Turkmenistan President Promises to Extinguish the Gates of Hell

[Yazata]

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It's a natural gas seep that was somehow ignited 50 years ago back in Soviet days and has been burning ever since. It's called the "Gates of Hell" and is one of Turkmenistan's few tourist attractions for the handful of tourists who find themselves in this obscure central Asian "stan". Mostly Russians I'd guess (the old Soviet rulers), next-door Iranians and "belt and road" Chinese.

But the never ending fire is hurting the environment and is wasting one of Turkmenistan's best natural resources. So the President vows to put it out. (There have been previous attempts that failed.)