Antofagasta Region average rainfall in the Antofagasta is just per year. From the coast, east to the Chilean Coast Range, is the south-central part of the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world. Further to the east, it is part of the less arid Central Andean dry puna ecoregion. The surroundings of abandoned Yungay town have been named the driest place in the world. Most of the population lives on the coast in Antofagasta and Mejillones, or in Calama, Chile in the interior, the hub of the mining industry and the home of a large part of its work force. In
Christ in the Desert Christ's temptation had attracted Kramskoi already in the early 1860s. In that period he made the first sketch of the composition. The first version of "Christ in the Desert" is dated to 1867, but turned out to be unsuccessful. Kramskoi realized that the choice of vertical format was inappropriate. He opted for the horizontal format and introduced the pallid rocky desert in the background. Kramskoi described the early history of the painting in his letters to writer Vsevolod Garshin. "Christ in the Desert" is one of Kramskoi's Jesus-themed paintings, the other being "Rejoice, King of the Jews" and "Herodias". Kramskoy