Cave of the Kruber-Crow. The deepest cave in the world: Krubera-Voronya in Abkhazia Overcoming record results

From time immemorial, people have been trying to unravel the secrets of nature, and then conquer them. They build airplanes and skyscrapers, dive to the depths of the sea, climb to the tops of mountains and, of course, go underground and explore caves.

The deepest cave in the world

Over the years, many underground goths have been found and studied. Here is a list of the deepest caves in the world

Krubera-Voronya Cave

The deepest cave found is in Abkhazia. In 1960, it was discovered by Soviet speleologists. And over the next decades, scientists sank ever deeper.

Expeditions carried out in the karst cave cavity over the next half century discovered small branches at depth.

The latest record belongs to Gennady Samokhin. He found that the depth of the cave was 2196 m.

There are no established tourist routes in the Krubera-Voronya cave; You can only go down to the bottom as part of one of the speleological expeditions, which are held several times a year to explore the cave cavity.

How to get there

The Arabica mountain range is located 15 kilometers northeast of the Gagra resort. You can get to the depths of the Krubera-Voronya karst cave only as part of expeditions, with special speleological equipment and appropriate mountaineering skills.

The resort town of Gagra is located 20 km from the Russian-Abkhazian border. The most convenient way to get to Gagra is from Adler through the Psou border checkpoint. In summer, you can get from the airport or Adler bus station to Abkhazia by minibuses running several times an hour. The distance from Adler to Gagra is 33 km.

Regular buses and minibuses connect Gagra with other resorts of Abkhazia - Pitsunda, New Afonomi Sukhum.

Location

The Krubera-Voronya karst cave is located in the Arabica mountain range, in the north-west of Abkhazia.

The second deepest cave in the world is also located in Abkhazia. It was found by Russian speleologists relatively recently, in 1990. Today, scientists have reached a depth of 1830 m.

Initially, the cave looked like a small gap in the rock with a very strong draft of air. The cave was named Sarma. Sarma is a strong wind that periodically blows on Lake Baikal. Its speed is 40 - 50 m/s.

Location

The cave is located on Mount Arabica. The altitude exceeds 2000 meters. Sarma Cave is a karst cave of a subvertical type and is a string of halls and wells connected by tunnels and climbs.

Perspective

Sarma Cave is one of the deepest and most beautiful caves in the world. The explored depths are of great value for world speleology. Scientists believe that the depth of the cave in the future may exceed 2 kilometers.

The third deepest cave in the world is also located in the Caucasus. Soviet scientists first descended into it in 1971. At the moment, the dungeons have been explored to a depth of 1760 meters, the total length of the passages is about 32 kilometers.

It is located in the Khypstinsky massif, in one of the spurs of the Bzyb ridge in the thickness of Cretaceous and Jurassic dolomitized limestones.

Depths of the caves included in the system

Illusion -832 m, Mezhennoye -569 m, Snezhnaya -1361 m (lowest point -15 m below the mirror of Lake Morozova). In the Great Hall (depths 120-160 m from the surface) there is the largest underground snowfield in the territory of the former USSR - a snow cone with an ice core, the height of which periodically changed in different years from 25 m (according to surveys of 1971-74) to maximum possible height of 60 m (observations 2002-2005). The volume of snow and firn varied from 50 to 96 thousand m3. respectively. In the bottom part there are the Throne Hall and Hall X - the largest underground halls in Abkhazia. Their dimensions are: Throne Room - 309 m by 109 m with a ceiling height of up to 40 m; Hall X - 250 m by 70 m with a ceiling height of up to 50 m.

Other large halls

University, Enfilade (actually three adjacent halls under the same name), halls of Hope, Victory, Dolmen, Expectation, Gremyachiy, halls Glinyany Zaval, IGAN, Penelope, Vienna, Space. All of the listed halls, except for the Bolshoi and University halls, are confined to the cave river, being, in their genesis, supra-channel collapses. Along the way from the upper reaches, the underground river receives large tributaries (flows up to 10-15 l/s during low water): Nevsky Stream, New Stream, Zayachiy, Delusion, Struika, Gremyachiy Streams (falls from the ceiling of the hall like a waterfall). In the bottom part, the cave leads to the largest tributary of the Snowy River - the New (Tatyanina) River (the flow rate is estimated to be a third of the flow rate of the main channel). However, the junction of these two rivers has not yet been discovered.

The caves are located in the Austrian Alps. Local residents have known about it since the 10th century, but real research began only at the beginning of the 20th century. During this time, scientists have established that the depth of the cave is 1632 m and allows for the deepest through traverse in the world.

Where is it located?

Lamprechtsophen Cave is located on the Leoganger Steinberge mountain range in the Northern Limestone Alps.

Its main entrance is a source cave at the foot of the ridge, located at an altitude of 664 m above sea level.

In the Alpine region of Haute-Savoie, in France, there is one of the deepest caves in the world - the Mirolda Cave. This is the second deepest cave in France.

For a long time, Mirolda was the deepest cave in the world; today the depth of the French grottoes is 1626 meters.

In 1990, its depth was 1221 meters, and in January 2003, after a group of speleologists passed through it, the depth increased to 1733 meters. The height difference of this cave is 1750 meters, and its length is 9 kilometers. The entrance to the cave is located at an altitude of 1880 meters above sea level.

Mirolda Cave is the deepest karst abyss in the world. It forms a poorly branched system of galleries and bends of different levels with small wells. Mirolda Cave is an international site for study by scientific expeditions.

The Krubera-Voronya cave, which is located in Abkhazia, is the deepest in the world. It is located in the Arabica mountain range, its depth is 2190 meters. The deepest karst cave is a series of numerous wells connected by galleries and climbs.

This “abyss” has an entrance that is located above two thousand meters above sea level. From a depth of about 1000 meters, the central branch branches, going further into the depths with its numerous “tentacles”.

The Krubera-Voronya cave holds more than one world record. Its groundwater gives life to the shortest river on the planet, the Reprua, which is only 18 meters long. After its short run, it flows into the Black Sea.

The deepest cave in the world is the Krubera-Voronya cave.

The most interesting fact associated with the “bottomless cave” is that it is home to an animal from a series of springtails that existed 450 million years ago. Scientists discovered it at a depth of 1980 meters and gave this underground inhabitant the name Plutomurus ortobalaganensis. I would like to note that no one lives deeper than this creature in the world.

The cave was first discovered and explored by speleologists from Georgia in 1960. They studied it to a depth of 95 meters. Then the cave received its first name in honor of A.A. Kruber, who was the father of Russian karstology. Many expeditions sank deeper and deeper underground, reaching new heights. These people don't lack courage. Their courage was rewarded with more and more interesting discoveries.

Krubera-Voronya cave in Abkhazia.

The second part of the name, Voronya, was given to the cave in the mid-80s of the 20th century. This is what Kyiv speleologists called it, who explored the cave to a depth of 340 meters. To date, the diving record in Krubera-Voronya belongs to speleologist from Ukraine Gennady Samokhin. He managed to descend to a depth of 2191 meters in 2007.

USA expedition to the Krubera-Voronya cave, August 2004. Video.

Crow Cave (Kruber, Krubera-Voronya caves) is the deepest explored cave in the world. It is located in the Arabica massif in the Gagra ridge in Abkhazia, Georgia. It is part of the system to which the Arabica Cave belongs. The cave is branched into two branches: Nekuibyshevskaya and Main, which, in turn, branches into several smaller branches. The depth of the first is about 1300 meters, the second is about 2196 meters.

The depth of the cave is 2140 (± 9) meters. The previous record for depth of 1710 meters was set in 2001 by a Russian-Ukrainian team. In 2004, over the course of three expeditions, the depth of the explored territory increased each time. At this stage, the Ukrainian teams crossed the 2000 m mark below ground level. This happened for the first time in the history of speleology. In October 2005, new, unexplored parts were found by the CAVEX team, and the explored cave became even deeper. This expedition confirmed that the depth of the cave currently reaches 2140 (± 9) meters in depth.

A karst cave of a subvertical type is a series of wells connected by climbers and galleries. The deepest plumbs: 115, 110 and 152 meters. At a depth of 200 meters, the cave branches into two main branches: Nekuibyshevskaya (depth 1697 meters in 2010) and the Main branch (current depth 2191 meters). Starting at a depth of 1300 meters, the main branch branches into many other branches. More than 8 siphons are known in the bottom part (located at depths from 1400 to 2144 meters). The cave is located in a limestone mass, and the bottom part from a depth of 1600 meters is laid in black limestone. The shortest river in the world, the Reprua, is fed by the waters of the Krubera-Voronya cave.

The cave was discovered and first explored to a depth of 95 m by Georgian speleologists in 1960. Then it received its first name: Krubera Cave, in honor of the father of Russian karst studies A.A. Krubera.

The forgotten cave was explored a second time by Krasnoyarsk speleologists in 1968. They used the name of the cave: Siberian.

In 1982-1987, the cave was remembered again. This time it was explored by Kyiv speleologists to a depth of 340 m. A third name appeared: Voronya Cave. After the Abkhaz-Georgian war of 1992-1993, the republic was cut off from free visits by speleologists. Work resumed in August 1999, when the people of Kiev reached a depth of 700 m in one expedition. In August-September 2000, the same team reached a depth of 1410 m. In January 2001, an expedition of the Ukrainian Speleological Association, with the participation of Moscow speleologists, set a world record, reaching at 1710 m. At this point the branch was plugged with an impassable blockage. In August 2003, the Cavex team dived the fourth siphon in the side branch and stopped at a depth of 1680 m with a free continuation. In July 2004, the same team in the same branch set a new world record - 1775 m. In August of the same year, the USA expedition explored another branch. And again the world record is 1840 m. Two months later, in October 2004, the USA organized a new expedition. On October 19, for the first time in the history of speleology, the 2-kilometer barrier was overcome - 2080 m.

For many decades, the title of the deepest cave belonged to the French caves Pierre Saint Martin and Jean Bernard, which go more than 1600 meters into the bowels of the earth. However, in 1960, an event occurred that gradually began to deprive them of leadership. Speleologists working in Abkhazia on the Arabica massif discovered a previously unknown cave. That year they managed to descend only 150 meters, which, of course, not only did not give the right to call the new cave the deepest, but even to rank it among the deepest caves in the world. The only thing that speleologists were able to do was to give the new cave a name - Kruber Cave in honor of the founder of Russian and Soviet karstology (the science of the effect of water on rocks) Alexander Kruber.

Then a long story began, reminiscent of an auction, which happens with any cave after discovery: each successive speleological expedition announced reaching a new depth - 210, 340, 710 meters... It is worth noting that just at around 340 meters the Krubera cave received a new name - Voronya. Later, both of these unofficial names merged into one official one - Krubera-Voronya.

The deepest point is accessible to visit from two other entrances to the cave of the Arabica system: Kuibyshev Cave and Henry's Abyss, which are located further on the mountainside. The entrance to the cave from another representative of the system, the Berchil Cave, is located 100 m higher than the Voronya Cave. The total depth of the ligament is approximately 2240.

In 2002, a Russian-Ukrainian team of speleologists was officially recognized as the discoverer of the deepest cave on the planet.

THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF SPELEOLOGISTS has registered the depth record set by the Russian-Ukrainian team of cave explorers CAVEX. The brave souls from this team managed to descend to a depth of 1710 meters - this is the length of the underground well of the Voronya cave, which is located in the Arabica mountain range in Abkhazia. To this day it is the deepest cave on the planet. We had to wait two years for official recognition of this record - these are the formal requirements of the International Union. The discoverers themselves say that the record of this cave is the merit of “all Soviet speleologists.”

Speleologists have known for a long time that there are many deep caves in these mountains. At the beginning of the 20th century, the famous French karstologist Martel, who conducted research in those parts, came to the conclusion that there were vast underground voids in Arabica. But it turned out that the entrance to the Voronya cave, which later turned out to be the deepest on the planet, was found only in the 60s. Georgian speleologists who discovered the well tried to explore it, but retreated before the passage was too narrow. They classified the cave as shallow but promising.

In the 80s, Soviet scientists conducted an experiment in Arabika to trace groundwater and once again confirmed the presence there of the world's deepest karst hydraulic system. What did the researchers do? They colored the water of underground rivers with the harmless substance fluorescin and supplied water sources at the foot of the mountain with traps, which soon detected the release of fluorescein. It became clear that the cave complex was practically unexplored. The mystery remained: is it possible for a person to go into underground tunnels? This could only be verified in practice.
In the mid-80s, Kyiv speleologists made several attempts to conquer Voronya. Using a rock hammer and a hammer drill, they were able to “break through” to the 340-meter mark. The cave didn't let us go any further. A passage that was too narrow would require a lot of time to overcome. The conquest of Voronya was postponed indefinitely.

Then war came to Abkhazia - not the best time for speleological discoveries. And only in 1999, one of the members of the CAVEX team, Alexey Zhdanovich, “swinged,” as speleologists say, into the window of the cave and discovered the entrance to a new tunnel. “At such moments,” says Denis Provalov, head of CAVEX, “the pulse quickens and the most exciting stage begins - the first ascent. You don’t know what awaits you around the next turn of the gallery and what will happen at the end of a multi-meter well.”

And “around the next corner” a whole series of cascades awaited the daredevils. That time, in 1999, the cave allowed them to reach the 700-meter mark. Further penetration deep into the earth was postponed for another year. “It’s difficult to calculate the time of an expedition when you’re mastering new tunnels,” says Denis Provalov, “because you never know how long it will take to complete a particular section, sooner or later you run out of food, time, and energy, and you have to end the expedition until next year.” .

Usually this is how cave exploration proceeds, step by step. Sometimes the result of several expeditions can be a dead-end gallery, and sometimes you can stumble upon a small window in the wall of a well, which will then become the beginning of a new path. “The cave has gone,” speleologists say in such a situation.
In the summer of 2000, speleologists reached the 1400-meter mark in Voronya. Their premonition told them that this was not the limit.

The CAVEX team returned to Arabica again in January 2001. They had barely set up camp when two guys - Ilya Zharkov and Konstantin Mukhin - went into the cave in the evening to explore. They returned only in the morning. Tired, they nevertheless did not hide their delight: having exhausted the supply of ropes and pitons, they reached a depth of 1680 meters, stopping before the start of a new well. Incredibly, this was already a record! The deepest mark at that time was 1632 meters (the Austrian Lamprechtsofen Cave) did not survive! The next descent of the speleologists increased the depth of Voronya to 1710 meters! The cave ended in a hall with a lake. The hall was given the name “Hall of Soviet Speleologists” in order to emphasize that the record is the result of the work of several generations of speleologists.

According to the rules of the International Union of Speleologists, the establishment of a record must be confirmed by a detailed map of the cave. To do this, for several more days the speleologists carried out topographic surveys, took readings from the altimeter - a depth sensor built into a regular watch, and used an eclimeter to measure the angles of the
clone, the azimuth was determined using a compass, and the length of the well was measured by centimeters using a tape measure. Then all the data received was entered into a special notebook with indelible pages. And it was this notebook, as evidence of the record dive, that was sent to the headquarters of the International Union of Speleologists.

In 2005, as part of the next USA expedition, hydraulic leveling was carried out to clarify the depth of the cave.
A series of subsequent expeditions by rival Cavex and USA teams dived through the bottom siphons, increasing the depth of the cave several times. The current record belongs to speleologist Gennady Samokhin.

The first woman to reach a depth of 2140 m was Saule Pankenė from Lithuania. An expedition organized by the Lithuanian speleological club “Aenigma”, consisting of four people and led by Aidas Gudaitis, passed the cave in September 2010.

1960: Georgian karst explorers found the cave and then explored it to a depth of 180 meters.

1968: a Polish-Russian expedition discovered three caves of the Arabica system: Siberian, Heinrich and Berchila.

Early eighties: Kiev residents explored the cave to a depth of 340 meters.

August 1999: The Ukrainian second-tier team discovered windows into a cave at a depth of 230 meters, which led to a branch up to 700 meters.

August 2000: the second echelon of the team continued exploration to a depth of 1200 meters.

September 2000: USA (Ukrainian Speleological Association) and MTDE teams continued exploration to a depth of 1410 meters.

January 2001: The USA and Cavex teams encountered windows at a depth of 1350 meters, which led to a passage at a depth of 1430 meters. The sides of the passage at a depth of 1420 meters turned out to be a tunnel to a site at a depth of 1710 meters.

August 2003: Cavex and Kyiv Club found new sites at a depth of 1660 meters.

July 2004: Cavex team - new discovery, depth - 1810 meters.

August 2004: USA - a side passage was found at a depth of 1660 meters, which led to another at a depth of 1824 meters.

October 2004: USA - descent to a depth of 2080 meters. For the first time in the history of speleology, a group of researchers descended into a cave to a depth of more than 2 kilometers.

August 2001: USA - search for the continuation of the cave in the lower part (1420 m -1710 m).

February 2005: USA - new milestone - 1980 meters depth.

July 2005: Cavex descends from the site at a depth of 1980 meters to a further 160 m. This led to searches at a depth of 2140 meters. During this expedition, three forays were made to a depth of more than two thousand meters.

September 2007: Gennady Samokhin explores a cave at a depth of 2196 meters, which is still a world record.

Video interview with Gennady Samokhin

And this is that very significant dive - the final part of the dive into the Two Captains siphon, the ascent of submariner Gennady Samokhin:

The pioneer of a depth of 2196 meters in the Krubera (Voronya) cave, Gennady Samokhin, believes that the 2200-meter mark can be overcome not only by diving into a siphon...

What was the expedition to Krubera (Voronya) like in 2012?

The expedition was carried out within the framework of the USA project “Call of the Abyss”. Leader Yu. M. Kasyan, 59 participants from 9 countries (Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Spain, Great Britain, Israel, Lebanon, Ireland, Poland). Of these 59 people, three were supposed to dive into “Two Captains” using mixtures, but I was the only one... For the dives, 18 sets of regulators, 31 cylinders with air, trimix, and oxygen were delivered. 150 liters of gasoline for primus stoves, 500 kilograms of food, 3000 batteries were delivered to the underground camps... In total, 7 camps were deployed in the main branch of the cave; the deepest of them (and in general in the world) is “Rebus” - at a depth of 1960 meters. The expedition lasted from July 21 to August 26.

When was the cave discovered and what is its correct name?

The Krubera (Voronya) cave, currently the deepest in the world, was discovered by Georgian speleologists - the Kipiani group - in 1963 and named after Krubera. The depth of its explored part was then 57 meters. At the end of the 1970s, the cave was rediscovered and named Siberian. In the mid-1980s, the cave was discovered for the third time by Ukrainian speleologists and named Voronya. It later turned out that this was all the same cave. I think that the most correct name is the one given by the discoverers - Krubera Cave. As a last resort - Krubera-Voronya.

Sounds like a system...

No, today Krubera-Voronya is one cave with one entrance. Unless someday we will reach its exit into the Black Sea... We have already reached an absolute height in this cave of approximately 40 meters above sea level. Moreover, it is known that the underground river flowing through the cave is unloaded into the sea.

What are the prospects for further “deepening” of the Krubera cave? Does it make sense to dive even deeper?

It makes sense to dive, but only with a rebreather. The fact is that in the “Two Captains” siphon, the passage is, firstly, quite narrow (about a meter by 60 centimeters, and this gap is located obliquely) and, secondly, very flat. It moved more than 40 meters forward - and only 5 meters deep. In confined spaces, this takes a lot of time - and, accordingly, a lot of breathing gas. And you have to carry this mixture with you in cylinders, which further reduces the speed... I see the only way out: to use a rebreather, a closed-cycle breathing apparatus. This will increase the time reserve many times over - from the current 30 minutes to several hours or more...

The Russians from the Cavex team dived with a rebreather into “Two Captains” - but for some reason they could not advance...

They're just stuck. The fact is that the device they used is placed on the back, and this is very inconvenient in “Two Captains”. You need a rebreather attached to the swimmer's side. I am now looking for such a device and saving money for it.

What is the expected length of the Two Captains siphon?

Perhaps more than 10 kilometers. It is quite possible that this siphon will continue all the way to the Black Sea...

What other options are there for “deepening” Kruber-Voronya, besides immersion in this siphon? For example, other branches of the cave?...

There are unexplored extensions to Krubera Cave. But it is too early to talk about achieving record depths in them.

How about "digging up", looking for higher entrances?

In the Orto Balagan valley there are several caves hydrologically connected to Krubera Voronja. In particular, this is the Kuibyshevskaya - Genrikhova Abyss - depth 1110 m, the entrance is 30 meters lower than Krubera-Voronya; Berchilskaya - depth 500 m, entrance 120 meters higher; Gnomov - depth 400 m, entrance 50 meters lower; The Little Prince is 50 m deep, the entrance is 15 meters higher, and, moreover, the Little Prince is only 100 meters from the Krubera cave. If we manage to get to Krubera from the Little Prince or from Berchilska, we will get the desired “upward recess”.

What about Martel's cave?

The Martel Cave is located on the right side of the Orto-Balagan valley, but due to geological conditions it develops into the neighboring valley. So if there is a prospect of greater depth in it, it is completely separate from the Krubera cave...

sources

Nature has created many stunning places on our planet - dizzying mountains and cliffs, canyons and plateaus, picturesque rivers, lakes and bays. Amazing places are formed not only on the surface, but also underground. Such a miracle of nature is the Krubera Cave, which extends more than two kilometers into the interior of the planet.

Location

This giant underground cavity is located in Abkhazia near the Black Sea coast. For sixteen years it was considered the deepest cave in the world, and only in 2017 it gave up first place to another, located in the same Arabica mountain range of the Gagra range. The depth of the Crow Cave (Krubera) is an incredible 2196 meters!

Caves - how they are formed

Caves are spaces inside mountains and hills, certain cavities in the upper part of the earth's crust. They communicate with the surface by one or more inlet openings.

By origin can be divided into:

• karst (the most common group) – the deepest caves; formed due to the dissolution of rocks (such as limestone, marble, salt, chalk, gypsum and dolomite) with water;
• tectonic – the reason for the appearance is tectonic faults in any rocks;
• erosive - appear due to the influence of surface water;
• ice - formed in glaciers under the influence of melt water;
• volcanic - occurs during volcanic eruptions.

Key Facts

1. The Crow Cave is karst, formed in limestone, with the lower section in black limestone.
2. Vertical, it is a collection of a large number of wells, which are connected using climbers and galleries.
3. At a depth of 200 m, it bifurcates and forms two branches - the Main and Nekuibyshevskaya (found in attempts to find a connection with Kuibyshevskaya, hence the name). From a depth of 1300 m, the main branch is divided into a large number of others.
4. In the lower part, more than eight underwater grottoes (siphons) were found, located at different depths (from 1400 to 2144 m).
5. The main entrance to the Crow Cave is located in the Orto-Balagan tract in the north of the Berchilskoye ridge (2250 m above sea level). 3 m above the first one, in 2014, scientists from the Moscow State University Speleologists Club under the leadership of Andrei Shuvalov found the Arbaika entrance, which made Krubera a cave system with two entrances.
6. The shortest river in the world - Reprua - is filled with water from this deepest cave. The river is 10 meters wide and only 18 meters long.

Scientists have long suspected that the Arabica mountain range hides large voids underground. This conclusion was facilitated by the results of studies of those places by karstologist Martel, originally from France.

History of research in the 20th century

The first to study the Gagra massif was Alexander Kruber, a professor at Moscow State University and a Soviet geographer in 1911. The Crow Cave was discovered and partially explored (up to 95 m in total) in 1960 by Soviet speleologists from Georgia. They decided to name it in honor of Kruber, because... his contribution to the development of karst science was truly invaluable.

The following researchers, from Krasnoyarsk, gave the name Siberian in 1968, but it did not become widespread. And then they forgot about this place for decades. They remembered only in 1982, then Kyiv scientists, as part of the USA (Ukrainian Speleological Association) expedition, were able to reach a depth of 340 m, and they also gave it another name - Voronya.

Due to the military conflict on the territory of Abkhazia, the Krubera cave temporarily became inaccessible to speleologists. However, since 1999, work has continued. Then Ukrainian scientists reached a depth of 700 m.

History of research in the 21st century

It was possible to establish the exact depth only in 2001 with the help of technical means that became available at that time, and then the cave received the title of the deepest in the world.

In 2000, scientists from the UCA expedition reached a mark of 1410 m. In 2001, a team of researchers from the UCA and the international Association of Cave Explorers CAVEX gradually examined the underground cavities, often encountering dead ends. The group managed to advance along the Main Line to a record depth of 1710 m. The grotto and lake that opened at this depth was called the Hall of Soviet Speleologists to emphasize that the work of several generations of speleologists led to this grand discovery. An impenetrable blockage plugged this branch.

In 2004, three more expeditions were equipped, thanks to which the depth of the explored space gradually increased. The USA group managed to cross the 2000 m mark for the first time in history. In 2005, the CAVEX team found new, unexplored parts of the cave. Speleologists worked in extreme conditions, plunging into icy water. One of the participants died tragically. Then scientists were able to confirm the depth of 2140 (± 9) m.

The record for the deepest dive into the Crow Cave belongs to a member of the USA, a Crimean cave diver, Gennady Samokhin. On August 10, 2013, in the lowest siphon called “Two Captains” (2145 m underground), he sank to 50.5 m, increasing the depth to 2196 m.

In 2015, a significant event occurred - members of the Moscow expedition managed to find a passage from the Krubera-Voronya cave to Kuibyshevskaya. The presence of this compound was predicted earlier by comparing topographic surveys of the Svetlankina gallery of the Speleologists Club of Moscow State University and the cave of the Kuibyshev Samara speleological section.

The first woman to reach a depth of 2140 m was Saule Pankenė from Lithuania. She was a member of the expedition of the Lithuanian speleological club “Aenigma” in 2010.

Cave fauna

Representatives of the cave fauna are mostly invertebrate animals - arthropods, some types of sponges, annelids and flatworms, as well as ciliates. Of the vertebrates, only a few species of fish and the tailed amphibian of the Protea family live in the depths.

In the bottomless depths of the Krubera-Voronya cave, scientists were able to discover representatives of the fauna that had not previously been found on planet Earth:

• during the international Spanish-Portuguese-Russian expedition in the summer of 2010, new species of arthropods were discovered - the most deeply inhabited of those living on the planet;
• In 2012, scientists from the Hebrew University, studying underground springs, obtained amazing results - previously unstudied fish species were discovered.

The prospects for subsequent passage deeper into the cave are small; the estimated advance is possible within a maximum of a couple of tens of meters. Further underwater passage is limited by the lack of technical means. But even without that, this deepest cavity leading to the very center of the earth opens up many tasks for study for today's researchers, which will last for many decades.

The largest well in the Abkhazian Krubera-Voronya cave, the “Big Cascade”, descends to 152 m; the cave itself, with a known depth of 2196 m, is by far the deepest in the world. The passing record belongs to Ukrainian speleologists.
The Age of Discovery did not end with the mapping of the last piece of the earth's surface. Today's pioneers rush to their goals not into the distance, but into the depths, revealing the secrets of the underground world of the Earth.
Jules Verne’s fantastic epic “Journey to the Center of the Earth” anticipated the real-life penetrations of daredevil speleologists into the mysterious inner world of the planet, where underground abysses, grandiose halls, tunnels, wells and galleries, rivers and lakes are discovered. The chronicle of the conquest of the “underground pole” can be traced back to 1723, when the engineer Nagel, by order of the Austrian emperor, reached the bottom in the Macocha abyss in Moravia (-138 m). Then Italy set the record with the Padriciano Cave (-226 m in 1839) and the Trebiciano Cave (-320 m in 1841). Then the deepest caves were considered to be in Switzerland, Austria, and again in Italy. In 1944, the minus 500 m mark was reached in the Dent-de-Crol cave system, France, and almost until the very end of the 20th century. The French dominated the conquest of the cave depths.
The global speleology boom began in the middle of the last century, when a dramatic struggle ensued for the status of not the deepest, but the longest cave in the world. The study of giant caves required special efforts and preparation (the top three were the American cave with a known passage length of 38 km at that time, which over time subsequent expeditions managed to increase to 563 km), the Ukrainian Optimistic cave (known length 230.5 km) and the Swiss Hölloch (156 km). “Under the earth’s surface, in absolute darkness, lies a world so vast that one can speak of a new continent,” said the famous Swiss speleologist in the pages of National Geographic magazine (Alfred Begley in 1966). The “underground continent” metaphor was immediately supported. Speleological expeditions continue, the study of caves is carried out on a large scale and intensively, the list of record holders is constantly updated as the boundaries expand in breadth and depth. It is not possible to go through the entire cave right through, to the very bottom of the longest passage, on the first try, and not at all. all the pioneers of the underworld manage to return alive. This is a very dangerous path, full of extreme situations, complicated by bottlenecks, rubble and siphons (sections of the tunnel completely flooded with water) of unpredictable length and configuration.
The deeper, the more extreme, and each new breakthrough became a sensation of its time. A depth of 1000 m was overcome in 1956 in the Berger Chasm in the French Alps. The 1500 m mark was passed in 1983 in the Jean-Bernard Chasm, also in France (-1535 m). In 1998, the Lamprechtsofen abyss in the Austrian Alps with a depth of 1630 m (a record for the Polish team) was named the “underground pole” of the Earth. And finally, in 2001, a Ukrainian expedition explored the new deepest cave in the world - Krubera-Voronya on the Arabica massif in the Western Caucasus - to a depth of 1710 m. The previous record was surpassed by 80 m. This became a real sensation not only in the speleological world, news went around all the leading media. At the 13th International Speleological Congress in Brazil in August 2001, the Ukrainian Speleological Association was awarded an honorary prize “For the most outstanding speleological discovery.”
The entrance to the Krubera-Voronya cave is located in the Orto-Balagan valley on the northern side of the Berchil ridge, at an altitude of 2240 m above sea level. m. It is a series of wells connected by climbers and galleries. During the exploration of the cave, the expedition set up several camps inside: at a depth of 1200 m (an area for two tents) and 1400 m. Further descent only in a wetsuit. The siphon at a depth of -2145.5 m continues to the very bottom (finishing 50.5 m underwater).
The Krubera-Voronya karst cave in Abkhazia, explored back in the 1960s by Georgian speleologists, is the current record holder in the “vertical race”. Currently it is considered the deepest in the world.
Back in 1977, the people of Kiev discovered and explored the deepest cave in the USSR at that time - the Kievskaya abyss on the Kyrktau plateau in Central Asia, which became the first Soviet “thousandth” (deeper than 1000 m) and the fourth in the world at that time. And the promising Arabica in Abkhazia, with the goal of opening a new deepest cave in the world, began to be explored back in the 1980s. The choice of location was not accidental: the geology and hydrogeology of the massif made it possible to count on super-deep caves. The Krubera-Voronya cave was then explored to a depth of 340 m. With each new expedition, the depth mark dropped lower and lower.
During the 1980s Ukrainian and Russian speleologists explored hundreds of caves in Arabica, including four caves deeper than a kilometer. But the team knew that this was not the limit: in 1984-1985. A unique experiment on the coloring of groundwater proved the existence in the depths of Arabica of the world's deepest hydraulic system. The colored water of the source at the top of the mountain, going into the crevices of the cave system, 2300 meters below came out at the foot of the massif through 8 springs. All that remained was to explore and go through this cave labyrinth following the underground waters.
But after the collapse of the USSR, the Georgian-Abkhaz ethnopolitical conflict escalated, escalating into military action in 1992-1993 and 1998. The war interrupted cave exploration. Only in 1999, the glacial valley of Ortobalegan (the most promising Arabica site in terms of caves) was returned by an expedition led by Yuri Kasyan. And immediately a continuation of passages was discovered in the previously explored Krubera-Voronya cave. There was a breakthrough to a depth of 750 m, in August of the following 2000 - to 1200 m, in September of the same year - to 1480 m, and everyone felt: the world record was close. And they organized the third expedition in a year, without waiting for next summer. In winter, at the turn of 2000 and 2001, the cave was explored to the point of collapse at a record depth - 1710 m!
The 2001 world record did not become the ultimate dream: the team of speleologists set themselves a new goal - to overcome the 2000-meter depth mark in a natural cave. In 2003, Oleg Klimchuk and Denis Provalov (an expedition of the Kyiv Speleo Club and the Cavex team) were able to overcome a flooded area in a small side branch of the Krubera-Voronya cave at a depth of 1440 m and discovered a new branch of the cave system. At that time, it was explored to a depth of 1680 m. In 2007, Ukrainian Gennady Samokhin descended in the Krubera-Voronya cave to a depth of 2191 m, setting a new world record. And relatively recently, in August 2012, an international team of speleologists managed to reach its bottom. The world record for depth in the cave - 2196 m - was set by Gennady Samokhin. The bottom of the cave lay 5 m below the record level of 2007.
The possibility of opening a new, even deeper cave theoretically exists. Experts are confident that the tens of thousands of caves explored today are only a tiny part of the predicted number, and new deep records are ahead, which record-breaking speleologists will be no less proud of than the first climbers who conquered Everest.

general information

The deepest natural cave in the world(at the beginning of 2014).

Type: subvertical karst, the lower part is composed of black limestones.

Location: Arabica mountain range of the Gagra ridge of the Western Caucasus.

Administrative affiliation: Republic of Abkhazia (partially recognized state in accordance with UN resolution - part of Georgia).

Nearest city: Gagra.

Year of discovery: 1960 (the group led by L.I. Maruashvili dropped to 95 m).

Status of the deepest in the world: 2001 (1710 m). The 2000-meter mark was passed in October 2004.

A year of complete completion: 2012

Numbers

Known depth: 2196 m.

Total stroke length: 16,058 m.
The deepest well: 152 m.
Cave entrance height: 2240 m above sea level.

Climate

The cave has its own microclimate.

Average annual temperature of air and water at depth: about +5°С.

Relative humidity: about 100%.
The city of Gagra (Gagra) has a humid subtropical climate.

Average annual temperature: + 17°C.
Average January temperature: +12°C.

Average temperature in July: +26°С.
Average annual precipitation: 1700 mm.

Curious facts

■ The cave is named in honor of Alexander Alexandrovich Kruber (1871-1941) - “the father of Russian karstology”, an outstanding physical geographer. Kruber studied karst structures of the East European Plain, Crimea and the Caucasus. The Krubera ridge on Iturup island and a karst cave on the Karabi-yayla plateau in Crimea are also named after him.
■ After setting the world record in 2001 by the Ukrainians (1710 m, Krubera-Voronya cave), the French tried to return the palm and announced that they had reached a depth of 1730 m in the Mirolda cave in the Alps. But then, six months later, they themselves discovered their error in the measurements and abandoned their claims to leadership. National Geographic magazine called that intrigue “The Race to the Center of the Earth.”
■ From the Krubera-Voronya cave at the foot of the Arabica mountain range flows the Reprua River, officially considered the shortest in the world (and the coldest of those flowing into the Black Sea). It is a powerful outlet of an underground karst river, which after 18 m flows into. In fact, it originates on a glacier on the Arabica high plateau at an altitude of 2500 m, 12-15 km from the sea coast.
■ According to forecasts, the maximum depth of a natural mine on our planet can reach 2200-2500 m.
■ The limit of passability in speleology is constantly being pushed back: the arsenal of equipment and technical means used is expanding, and speleologists’ psychological perception of the surmountability of obstacles is also changing. To achieve a record depth, the team can work over several expeditions, setting up intermediate camps and throwing equipment, provisions and oxygen there.