You can probably think of lots of places that are great for swimming.

Pools, the beach, even comically small inflatable pools.

But in this podcast, I'm going to tell you about 20 places where you should absolutely, under no circumstances, swim.

Why? Because I'm trying to keep you safe.

Also, they're super weird and interesting.

Let's dive into places you should never, ever swim.

You're listening.

You're listening.

You're listening to be amazed.

First up, Lake Karachi.

This lake existed in the southern rural mountains in central Russia and was called the most polluted place on Earth in 2007.

On first impressions, the lake looked like any other lake. It was a huge body of water surrounded by mountains with lush greenery thriving around its shores.

However nice that sounds, you shouldn't dream of swimming in this lake when it existed.

During the 50s, when the Soviet Union didn't really care that much about being super safe with how they dealt with their nuclear waste, some of it was just dumped into this lake from the nearby power plant.

Some parts of the lake were so irradiated that they would kill you in an hour if you stuck around in the water.

The Russian government began filling up the lake

with concrete in the decades following their radioactive contamination, so now the lake no longer

exists as it's been completely infilled. If you go there today, you'll still see the trees

around the shores of the lake, but where the lake used to be, you'll only see a barren wasteland of concrete, rocks, and dirt, with some patches of greenery,

presumably just about holding on to life despite the location's radioactive past.

There even exist roads and pathways over where the former lake was, presumably caused by

trucks from the nearby

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