The fame of the unique Tuimskiy failure is growing and goes beyond Khakassia in parallel to its own constant increase. Still would! The place, once a mountain, turns into a deep and wide hole in the ground with a bright turquoise lake at the bottom.
Anomaly? May be. Nature miracle? Partly. The work of human hands? Undoubtedly. The roots of the current incredible phenomenon lie in the earth, both literally and figuratively. Siberian subsoil, and Khakassia is no exception, are rich in minerals. Copper in the area of the present village of Tuim was mined and processed already in the 8-3 centuries BC.
On a larger scale, these places began to be developed at the end of the 19th century already AD. It was then that the rich copper deposit "Kiyalykh-Uzen" was discovered.
During the revolutionary years and during the civil war, mining activities here stopped, and resumed in the 1930s with the start of the exploration party, which, in addition to copper, discovered tungsten-molybdenum ores in the vicinity of Tuim. The state created the Tuimwolfram Combine, whose task was to extract minerals. In addition to the mine, an enrichment plant and a thermal power plant with railway lines connected to it were built. Tuim was upset to the size of an urban-type settlement. The work was in full swing due to hard manual labor and the incredible efforts of several thousand political prisoners.
The origin of the Tuim failure
Intensive mining of ore continued without interruption until the 1960s, when the top of a hollow mountain was found to be subsiding. It was decided to use a series of explosions to lower the shaky top to the bottom of the mined mine in order to avoid an unexpected collapse.
But the diameter of the hole formed continued to expand, now spontaneously.
By the early 1970s, the size of the hole had increased to 70-75 meters. At the same time, groundwater rose higher and higher in the adits. But copper mining continued, despite partial flooding and subsidence of the rock.
Finally, in 1974, the mine was closed. According to some data, by this time the ore reserves were depleted. And according to others, up to 60% of the ore body remains in it, which would be enough for 30 years of mining.
Production faded, the village of Tuim withered away and, instead of the status of an urban-type settlement, received the title of a village, and the mountain began to live its own life. The depression at its top gradually turned into a terrible depth of failure with sheer walls. In 2008, a huge piece of rock broke off, the crash from the fall of which, according to local residents, could be heard 20 kilometers from Tuim.
The ruins of the now unnecessary processing plant are pessimistically piling over the village as a white skeleton with many small bones. No matter how much the local population took away building materials for their needs, they could not disassemble the remains to the ground.
The current state of the Tuim failure
Nowadays, the Tuimsky Gap has become an attractive tourist pilgrimage site and a place of work for rural residents. A good road leads to it, a parking lot is organized, an observation deck is fenced off, shopping arcades are located here, and extreme sportsmen are offered bungee jumping.
Those who dare to jump scream either from fear, or from delight. Despite the excellent acoustics in the failure, the voices of the jumpers are perceived almost as a rumble of thunder or sounds from the underworld. Deep diving enthusiasts and explorers of old mines also find exciting and dangerous things to do here.
The failure itself looks like something unreal. It is difficult to name its exact parameters, because the edges continue to crumble. The approximate dimensions are as follows: the height from the top of the cliff to the water surface is about 120 meters. The length is about 650 and the width is about 300 meters. The depth of the lake, according to various estimates, is from 20 meters to almost 100. The water could have risen to the high banks of the sinkhole if it had not found a way out of the mountain through a single horizontal passage. According to people who once worked at the mine, all other drifts are dead ends.
Studies of the quality of lake water have been carried out, which have shown that it does not have any outstanding features. The lake has ordinary drinking water. It does not contain any impurities that would give the lake its bright turquoise or emerald color.
Tuimsky failure - an anomaly, a place of power or death
Due to the inability to explain exactly why the water in the dip is of an unusual color, it is believed that it is so from the great depth of the lake. But the depths of the lake provide more than beautiful color and visual pleasure. It so happens that it takes lives.
There were sad incidents here when people were thrown into the hole to hide the traces of the crime. Tourists here will definitely be told about a terrible case when, for some unknown reason, a young man suddenly jumped from a great height into the depths of the hole from acceleration.
The edge of the hole is fenced off, but not along the entire perimeter. You should be very careful and do not forget about your safety. The steep rocky walls of the sinkhole look solid reinforced concrete, but in fact the process of crumbling continues. And it will continue until the banks become gentle.
Many trees around this unusual hole are densely covered with multi-colored ribbons and strips of cloth. They say that in this way people appease the spirit of the area, turn to him with requests and wishes. The ribbons flutter in the wind, thereby continuously sending the prayers of the person who tied them to heaven.
How to get to Tuimsky failure
You can get to Tuimsky dip by bus from the capital of Khakassia Abakan, which is located about 190 km from this place. The regional center Shira is located 20 km south of it on the shore of the lake of the same name. And 6 km to the west there is the Tuim railway station, where the Moscow-Abakan train stops and costs 2 minutes. The village of Tuim is located 1.5 km from the hole, from which you can drive along a dirt road to the parking lot, and then walk a little.
