the authorities may say that no substantive objections were raised. Local people may also not oppose a project because they fear losing public-sector jobs or social assistance if they speak out. In such circumstances, I see little practical difference between consultation conducted merely as a formality today and having no consultation at all, as in the Soviet era.” - Dato Chipashvili, Member of the Green Alternative.
Disrupted Flows: From Cotton Production to Hydropower in Central Asia
Central Asia, specifically Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, also inherited major environmental problems from its colonisers, and, as in Georgia, issues surrounding water resources are especially prominent. The shrinking of the Aral Sea is a globally known environmental catastrophe that began during the Soviet era. Once again, the drive to maximise output and economic profit was the root cause of this disaster. Even during the Russian Empire, this arid region became a spot for unsustainable agricultural production, particularly cotton. However, under Soviet leadership, the situation worsened as massive water-diversion projects were built. This dramatically reduced the flow of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya into the Aral Sea by diverting their water to large-scale cotton irrigation. For example, in 1961 the water discharge station on the Syr Darya, located north of the Aral Sea at Kazalinsk, did not discharge any water. Between 1969 and 1989, the Aral Sea received less than one-tenth of its previous inflow. AsReuel R. Hanks says, “The Aral Sea, the world’s fourth-largest lake in 1960, had been sucked dry by the Soviet obsession to produce “white gold” at any cost.” (10)
Once again, communities in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, not in Moscow, bore the consequences of this environmental disaster. The collapse of the Aral Sea economy left an estimated 40,000–60,000 fishermen without jobs and, therefore, their traditional livelihoods (11). The shrinking sea hit Karakalpakstan, a region, especially hard, as half its income depended on fishing. Agricultural lands also suffered: 100,000 people lost farming jobs, and rising soil salinity made it even harder to grow cotton. As groundwater levels dropped, saltwater intrusion raised salinity, making drinking water unsafe. Communities became more reliant on irrigation canals, which carried runoff from intensive Soviet agriculture laden with fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, and mercury-based chemicals. Drinking this contaminated water contributed to high rates of liver disease among local populations.
Today, some positive developments have been made in independent Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Notably, Kazakhstan was able to successfully revive the northern part of the Aral Sea, and Uzbekistan reduced freshwater withdrawals from 169% to 122%. However, this does not mean that the extractive mindset went away. For example, the Uzbekistan government simplified regulations for small-hydro power plants (12). Small-scale projects under 50 kW are now approved without any requirements for urban planning or architectural review. This is still a smaller problem than Uzbekistan’s and Kazakhstan’s involvement in Kambarata-1 Hydropower Plant (HPP-1), located in Kyrgyzstan.
In the Soviet period, water from Kyrgyz rivers irrigated cotton fields in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (13). Today, these three countries have combined their financial resources to further exploit the Naryn River, a waterway already burdened by multiple reservoirs and crucial for irrigation. Unsurprisingly, local communities were not consulted regarding Kambarata-1 Hydropower Plant (HPP-1); for example, transboundary public meetings, which in theory should have included locals, were held in Istanbul, far from the affected communities (13). Importantly, there is also no comprehensive plan for ecological monitoring, downstream flows, or baseline conditions in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. While the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment acknowledges risks to wetlands, fish populations, mercury exposure, and river connectivity, transboundary protective measures are still undeveloped. Naturally, the project also damages local communities in Kyrgyzstan, where the new reservoir is projected to flood about 3,500 hectares of pasture, cutting off access to grazing land for roughly 1,000 livestock-dependent households and forcing almost a third to be physically displaced.
The path forward
So, at the end of the day, what is the path forward? To be more nuanced, of course, colonialism is not the sole cause of environmental problems in the post-Soviet space, since these problems can be complex and shaped by other factors, such as the global economic system or corruption. Yet the legacy of colonialism perpetuates these factors, as it reshaped mindsets, priorities and governance and still deeply influences the world. In the Soviet case, decades of rule that ignored local voices and treated the environment as a mere resource naturally left a mark. Therefore, changing this mindset is essential, and at its core can only be achieved through genuine decolonisation. What does this mean in practice? While the answer is not simple and must be decided by nations across this region, the first step is to honestly examine colonial history, recognise the negative patterns that persist today due to colonial rule, and begin reimagining new approaches for the future. This means that hydropower itself is not the problem, but the way we build it, ignoring people and the environment, is. Perhaps dismantling this inherited consciousness and deciding on our own terms whether and how to build such projects is where real decolonisation begins.
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This article has been supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES). The views and opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the FES.
Zurab Kochladze holds a bachelor's degree in Global Governance, Economics and Legal Order from ESADE, where he wrote his thesis on Soviet colonialism in the South Caucasus. He is a 2026 mentee of CAN EECCA's Youth Climate Policy Lab and writes on the intersection of colonialism and environmental justice.
