
Man Spends 23 Years Carving Sprawling Underground Temple Under His House - rmason
http://www.odditycentral.com/architecture/man-spends-23-years-carving-sprawling-underground-temple-under-his-house.html
======
salawat
Frankly, I find it refreshing.

Here is a man who found Quality in his life. He didn't care about the market.
He eschewed the call of mammon. This gentleman dug himself a glorious hole,
and worshipped in the one way he knew how.

Building.

You can laugh or call him insane if you like. Here was a man who knew what he
wanted and hew it from the earth itself.

Gaze in awe mortals. This man has truly exercised his free agency.

~~~
foobarian
If I had basalt under my house I would dig a system of tunnels too. But our
water table is basically 2 feet under ground. :(

~~~
brokenmachine
Wish I could get a house...

~~~
sbov
If you're posting on this website, you can probably get a house. Just not the
house you want, where you want.

~~~
King-Aaron
Not if you're posting on this website from Sydney

~~~
notzuck
To be fair, he did say you might not be able to get it WHERE YOU WANT. There
are houses in the west that are cheaper than the northern beaches. There's
also QLD and other areas of AUS.

~~~
King-Aaron
I do agree generally to be honest. However I can also understand people who
end up in a scenario where they don't really have an 'easy' option to move
location.

------
hprotagonist
_It 's perfectly simple," said Wednesday. "In other countries, over the years,
people recognized the places of power. Sometimes it would be a natural
formation, sometimes it would just be a place that was, somehow, special. They
knew that something important was happening there, that there was some
focusing point, some channel, some window to the Immanent. And so they would
build temples or cathedrals, or erect stone circles, or...well, you get the
idea."

"There are churches all across the States, though," said Shadow.

"In every town. Sometimes on every block. And about as significant, in this
context, as dentists' offices. No, in the USA, people still get the call, or
some of them, and they feel themselves being called to from the transcendent
void, and they respond to it by building a model out of beer bottles of
somewhere they've never visited, or by erecting a gigantic bat house in some
part of the country that bats have traditionally declined to visit. Roadside
attractions: people feel themselves pulled to places where, in other parts of
the world, they would recognize that part of themselves that is truly
transcendent, and buy a hot dog, and walk around, feeling satisfied on a level
they cannot truly describe, and profoundly dissatisfied on a level beneath
that._

~~~
Nzen
This is a quote from Neil Gaiman's _American Gods_

~~~
simonw
It was this (and Sam & Max Hit the Road) that first got me interested in
roadside attractions. I've since visited a ton of them, generally guided by
[https://www.atlasobscura.com/](https://www.atlasobscura.com/) and
[https://www.roadsideamerica.com/](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/) \- it's a
very rewarding hobby.

~~~
hprotagonist
I read American gods and played Sam and max (in scummvm) over the same summer.
They’re inextricably linked in my head, now...and I think a good deal of why
the tv adaptation doesn’t work for me is because the vibe isn’t lucasarts
enough.

------
codesnik
Man, this is Armenia we're talking about. Carving into rocks is a national
idea here.

see Geghard monastery, for example
[http://www.ancientpages.com/2016/03/09/fascinating-
geghard-m...](http://www.ancientpages.com/2016/03/09/fascinating-geghard-
monastery-rock-cut-secret-caves-passages-and-hundreds-of-monk-cells/) \- one
of the churches is just a giant boulder cut from inside. And khachkars
everywhere in the country and outside (in Turkey, Azerbaijan, in a whole
greater Armenenia of the past), some of them older than 1000 years.

------
rainbowmverse
This is basically how I play Minecraft: seeing how many pointless, elaborate
rooms I can build below an unassuming surface structure.

~~~
ethbro
Sounds like you've got a future in amateur templing! Immortality is only a
drill hammer, chisel, and cooperative geological formation away!

~~~
rainbowmverse
I did build a temple to an imaginary fire dragon once. Unfortunately, this was
before I discovered WorldEdit and its schematic saving functionality.

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superasn
Reminds me of Manjhi, another guy who also kept chiseling a mountain for 22
years to create a path for fellow villagers (1).

(1)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi)

------
dvno42
Pictures aren't loading on the link above but this one didn't give me any
trouble.
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-587011...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-5870117/Inside-65ft-
deep-man-cave-dug-one-man-23-YEARS.html)

------
cpeterso
See also the Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno, dug by one man over a
period of 40 years from 1906 to his death in 1946. He came to Fresno from
Sicily and when he couldn't productively grow citrus on his property, he began
digging. The tunnels are nice and cool in the hot Fresno summers and there are
fruit trees growing in open-air sections. They give tours.

[http://www.undergroundgardens.com/](http://www.undergroundgardens.com/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestiere_Underground_Gardens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestiere_Underground_Gardens)

------
orev
This is being framed as a great accomplishment, and it is, but the details
seem disturbing. Working 18 hours a day, every day? Barely sleeping? I wonder
if there was some kind of mental illness at play, and what about the wife?
What kind of life would that be, having a partner who is essentially avoiding
you at such an extreme for 23 years? And "donating" rubble, 1 bucket at a
time, to other construction projects? What kind of construction projects can
use material in any meaningful way at such a slow rate? And how did they
survive if he wasn't working a job?

So many questions.

------
jamieb007
> " Levon Arakelyan pulled out an estimated 450 truckloads of rubble,
> exclusively by metal bucket. He gave it all to a local company which used it
> in various construction projects."

Sounds like he didn't profit from it during his lifetime but his wife now runs
it as a tourist attraction. Perhaps would have been appropriate for the
construction company to have contributed something along the way.

------
nickbarnwell
This reminds me of a far better executed version of London's "Mole Man" [1]. I
think it must've been linked on HN a few months back, but I can't find the
link now.

[1]:
[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/aug/08/communities....](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/aug/08/communities.uknews)

~~~
BLKNSLVR
Reminds me of "The Underground Man", a book I bought second hand just because
I liked the title.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Underground_Man_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Underground_Man_\(novel\))

Loosely based on John Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bentinck,_5th_Duke_of_Por...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bentinck,_5th_Duke_of_Portland)

------
kabdib
Seymour Cray (the supercomputer designer) famously dug tunnels underneath his
house when he lived in Minnesota. It sounds like fun, really.

------
animal531
I'm reminded of [https://singularityhub.com/2012/02/19/canadian-man-
excavates...](https://singularityhub.com/2012/02/19/canadian-man-excavates-
his-basement-using-rc-trucks-over-7-years/)

Every winter he's been using small remote controlled vehicles to dig out his
basement.

------
xiaq
Since nobody has mentioned it, a French postman was known for building a
palace with stones he picked up during work over 33 years:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Cheval](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Cheval)

------
brianstorms
You think that's something, you should see this documentary called CAVEDIGGER
about a guy named Ra Paulette in New Mexico who carves exquisite caves for
customers. It's really something. Watch the trailer:
[http://cavediggerdocumentary.com/](http://cavediggerdocumentary.com/)

------
rocky1138
The question was never answered: did she ever end up actually getting the
storage space for the potatoes?

~~~
kup0
In the first few lines, "after finishing work on the pit" refers to the potato
storage pit

------
torgian
I wonder what the HOA thinks about that :P

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dsnuh
If you are ever in the Fresno area, there is an underground garden built by a
single man also.

[http://www.undergroundgardens.com/](http://www.undergroundgardens.com/)

------
kldavis4
Reminds me of this
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_city](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_city)

------
8bitsrule
Interesting. I liked the 'Burro' Schmidt project as well.
[http://www.odditycentral.com/travel/human-mole-the-man-
who-s...](http://www.odditycentral.com/travel/human-mole-the-man-who-
spent-32-years-digging-a-tunnel-to-the-middle-of-nowhere.html)

Unlike Ozymandias, his monument ain't goin' nowhere.

------
sunstone
In a similar vein there's these Italian carve outs. [1]

[1][https://www.google.ca/search?q=italian+subterranean+temple&r...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=italian+subterranean+temple&rlz=1CAASUL_enCA765CA765&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj1ofL9oYfcAhV7CTQIHe_cAKsQ_AUICigB&biw=1745&bih=846)

------
joejerryronnie
Check out the Australian city of Coober Pedy where half of the residents live
underground:

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/unearthing-coober-
pedy...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/unearthing-coober-pedy-
australias-hidden-city-180958162/)

------
emmelaich
Reminds of the rock-hewn churches of Ethiopia[1] or the underground cities of
Cappadocia.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalibela](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalibela)
"Each church was carved from a single piece of rock"

------
keypress
I totally grok this, he's not the first or last:
[http://www.kuriositas.com/2015/05/the-mystery-of-margate-
she...](http://www.kuriositas.com/2015/05/the-mystery-of-margate-shell-
grotto.html)

------
skunkworker
It's like a real-life minecraft.

------
purplezooey
I dunno, that's pretty badass. I have clay soils so it's out for me, though.

------
sweat
this sounds just like my father's long long legs, eek!
[http://correlatedcontents.com/misc/Father.html](http://correlatedcontents.com/misc/Father.html)

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pram
How does it not flood?

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wavefunction
23 years a spiral?

just sayin big up the one like Levon Arakelyan for his human accomplishments

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fiatjaf
O Nariz de Isabelle.

------
ropable
It's always a man. No matter that most differences between the sexes approach
zero when examined in a large sample, males seem to be way more prone to
undertaking a single project with this kind of obsession.

------
yoav
Is this trending on hn because “working yourself to death by digging an empty
hole in the ground you’re obsessed with, that some VC you’re married to will
spin off and profit from” is so analagous to generic tech startups?

~~~
goldenkey
“working yourself to death by ______"

Analogous to life _cough cough_

------
joewee
Not sure why this is of interest to this crowd. Must be a slow day, these are
dangerous to build. Unfortunately no background on the persons engineering
experience or mental health... [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-
safety/mysteriou...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-
safety/mysterious-tunnels-in-bethesda-murder-case-were-being-built-as-nuclear-
bomb-shelter/2018/05/31/cc87aafa-64ee-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html)

~~~
laex
I thought Levon Arakelyan was a true hacker. I can relate this to my own side-
projects. Most of them start with a simple "what-if" question in my head. Once
I've started writing code, I won't stop until I have some kind of prototype
ready. That aside, agreed that for digging tunnels it could be dangerous.

