Uzbeks attend first electronic music fest by ravaged Aral Sea Festival-goers dance beside rusting boats beached miles from the shrinking Aral Sea at 'Stihia' or Element in Russian, the first electronic music festival ever held in ex-Soviet Uzbekistan, which has recently moved to open up to international tourism. The music festival is staged in an area of desert caused by one of the world's largest man-made environmental catastrophes, the shrinking of the Aral Sea that borders Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, caused by Soviet irrigation projects that diverted its tributary rivers. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES