Text: Konstantin Andreev It is no coincidence that the new archipelago was called the "World" - it really was an attempt (and, as time has shown, successful) to synthesize, like medieval Utopian philosophers, a new world of happy people living in islands and islands in harmony and comfort, separated by straits.
The evolution of a successful person’s real estate usually ends with a personal island. This is the best compromise with the imperfection of the world for almost anyone: a well-read romantic, ambitious entrepreneur who carefully suppresses the idea of world domination of a politician or genius tired of worldly fame. Own island as own state with personally written laws surrounded by personal territorial waters - what could be better? But the dream has a downside.
First, the number of orphaned islands in the world is rapidly melting. All the best have already been dismantled, and the remaining pieces of land lost in the ocean cannot boast of basic amenities.
Their owners have to compromise in the spirit of Robinson Crusoe - no annoying neighbors, but they will have to get fire by friction and collect rainwater. And when the initial inconvenience is overcome, it will become boring and will have to look for Friday. The idea of creating a large-scale copy of the earthly world in the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates was first expressed in 1999 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who at that time served as Minister of Defense, and now Prime Minister, Vice President of the UAE and ruler of Dubai. The city stretched along the coastline needed new areas for development, residents and tourists needed beaches and parking lots for water transport. Part of the tasks of expanding the city towards the bay were carried out by the under construction Palm Islands, but I wanted to step further, creating something new.
In the course of work on the project, it was decided not to completely fill in the “continents”, but to divide them into islands, which, given the sufficient distance from the point of view of privacy from each other in a satellite image, will nevertheless merge into single continents. So, by the way, it will be easier to sell them, the architects decided. The construction of the world's largest artificial archipelago began in 2003; the general contractor was Nakheel, which already had experience in the creation of the Palm Islands. Unfortunately, the fine-grained sand, which the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula are so rich in, is not suitable for bulk islands: it easily erodes and pollutes the water area. Therefore, The World islands with a total of about three hundred were poured from stones and coarse sand mined at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.
Creation of an archipelago of 56 square meters. km cost 7.3 billion AED. The first island, symbolically named Dubai, emerged from under water in April 2004, in accordance with the master plan for construction, by 2007, 90% of the artificial “world” was ready. Several islands in the North America area were placed at the disposal of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister, Vice President of the UAE and the ruler of Dubai, while Nakheel sells the rest as a developer for $ 38 million apiece. Moreover, it sells in the same way as Rolls-Royces - only with a good economic reputation.
One of the first buyers of the islands of The World archipelago was Richard Branson. In 2006, he bought the whole of Great Britain and plans to equip an airfield there, on which he will land on the plane of his own Virgin airline.
According to rumors, recently Sir Richard has been actively promoting the idea that in 50 years the level of the oceans will rise so much that the "artificial world" will sink. Some environmentalists echo the knight of the British crown, predicting that inter-island straits with a width of 50-100 m and a depth of 16 m will soon wilt, cover with lotuses and turn into a swamp. The logic of these predictions is obvious: some of the owners of bulk real estate want to have fewer neighbors. Nakheel has a number of official denials in this case, backed up by scientific research.
From the damaging effects of seasonal storms, the archipelago along the perimeter is protected by a specially constructed dam and a network of breakwaters. The pyramidal section of the protective structures 6 m high absorbs the energy of the waves, and special turbines inside the dam in the calm force fresh water into the straits and prevent it from stagnating there. The coral reef “planted” here at the beginning of construction is growing and gaining strength - this in itself is the most convincing evidence that everything is in order with the ecology of the archipelago. Statistics indicate a maximum increase in the level of the World Ocean by 50 cm in one century, the ground zero of the island buildings is located at an altitude of 4 m above sea level, which means that the happy inhabitants of The World have at least eight hundred more reserves.
The World archipelago is successfully mastered not only by representatives of the world business elite, choosing a place for themselves based on ethnicity. Since 2007, the owners of the island of "Ethiopia" are considered Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. In 2009, the British rocker Rod Stewart joined the "islanders". As for compatriots, the first Russian buyers at Nakheel appeared after the island “Moscow” was transferred to the English, and “St. Petersburg” - to the German real estate companies. Today it is known that the Rostov and Yekaterinburg islands belong to one of the Russian developers, Siberia is owned by a certain lady who plans to equip a timeshare there, and the most expensive Markovo island in the archipelago was acquired incognito, but also, most likely, Someone from "their".
In addition to the private sector, it is also planned to equip hotels on the islands of the archipelago, and in connection with the special “offshore” price of living in them promises to be lower than not only neighboring Jumeirah, but also Marbella and Mallorca. It is still unknown whether such dumping of the island of La Isla Moda with three boutique hotels will affect, but this land promises to be the last reservation of glamor, even if the rest of the world crashes or goes crazy. After all, Karl Lagerfeld himself is working on a complex stylistic solution to the island; Giorgio Armani and Victoria Beckham also had a hand in hotel design.
The four kilometer distance of the archipelago from the coastline of Dubai does not imply any other communication, except by water or by air. As a "public transport" there will be ferries with a 15-minute interval.
The prospect of free access to the islands (say, by helicopter or water taxi, or by private transport) is currently being discussed. Initially, the idea was to create a “border” checkpoint for the safety of owners, but taking into account the construction of hotels, it will be more and more difficult to comply with the passport regime. The construction of desalination stations declared by the developer on the largest islands of the archipelago seems to be much more promising. The latest know how of The World project is a proposal to recreate a microclimate on a number of islands corresponding to the geographical position of the prototypes. In February this year, Nakheel representatives said that, first of all, artificial climate zones will appear on a group of six Heart of Europe islands. Whether the islands "Austria", "Germany", "Netherlands", "Sweden", "Switzerland" and "St. Petersburg" will be covered with transparent domes or use other weather management technologies is still unknown, but the first snow over "Europe" is promised in 2016.
Observing the trends of recent years, we can conclude that soon the Palm Islands and The World will become a single archipelago. Free space in the bay will be occupied by The Universe islands under construction. The project was announced by Nakheel back in 2008, the construction slowed down the global financial crisis, but now the estimated completion date is 2028. A “mosaic” of islands larger than The World’s system will, from a bird’s flight, resemble outlines a star named the Sun, planets of the Solar system and the Milky Way galaxy. Probably for our alien guests (or conquerors), out of politeness, who lingered on sighting distance, this topographic plan will be the most convincing evidence of the existence of intelligent life on Earth.
