My Buran Journey: Here’s How It Went

Way, way back I saw an article online about a few explorers (Bob Thissen, Jan Elhøj, Frederik Sempels and Morten Kirckhoff) who went to see Buran. It was a tale of “crazy explorers” (what I thought of them back then, actually that opinion hasn’t changed) who hiked across the desert and infiltrated Russian military base. To this day I remember my astonishment and disbelieve that two abandoned space shuttles can be left somewhere unattended. Just sitting there in a huge hangar somewhere is the middle of Kazakhstan. How incredible!? My life continued with some ups and downs and along the way I discovered Urbex, moved to China and abandoned my previous way of living.

At some stage in 2018 I convinced myself that I want to do this. The process of research begun. Firstly, I had no idea where the exact location of the hangars is and secondly, how to get there. Step by step, with time I managed to acquire all the necessary information and begun my training. After talking to several Russian explorers, I made few crucial points:

1) I will not be driving inside the desert – too risky getting your car seen;

2) I need to time my arrival to get inside the hangar in the middle of the night and only move to the rocket building also at night (following day) – there are two locations: the shuttles and the rocket;

3) I had to prepare myself physically for the long hike in the desert. I was told: “It’s not the walk that kills you, it’s the heavy bag with all your equipment and water”, hence, I needed to learn about the distribution of weight inside a backpack and start my training: every Friday night, fully equipped, I went walking around the city at night, from 8pm until 4/5am in the morning. I did that for 3 months;

4) Drinking water – since I will be gone for 3 days, I needed to condition myself not to drink a lot of water. However, drinking water has always been something I struggled with: not drinking enough. If the 3 kidney stones I had thus far could testify on my behalf, they would tell you I have been pretty bad when it comes to drinking water. On the other hand, for this particular mission, that fact was a plus.

I had a week off for Moon Festival at the end off September 2019 and I figured this would be good time to get this mission done. The timing seemed perfect from my logical point of view. There was a scheduled launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and I convinced myself that afterwards the security at the site relaxes a bit. When you work to deliver a project the atmosphere is tense towards the deadline, after accomplishing it, everyone loosens up.

Bought my plane ticket and soon I was on my way to Almaty in Kazakhstan. Here is were I was meant to meet my future exploring partner from Oklahoma, big U, S and optimistic A. Let’s call him John.

In retrospect, having to do this with Oklahoma John (actually, I will call him OJ from now on) was, what I would call now, a necessary evil. For a while my partner was supposed to be Josh – the very ever excited urban explorer / ghost hunter / YouTuber Josh. ExploringwithJosh and I talked for many hours about exploring Burans and both of us were super excited to fly out to “Borat’s country”. Unfortunately (or fortunately, now I can’t really tell) this has not happened as Josh was burned out from his month-long exploring in Japan a month prior to the scheduled Kazakhstan trip (I was told about this in the interview we did on the podcast)

My determination to go was sky-high and I booked the tickets knowing I would have to do this alone. To my surprise 3 or 4 days before flying out I get this message from OJ. I have no idea who this person is but his profile had pictures of abandoned places. Ok, cool. He is an urban explorer. Let’s talk.

OJ was a man who was recently dumped at the wedding (or just before wedding – my memory on some of OJ’s stories are a bit shaky and I will restrain from exaggerating). In the light of his recent unfortunate events he wanted to distract himself and Buran was meant to be his focus point. “I want to be the first American who goes there!” – he told me. Sure OJ, sure. All of a sudden, I’m in a pickle. Do I go alone or do I take this opportunity to team up with this dude? Wouldn’t it be safer for me to do so? – I thought. You will be walking a lot – I told myself. At least there will be someone to talk to.

OJ arrived in Kazakhstan after flying through Frankfurt in Germany and Lufthansa lost is bag. He had all his photography gear in his check-in bag and that was safe but now he lacked sleeping mat, sleeping bag, backpack and jacket.

After arriving in the town of Kyzylorda we went shopping. The small city was a typical beat-up post-soviet postcard kinda-town but we managed to find a modern shopping mall with a help of our new comrade: the taxi driver. I befriended a local taxi driver who kept me company for the time being driving me around from one place to another. I also needed a local SIM card for my phone and we needed to buy food and water. OJ didn’t want to buy a sleeping bag nor he needed a sleeping mat. I tried to explain that sleeping on the concrete floor at the beginning of October in some questionable Soviet-era hangar, in the middle of the desert, might be a chilly experience. He told me about loosing few bucks in some shady red-light district situation he got himself involved in Almaty a day before my arrival and he was concerned about spending too much money. At least he bought the a jacket. Priorities, I guess…

I spent the remaining day packing and listening to OJ’s stories of hiking in Grant Canyon (this is important, keep reading why).

From the first day of researching when I learned about what it takes to visit Buran and I realized I would have to cut some loses – equipment-wise. Sometimes in life, you have to give up on something in order to achieve something else. I came to realization that bring all my necessary camera lenses is pointless: my bag would be too heavy. Forget about the tripod – that’s extra kg I certainly didn’t need to carry. Not for OJ though, he was adamant. One of the lenses he had with him was the one you see at the football games used by photographers at the side of the pitch. It was massive and weighted around 5kg (11 pounds). Similarly, his tripod added extra 4-5kg (9-11 pounds). I couldn’t believe he was planning to take it with him but ultimately I couldn’t do anything. We had a conversation about it and the conclusion was, he needed it. What can I do? So I shut up and carried on. We had our dinner at the hotel and went to sleep. Next day was the D-day.

Our taxi driver arrived on time. It was a cold morning. In retrospect, one thing I had definitely underestimated was the weather. I know it was the end of September but when you imagine walking in the desert you don’t expect it to be so god-damn cold. I was naive, I know.

Our taxi driver dropped us in the middle of the highway and off we went into the desert. I studied the maps religiously for a year and marked key points of interest along the way. Little did I know, all my plans were about to change within few hours. When you use the word desert, the Sahara or Gobi comes to my mind but the Kazakhstan version was more like steps. The desert I was walking on had a dirt road I fully intended to follow – at least until the first checkpoint: blown-up silo. I expected the terrain to be flat but to my surprise it was quite uneven, full of ups and downs, various ditches with debris and it was all covered with camel or horse shit. This was truly a journey through hell and camel shit.

At some stage, very early on we noticed a dark figure in the distance. With a dog! I heard about security on site, but I couldn’t believe there would be someone in the bloody desert walking and patrolling. No way! The person in front of us was a tiny figure in the horizon in the distance and I intended for him to stay like this – far away. However, at first I didn’t think too much of it, I wasn’t convinced. This was some dude with a dog on a stroll or some local Kazakh-man looking for his camel. OJ on the other hand didn’t want to risk it and after brief discussion decision was made to move away from the dirt road deep into the desert, revising our plans and adding few extra kilometers to our journey. I must thank OJ for that.

My plan from the very beginning was to only move during the night to minimise the risk of getting caught. But that was the plan for when I get to the hangar first and then will be moving from the shuttles building to the rocket building, not for the desert hike! There was always something happening in this desert. Once we saw a jeep driving to our right, on the previously walked-on dirt road. There was the dark man with a dog (we lost him later on), then there was something flashing in the distance from the silo (which we ended up not going to but walking around). And there were animals, the camels and horses seen in the distance. I have not seen any snakes but a Norwegian explorer Markus who did this journey too was bitten by a snake (interviewed him for Chasing Bandos Podcast)

The base was to our left and it stayed there, within our sight all the way to the Buran hangar as a constant reminder of the danger we were in.

We walked and talked. OJ shared few stories but every following story made me worried. Obviously, I smiled and kept walking. It seemed that every relationship he was in eneded up in court. Strange. Sometimes we stopped for a break. “How many miles have we done since the last stop?” – he asked. “5 miles mate, let’s keep going” – I answered.

It was one mile.

We walked and walked some more. He would wear the backpack on one arm (insert facepalm emoji, ohh Geesus). I argued with him because it killed me to see him like this. He wouldn’t listen to my suggestions and I knew this way of hiking will destroy him eventually. I took a sip of water while OJ was almost done with his first 2L bottle.

One thing I would like to mention was the magnificent night sky and the millions of stars. It got dark after 7pm and two hours later we were walking in the dark. At some stage, we did lie down on the ground and looked at the stars. Living in the city, light pollution won’t let you see a clear sky covered with stars like this. It has been many years since I last saw this enormous amount of stars. I almost forgot they exist! In this particular moment there were thousands and thousands of them. What beautiful sight. I also had a scary moment while walking in complete darkness. I fell into a ditch that had a metal spike sticking out. I managed to land on the side of it but on another day it could have punctured my stomach. Luck of the Irish… emm, Polish.

Around 2 am in the morning we finally arrived at the hangar. We had to cross two barb-wire fences to get to the site but the perimeter was not maintained and it was easy to find gaps to crawl through. I did risk it few times and shone light on the fence using my phone’s light in order to find a way around it and not cut myself. The first entrance to the hangar was a dead-end and it created a tense atmosphere as I realized “what if I don’t find a way in? I was worried when the sun go up we would be seen and totally busted. However, luck was on my side and there was a broken window on the other side of the hangar. Voilà, I was in.

As you can probably imagine, that moment of waking up in the morning on the top floor of this huge hangar and looking down at those two incredible “My Baby Burans” will remain with me to the the rest of my life. I got emotional, obviously. The sense of achievement, the relief of getting here and that fulfilling emotion was overwhelming. There might have been a tear or two dropped from the corner of my eye. I’m not sure about that:) But let me rewind a bit.

Arriving at the hangar in the middle of the night and putting the light on the shuttles… That feeling is so tricky to describe. The only memory that comes to mind is how huge they were. It is a bit of cliché, I know, but I always had this sense of how the pictures don’t serve them justice. The scale of BURAN shuttle is simply magnificent! I was tired though and I didn’t spend too much time downstairs. We had to move up. Going up felt safer. I haven’t achieved anything yet – I told myself. You are allowed to be happy 2 days from now in the comfort of your hotel with full SD card packed with pictures. Not now. I climbed the stairs all the way up to the top floor. I think it took good 40 minutes to do so. I was exhausted at this stage. Found a place to sleep and I wish I could tell you that I was out but the cold wouldn’t let me sleep for a while. OJ eventually also arrived and lied down on the concrete floor. At least I had a sleeping mat and bag. What a poor schmuck.

Following day was “Greg’s Xmas Day” (in October). I explored and explored. Went everywhere I could and I bet I missed many spots. The scale of this place was beyond my imagination. To fully explore it in one day? Forget about it. I climbed on the shuttles 3 times to get the right picture, each time coming up and down the stairs. This was exhausting but I didn’t care and didn’t mind. I took countless pictures and even crawled through broken window to get inside the shuttle (above). The thick glass on top of Buran was smashed and I was wondering what kind of tool can do that. It seemed impenetrable. Took a while to get myself inside. The space to move around was limited and I was constantly in the state of alert. What if someone comes in to the hangar? To my surprise, no one did. Again, that luck of the… Polish, I guess. I sat down in the astronaut seat and my childhood dreams came true. What else a 33-year-old child-like-man/ape can ever want again? I was completed. I can go home now.

The day of days ended. I had a nap, went to the roof. Looked around. Silence. I saw a group of horses but that was the extend of any activity at the site. Around 11pm it was the time to embark on mission number 2: getting access to the tall hangar with space rocket inside. We left Buran at the cover of the night. It was almost 1 km between two buildings but when you are inside one of them looking at the the other one it seems like it’s just there. You can almost touch it. I found another broken window. The insides of the adjacent to the building next to the rocket were strange. We ended up in lab. This felt like being on the set of Breaking Bad.

Finding the way inside the rocket building was tricky and I hit many dead-ends. At some point I had to crawl through underfloor tunnel with metal spikes sticking out from both sides of the wall. Soon after that I found the main hall with the monstrosity still trapped inside pointing upwards. Again, I couldn’t believe my eyes but since it was dark and I was exhausted, I figured I was dreaming. Maybe I was still at the Buran hangar sleeping-off the recent hike. But honestly, it was time to go to “bed”. This time we didn’t climb to the top. We only went 3 levels up and I found a place under the stairs to crash for the night (above). One thing I can’t forget is the moment OJ and I were about to tuck in for the night. He asked me if I could lend him the sleeping mat. Are you for real man? – the “I told you so” went through my mind and possibly through my mouth too. How can you put me in this situation. Even after drinking and finishing one of my 3 bottles of water (I didn’t say anything to him about that as I didn’t see him drinking it – but it disappeared – like magic). This was tough, saying no.

The difference between Energia building and MZK hangar (Buran) is with the rocket you mainly want 2 pictures. One from the top, one from the bottom. Hence, you can be done exploring within 2-3 hours tops. My dear friend OJ struggled on the stairs and I didn’t see him for most of the day. I took the pictures and few videos and waited patiently for darkness as tonight was when we were going home.

The stairs in the Energia building must have done a number on OJ’s knees. Next time I saw him he was limping. Oh no. “You alright?” – I asked concerned. He was fine, he said. He was always “I will be fine”. But after being fed the “American-optimism-sandwich” for breakfast every day since birth, what other answer can you expect from this Oklahoma-man? Waiting game begun. I was done by noon and rest of the day I spent waiting, trying to sleep, watching security jeeps patrolling the area in the distance, listening to the weird noises the building was making, getting paranoid with every second and waiting. Waiting and waiting for eternity for the sun to go down. At 7 pm I was angry. It was still bright outside. WTF Kazakhstani-weather, come on! Get dark, I need to go.

It got pretty dark between 8 and 9 pm and we were good to go. Nothing can stop us now! (eeem… well, keep reading). I found some thermal silver-looking blankets left by other explorers (I figured) and I wrapped them around my arms to keep warm. I knew walking at night would be chilly. I also worried sick for my soon-to-be-ex-friend and his messed-up leg. How the hell is he going to be able to walk? I asked him – what it felt like – million times if he was A-okey. He was fine – he maintained. But even if he wasn’t – what then? We had to go. And off we went. First time I got annoyed is when he wanted to have a break at the Buran hangar. It was on our way from the Energia building we just left. What. You want to wait here? In the open? – I though he gone mad. Let’s wait until we get to the desert – I suggested. Floodlights from the base carried light forever and it illuminated the desert. It felt pretty bright at the beginning of our hike back but soon we moved deeper into the desert and its darkness swallowed us. OJ started to really piss me off.

He would stop to have a break – that’s understandable – but he wouldn’t let me know about it and that’s not cool. The thermal blankets wrapped around my arms were making the shushing noises – shush-shush-shush when I walked and I couldn’t hear more than that. I urged him to let me know when he needed a break. However, he didn’t. His stopping for break would happed more often and it got to the point where the frequency increased to every 500-600 meters. When you walk you generate heat that keeps you warm. However, if you stop and rest every 10 minutes in October-cold-f@&*%ng-desert-night the sweat makes you shiver and it’s freezing. It’s dangerous! Who wants to freeze to death? Not me.

On time I stopped and checked if he was still walking behind me. He wasn’t there.

I panicked and tried to call him. I went back but every direction was the same. OJ! OJ! (Well, I did’t say OJ but you now what I mean, I called his name, btw his name isn’t John). There was no response. He wasn’t there. I didn’t know where he was… What do I do now? This guy… I swear… I tried for 5-10 minutes to find him but I failed. It was pitch dark and I kept calling him but I couldn’t shout out his name too loudly. For obvious reasons. So what do I do now? What would you do? What is there to do? He is a stranger (technically) but not really. You feel this strange sense of responsibility since both of you went together. Both of you should go back together, right? What do I do?

I had to go. Otherwise I would die in this bloody desert, I would simply freeze (well, I don’t know that but it certainly felt that way). This time it took me 8 hours to go back. No one was holding me back. I was determined to finish this. At some stage I heard wolves crying in the distance or maybe they were coyotes or wild dogs. That freaked me out. Another time, while walking on a dirt road I heard a noise behind me. I turned around and I saw two lights in the distance. It was a car! Instinctively I through myself into a ditch on the side of the road and covered myself with bushes. I stayed there for 10 minutes praying they didn’t see me. The car drove by me and never stopped. Towards the end of this excruciating hike back, when I saw the highway and the stop where tired drivers would rest, I swear, I felt like something was chasing me. I must have been delirious at this stage. The psychological and physical exhaustion made my mind play tricks on me. I’m certain of it. I saw a light booming and shining at me and I felt like something was chasing me. It was one of the most bizarre moments in my life.

There was this building there were you could buy tea, hot soup and few snacks if you stopped along the highway. I shook the door but the place was closed and the door wouldn’t budge. It was 4 am after all. It was freezing outside and I almost collapsed after trying to run away from being chased by UFO-like light. My feet hurt. The blisters were killing me. I saw trucks parked outside and some other cars. I could feel the heat radiating from the one of the cars when I got close. A man opened the window, there were some other people sleeping inside and I begged the driver to let me sit for few minutes inside his car. I must have looked like a homeless bum at this stage and he obviously didn’t understand English. I tried the same with another car. This time I tried Google-translate app on my phone. The man didn’t read Russian and switched the translating option to English-Uzbek. He was from Uzbekistan! Praise the LORD, Uzbek-old-man will help me for sure! I saw kindness in his eyes. He didn’t… at first.

I went back and sat down at the entrance to this “cafe” shivering from cold hoping for this nightmare to end. 20 minutes later the Uzbek man left the car and went up the the side of the building and banged on the gate with his fist. The owner of the “cafe” came out, they talked, I was pointed at and ultimately the kind owner succumbed to my cry for help. Greg was saved. Alleluia. Praise the Lord and the proud and kind people of Kazakhstan!

I woke up at 8 am having enjoyed my “-5 star hotel” but I wasn’t about to complain. It was a free accommodation after all. I bought the soup and tea at the “cafe” and asked the owner to help me find taxi back. I was done with this place. The soup had a huge potato inside it and it tasted like slice of heaven. Tea wasn’t bad either. Soon I was on my way back to Kyzylorda grining from side to side being happy to be alive.

My Oklahoma friend got caught and that is what he wanted from the moment we left the Energia building. That was his only way out. The jeep I saw driving in the distance behind me – the one I saw on my way back, the one I had to throw myself into a ditch on the side of the dirt road – most likely, that was a patrol that picked him up. OJ and I never spoke to each other again.

And the Grant Canyon… Remember that? While inside Buran hangar he told me how he hiked inside the Grant Canyon but ended up calling a helicopter rescue to get him out. And his urbex pictures – he hired someone to put them on his Instagram. Who does that?

More info: gregabandoned.com