10 Fascinating Facts About The Mile-Wide Mir Diamond Mine In Russia

When it comes to jewelry, diamonds are often considered to be the most desirable stone around. We spend lots of time and money finding the perfect one for engagement and wedding rings, and whenever an item has the word "diamond-encrusted" included in the description, you know you're looking at something seriously fancy. In the mid-1900s, geologists learned that a large quantity of these precious stones were hidden under the ground in a small town in Russia. What they built to retrieve them ended up being both one of the most terrifying and impressive man-made holes on the planet.

Russia is pretty well-known for taking things to the extreme. Most people wouldn't dare climb the super-tall Shanghai Tower, but these Russian men did it just for fun! But the people who created the humongous Mir Mine didn't do it for the heck of it. They were trying to boost their nation's economy and make Russia a powerhouse in the diamond industry. Of course, the freezing temperatures that forced these guys to get creative to pull their SUV out of a frozen lake also made it difficult to dig nearly 2,000 feet underground. I couldn't believe what the engineers had to do to break through the frozen earth!

Check out these incredible facts about the Mir Mine, which is nearly a mile wide. I don't know about you, but just looking at these pictures made my heart pound a little faster!

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1. The Mir Mine is 1,722 ft deep and 3,900 feet in diameter at its widest point, making it the 2nd largest man-made hole in the world.

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Staselnik/ Wikimedia Commons

Only the Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah is larger.

2. It's found in Mirny, Russia, which has a population of only 37,000 people and became a boom town after the mine was created.

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Vladimir/ Wikimedia Commons

3. Digging for Mir Mine started in the 1950s after geologists found Kimberlite at the site. The mineral is known for indicating the presence of diamonds nearby.

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Vladimir/ Wikimedia Commons

4. Because the ground in Mirny was frozen solid, the engineers had to use jet engines and dynamite to break through the permafrost and soil to construct the mine.

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Ptukhina Natasha/ Wikimedia Commons

5. The diamonds that came from the mine caused suspicion. They all had the same shape and size, ultimately being named "Silver Bears."

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Vladimir/ Wikimedia Commons

6.The USSR wouldn't allow an investigation into the strange nature of the diamonds, and to this day, nobody knows exactly why all the diamonds that came from the mine were so similar.

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Vladimir/ Wikimedia Commons

7. Even though Mir was technically shut down in 2001 after 44 years of service, mining still occurs in the massive hole.

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Vladimir/ Wikimedia Commons

8. Even today, it's estimated that nearly 5,000 pounds of diamonds are dug up from the mine every year.

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Staselnik/ Wikimedia Commons

9. The mine is so large and deep that if you fly a helicopter over it, the force of the air rushing downward would pull it in.

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Staselnik/ Wikimedia Commons

10. Today, though, the most amazing factor of Mir Mine isn't even the incredible amount of diamonds that were dug up from it, but the remarkably huge hole it left behind in a tiny Russian town.

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Vladimir/ Wikimedia Commons

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