Nathan's Insights

Wednesday 31 May 2023
Highlights: Exploring Kunya-Urgench, the amazing Darvaza Gas Crater (Gates of Hell)

After a surprise hotel accidental wake call for everyone via an intercom announcement and an underwhelming breakfast, we were off on a 2 hour drive to UNCESO protected ancient abandoned city of Kunya-Urgench. This was the first chance to really see this country and some of it’s people.

Kunya-Urgench was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. The abandoned city contains a series of monuments in very good condition dating from the 11th to 16th centuries, this includes a mosque, the gates of a caravanserai, mausoleums and a stunning (but crooked), 60-m high minaret.

We spend around an hour exploring this area before leaving for a nice lunch and a two hour drive back to our hotel before changing transportation to 4 wheel drive vehicles.

The over 5 hours of driving to Darvaza was a times very rough and bumpy as we entered the Karakum Desert. This desert isn’t a place to break down in as the 4 wheel drive vehicles where put to the test. One similar vehicle to our 3 rolled at one point but luckily no one was hurt.

We arrived at the Darvaza Gas Crater (Gates of Hell) or more officially the Shining of Karakum, just after 8.30 pm just as the last of the sunlight was going.

While it’s history is disputed most believe that the site was drilled by Soviet engineers in 1971 as an oil field but collapsed within days, forming the crater, with the engineers choosing to flare the crater to prevent emission of poisonous gases but underestimating the volume of the gas. If this is the case it is still going 52 years later.

The crater gives of immense heat when the wind hits you. It’s like nothing I’ve seen in real life before.

We walked to our nearby yurt campsite for dinner at 9.30 and eventually picked out yurts for the night. While this is supposed to be shared accommodation as the only group here we had the option to have a yurt to ourselves with all the men pick.

Around 10.50 we walked back to the crater to explore more and have some fun in the process.

Around midnight I was back in my yurt trying to get some sleep with the temperature around 25c. The Darvaza Gas Crater is worth the visit to Turkmenistan by itself.