you know most countries in the world
were established by a people group or
conquest from another people group but
then every so often you get a country
that was established by a group of
people that got lost in the desert and
then were promised land from an African
Prince if they could survive in a
haunted cave that nobody wanted welcome
to the world's only accidental
underground country by Buddhist monks
from Russia everybody I'm your host
Barb's at the time of filming this
episode as you know the corona virus
pandemic isolation period is going on so
I'm gonna have to film all my episodes
in my office until further notice oh
what the art is here what kind of coffee
are you drinking from for my geography
now mug I'm drinking from that well it
looks so good in this geography now sure
if you'd like to be like art and get a
geography now sure you could do so at
where geography now calm anyway
oftentimes kitsy Quokka is overlooked by
most people from the maps because half
the time you technically can't see it
much of it is literally underground when
you live in the desert and need to
flourish sometimes you got to be a
little creative and when it comes to
these people the very essence of their
existence depends solely on creativity
let's jump to the map now shall we get
see kwaka gets its name from the words
kitty which means poison and quokka
which means cave why would a country be
called poison cave it's a very long
story we'll discuss it later in this
episode but basically it kind of had to
do with a dare that makes no sense
I am more confused than ever great we're
on the right track first of all the
country is landlocked located in the
Sahara close to the Tri point of Nigeria
Chad and Libya the nation which is
shaped like a submarine is about 4,500
square miles or 12,000 square kilometers
in size making it just bigger than the
country of Qatar within the country
there are only two main settlement towns
a capital girl which is situated
entirely within the Moga DeAnza crater
from there the only other inhabited town
is Kiara right next to the Kirika
reservoir the country is served by the
one and only International Airport with
only a single runway Erika international
the airport only services three
international flights Tunis MA and
Jimena and ELISA getting around in Kitts
oquawka might seem daunting as there
doesn't seem to be any roadways
connecting the towns and Airport however
the interesting thing is that the
country has invested in one of Africa's
largest feats of
Engineering and has developed the q1 and
q2 highways that connect the three
points of habitation you can't see them
though because the roadways are almost
entirely underground and have pit stops
along the way these were constructed to
avoid the harsh desert temperatures and
conditions above ground and allow
optimal transport otherwise the only
other means of transport abroad would be
the trans-saharan highway that passes
through from Libya and continues on to
Agra Desna share now here's the
fascinating thing though above-ground
kits oquawka only has two main
settlements the ones we talked about but
below ground the country has more
subterranean villages with a higher
population than those above in fact the
capital ger has more subterranean
dwellings than above it ookura is
actually a third largest town with only
about 15,000 people along the queue to
underground highway you find the second
largest village Varsha which has about
34,000 people making it the world's
largest subterranean town yeah these
people do not want to get sunburned I
mean in the summer months surface
temperatures can reach above 120 degrees
Fahrenheit 50 degrees Celsius more
people actually prefer to live
underground than above-ground as the
temperature is easier to regulate this
is why many of the subterranean houses
have pipe vents installed many homes and
businesses look kind of rugged and
rustic with these raggedy stone walls
while others are more modern and
developed with shopping centers and
tiled walkways now that I think about it
I think I did a video about this topic
anyway some top notable spots in case if
you'd like to visit include the temple
of Alton the thorn huts of shukshin the
abandoned fortress of inertia the
pillars of Kiva and the Allah
underground Oasis yeah so as you can
kind of tell by now this country kind of
likes to keep things literally on the
down low but above-ground lots of things
are happening too which brings us to you
kit C quokka historically was actually a
land that the native naba tribe in the
area actually kind of feared because
they believe that all the land around
the Mokka DeAnza crater was cursed and
filled with ghosts and overall death
turns out it was actually just a natural
gas leak see the MOCA DeAnza crater is
actually situated on the Wootton natural
gas cavern a deposit in the middle of
the Sahara this cavern has flammable
floor pockets that leak can explode if
exposed to fire foolish travelers in the
past would often camp by not knowing
about the hazard and when it came time
to get warm it was kind of like what a
long journey I guess I need a camp
for the night and what a better way to
camp than setting up a nice hot campfire
I'll just light up this tinder and okay
then Wow and there's scorpions
everywhere this place is terrible yeah
that's kind of why nobody really wanted
to live here for the longest time anyway
the country is entirely situated within
the Saharan desert with arid dunes and
rocky outcroppings that extend to the
surface the nation's tallest point being
Patera peak right on the mocha DeAnza
crater the country also has no rivers
and the largest body of water of course
being the kicker a reservoir in the
Keokuk crater this sits on the Kiera
aquifer a deep underground hydration
deposit that fortunately feeds salty
brackish water into the crater naturally
since the kicker of reservoir is the
only natural water source for them
they've invested heavily in
desalinization plants that pretty much
hydrate the entire country and after the
people came in and settled the area they
actually found a way to harness the
natural gas deposits and that's where
they get a lot of their money from today
kisi kwaka is the smallest African
country dependent on the petroleum
industry it makes about two-thirds of
their exports and over half of their GDP
is dependent on natural gas most of the
petroleum industry is state-run and
almost all the profits are redirected
into the nations fund reservoir which in
return also distributes into
infrastructure development hmm we should
hang out sometime this is basically how
they were able to expand their tunnel
system to accommodate over half of the
entire population and with the arid hot
landscape there are also some species
you can find skipping around in the
desert and with that here's Gary Harlow
to explain as a country walked away in
the middle of the Sahara you would think
that it would be impossible for anything
to survive but think twice because
here's some of the most fierce aligning
species that can be found specifically
and only in this country such as the
blue spotted giraffe the Saharan obese
baboon there is a black law fish the
desert spike Taurus the three-legged
shrew flying live and a geckos and the
national animal the highly venomous and
fatal cavewoman scorpion and that little
feisty guys beloved by all for good
reason
but we'll discuss that lino and that's
all for me they thank you Gary
and speaking of animals food which is
sometimes made of animals sorry it's
just it's true now of course with almost
no above-ground arable land most food
from Kitty quokka is actually imported
from their neighbours as a desert
country you would assume yeah they'd
probably grow you know typical desert
crops like dates and they do to some
extent however they are also well known
for their underground temperate produce
they use the cave systems their
advantage and with the more cooler humid
climate they've been able to harvest
various species of moss and fungi which
are commonly used in kit sequa cuisine
such as mas o fo say mas Perl cake
mushroom hummus and the national dish
mas mushroom stew so yeah caves boss
deserts and scorpions things are getting
kind of interesting aren't they well you
haven't seen anything yet because once
you meet the people of this country
you're gonna have your minds blown in
three two now kitsy Kwok is probably
Africa's strangest demographic anomaly
because of two reasons number one it's
the only African country that was
colonized by Asians and number two it
technically wasn't really colonized
because nobody really wanted it in the
beginning at this point you're probably
more confused than ever yeah you bet I
am perfect that's great here's the graph
first of all the country has about one
hundred and one thousand people and is
the African country with the highest
percentage of Buddhists per capita the
nation is just over half native KITT
seem ABBA at about fifty two percent
followed by the second largest group
that kitsy calm meek at around thirty
percent from there about 14% are afro
sloth whom are mostly Russian descended
Europeans that have either lived for
generations upon the eighteenth century
or migrated from Russia in the second
Slavic wave of the 1970s from there the
remaining 4% are other groups mostly
Berber or nilo-saharan
African groups that have moved in from
surrounding countries they use the East
African shilling as their currency they
use the type cue plug outlet and they
drive on the left side of the road but
with left hand steering wheels as well
so at this point you're probably going
wait ages Buddhist Africa what calm down
you ignorant squizzle twit I'll explain
now as we already explained in the
Russia and Russian Republic's explained
videos the Republic of Kalmykia found in
Russia is the largest Buddhist community
in Europe back in the sixteen
the aureate Mongol people migrated all
the way from what is now eastern China
into the Kalmia Republic which is now in
Russia if you thought that migration was
pretty far oh no that call makes
definitely we're not done migrating do
you remember back in the Djibouti
episode we mentioned that there was a
very brief settlement from Russian
Cossacks in Djibouti called Sugano now
this settlement didn't really last very
long and the French came in and they
kind of deported all the Russians back
to Russia
however amidst that group were some
kalmyk buddhist monks as the French came
in the colonies were like oh we're not
sticking around we got a run into the
desert long story short these Buddhist
monks got lost in the Sahara and met a
prince of the mob a tribe named in NASA
basically it kind of went down like this
hey Saharan Prince guy we've been
traveling we need a place to stay can we
live in your lands there's a haunted
cave that keeps killing people over
there with explosions and it has lots of
scorpions nobody wants that land if you
can survive there you can have it and I
promise my people will support you a
hundred percent whoa okay score great
deal well for one it's pretty hot I
guess we should get out of the Sun you
guys got any shovels and that's kind of
how it started the comics discovered
which areas had gas fumes to avoid and
after digging extensively they found a
way to swell up the aquifer to fill in
the reservoir over the next few decades
word spread back to the motherland a lot
more comics came in and that's how the
two main groups that kid seemed ABBA and
kids he called me kind of worked
together to create this nation they were
brought together through the stress of
survival the people of this country are
called kitsy coops and that is also the
name of the national language which is
basically kind of like a fusion between
the native mama language and calm meek
it's written in both the Latin and the
Cyrillic alphabet kind of like an homage
to the Russian roots of the comic people
as a country with strong ties to
Kalmykia of course Buddhism was brought
in and today about a third of the
country adhere to the religion many of
the temples and shrines are found
especially underground and they're
pretty well maintained today you can see
a lot of traditions like women that were
the kitsy comic dress also camel racing
and desert chests are very famous
pastimes as well well we kind of pretty
much already explained the brief history
of the country so let's just kind of
jump into the famous people shall we
some famous notable people from kisi
kwaka
might include Gustave Rush cool
brennon popsicle Gordon Seychelles
Duncan Welsh our English king Johnson no
heirship Carlos - why Fernando reversely
Adam cave Josh Tim Gachet Samri a Oishi
1/8 akshatha
so there you go asian buddhist desert
tunnel people that work with natives and
they made a country and there's lots of
natural gas and they use that money to
make their country that's basically it
see Quokka you get that deal a lot of
their development though dependent on
their relations to the outside world
though and of course that means we got
to finish off this episode with the when
you're a small desert nation with a
petroleum industry in the middle of
nowhere and everybody around you is
watching you kind of have to play your
cards right with diplomacy first of all
when it comes to friends kitsy Quokka is
of course close to their immediate
neighbors near chad and libya these
countries provide the most trade and
libya kind of acts as their closest
gateway to Europe through the
Mediterranean recent conflict years in
Libya though have been rough in the
import sector so now they depend more on
these connections through Algeria to
circumnavigate northwards Canada and
Russia are key players that invested in
the subterranean construction projects
as Russia is world renowned for having
some of the world's deepest and
fortified underground tunnel systems and
Montreal Quebec has the world's largest
underground commercial network kidsí
quokka took notes from contractors that
flew in to help with projects and today
the countries have close ties and of
course much of the population of kitsy
kwaka has Russian heritage Mongolia and
Thailand and Japan are key players in
Buddhist tourism as all three countries
are Buddhist powerhouses Mongols connect
well to as the OREA comic population are
essentially their cousins when it comes
to their best friends however the kitsy
quacks will always go back to the
motherland the comitia Republic of
Russia the two are closely connected and
have historical ties kitsy quacks often
go back to visit their ancestral
homeland and the colleagues often visit
to see how their distant African cousins
are doing in the end they will always be
there for each other have a great
friends in conclusion get seek Wacha is
a nation that thrives off hey you guys
know that this is an April Fool's video
bye now come on I've been doing this for
years
this is
that's right you got tricks you have to
buy a geography now shirt at where
geography now calm Oh I propose a
proposed hope you guys had a great April
Fool's stay tuned
the Vasko down republic is coming up
next
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