-True, but at some point I believe it is safe to say that the Soviets started using heavy machinery - an option denied the workhouse inmates who dug the well.

-True, but at some point I believe it is safe to say that the Soviets started using heavy machinery - an option denied the workhouse inmates who dug the well. (This is where the 'deepest hole dug' contest gets a whiff of 'No true Scotsman...') On some levels I find the well more impressive than the mine, though. A 4ft diameter hole dug 1285ft deep means some 400 cubic meters of dirt was removed. By hand. That's an awful lot of blisters by anyone's standards.