An unusual, huge excavation in the Volgograd region, the so-called Filinsky depression, was formed 5 years ago. But scientists still cannot give an exact answer, what caused its appearance and where the 800 cubic meters of soil removed from the earth disappeared.
Inspecting the mysterious cylindrical earthen hole near the Filin farm was the main purpose of my visit to the Kumylzhensky district. At the same time, the fame of the Filinsky failure went far beyond the Volgograd region! My guides were Pavel Sobolev, a journalist from the regional newspaper Pobeda, Nikolai Ptakhin, a driver of the Niva editorial office, and Vladimir Bukanin, a 19-year-old resident of the Filin farm. While driving, the companions told everything they had heard about the huge pit.
It all started with the fact that at night the locals heard an incomprehensible rumble, and in the morning a forester set out for exploration. It was he who saw a huge cylindrical groove in the ground and reported it to his boss Oleg Kochetov. He informed the head of the district.
The summoned workers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations examined the pit and gave an opinion. According to them, the depth of the hole is 8 meters, and the diameter is 11.5. It was formed allegedly due to the collapse of rocks into voids washed out by water. However, many who have visited the edge of the Filinskaya pit strongly disagree with this conclusion.
Well, it does not fit into my head that a cylinder of soil weighing more than one thousand tons can disappear overnight. There are also a number of questions to which the EMCC version does not provide answers. Why, for example, according to eyewitnesses, at first there was light from the pit at night? Why is there not even a trace of the upper layer on its bottom, if it was a failure? And still very confusing is the smooth, as if cut off by a cutter surface of the walls of the hole.
I am trying to find a clue by going down into a nearby ravine. Dense grassy sod on the slope, a vertical wall of layers of sandstone, marl, thicket of branches of apple trees, thorns, young poplars. I walk about thirty meters along the bed of a dry stream - no carry-overs, landslides, grottoes indicating a connection with the pit. Having risen, I dare to descend into the failure itself. Vladimir Bukenin and Nikolay Ptakhin, backing up with a towing tape, help me to do this.
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I carefully examine the walls, stones, and pick the soil with my boot - an ordinary cake of sedimentary rocks, except perhaps there is a dark cherry layer of sand. “No traces of the UFO excavator have been found,” laughing, I report upstairs and, stuffing my pockets with stones and cherry sand, I go upstairs along the same towing belt.
All the way back 60 kilometers to the village of Kumylzhenskaya, the most incredible versions of the appearance of the hole were put forward with passion: the soil went into the voids formed by underground waters; the soil was pressed by a meteorite or an alien ship; aliens with the help of their supertechnology took a sample in the form of a cylinder for research; giants from other worlds played Easter cake …
No matter what they say, the locals have been taking guests and relatives to a failure as a local landmark for the fifth year already, and, like us, diligently strain their brains in search of an explanation. Someone has an idea to take advantage of Ostap Bender's experience and raise money to repair the failure.
And then you can start selling medicinal sand, stones for conspiracies, and so on, so on! You look, the village will rise, it will get rich, the men will return from watch, the streets will be filled with kids! If only someone did not come up with the idea to make a dump or cattle burial site out of a mysterious pit. This happens with us too …
Andrey KUTYGA