The deepest cave in the world depth. Krubera Cave (Crow Cave). How to get to Krubera Cave

12 kilometers from Gagra, at the top of the Arabica mountain range, is the deepest cave in the world - the Krubera-Voronya cave. As of 2014, its explored depth is 2196 meters. The entrance to the Krubera cave is located in the Orto-Balagan tract, at an altitude of approximately 2250 meters above sea level. This grandiose cave was discovered in 1960 by Georgian speleologists; they named it in honor of the founder of Russian karst studies A.A. Kruber. First, the upper 95 meters of the cave were explored. In 1968, speleologists from Krasnoyarsk continued to study the Krubera cave; they reached a depth of 210 meters. In 1982-1987, Kyiv speleologists descended to a depth of 340 meters, and they gave the cave a second name - Voronya. The following studies began after the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. In 1999, Kyiv speleologists reached the next depth, which was 700 meters. A year later, the explored depth of the Krubera cave was 1,410 meters, and in 2001, speleologists dropped to 1,710 meters. At this depth, an expedition of Ukrainian and Moscow speleologists achieved a new world record. The depth of the previous explored deepest cave in the world, Jean Bernard in France, was 1602 meters. Further progress of the speleologists was blocked by a powerful blockage. In 2003, through a side branch of the cave, speleologists were able to go deeper, up to 1680 meters. A year later, the explored depth of the cave was 1775 meters, which again became a world record, and a few months later - 1840 meters. In October 2004, speleologists passed the 2-kilometer mark and reached a depth of 2080 meters. As a result of subsequent diving of the cave through bottom siphons, its explored depth to date is 2196 meters. Research of the Krubera Cave is carried out by the Cavex and USA speleological groups.

The Krubera Cave is of karst origin; it is formed by vertical wells connected by climbers and galleries. The deepest plumbs reach 110-152 meters. At a depth of 200 meters, the cave branches into two branches - Nekuibyshevskaya and Main. After a depth of 1300 meters, the Main Branch splits multiple times. In the bottom part, at a depth of 1400 to 2190 meters, 8 siphons have been explored. From a depth of 1600 meters, the Krubera cave is embedded in black limestone. The temperature in the cave increases by 2-3°C with every thousand meters, and according to the same pattern, the underground river becomes fuller. When it comes into contact with a muddy bottom, the transparency of the water disappears. There is no vegetation in the Krubera cave (except for mold in the speleologists' camps). Rarely, up to a depth of 1400 meters, several species of insects can be seen.

At the exit of the underground river rocks, the world's shortest river, the Reprua, is formed. Its length from the mountain source to the Black Sea is only 18 meters. However, the power of groundwater is enough to supply water to the entire Gagra. Reprua is one of the coldest rivers on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.

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 karst studies. 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.

Depth (meters): 2199

Length of strokes (meters): 16058

Origin: Karst

The world's deepest explored cave. Located in the Arabica massif in the Gagra range in Abkhazia, Georgia. Depth 2199 m, length of passages 16058 m.

Entrance altitude: 2250 m a.s.l. ​Number of entries: 5 Studying where water moves sometimes leads us to the most unexpected consequences. If you had told a speleologist of the 60s that the caves could be deeper than 2 km and that you could go down and up in just a couple of days, he not only wouldn’t believe it, he would laugh in your face. But the 21st century brought us not only the Internet, but also the two-kilometer Krubera-Voronya cave, the deepest abyss on planet Earth.

How to get there

The Krubera-Voronya cave is located in the Orto-Balagan valley, in the area of ​​alpine meadows. The transfer takes place from the Abkhaz village of Tsandripsh, a 15-minute drive from the Russia-Abkhazia border, which is reached from Adler or Sochi. As a rule, this is a trip in a reliable and passable GAZ-66 car, “shishige” - the roads to Orto-Balagan are repaired only by the drivers themselves and it is better not to look at them for the faint of heart. 5-6 hours of shaking over huge rocks and the car is unloaded at the summer house of a faithful friend of Arabica speleologists, shepherd Avanes - he lives here with his family from May to the end of September and knows all the experienced speleologists by name. To Voronya, it’s a little over an hour’s walk uphill along a winding path.

Description

The entrance is modest - a small crater in the burdocks, a awning from the entrance. Expeditions to the cave are made regularly several times a year, so the structure is stationary and is monitored, but due to high traffic, sometimes its quality may not always be at its best. The cave is purely vertical - a series of wells and ledges are interrupted by transitions and then continue. At a depth of 200 meters, the so-called Main Branch (- 2196 meters) and the Nekuibyshevskaya Branch (- 1700 meters) are separated. There are several permanent underground camps installed in the cave - at a depth of -1200 meters, -1640 meters and a number of others. You can get to -1400 meters on dry land without a wetsuit, provided there is no flood. Afterwards, you need to put on the hydra. Next, you need to overcome the siphon while holding your breath. There are eight siphons in Krubera in total, but the rest are not so harmless. The bottom (-2145 m) is called “Two Captains” - the deepest caver in it was Crimean Gennady Samokhin, who, as part of an expedition of the Ukrainian Speleological Association, dived to 50.5 meters on August 10, 2013, thereby deepening the cave to 2196 meters. Since 1999, the cave has been regularly explored by two teams - USA under the leadership of Yuri Kasyan as part of the Call of the Abyss project and CAVEX, Moscow. However, the composition of their expeditions is almost always international - speleologists from more than 10 countries of the world work in Krubera, including Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Israel, Iran, the USA, England, etc. The relationship between the two competing teams is complex and ambiguous, giving rise to a lot of legends among the caving world of the former CIS.
In 2014, speleologists from the expedition of Andrei Shuvalov (KS MSU) discovered the Arbaika entrance, the funnel of which is 3 meters higher up the slope from Kruber, which made Voronya a cave system with two entrances. In the same year, Gennady Samokhin (USA) dived into the Amber Siphon, but discovered that it connects with the known land part of the cave near the Big Fork (-1790 meters). The USA also began a study of the “historical” bottom of Kruber at -340 meters, where a continuation can be discerned behind the impassable narrowness. In 2015, members of the MSU-Cavex expedition under the leadership of A. Shuvalov finally connected Kruber with the Kuibyshevskaya cave - a long-awaited event in the caving world. The passage was predicted even before the start of the expedition, by comparing the topographic survey of the Svetlankina gallery of the MSU CS club (-350 meters) and the topographic survey of the Kuibyshevskaya cave of the Samara speleosection of the SSAU. Andrey Shuvalov: “From the end of our topographic survey to the final point of the Samara ascent of benchmark 40, there were approximately 180 meters horizontally and 85 meters vertically.” The pioneers managed to descend next to the Samara ascent, ending up at river 40. The last one to work in the cave in 2015 was the USA expedition led by Yuri Kasyan, consisting of 15 people. Their work took place mainly in the Nekuibyshevskaya branch. Gennady Samokhin: “4 people worked underground for 2 weeks. They lived in the Creme Brulee camp at a depth of more than 2000 meters, they were assisted by a group located in the camp at 1250 meters. The work was carried out on the Nekuybyshevskaya branch (-1700 meters) in three ascending windows, but they were not particularly successful... There was only one idea left - 100 meters vertically from the camp there is a sand pipe about 50 meters long, where in 2014 they tried to work with sledgehammers . It ends at an inflection point with a large amount of sand, behind which there is a narrowing. Behind it you can see the passage and hear the echo, but the air at the bend is very stagnant (at such depths there is no draft at all) and after 2 hours of work there you already begin to suffocate... But the work was carried out - ahead you could already see 4-5 meters of passage and then a hall with sagging , but unfortunately the little man was not with us and we lacked quite a bit of effort to expand - we were only able to stick out into the passage up to our chests.” Another object of study in 2015 was the far part of the USA Gallery - a 1.5 hour walk from the camp - 1200 meters. According to superimposed topographic surveys, it practically coincides with the bottom hall of the Kuibyshevskaya cave vertically, but in plan it is missing 100 meters. In the face of the USA Gallery there is good air draft and a lot of rolled pebbles of different calibers; it goes 2 meters deep in this blockage. According to Samokhin, this fact can serve as proof that during catastrophic floods of the distant past, an ascending siphon worked here, dragging pebbles. This is typical only for this place; there is nothing like it anywhere else. As planned by the researchers, they will strive to bypass the bottom blockage in the village of Kuibyshevskaya and reach the next big water. In addition to work in the Krubera cave itself, other potential entrances to the Orto-Balagan hydraulic system are being actively developed - the Martel and Berchilska caves. Krubera Cave is the dream of almost every caver in Russia and the CIS, but technically it is far from simple. First of all, you need to be fluent in the SRT technique and not be afraid of large wells. In addition, as a rule, they go there to work at 7-20 and, accordingly, they need to carry a lot of cargo with them, which means that the norm here is that one speleologist has at least 2-3 transport bags weighing 10-14 kg. From -1300 meters the set of obstacles is complicated by the watercourse, which means a wetsuit is required. The temperature in the cave is +3-+6 degrees, the deeper it gets, the temperature rises. In recent years, due to the impossibility of helicopter transportation in the winter months, work in the cave is carried out in the summer in July-August. You can visit Krubera-Voronya only by becoming a participant in one of the regular expeditions and fully accepting its conditions.

History of research

While studying the karst of the Arabica mountain range (River Abkhazia) in 1960, Georgian speleologists first discovered the inconspicuous future “Mecca of speleology”, walked it to a depth of just under 100 m and named it after the Russian karst expert Alexander Kruber. In the 80s, a surge in speleoactivity gave impetus to a new round of Arabica research - then the cave acquired a second name, Siberian, and then a third, Voronya. But it has not yet become the deepest - it reached a depth of -340 m, but “didn’t go any further.” The Abkhazian military conflict of the 90s for a long time blocked access for speleologists to Arabica and the next expedition took place only in 1999. However, speleologists of Ukraine did not intend to set records at that time - the plan was to go deeper and find a higher entrance to the Arabikskaya cave system, which includes the Kuibyshevskaya, Genrikhova Bezdna and Detskaya caves. Krubera was presented to them simply as the upper entrance to this system, which became a reality only in 2015. However, their pioneering work in well P59 marked the beginning of a new era in speleology - the era of caves whose depth exceeds 2 km. The Ukrainians managed to step from -340 m to -750 m, but the discoveries did not end there.

There are some pretty deep caves, and over 85% of those discovered to date are above sea level!

But not these ten: they are the deepest in the world, and some of them are so deep that they can only be explored and studied with the help of radar equipment, since not a single person could survive in them...

10. Huautla Cave System, Mexico
depth - 1475 m

It's a cave system that is said to have endless passages, waterfalls as tall as a 60-story skyscraper, and true natural wonders such as a huge 90-meter cavity called the Aphrodite Hall.

9. Cehi II Cave (Čehi 2), Slovenia
depth - 1502 m

In Slovenia, caves are considered national property and are protected by law, even if they happen to be located on privately owned land!

8. Sima De La Cornisa Cave, Spain
depth - 1507 m

This cave system is famous for its 28 Neanderthal skeletons, discovered in one of the deepest parts of the cave. But how they got there without the equipment we have today is still one of the world's greatest mysteries.

7. Cave named after. Vyacheslav Pantyukhin (Pantyukhin Cave), Abkhazia
depth - 1508 m


In the mine. Vyacheslav Pantyukhin has 513 caves, and new ones open every year.

6. Torca Del Cerro Del Cuevón, Spain
depth - 1589 m


The Torca del Cerro cave system is a system consisting of two interconnected deep chasms. It is also a deep chasm that has claimed the lives of many cave explorers.

5. Jean Bernard Caves, France
depth - 1602 m

This cave is located in and has the highest entrance in the world. It's also pretty deep, but that goes without saying since it's on this list.

4. Mirolda Cave (Gouffre Mirolda), France
depth - 1626 m


Back in 2001, Mirolda Cave was considered the deepest in the world, but over time, deeper cave systems were discovered, which you will learn about below.

3. Lamprechtsofen Cave, Austria
depth - 1632 m

This is a cave that has been known and explored since 1701, but soon after its discovery it was walled up to prevent the invasion of treasure hunters who tried to get into it, having heard enough legends about wealth hidden by a knight named Lamprecht, who returned from the Crusades.

2. Snezhnaya Cave, Abkhazia
depth - 1753 m


Snezhnaya Cave is the general name of the cave system, which consists of interconnected caves: “Snezhnaya”, “Mezhennogo”, “Illusion”.

1. Krubera Cave, Abkhazia
depth - 2199 m


Also called Crow Cave, it is the deepest in the world today, and every time someone goes down into it using sonar, it gets deeper and deeper. The Krubera-Voronya Cave is the only known cave whose depth exceeds 2 kilometers.

The Internet is a funny thing. At the same time that it brings great benefits to modern man, it also carries a lot of rubbish and not everyone can cope with the flow of information that pours into the network. The Internet is very relaxing and contributes to the fact that most people stop thinking, frivolously trusting everything they encounter on the Internet. However, I am not going to discuss the usefulness and harmfulness of the Internet here.

From the Editor:
Krubera-Voronya is the deepest cave in the world (depth 2196 m), located in the Arabica mountain range in Abkhazia. The entrance to the cave is located at an altitude of about 2250 m above sea level in the Orto-Balagan tract
The cave, which is part of the Arabica mountain range, was discovered in 1960 by Georgian speleologists and explored to a depth of 95 meters. Expeditions carried out in the karst cave cavity over the next half century discovered small branches at depth.

Knowledge about the mysterious underground passages multiplied with each new descent: for several decades, each successive speleological expedition announced reaching a new depth. The research is still ongoing and is being carried out by: the Ukrainian Speleological Association (USA) under the leadership of Gennady Samokhin and the Russian Association of Cave Explorers, the Cavex club

Over the course of several years, this stack of photographs appears on various sites and spreads very quickly on social networks, often by people who have never been to this cave (of course, those who were there would not spread it, but there are billions of times less of them :) ).
To be honest, I haven’t been there everywhere myself, but many of the photos do not at all correspond to the specifics of the cave. That's why I had a desire to understand all the photographs. I must say that it was quite difficult.

I spent two evenings on 10 photos and realized that Google itself already believed that all this was Krubera-Voronya :) - there are about 500 links for each photo and everyone insists that this is the deepest cave and invites you on an excursion there and all sorts of other oddities. After all, it’s easier than ever to touch the secrets of the Universe without leaving the couch. (The funniest text appearing with these photographs was the proposal to imagine 6 Eiffel Towers in height, and then, relaxing and looking at the pictures below, imagine how you descend from such a height :) into such beauty).

And so, I begin to destroy the photomyths about the Krubera-Voronya cave.

The first photos I identified are the works of National Geographic photographer Stephen L. Alvarez. In fact, Steven Alvarez was in Krubera-Voronya and participated in the USA expedition “Call of the Abyss” as a photographer for National Geographic. Apparently, the little man who first began distributing false photos knew about Alvarez’s trip to Krubera-Voronya and “stole” photographs from him, not realizing that he had also been in many other caves :), located far beyond the borders of Abkhazia.

Ellison Cave, northwestern Georgia, USA (Ellison's Cave, Northwest Georgia, USA), Photo by Stephen L. Alvarez.
Ellison's Cave is the 12th deepest cave in the United States and has the deepest vertical free-fall well (without ledges) in the continental United States, called the Fantastic Pit, 178.6 m deep - the same one shown in the photo.
The depth of Ellison's Cave is 324 m, the length is 19.31 km. The cave and the surrounding area are supervised by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and are open to the public all year round. Due to the technically complex and dangerous nature of the cave, only the most experienced and capable speleologists are engaged in its exploration. General information about the cave is on Wikipedia.

Short video presentation by Steven Alvarez:

Kabal Cave, Actun Kabal is one of four caves in the Chiquibul Cave System, which are located along the Chiquibul River, Cayo, Belize, Central America. In addition to the village of Cabal, the Chiquibul Cave System includes the village of Actun Tunkul (Tunkul) and the village of Cebada Cave, located in Belize, as well as Xibalba, which is located in Guatemala.
Kabal is the upper part of the Chiquibul Cave system, currently 12 km long and 95 m in amplitude. The cave contains one of the largest halls in the world, the Chiquibul Chamber, measuring 250m by 150m.
Another one of the largest halls of the Cave system - the Belize Chamber with dimensions of 300x150 m and a height of 65 m is located in the village of Aktun Tunkul. The cave is also of archaeological value - Mayan pottery was found there, lying in darkness for about 2,000 years.

Mystery Falls Cave located in Hamilton County, Tennessee, USA. The length of the cave is 416.7 m, the amplitude is 100.6 m. The depth of the well is 83m.

Conley Hole Cave (the author of the photo writes it as Conoly Hole) located near the town of Viola (Viola, Tennessee, USA). Conley Hole is a bottle-type well 50m deep. The diameter of the entrance well is about 6 m. The base of the bottle is about 240m in diameter. In 1973, the cave was designated by NNL (National Natural Landmarks) as one of the finest examples of a bottle well in the United States. Permission from the local landowner is required to visit the cave.

Hytop Drop Cave, Franklin County, Tennessee, USA. Located in the Walls of Jericho Canyon (also called the Grand Canyon of the South) near the Alabama border. The depth of the cave is 52m, length – 637m. The photo shows a 30m entrance well.
(author’s note. In Krubera-Voronya in a T-shirt, you won’t even dare to go down the entrance well :))

Cave of Swallows (ESA ALA, Sótano de las Golondrinas) is located in the Mexican state of St. Louis Potesi. The depth of the cave ranges from 333 to 376 meters. The fact is that the entrance to the cave is on a slope and the bottom of the cave itself is also inclined. The cave also has many narrow passages leading to deeper levels. However, these passages have not yet been fully explored.

Visiting the cave is limited by local authorities from 12 to 16 hours, so as not to disturb the peace of the birds inhabiting the cave (at this time they fly off in a flock to hunt).

Part of the filming of James Cameron's famous film "Sanctum" took place in the Cave of Swallows.

And this is a photo of Kruber-Voronya, which was taken by Steven Alvarez during the USA expedition “Call of the Abyss” in 2004 , but for some reason they are not found in the lists of photographs that lure people on excursions to the Deepest Cave of the World.

Some of these photographs can be found on the website of the author - Steven Alvarez. All other photographs with their names and descriptions are available on the special National Geographic website - right on the main page, enter the name of the cave you are interested in (in English) or the surname Alvarez into the search engine and enjoy the works of this photographer (these photographs can even be bought right there on the website.

I will continue to destroy photo myths. Another American cave, but by a different author

Piercy's Cave, West Virginia, USA

Piercy's Cave, West Virginia, USA. A horizontal cave with a length of 1867m and an amplitude of 23m. Photo by Dave Bunnel - photographer and former NSS news editor.

By this name, Google shows another cave - Piercy's Mill Cave - these are different caves.

I did not find any detailed information on this cave, except for its characteristics, which are on the well-known caverbob website, where almost all the statistical data on world and American caves is presented.

All photos were taken in Miao Keng Cave, which is located near the mountain village of Tian Xing, Wulong District, Chongqing, China (Tian Xing, Wulong, Chongqing, China). Miao Keng, together with five other caves, make up a cave system (whose name I did not find). The depth of the system is 1020 m, length – 35.5 km.
The photos were taken by Manchester-based photographer Robbie Sean, who spent 2 months on the expedition with the researchers. In the first and third pictures, the well of the Miao Keng cave is one of the deepest wells in the world (491m). Thanks to him, the cave is also called China's big shaft.
The descent into this well took the researchers two hours. The second photo shows the underground river at the bottom of Miao Keng.

Website of photographer Robert Shawn. Many of his photos are on Instagram.

And the location of this shooting should be familiar to many fans of Karabi (Crimea)

The author of the photo is Che3000, a user of the “live journal”, where he posted a report about his trip to Karabi. Moreover, the report contains the phrase: “Do not confuse it with the deepest cave in the world, the Krubera-Voronya cave, which is located in Abkhazia.” Apparently, not everyone is interested in reading other people's reports. By the way, in some photo tales about Krubera-Voronya I came across several more photos from this report. The photographs are very beautiful and high quality. It’s just a pity that it’s important for people to climb onto some beautiful cliff for the sake of a couple of photographs that look very beautiful even without the little people. And in the report there is a photo of the cave mark, but to understand it, you need to be a speleologist :).

From general information about Krubera, Karabi, Crimea - a vertical mine, 62m deep. The length of the cave is 280m. Named in honor of A.A. Kruber, an outstanding Soviet physical geographer, founder of Russian and Soviet karst studies.

All the photographs are impressively beautiful, just as the phrase “The Deepest Cave in the World” itself is impressive. But this does not mean that all the beautiful photos of caves should be called the deepest cave in the world, Krubera-Voronya. After all, they are all unique in their own way - each has its own Name, its own history, its own characteristics. We don’t call all Ukrainian actresses, for example, Angelina Jolie, or all the cars that drive around our hometown, Ferraris.
Or all speleologists - YuKasy :). I believe that we cavers should convey this to those who do not know it. Of course, the USA will not print brochures with these photos and invite its members of the Association to distribute them on the streets, as all sorts of godly aunties do :). I wrote this article so that when someone once again posts information about the Deepest Cave and once again gives out a bunch of these pictures, or offers an excursion there with promises to see all these beauties, I could refer to it (the article).
And after this article there will also be an article with real photos from Kruber-Voronya, which we will promote.

From the editor: And these are real photos of the Krubera-Voronya cave, taken during last year’s USA expeditions “Call of the Abyss”