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 Vsevolod Garshin outlined the "expression of immense moral force, hatred against evil and complete resoluteness to fight it". According to Ivan Goncharov, who wrote "Christ in the Desert. A Painting of Mr. Kramskoi" (original Russian title: "Христос в пустыне». Картина г. Крамского"), "the entire figure seems to have diminished a bit from its natural size, contracted, not from starvation, thirst and bad weather, but from internal, inhuman insight to his thought and will during the struggle of forces of spirit and flesh". He also emphasized that "there is nothing festive, heroic, victorious — the future fate of the world and