SHUNAK CRATER

Less extensive than the Zhamanshin crater north of Aralsk, the Shunak crater is nonetheless impressive, with a diameter of almost 3 kilometers and a depth of 400 meters! The meteorite responsible for the damage fell 40 to 50 million years ago, during the Eocene epoch - a time when a large part of Central Asia was still below sea level - and wiped out all forms of life within a radius of several thousand kilometers. Like its big brother, the crater is the site of all manner of UFO sightings and paranormal activity, attracting thousands of curious visitors every year. But far from the atmosphere of encounters of the third kind, it's rather fossilized seashells that visitors take home with them or, for the lucky ones, shark teeth, which swarmed in the waters at the time the meteorites fell (a second, smaller crater can be seen 9 km from the main crater). Today, the surface of the crater is completely covered by steppe, whose monotony is broken only by the few scattered ruins of villages abandoned since the late ^19th century. A few agencies offer excursions from Karaganda, but unfortunately few guides are able to help you decipher the landscape and put it into perspective with the geomorphological evolution of the region. The Wild Ticket Asia agency in Almaty stands out from the crowd, offering beautiful horseback excursions into the crater, departing by 4x4 from the former capital.