KARAGIYE

Fifty kilometers from Aktau, in the western part of the Mangyshlak peninsula, lies the Karagiye depression, one of the lowest points on the planet, 132 meters below sea level. The high salt content of the soil has accelerated the process of rock erosion, creating a vast depression some 40 kilometers long, above which a strange natural phenomenon occurs: the formation of rain clouds when the depression is devoid of the slightest drop of water. Not an uncommon sight to observe.