UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 24, 2018. MegaFon’s tech teams report both voice call and Internet traffic double in the so-called ‘Ural Mars’ area every weekend; the location in question is a clay pit near Bogdanovich, Sverdlovsk Region, that is famous for its surreal landscapes, the company press service reports.

These are not just the locals who come to see and take pictures of the clay mountains and the maroon-colored water that make the place look like another planet: in the last three months, MegaFon has checked in smartphones of users coming from Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Yamal, Yugra, and even Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

The connection necessary to make voice calls and upload photographs onto social network accounts away from large cities gets ensures through MegaFon’s nearby base station. The telecom station is located in the village of Poldnevny, there kilometers away from the mine; yet the stable 2G signal covers everything within fifteen to seventeen kilometers, and the 3G signal covers the nearest five to seven kilometers.