Mirny, Mining city in Sakha Republic, Russia
Mirny is a city in Sakha Republic located beside one of the deepest open-pit mines in the world. Residential buildings and public structures stand along broad streets laid out around the mine, offering wide views over the flat Siberian landscape.
Geologists discovered diamond deposits here in 1955, leading to the rapid establishment of a settlement. Within a few years, the site developed into a mining center that drew people from different regions of the Soviet Union and remains shaped by extraction today.
The Diamond Mining Museum preserves the industrial legacy through exhibitions of mining equipment, geological specimens, and documentation of technical achievements.
The city sits remotely in the Siberian taiga, and temperatures regularly drop below minus thirty degrees in winter. All buildings rest on stilts to maintain stability on permanently frozen ground and prevent sinking.
The mine reaches a depth of over five hundred meters and a diameter of more than one kilometer (about 0.6 miles). During winter months, workers used explosives and powerful machinery to break through the hard frozen ground and continue digging.
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