By Mohamed El-Hebeishy STANDING tall, the Soviet-Egyptian friendship monument commemorates the completion of one of Egypt's most colossal projects. Mohamed El-Hebeishy surveys the High Dam. As an idea it was born more than a century ago when Egypt, then under British mandate, started building the first dam. The 1,900m long, 54m wide dam was designed by British civil engineer Sir William Willcocks. Taking nearly three years to build, it was up and running by 1902. However, 44 years later, Aswan's first dam was close to overflowing. It was then decided to build a second dam, six kilometres upriver. Planning for the gigantic project started immediately after the Free Officers led the Egyptian Revolution in 1952. Taking off eight years later and for almost a decade, work was relentless, with the High Dam officially opening on 21 July 1970. At 3,600m in length, 980m wide at the base, 40m wide at the crest and 111m tall, the dam created one of the biggest man-made water reservoirs -- Lake Nasser. Beneficial as it can be, the dam's gargantuan 12 generators produced hydroelectric power that at its peak provided electricity to half of Egypt. When Africa was hit hard with droughts and famine in the 1970s and 1980s, Egypt didn't feel a thing. At the time of the dangerous Nile floods of 1964 and 1973, they were both mitigated by the High Dam. Nonetheless, the Goliath has his drawbacks. Trapping all the nutrition slit behind its concrete walls, cultivation along the banks of the Nile must depend on chemical fertilisers, and that comes with a heavy environmental bill to pay. The High Dam flooded much of Lower Nubia, and this mandated a resettlement of more than 90,000 Nubians whose land was simply gone. Their history was at stake. Though UNESCO led a rescue operation to save Nubia's archaeological sites, no less than 24 major monuments were relocated to higher grounds, including Abu Simbel and the Temple of Philae, or granted to countries that participated in the work, such as the Debod Temple in Madrid and the Temple of Dendur in New York.
