This sinkhole has swallowed its own history. All we know is that the drilling rig and equipment used by Soviet engineers collapsed as this giant sinkhole emerged in around 1971 or perhaps even as early as the 1950s. It is also unclear whether the engineers set the natural gas crater on fire intentionally, hoping that would exhaust all the natural gas in a few weeks, or that the fire started
The May 9 Victory Day parades in the former Soviet republics are strong reminders that many aspects of WWII have been overlooked in Western historiography. In Kazakhstan alone, for example, nearly 2 millions of Kazakhs participated in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, defending Moscow and resisting Nazi Germany and its allies. And over 600,000 Kazakhs lost their lives in the process. Yet, those spontaneously organized parades taking