May 23, 2025: The Shining of Karakum
After a second stint in Ashgabat, it was time to visit Turkmenistan’s most iconic attraction: the Darvaza Gas Crater aka the Gates of Hell, a flaming pit of natural gas in the middle of the Karakum Desert. To reach there, we had to travel by 4×4 jeep. Maisie and I were in a car with my business school friend Jordan who surprised us on the trip that morning.
Like on the earlier trip to Western Turkmenistan, we picked a Russian driver. This guy was in his late 40’s, slightly pudgy but strong and had the vibe like he had war stories that we could only coax out of him with at minimum 12 shots of vodka. In other words, this guy looked like an exceedingly trustworthy jeep driver.
We started out on a beautiful highway into the Karakum Desert. The scenery was nothing but flat desert; I have never seen such boring scenery. Our driver played a mix of Russian dance music and The Weeknd. An EDM remix of Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple went especially hard.
The good roads lasted for two hours. At that point we stopped in a depressing desert city called Erbent with camels and a small food market. There was also a prison.
Past Erbent the road got bad. It was as wide as a highway but full of potholes and washboard. The road was so bad that the driver constantly veered in all directions, even going off the road onto the dirt.
4.5 hours after leaving Ashgabat, we stopped at crater, this one full of water.
As we learned every day of this trip, Turkmenistan has the world’s 4th largest reserves of natural gas. This is the source of its revenue. Much of this natural gas exists in deposits in the middle of the desert. Sometimes, the cave of natural gas collapses, creating a crater. Hundreds of these craters exist across the desert.
15 minutes later, we reached a similar-sized crater full of mud with a small fire burning at the bottom of the pit.
Then finally 15 more minutes later, we reached the main event, the Darvaza Gas Crater.
The natural gas here was discovered when a shepherd randomly collapsed and died in the desert. It was eventually determined that he ingested natural gas, which is colorless and odorless.
Seizing the opportunity, the Soviets then did an exploratory dig for natural gas to see the size of the reserves. During this dig, the natural gas pocket collapsed creating the artificial pit. The Soviets then decided to light the pit on fire thinking that the gas would burn off in a few days, thus eliminating the risk to future shepherds and other passersby in the area. However, the natural gas pocket was far larger than the Soviet scientists realized so the gas did not stop burning after a few days. In fact, 55 years later, the fire is still burning strong. Nobody knows for sure how long the fire will burn, but the newest estimates are 5,000 more years.
For better or worse, the gas crater has become the most recognizable symbol of Turkmenistan – far outshining Ashgabat. Originally, the government took it in stride. Arkadag, the second president of Turkmenistan visited the crater as part of an overnight automobile rally and was shown doing donuts on television to disprove rumors of his death.
However, in 2022, the Turkmen government decided to extinguish the eternal fire. Despite their efforts, the crater is still very much still on fire.
Their most recent attempt to extinguish the flame was to siphon some of the gas to a processing plant a few kilometers away. The effort has been somewhat successful – the flames have been reduced by 2/3.
Shockingly this is not the world’s only instance of a natural gas pit with an eternal flame. In nearby Kazakhstan, the government was able to extinguish their flaming natural gas pit by launching a small-scale nuclear missile at the pit. This moved enough dirt to extinguish the flame. Perhaps Turkmenistan will try something similar in the future.
I won’t call the area touristy (as Turkmenistan is one of the least visited countries on earth; according to my visa, I was the 2035th tourist to visit the country this year), but this was the only place in Turkmenistan where we saw other tourists. There was a Chinese tour group and a Japanese tour group. I really do wonder how Asian tour groups end up in the most random places.
The pit is hot and from edge you can feel the fire.
After a brief lecture from Ben telling us to be adults and not fall into the crater, we walked around the pit taking pictures.
We then headed to yurt camp a few minute walk away.
Just as I was getting settled into my yurt, a middle-aged Chinese guy with a hat that said AMSTERDAM FUCKING CITY walked into my yurt and just snapped a photo of me without saying a word and then disappeared. So funny!
I later went over to get a selfie with him.
A couple hours later, we watched the sunset on a hillside overlooking crater while eating a picnic dinner. One guy played Borat soundtrack. All in all, excellent vibes with the group.
Then went back to the pit to see it at night. It was way more impressive since the fire glows more at night.
We went to sleep in our yurts.
May 24, 2025: A Beautiful Sunrise
I woke up at 5:30 and walked over to see the sunrise at the gas crater. After confirming that yes, it is still on fire, headed back to the yurt camp for breakfast.
At 8:00, we drove back to Ashgabat arriving at noon.
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