Where the Amu Darya flows into the Aral Sea, in the Khorezm oasis surrounded by deserts, the life of people, animals and plants depended entirely on artificial irrigation. Until relatively recently, sacrifices were made to the fertile waters of the river, along the mountain paths of the Sultanuizdag ridge, singing hymns, dervishes - wandering mystics, "servants of the dead" passed through the narrow streets of Khiva, who were forbidden by custom to communicate with others... So it was once in the life of a sultry land. In the transformed Khorezm of our days, only single fragments remained from past customs and rites. The reader learns about all this from the book of the Soviet ethnographer.