Darvaza
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Photo: Benjamin Goetzinger, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, modified (cropped)
At a glance
- Velayat
- Region: Ahal Province
- Address: Ahal velayat
- Located in Asia, Turkmenistan, Dasoguz, The Door to Hell.
- Akdepe District, Daşoguz Province, Turkmenistan
- What it is
- This crater, formed as a result of an accident during the drilling of a reconnaissance well, burned for decades, being a serious source of methane emissions.
A gas crater in the Karakum Desert, its burning now seen only from close by.
History and what you see
Specialists from the Natural Gas Research Institute have developed and are successfully implementing a Work Program at the Chaljulba field, of which the crater is a part.
- Since 1971, the natural gas coming from the crater, continuously light day and night.
- The common urban legend of the place is that it collapsed in 1971 and was set on fire by Soviet scientists shortly afterward. But I've heard from the local Turkmen geologists, who have been there for decades, that the collapse may have happened in the '60s and that it went unlit until the 1980s.
If in 2013 the glow from the Darvaza gas crater was visible for many kilometers, now its burning can only be seen in the immediate vicinity.
During the analyzed period, the intensity of unorganized burning of the crater decreased by more than 3 times.
In the centre of Kara Kum, in the district known as Darvaza, there are unique landscape nature sanctuaries - well-known deep downfall, from a bottom of one of which escapes flame, and in that mine where the bottom is filled with water, there rages gas.
Getting there from Ashgabat
- It is in the middle of the Karakum Desert, about 260 kilometres north of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.
- …located in the center of the Karakum desert, 266 kilometers north of the turkmen capital.
Ask your agency how your trip gets here.
When to go
Seasons, heat and the dates that matter are on our When to go page.
Travel safely and respectfully
The Turkmen can be sensitive about having their picture taken without their consent.
Access
Ask the agency about walking distances and heat.