BBC - Travel - The mystery of Central Asia’s ‘desert kites’
▻https://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200907-the-mystery-of-central-asias-desert-kites
Desolate lands
Rising between the Caspian and Aral seas and stretching across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the Ustyurt plateau is an ultra-remote expanse of scorched clay-desert valleys that surge into rust-red pinnacles and mesas. This otherworldly 200,000 sq km expanse is roughly the size of England and Scotland combined, but with fewer than 13cm of annual rainfall and extreme seasonal temperatures that swing between 40°C and −40°C, the arid region is only home to a few sparsely populated semi-nomadic tribes.