Richard And Jo Demeester's photos with the keyword: Mangystau

The glass at the entrance is a twentieth century addition to protect the cave, but other than that it is just a natural cave which has been enlarged and shaped. Inside, no man made items exist other than a few beautiful hand made carpets.

With erosion resembling columns, this area was made famous by an exiled Ukrainian artist and poet, Taras Shevchenko. He was sent here in the 1850s after writing some prose that was unflattering to the Russian government of the day.

According to Nur, the rate of erosion here is so high, this entire site may disappear in the next seventy years. No real rock, just layers of coloured soil. Iron rich red layers, and a brown coal seam near the top, and sulphurous gravels in between. This colourful layered mound seems so fragile.

From here it resembles a giant yurt. A popular photo spot.

In western Kazakhstan, Mangistau, Sherkala rises out of apparent nothingness.

Balls, part balls, peeled off layers, and distorted shapes. It all seems to be happening.

We were shown a cave, with a simple wooden door and a rug. A shelter if conditions should make it necessary to stay put. A score or more of these fat lizards were enjoying the cool conditions inside.

Here, she is a prop, so you can gauge the size of the Torish rock balls. This one is split quite cleanly, and shows off some of the layering.

We were, of course, curious about the science of these balls, which litter the landscape for a strip of a few hundred metres. The shell fossils everywhere attest that almost the entire region was once the floor of the ocean. At that time, molten lava from an underwater volcanic eruption was broken in to blobs which were rolled around on the seabed as they cooled and hardened. Apparently, here at Torish, west Kazakhstan, is one of only two places where this is known to have happened. Eggs, toirtoises, muffins - these were the descriptors we used when pointing the different rocks out to each other. Only a small number were this spherical, but these "giant's marbles" were the most engaging. Most were cracked, and many were split into parts. Millennia of freezing and heating taking its toll. Some showed layers, like rings on a tree. Others peeled a "shell" off, like a boiled egg.

The age of these requests are unknown, scratched in to the walls of Shokpak Ata cave mosque.

Shokpak Ata is a cave mosque, where a Sufi monk lived and taught over 1000 years ago. Shokpak was the name given to him because of his legendary ability to create fire by snapping his fingers. Shokpak is the local word for the sound of two rocks striking a spark.