Ekibastuz

Ekibastuz, Kazakhstan - darkometer rating : 2 - An industrial town in north eastern Kazakhstan , the country's principal coal-mining (in huge opencast pits!) and energy generation centre, which features the world's tallest chimney stack and most powerful transmission lines. But it's not only home to some industrial record-breaking sites, it was also a place of exile for political prisoners such as Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: the legend goes (in several similar variants) that the coal reserves around Ekibastuz were discovered by chance by a shepherd who made a campfire and noticed that the black pieces of rock he used to prop his pot on caught fire. He then marked the spot of the discovery of this strange combustible material by putting two blocks of salt on top of one another so he could come back later for more. This is also the origin of the Kazakh language name of the place, which literally translates as "two (eki) heads (bas) of salt (tuz)". Not only did some lone shepherd come back for more but a whole large-scale industry developed, which subsequently turned into the biggest coal-mining area of Kazakhstan and the Soviet Union . A settlement to support this industry was founded in 1898 and acquired the status of a town in the 1950s, when large-scale extraction began. Today, Ekibastuz (ca. 150,000 inhabitants) still provides about two-thirds of Kazakhstan's coal and generates about half its electricity from it in several huge thermal power stations. All this gives Ekibastuz a certain industrial-wastelands appeal, in particular those gigantic opencast pits.