Turkmenistan's mysterious, flaming 'Gates of Hell'

The crater, which is 226 feet wide and almost 100 feet deep, has since become one of Turkmenistan's most common tourist destinations, despite its intimidating moniker of 'The Gates of Hell'. (Alec Connah/Solent News/Shutterstock via CNN Newsource)

Darvaza, Turkmenistan — Rarely does an industrial accident develop into a major tourist attraction.

But when a Soviet exploratory team drilled for natural gas in Turkmenistan more than 50 years ago, they are said to have set off a chain reaction that created the Darvaza Gas Crater – a giant, fiery hole that eventually became the country's most sought-after sight.

Also called the "Gates of Hell" and the "Shining of Karakum," the phenomenon is caused by methane-fueled flames escaping from scores of vents along the crater floor and walls. Standing around the rim, you can feel intense heat emanating from the hole. It's especially dramatic at night, fiery tongues blazing beneath a starry sky.

Flanked by dunes and rocky outcrops in a remote part of the Karakum Desert, the crater is the top stop on almost every tour of the Central Asian nation.

When travellers first started flocking to Darvaza, there were no visitor services or amenities, and you had to bring everything you needed for an overnight stay. Nowadays there are three permanent camps with overnight accommodation in yurts or tents, as well as meals and motorized transportation to the crater rim for those who don't want to walk.

The crater is roughly 230 feet (70 metres) wide and 100 feet (30 metres) deep, with vertical walls that drop sharply into a rocky debris field scattered across the bottom. A safety fence was added in 2018 to keep visitors from venturing too close to the blazing sinkhole.

"It's a collapsed gas cave, which sounds about as interesting as an old gas oven," says author Ged Gillmore, who wrote about the crater in "Stans By Me: A Whirlwind Tour Through Central Asia."

"But there's this eeriness about it, and I actually found it quite creepy."

However, the crater may not be around much longer, at least not in its fiery form. On several occasions, the Turkmenistan government has mentioned the possibility of somehow sealing the crater. Meanwhile, those who have been visiting Darvaza for years say the flames are much smaller than they once were.

"I would say it's only burning at around 40% of the level I first witnessed there in 2009," says Dylan Lupine, whose U.K.-based Lupine Travel was one of the pioneers in bringing tourists to Turkmenistan.

"A much larger area of the crater had flames burning in it back then. There are less now, and they are not as high as they were."

Standing on the edge of the crater, a local guide who wished to remain anonymous because he wasn't authorized to speak with the media, confirms the flames have been getting lower and lower over the last seven years and his 40 or so visits to Darvaza.

"Before there were more flames than now, probably because the gas pocket is wearing out," he says.

But that doesn't diminish the allure of a hybrid manmade/natural wonder that's especially amazing when a sandstorm blows in and obscures everything but flickering fire reaching up from the darkened pit below.

Mysterious origins

No one is quite sure when the gas crater opened, apparently because the Soviet-era reports are missing, incomplete or still confidential.

"There's a lot of controversy, a lot of disagreement over how it started," says George Kourounis, a Canadian adventurer and television presenter who's the only known person to have explored inside the gas crater.

"I don't even know what to believe. There's so many stories and mythology with this place. It's crazy."

According to Kourounis, the most common theory is that the crater formed in 1971 and was lit on fire shortly thereafter.

"But while I was in Turkmenistan, we had two old school geologists from the government come out to the crater with us, and what they told me was that the crater actually formed at some point in the 1960s and was bubbling away with mud and gas for quite some time and didn't get ignited until the 1980s."

How the gas first ignited is another mystery.

"Some say it was a hand grenade," Kourounis adds. "Some say the Soviets just threw a match in.  I've heard a story that a drunk farmer drove his tractor into there at some point."

The local guide floats another theory: "There was a nearby village in those days, and I've heard they set the crater on fire because they didn't want the smell ruining life or the poisonous gas becoming harmful to the health of the villages. They thought it would burn out in a couple of weeks."

In addition to just experiencing the thrill of plunging into a flaming crater, Kourounis was on a National Geographic-funded scientific mission to find any lifeforms that could survive in that environment, especially those that could yield clues as to what we might find under similar conditions on other planets.

During a 17-minute descent in 2013 – inside an aluminized suit with a Kevlar harness and Technora ropes of the type used on NASA Mars missions – he collected soil samples for the Extreme Microbiome Project. Later analysis revealed simple organisms, like bacteria and thermophiles, that are somehow able to survive the extreme temperatures inside the crater.

Reaching Darvaza

The gas crater lies a four-hour drive north of Ashgabat, the national capital. Four-wheel drive is highly recommended for a journey along the rough two-lane highway and sandy desert roads that lead to Darvaza.

Wandering camels are a frequent sight along the way.

Other than general stores in Bokurdak and Erbent, remote desert villages along the highway, there's nowhere to stock up on provisions after leaving Ashgabat.

Darwaza Camp is the most upscale of the three overnight options. Located around a five-minute walk from the crater rim, the camp features yurts with beds and chairs, a shaded dining area and porta-potty/outhouse-style toilets.

On the opposite side of the crater, Garagum Camp offers yurts with futon-like floor pads spread across traditional Turkmenistan carpets, solar-powered interior lights and evening barbecue meals served on outdoor tables.

Garagum lies about a 10-minute walk from the crater rim and even closer to a small rocky mount where visitors can snatch a bird's-eye-view of the Gates of Hell.

"Arriving at Darvaza at night is definitely the best," says Gillmore. "It's this incredible thing that you first see from a distance after hours of driving across the desert. There's no other illumination anywhere near it and you do feel like you're really at the gates of hell."

Nearby are two other accidental craters – formed around the same time and by similar drilling gone wrong – that are just as large as Darvaza but not nearly as spectacular.

Near the intersection of the tarmac highway and the sandy road to Darvaza is a gas crater with much smaller flames. Farther south along the highway in the direction of Ashgabat is a water-filled crater with gas bubbles but no flames.

Will the gas crater vanish?

For years there's been talk that the Turkmenistan government will transform Darvaza into a natural gas production site by extinguishing the flames.

In 2022, the state-run Neytralny Turkmenistan newspaper reported that the president had asked his cabinet to consult with scientists to find a way to extinguish the flames and close the site to tourism.

Among the reasons cited for closing the crater were the loss of a valuable natural resource, environmental damage and health concerns.

Since then, there's been much discussion about the crater's predicted demise but nothing concrete to prove the government is going to dampen the flames anytime soon.

Some say the government has already drilled a nearby exploratory well that has siphoned off a considerable amount of gas that was escaping through the crater and caused the level of the flames to drop significantly.

"It's only rumors," says the local guide, who adds "there is still nothing official about the termination." And he wonders how it might be done.

"They can fill it in with cement or foam, but the gas will just escape elsewhere. We don't know how it will happen or if it will happen."

CNN Travel has reached out to government officials for comment on the future of the crater.

Lupine, who visited the site again earlier this year, agrees that Darvaza may be doomed.

"The locals believe this is going to be a renewed attempt to finally put out the flames," says Lupine. "There is a lot of concern amongst the locals, as they believe if the crater is extinguished then tourism to Turkmenistan will take a huge hit and many of them will be out of work."

For the time being, the Darvaza Gas Crater continues to amaze visitors who make the long and arduous trek across the Karakum Desert to view Turkmenistan's accidental natural wonder.