Karamay is home to otherworldly yardang landforms that have been sculpted by ferocious wind erosion at a place called Ghost City, named because the ancients believed the shrieking gales were demons' screams.
The oil workers took refuge in cabin dugouts.
Life's most vital requisite, water, had to be hauled in from far away by camel. Rainfall here reaches only 130 millimeters, but evaporation rates exceed 3,500 mm. So, even if you bring in water from afar, the thirsty air swiftly steals it with greedy gulps.
In 1958, composer Lyu Yuan wrote the lyrics to The Song of Karamay: "No grass grows, no water flows, and not even birds fly."
In the 1980s, poet Ai Qing wrote:"The starkest landscapes conceal the fiercest power; the deepest veins spill the most precious wealth; the quietest fighters shelter the stoutest hearts. Oh, Karamay, you are the desert's own beauty."
Residents stage an annual festival on Aug 8 — a date chosen for its auspicious double-eight (8/8) in Chinese culture — with parades and floats commemorating the moment water from the distant glacier-capped Altay Mountains first poured into the city in 2000, ending years of desperate drought. This celebration is tempered by the memory of sacrifice — 20 of the 30,000 workers who forged this lifeline died during the three-year water diversion project.
Despite these hardships, for seven decades, the heart of the Karamay oilfield has beaten steadily beneath the Junggar Basin's breast, pumping a vital lifeblood through the nation. Over 450 million tons of crude and more than 110 billion cubic meters of natural gas have flowed from its veins to lands far beyond the Gobi's horizon.
Karamay aimed to channel its legacy into a new ambition — 20 million tons of oil and gas equivalent by 2025. That was not just a target but a promise to the future that extends beyond its terrain today.
Its landscape is populated by the bobbing heads of "nodding donkey" pumps, which resemble a massive flock of metallic chickens perpetually pecking at the gravel.
They increasingly share the skyline with the giant pinwheels of wind turbines that twirl like silver-petaled flowers atop steel stems and long rows of solar panels that stretch across the sallow soil like the sapphire scales of gliding dragons.
