In episode 2 of my EPQ podcast mini-series about why the Soviet Union drained the world's 4th largest lake and whether it was justifiable to do so for cotton farming, I have a conversation with Dr Cameron Pyke, an expert on Russian history and author of 'Benjamin Britten and Russia'. We talk about the political climate in the Soviet Union as the Aral Sea was shrinking, the legacy of the empire's agricultural policies, and even their colonialist undertones.