Some 110 kilometers from the oil city of looms out of the desert as you drive along Karamay lies a striking natural sand formation  National Highway 217. Placed in graceful called Yadan with an area of lo square kilometers disorder by a mysterious force£¬the "city" is known as the Wind City of Urho. It suddenly embellished with stimulating colors-red, grayish-green and grayish-blue.

It is called the "Haunt of Devils" in both the Mongolian and Kazak languages. When a bowling wind suddenly arises, it whips up sand, rolls stones around, and darkens the sky and the earth, causing people in ancient times to believe that demons haunted the Wind City.

The desolate formation has a multitude of shapes, large and small, high and low, beautiful and ugly. Some look like medieval European castles; some are like lofty pagodas; some are like clouds of dense smoke; others are like crawling tortoises or snakes. There are thousands of gorges and crisscross gullies winding through the Wind City. In the bright sunshine. the Wind City is a dazzling and impressive sight. On rainy days,  it is covered with mist, suggestive of fear and danger. In winter, it looks unusually peaceful in its blanket of snow, like a sleeping child.

In northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region many abandoned cities can be found, including Jiaohe, Gaochang and Loulan. However. unlike them. the Wind City of Urho is without any trace of a human presence.

The Wind City is lovely and terrible. miraculous and weird, imbued with a sense of loneliness and wildness, making a striking contrast to bustling modern cities. Generally speakin9£¬beauty is harmonious. But the Wind City is in graceful disorder. And whereas beauty is usually refined and elegant. the Wind City is rough and natural.