Volume I - Episode 1 Where: Chazov Mountains, Russia When: 1 month and 3 days before E-Day, 10:57 am "Welcome to the Chazov Mountains," the tour guide said cheerfully as the bus wound its way through the foothills of the enormous mountain range. "They're a bit foreboding, aren't they? "The 17th Century Romanian poet Nicolae Cazanescu likened the mountain range to a row of blackened teeth that lured men to their deaths. And while it's true that a lot of men - and women and children and sweet baby deer - have died in these mountains, there's a certain majesty and power to them that many find intoxicating. "On to the boring stuff. We're about 2,000 metres above sea level here. The tallest mountain in the range is Mount Titov - known by some as The Great Tit - standing at 4,531 metres tall. To tell the truth, however, The Great Tit is merely the tallest mountain we know about; a great deal of Chazov is still unexplored. "Chazov's most infamous feature, of course, is Gorod Drevnih, the Eighth Wonder of the World. "Gorod Drevnih is arguably the best-known but least-understood structure in human history. It is surrounded by an enormous and seemingly very ancient wall that snakes across the mountains for over 140 kilometres. The wall is a staggering 30 metres - or 100 feet - tall. The total area encompassed by the wall is roughly 1,225 square kilometres, which is larger than the area of Moscow. "Aside from those rather bland statistics, we know very little. We don't know when the wall was built, how it was made, what it is made of, who built it, or why. "Worst of all, we have no idea what the wall protects. Apart from a few seconds of controversial film footage taken by a pair of American tourists in 1967 (we'll be showing it a little later for those of you who aren't familiar with it) nobody has ever seen what lies beyond the wall. "Frankly, Gorod Drevnih is a big fat mystery. And let's be honest: don't we just love it for that?" First published: Sunday, 11 April 2010 Credits: 2008 Mercedes Travego Safety Coach by be_fast Background photography from multiple sources (credits to asmunder and Brian A. Vikander) Foreground elements modelled and rendered in modo 401 Composited and postwork in Photoshop CS4 Notes: The background was made by compositing together a number of mountain photos sourced from the Internet.