The Darvaza gas crater or the Shining Karakum is located 270 kilometers from Ashgabat in the central Karakums. Back in Soviet times, in 1963, an attempt was made to drill an exploration well there, but a gas-filled void was discovered at a shallow depth. A sinkhole was formed with a depth of 20 meters and a diameter of 60 meters. Then the engineers hoped that the crater would … [Read more...]
Famous Canadian traveler dreams of returning to Darvaza
Ravilya Kadyrova George Kourounis shared his memories of Darvaza at the conference. In 2013, he became the first man to sink to the bottom of a blazing crater under the expedition organized with the support of the National Geographic. In search of alien life forms, the famous traveler spent 17 minutes in a raging fiery hole at a temperature of 400 degrees … [Read more...]