Codenamed 111, once invisible on the map! The "Scar of Altai" actually hides such a secret!

Unlike the quiet river valley, dense poplar forests, and colorful flowers around, in the colorful natural beauty of Keketuohai Scenic Area, there is a huge deep mine pit that is out of tune with the surrounding area and looks as dark as the ancient Roman Colosseum. In fact, this "unremarkable" mine pit is known as the "cornucopia of northern Xinjiang". There are countless stories and legends here. The most mysterious one is that on the Chinese map before 1980, this mine pit was once "unknown". There was only a code name representing the state's top secret - "111 Mine".

Keketuohai scenery

The Glorious Years of "111 Mine"

Today's Keketuohai No. 3 Mine is the 111 Mine, which was once one of the country's top secrets. Looking down from the sky, the pit of Keketuohai No. 3 Mine is about 250 meters long, 240 meters wide, and 200 meters deep. The structure is like a terraced field, which goes deep into the earth's core.

As a world-recognized "natural display hall" of rare metals, the Keketuohai No. 3 Pit contains 84 kinds of mineral elements, covering almost more than 80% of all non-ferrous and rare metals; in addition, it is also rich in non-metallic minerals, and various minerals are distributed in a very regular spiral band with very clear distribution boundaries. It can be said that the large scale, many types of minerals, high grade and clear zonation of the Keketuohai No. 3 Pit are unique in China and rare abroad. Its unique geological structure has also earned it the title of "Geological and Mineral Museum" and has become a holy place in the minds of Chinese and foreign geologists. Many geological experts regard coming here for research and investigation as the highest achievement.

However, before becoming "world famous", the Koktokay No. 3 Mine had spent a long "silent" period.

Night view of Keketuohai No. 3 pit

In the 1930s, local Kazakh herders in Keketuohai discovered some colorful gemstones near the No. 3 ore vein, and they just collected them as ornaments. In 1935, when Soviet experts were allowed to start a large-scale exploration of Keketuohai, they quickly concluded that "there are large rare metal deposits in Keketuohai".

Thus, the mysterious veil of the "gold mountain" passed down in local legends was unveiled, and the relevant geological exploration and mining work organized by the Soviet Union began. From the 1940s to the late 1950s, all the ore mined in the Keketuohai No. 3 pit was shipped to the Soviet Union. It was not until the handover of the Sino-Soviet Joint-Stock Company in 1955 that Chinese personnel began to gradually take over the place. A series of major historical changes that took place thereafter gave the Keketuohai No. 3 pit an increasingly arduous historical mission.

In July 1960, the Soviet Union unilaterally tore up the economic aid agreement with China. For a time, my country's nuclear industry development, cutting-edge weapons research and industrialization development process were all put on the back foot, and some projects even had to be started from scratch because the design was not yet completed.

Even so, my country has never given up on the research and development of these "national heavy equipment". As one of the birthplaces of important materials for these tasks, the team of Keketuohai No. 3 Pit has been united and insisted on industrialization. With the goal of meeting large-scale mine development as soon as possible, they have successfully completed the rare metal product tasks assigned by the state step by step. Just like the "Meritorious Mine" engraved at the entrance of Keketuohai No. 3 Pit, from 1960 to 1975, Keketuohai No. 3 Mine provided strong support for my country's "two bombs and one satellite" and national defense and aerospace industry:

Beryllium used in China's first successful atomic bomb explosion in 1964;

The lithium used in the successful explosion of the first hydrogen bomb in 1967;

Cesium used in the first artificial satellite in 1970;

Tantalum niobium used in the first nuclear submarine joint test in 1971

…………

These raw materials mainly come from the Koktogay No. 3 pit. In addition, facing the urgent "timeline" of the Soviet Union requiring my country to repay a huge debt of more than 5.2 billion yuan by 1965, the minerals produced in the Koktogay No. 3 pit also firmly took on the burden of "repaying the country's debts." According to statistics, when my country completed the repayment one year ahead of schedule in 1964, the value of the Koktogay Mining Bureau's debt repayment minerals accounted for about 40% of the total foreign debt.

The rebirth of an old mining area

Behind this astonishing number is the fact that the Keketuohai No. 3 pit has been mining at a very high intensity since 1961, even exceeding the mining intensity limit at one point. Year after year, as the mining difficulty increased and more metal mineral resources were discovered in China, it inevitably declined.

Today, Keketuohai has been transformed into a world geological park to welcome tourists from all over the world.

In November 1999, the mining of Keketuohai No. 3 mine was stopped and the mine officially entered hibernation. "If the confidentiality level was not too high, the popular slogan at that time might have been 'the whole country's industry should learn from Keketuohai'," said a local proudly. However, when the vigorous mining era came to an end, this small town born out of the mine was inevitably trapped in the dilemma of talent outflow and factory closure.

Faced with the ups and downs brought about by the rise and fall of a single industry, the locals did not indulge in the glory of the past. Instead, they have been actively thinking about new ways to combine mine development and construction with rural revitalization and help the mining areas "regreen and make money."

Seven years later, in 2006, the Keketuohai No. 3 pit "awoke" again, bringing not only the good news of the astonishing reserves of the newly discovered ore layer, with more than 3 million tons of beryllium oxide alone; based on the upgrade of smelting technology, the slag, which had only a purification rate of about 60% after one refining, has also been released with its extremely high secondary refining value. Almost at the same time, the Keketuohai Scenic Area was officially approved as a national geological park by the Ministry of Land and Resources in 2005. Through "mine restoration + cultural tourism" and other methods, Keketuohai is transforming industrial relics into a distinctive boutique cultural tourism mining project. New things including geological parks, style streets, ice and snow projects are decorating this place more and more prosperous.

"When I was a kid, I heard that the Altai Mountains were a mountain of gold. The elders there all knew where the gold was hidden, but they never showed it to anyone. They only dug a little out of it when they were in extreme difficulty. Because they were never greedy, the gold there was inexhaustible."

Tourists visiting the mine

Looking back from ancient legends, Keketuohai has gone from being an unknown "gold mountain" to being dug deep and deep into the largest mine in world history, even called the "scar of the Altai Mountains", and now it has been awarded the title of a national 5A tourist attraction and recognized as the second batch of national ski tourism resorts. It has written a sonorous story of mining people striving for the country, and also written a generous new chapter from "born from mining" to "reborn from mining".