Rock in the desert. What is Burning Man and how everything works there. Here and now

It's Tuesday in Black Rock City, the city of Black Rock. The Burning Man festival is just gaining momentum, and yesterday we finally finished building the camp. It's time to look around a little and understand what's what here.

Today I offer you a very condensed tour of the most important sites of the festival.

All week I've been publishing, which takes place every year in the desert of Nevada in the USA. In order not to be distracted by writing these posts, I prepared their text and photographs in advance. So here there will be a hodgepodge of different previous years (I was at every BM in 2006-2014).

By the way, I almost forgot! Today on our playa we have “Tutu Tuesday”, or “Tuesday in Tutu”. I don’t know where this tradition came from, but the participants unanimously picked it up, and now it’s customary to dress up in ballet tutus on Tuesdays.

Moreover, this tradition extends not only to girls. For example, Tonya and I:

Okay, let's not get too distracted. I promised you a tour!

Black Rock City is usually abbreviated as "BRC". This is a real city, designed for 70,000 people. It is created for the week of the festival, although much more time is included in its creation - the first “builders” come here a month in advance. At its peak of population (around Friday), it is among the top ten major cities State of Nevada.

Let's take a look at the map of Black Rock City:

It can be seen that it is located in the shape of an incomplete circle. Its streets are concentric circles of avenues and radial rays of streets. The streets are named after the hours on the dial, from 2:00 to 10:00. The avenues are named each year in accordance with the theme of the festival, but these names are always in alphabetical order. If you are too lazy to remember, you can simply call them A, B, C, etc. The most important avenue that runs along the inner edge of the city is called the Esplanade. So the addresses in the city sound something like this: "3:15 and C", "7:45 and B", "8:30 and Esplanade". (By the way, our camp was located in all these places in the past.)

From above it all looks extremely impressive (here is 2009, since then BRC has become 40% larger):

This place is extremely flat, without any hills (or dunes), but surrounded on all sides by mountains in the distance. Remember - a multi-meter wooden statue of a man, Maine, stands in the very center great circle. Until Saturday evening he is our main reference point.

Well, let's go look at it all from below!

Actually, the best avenue to show yourself and look at others is the Esplanade. You can meet anyone there!

But we will not go to the Esplanade, but will start with the simple streets of the city. They look like this:

Quite wide, if desired, two cars can pass each other, but not at speed, of course. In general, you can only drive here at a speed of 5 miles per hour, and only in specially licensed cars. There are camps on the sides. Some have luxurious, beautiful tents, others have simple tents. Cars are also parked right here.

When you walk along the BRC, you constantly come across some kind of delays on your way. Most often these are bars or trampolines. We'll talk about bars later, but with trampolines everything is clear. How can you not stop to jump?

Yes, many things can delay a person going on important business. For example table football.

Or trampolines. Have I already mentioned trampolines?

Because there is so much to do here, Black Rock City has a concept of "playa time" - festival time. That is, we agree on 12:00, but in reality this can mean at 12:30, and at 14:00, and even the day after tomorrow.

Here they are. This is the Central Camp, Center Camp. It is located on the Esplanade and six o'clock (on the map you can see a small circle inside big city). The camp is a huge round tent. There are rumors that this is the largest stretch building in the world, I don’t know how true this is.

There are a ton of bicycles parked around Center Camp - it's important to remember where you leave yours so you can find it later. And the bright flags installed on the roof are visible far from the beach. This is the second reliable benchmark after Maine, and has the advantage of not burning out at the end of the week.

Inside, under the shadow of the ceiling, it is spacious and not hot (since the structure is blown by the wind from all sides). Here you can sit and relax from the hot day. Moreover, there is the only cafe at the entire festival where you can buy coffee, tea, lemonade and other drinks. There is no alcohol here, and asking them for just water is also not very decent.

In the very center of the building there is a stage on which some kind of performances are constantly taking place. Acrobats, jugglers, capoeristas - you can meet them here around the clock!

There is another stage on the side for musicians and other performances. In 2009, the troupe of the world famous clown Slava Polunin performed their famous show here in the version of “Slava’s Dust Show”.

There are also a bunch of different artistic works on display here. Every year there is, of course, something new.

And in general, it is in the Central Camp that you can meet the most sophisticatedly dressed characters. People who have worked hard on their costumes will definitely stop by Center Camp to show off the results of their labor.

A lot of people come here just to take a nap in the shade.

In front of the main entrance to Center Camp every year they place some beautiful gate or arch.

At night they are always illuminated to show the way for the participants.

There are years when they are illuminated very brightly! (Here 2012.)

By the way, I don’t know if you noticed, but Center Camp was completely copied in the seventh episode Star Wars. It appears there as a settlement on the desert planet Jakku. Anyone who has ever been to Burning Man immediately recognized him. He even has the same gate at the entrance (and is purely decorative).

Look: the outside looks like Central Camp.

And inside too! Let's leave this to the conscience of Lucas and Disney. I do not mind.

If you ever visit BM, it is important to remember that Center Camp is a place where you can always meet friends, or friendly strangers. Performances and cafes are open 24 hours a day, so if you ever get bored in Burning Man, feel free to head here to 6:00 and the Esplanade.

Let's head from Center Camp along the six o'clock boulevard straight to the Maine figure. The boulevard crosses the inner playa; there are four such boulevards in total: along three o'clock, six, nine and twelve. The latter leads from the Maine statue to the temple, because there is no city there. We will still get to the temple.

The Maine statue itself looks a little different every year. They change the size, and the pedestal, though common features remain, especially his distinctive head. In 2014 there was no pedestal at all, and Maine himself was taller than usual (header photo in this post). Be that as it may, the top of its head is usually located at an altitude of about 30 meters.

There's always something interesting going on at Maine's pedestal. For example, in the photo above, in 2013, there was a multi-story flying saucer with different installations inside. And in 2009, near Maine there was this strange structure made of boards piled up seemingly in random order.

You can visit the Maine pedestal until Friday, then it is closed to prepare for burning on Saturday. Yes, every year all these beautiful pedestals burn down along with Maine itself. .

To very simple ones. Door to Nowhere - maybe a little cliché, but still not bad.

As I already said, it is very difficult to see them all, and it is simply impossible to show everything that I saw during 9 previous trips, so I will put photos of only a few.

We continue to move from Maine towards 12:00 (there is a straight boulevard), and finally come to the Temple. Center-Camp - Maine - Temple, this is the main axis of Black Rock City. They are located along one straight line and are the most important objects of the Burning Man festival.

And if Maine gave this event its name, then the Temple ends the festival every year. It is his burning on Sunday that serves as the closing ceremony of the BM.

The fact that such beautiful buildings are burned every year sometimes seems blasphemous, but this is the whole idea - nothing lasts forever, and next year you can build a new one, just as beautiful, but at the same time completely different.

While Maine is more or less the same from year to year, the temples are very different. It is from the Temple that it is easiest to understand what year is captured in the photograph of Burning Maine.

The temple is a place of peace and reflection. Here, as in Center Camp, there are always people, but here it is not customary to raise your voice. If people talk, it is in a whisper. Visitors come here to think about their lives, meditate, or remember deceased relatives and friends.

There is no religion in this Temple, but there is spirituality. Everyone comes here for their own reasons. Some pray to God, others do not believe in him. People write wishes and names of the dead on the walls, and paste their photographs. For example, in 2013, Yandex employees brought here a photo of the head of the company, Ilya Segalovich, who died that summer.

Behind the Temple begins the open playa (outer playa). There are also installations here, but they are rarer. But those who finally reach them are rewarded with a sense of achievement.

From the end of the festival territory to the central camp is about three kilometers. .

And just at the other end of the playa, just outside the outer BRC ring (around 5:00) is Black Rock Airport. Of course, a city of 70,000 people should have its own airport!

Moreover, many wealthy festival visitors fly here on their own small planes.

Parachutists also take off from here. Burning Man is considered among them as one of the more rounded places where you can jump. Beginners are not allowed to jump here because strong winds need rich experience. In clear weather, you can always see several skydivers in the sky above the festival.

The coolest thing here is the night jumps. They are allowed extremely rarely, and only to the most experienced. Such parachutists sometimes light fireworks on the way down, and in doing so they look like slowly falling stars.

If you have a skydiver friend who is part of this elite club, you may be lucky enough to get the opportunity to fly with the skydivers.

Of course, no one will allow you to jump out of a plane, but this is a great way to look at the entire desert from above and Black Rock City from above!

The surprising thing is that as soon as all the paratroopers jumped out, the plane dropped in altitude so sharply that sometimes it seemed like something was wrong with it! It turns out they do this to save time. The couple of times that I did tandem jumps myself, I was still afraid, I thought, “Well, screw it! I’ll stay on the plane!” In the end, of course, I jumped. But then I learned that if I had chickened out and didn’t jump out, the road down would have been almost even worse!

While we are walking and flying here, evening is approaching. Its most photogenic inhabitants appear in the city - teams of lamp-lighters. In fact, these are ordinary volunteers who have undergone special instructions and received uniform white coats with a firing edge.

Some walk through the city with long poles on their shoulders and carry lit oil lamps. Others attach these lamps with hooks and hang them on poles that line the boulevards through the inner playa and along the Esplanade. These lights will burn all night, illuminating the road, although they will most likely disappear into total number light that will illuminate the planet in the dark.

Lamp makers are a favorite subject for photographers.

And every year I promise myself that I will go and volunteer a shift in their ranks, but every time I never get around to it. Playa time and trampolines are a terrible distraction.

At sunset, the entire playa, and especially the mountains around it, acquire a golden hue.

There are generally very beautiful sunsets here, due to the slight cloudiness but high dust content in the air, everything is hidden in a beautiful fiery haze.

When the sun has already gone behind the mountains, it continues to illuminate the sky and clouds with golden rays for some time. That's very beautiful!

It's time for me to go back to

"Black Desert" in American state Nevada is an amazing corner of our planet, where hot geysers soar into the clouds and the sand is painted black. This mystical place with dry black rocks and sparkling geysers attracts with its unearthly atmosphere.
The Black Rock Desert is a salt marsh, endorheic lake in northwestern Nevada. The length of the desert is 110 km and its width is 32 km. It is part of the undrained Great Basin.


Numerous volcanic and geothermal formations are found in this desert.


This famous geyser, called Fly, is actually no taller than a man. But thanks to a good shooting angle and lighting, the photographers were able to create the image that he was the most beautiful giant on the planet, constantly spewing three jets of water:


Minerals, algae and cyanobacteria give it this incredible color:


Once upon a time, the Fly Ranch was located on the site of this geyser, but when the rancher drilled a well in 1916, in the hope of transforming the desert into fertile wet meadows, he accidentally drilled into a geothermal pocket of water. However, it wasn't until 1964 that boiling water began to rush to the surface, creating this geothermal beauty:


The owners of the lands on which the geyser is located have been offered several times to sell them in order to open access to everyone, but so far they have refused. This monument is surrounded by fences and gates, so tourists must ask the owners in advance for permission to visit these lands.


Since the 1990s, the desert has hosted the annual Burning Man festival, which attracts tens of thousands of people to deserted areas of the desert. During the festival, monetary circulation, as well as movement by car, is completely prohibited on its territory.


This place is famous for its paleological features, as well as for the fact that in the 19th century, migration routes to California passed here. In addition, the speed of ground and rocket vehicles is often measured at this place.


The dry surface of the lake bottom in the southern part served as a testing ground for setting a land speed record. The speed record - 1,228 km/h - over a one-mile (1.6 km) distance was set by Andy Treen from Great Britain in the Trust SSC car in the Black Rock Desert in October 1997. The car was powered by two Rolls-Royce jet engines. This is the first car to exceed the speed of sound.

Black Rock City, or the city of Black Rock, is a temporary city in the middle of the desert of the American state of Nevada. It only exists for one week a year and hosts the world famous Burning Man festival. Festival-goers come from different states and countries to build a city here with a population of seventy thousand!

// levik.livejournal.com

Today I offer you a very condensed tour of the most important attractions of this temporary city.

All that week I published posts about the Burning Man festival, which takes place every year in the desert of Nevada in the USA. In order not to be distracted by writing these posts, I prepared their text and photographs in advance. So here there will be a hodgepodge of different previous years (I was at every BM in 2006-2014).

By the way, I almost forgot! Tuesday on our playa is “Tutu Tuesday”, or “Tuesday in Pachki”. I don’t know where this tradition came from, but the participants unanimously picked it up, and now it’s customary to dress up in ballet tutus on Tuesdays.

// levik.livejournal.com

Moreover, this tradition extends not only to girls. For example, Tonya and I:

// levik.livejournal.com

Okay, let's not get too distracted. I promised you a tour!

Black Rock City is usually abbreviated as "BRC". This is a real city, designed for 70,000 people. It is created for the week of the festival, although much more time is included in its creation - the first “builders” come here a month in advance. At its peak of population (around Friday), it is one of the ten largest cities in Nevada.

Let's take a look at the map of Black Rock City:

// levik.livejournal.com

It can be seen that it is located in the shape of an incomplete circle. Its streets are concentric circles of avenues and radial rays of streets. The streets are named after the hours on the dial, from 2:00 to 10:00. The avenues are named each year in accordance with the theme of the festival, but these names are always in alphabetical order. If you are too lazy to remember, you can simply call them A, B, C, etc. The most important avenue that runs along the inner edge of the city is called the Esplanade. So the addresses in the city sound something like this: "3:15 and C", "7:45 and B", "8:30 and Esplanade". (By the way, our camp was located in all these places in the past.)

From above it all looks extremely impressive (here is 2009, since then BRC has become 40% larger):

// levik.livejournal.com

This place is extremely flat, without any hills (or dunes), but surrounded on all sides by mountains in the distance. Remember - a multi-meter wooden statue of a man, Maine, stands in the very center of a large circle. Until Saturday evening he is our main reference point.

Well, let's go look at it all from below!

Actually, the best avenue to show yourself and look at others is the Esplanade. You can meet anyone there!

// levik.livejournal.com

But we will not go to the Esplanade, but will start with the simple streets of the city. They look like this:

// levik.livejournal.com

Quite wide, if desired, two cars can pass each other, but not at speed, of course. In general, you can only drive here at a speed of 5 miles per hour, and only in specially licensed cars. There are camps on the sides. Some have luxurious, beautiful tents, others have simple tents. Cars are also parked right here.

When you walk along the BRC, you constantly come across some kind of delays on your way. Most often these are bars or trampolines. We'll talk about bars later, but with trampolines everything is clear. How can you not stop to jump?

// levik.livejournal.com

Yes, many things can delay a person going on important business. For example table football.

// levik.livejournal.com

Or trampolines. Have I already mentioned trampolines?

// levik.livejournal.com

Because there is so much to do here, Black Rock City has a concept of "playa time" - festival time. That is, we agree on 12:00, but in reality this can mean at 12:30, and at 14:00, and even the day after tomorrow.

Here they are. This is the Central Camp, Center Camp. It is located on the Esplanade and six o'clock (the map shows a small circle inside the big city). The camp is a huge round tent. There are rumors that this is the largest stretch building in the world, I don’t know how true this is.

// levik.livejournal.com

There are a ton of bicycles parked around Center Camp - it's important to remember where you leave yours so you can find it later. And the bright flags installed on the roof are visible far from the beach. This is the second reliable benchmark after Maine, and has the advantage of not burning out at the end of the week.

// levik.livejournal.com

Inside, under the shadow of the ceiling, it is spacious and not hot (since the structure is blown by the wind from all sides). Here you can sit and take a breather from the hot day. Moreover, there is the only cafe at the entire festival where you can buy coffee, tea, lemonade and other drinks. There is no alcohol here, and asking them for just water is also not very decent.

// levik.livejournal.com

In the very center of the building there is a stage on which some kind of performances are constantly taking place. Acrobats, jugglers, capoeristas - you can meet them here around the clock!

// levik.livejournal.com

There is another stage on the side for musicians and other performances. In 2009, the troupe of the world famous clown Slava Polunin performed their famous show here in the version of “Slava’s Dust Show”.

One of the most unusual festivals in the world is Burning Man. It takes place traditionally in Nevada in the Black Rock Desert. Thousands of participants gather for the Burning Man festival, so in 2015 there were more than 70 thousand of them! (English).

For a whole week, people gathered in the desert from all over the world radically expressed themselves. In the middle of the sands, various unusual structures and installations, often of fantastic shapes, were erected. Here you can see hundreds of cars of the most incredible appearance; many participants wear costumes of animal characters and various objects.

1. Burning Man begins in the Nevada desert on the last Monday of August at exactly 00:01. Ends on Labor Day, a holiday celebrated in the United States on the first Monday of September. It is a day off for most organizations.

Tent city. Black Rock Desert in Nevada, September 2, 2015. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

2. The organizers of the Burning Man 2015 festival define it as an experiment in creating a community of radical self-expression, relying only on itself. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

3. Local cinema. In the middle of the desert. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

4. It’s both stylish and saves you from a sandstorm. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

5. Burning Man 2015 festival in Nevada. Photo with a goose as a keepsake. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

6. The goose is not simple, but almost golden: it is made of 120,000 coins. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

7. Sandstorm at the Burning Man 2015 festival. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

8. The 2015 festival takes place in the Black Rock Desert in the US state of Nevada. This desert is a salt marsh and an endorheic lake. It is part of the dry prehistoric Lake Laontan, which existed 18-7 thousand years BC. e. during the last ice age. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

9. Art installation. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

11. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

12. You can see better from above. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

13. At times sandstorm such that almost nothing is visible. Even huge man, which stands in the distance and awaits the hour of burning. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

14. Burning Man 2015 festival in Nevada. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

15. Photo frame in the middle of the desert. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

16. Typewriter. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

17. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

18. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

19. Snake. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

20. Burning installation. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

21. Hell's car. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

22. The three main ways of self-expression here are original costumes, original vehicles and unusual installations. The climax of the Burning Man festival occurs when the big statue Human. This is him, by the way. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

23. The Temple of Promise is on fire. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

24. Thousands of people gathered to watch the Man burn. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

25. Burning man at the most unusual festival in the world. Black Rock Desert, Nevada, September 5, 2015. (Photo by Jim Urquhart | Reuters):

“Welcome to Nowhere,” says the sign at the entrance to the town of Jerlak, with a population of just 500 people. Jerlak is located in the heart of the Black Rock Desert, which covers an area of ​​2,600 square kilometers in northwestern Nevada. About 20 thousand years ago these places were the bottom ancient lake Laontan, which finally dried out about 5-7 thousand years ago. In the 19th century, the route of settlers to California lay here, and today races in rocket cars are held, during which land speed records are set. In these same deserted places, enthusiasts launch homemade rockets into space. In August, more than 50 thousand participants come here for the annual Burning Man festival. They organize various installations and shows, play games, sing songs, enjoy life - all this resembles a carnival that lasts more than a week. On the last day of the festival, after sunset, a huge wooden statue of a man is burned.

Dry black rocks, desert storms, sparkling geysers - all this is just a small part of the desert, which is difficult to even describe, but the extraterrestrial atmosphere they create is enough to fall in love with this place once and for all.

FACT

Here in 1997, Briton Andy Green exceeded the speed of sound for the first time at a distance of 1.6 miles.

FOR WHAT

See unique natural object, located approximately 27 km north of Jerlak, on the territory of a private ranch, is the Fly Geyser. Water began to gush here in 1916, during the construction artesian well, and over many years dissolved in groundwater salts formed these striking colorful rocks.

ON THE ROAD

Flight from Moscow to Alliance, Nevada, with two transfers in New York and Denver (Transaero, US Airways, Great Lakes Airlines).