- Harsh and beautiful
- Flora and fauna
- Valuable gifts from nature
- Conquerors of mirages
- Video
Travelers see the world differently from ordinary people. They love to visit places shrouded in secrets, long erased from the memory of mankind, brought in by the sands of time. The Takla-Makan desert in the western part of Central Asia, which stretches as a large ripe "melon" for 1000 km between the mountain ranges of the Pamirs, Tien Shan and Kun-Lun, has become such a mystery of the Earth for many seekers. The sand cover reaches a thickness of 300 meters, the height of individual dunes is from 800 to 1300 m.
Harsh and beautiful
The translation of the name from the Arabic language warns that this is an abandoned area. Curious archaeologists have confirmed this version during excavations of the ancient once flourishing city of Gaochang, located on one of the caravan routes of the Great Silk Road. Even more interesting were the finds of the remains of people with Caucasoid features who lived in abandoned settlements approximately 2 thousand years BC. How many more secrets are hidden under the high dunes, ridges and why they ended up there, nobody knows. But the fact is obvious that life here has been pulsating since ancient times.
Today, only austere, majestically beautiful landscapes open before the eyes of guests. The tops of hot dunes warm up to + 80 ° С, dry winds constantly drive a huge amount of dust across the territory. Rains visit the Taklamakan ridges very rarely, reinforcing the stuck unpleasant nickname of the "land of death". They amaze with the colors of photography and video shooting, shimmering with all shades of red, white and gold.
Flora and fauna
Water has always been an invaluable wealth of all living things. But in desert climates, precipitation is not frequent. Only some species of plants and animals can survive for a long time without moisture. Despite such inconveniences, jerboas, nimble lizards, poisonous snakes disturb the eternal tranquility of the sand placers. Fast-footed antelopes have to overcome tens of kilometers on loose, shaky soil to reach a watering hole.
Resilient saxaul and camel thorn can be content with a small company of annual hodgepodge. In areas of the deltaic plains, the remains of forests of tugai poplars, tamarisk, and reed have been preserved.
The expansion of the heat domain is limited by the bold currents of mountain rivers. The western, northern and eastern borders are outlined by the Tarim River and the upper Yarkand-Darya, penetrating 150-200 km deep. The south is blocked by Cherchen-Daria with a narrow strip of fertile lands. In the north, he remains the guard of Khotan-darya. In rainy years, she can cross the desert and give residents a green growth of reeds.
Dry times leave even these areas dry. The maximum temperature then reaches + 70 ° -80 °. 2008 was an abnormal year. The sands were covered with real snow for several hours.
Valuable gifts from nature
Although, according to all the laws of physics, the area can be considered unsuitable for the existence of oases, they still exist. After a long wandering under the scorching rays of the exhausted travelers, Turpan meets. The oasis is located in the heart of a deep basin (154 meters below sea level) on the eastern outskirts. It has become a unique haven for grapevines and delicious melons, feeding everyone for centuries.
People have built a lush city here, which is supplied with water through a labyrinth of irrigation canals and reservoir wells that store water from the Tien Shan glaciers. Cozy Kashgaria in the western part of the Tarim depression remains a real emerald. With few clean springs.
Conquerors of mirages
Chronicles and legends warn of danger: "If you go, you won't come back", "there is no way back", but this only increased the interest of people who wanted to test themselves for strength and endurance.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, M. Stein in the process of excavations managed to find the mummified remains of Europeans, although his discovery did not produce a resonance in historical science. He was the first to explore a Buddhist cave temple and monastery near Dunhaong. Ancient manuscripts, sculptures, frescoes from the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas remained unexplored in the following decades. The learned traveler S. Gedin continued the difficult path to about. Lop Nor.
The end of the 80s (1977), the version of the discoverers was confirmed by an accidental find of workers laying a gas pipeline. 16 mummies of Europeans were found. A change in scientific hypotheses about the resettlement of the Indo-Europeans followed. 1980 gave archaeologists a surprise in the form of a pair of beautiful mummies. The burial of a tall fair-haired man and woman dates back to the second millennium BC. AD Modern genetic tests could tell a lot, but in 1988, the Chinese authorities classified the information about the finds.
Gradually, people are mastering pieces of the desert. Planting native trees and shrubs, they block dust storms.
