Caves are perhaps the only geographical object still to be fully explored. These highly artistic-looking water-made natural structures attract spelunkers, true bare-knuckled seekers of thrills. This year Ukrainian cave conquerors have tried to win back the laurels of leading speleologists (in 2001 the Ukrainian team was the first in the world to discover a 1710 meter deep cave, but this year the French descended 22 meters deeper).
In the past few years, Ukrainian spelunkers have been doing The Call of Abyss, the most ambitious project in the history of speleology, aimed at discovering and exploring our planet’s first over-two-kilometer-deep cave. This work is being done in two directions: the karstic areas Arabika in Western Caucasus (Abkhazia) and Aladaglar in Eastern Taurus (Turkey), where scientist believe there may be very good conditions for the development of extremely deep caves.
The Aladaglar-2003 expedition was launched by the Ukrainian Speleological Association in conjunction with the Turkish Geological Service and Hacettepe University in Ankara. The expedition included sixteen Ukrainian and ten Turkish spelunkers along with two British experts making a documentary for the BBC. The expedition’s chief goal was to go through the bottlenecks of two most promising caves, Gulchetai (185 meters) and Space Lunching Site (125). Using perforators and mini-explosives, the explorers went several dozen meters deep inside each of the caves. As the expedition was halfway, a new large cave, Kuzgun, was discovered. It immediately exposed powerful 170 meter wells. The explorers had to stop at the 400 meter mark for lack of individual special-purpose gear. The many parallel vertical shafts that led to the same meander showed that the spelunkers had broken into Aladaglar’s central cave. Further exploration will make it possible to reach record depths.
The second expedition to the Krubera-Voroniacha cave involved thirty experts from Ukraine, Russia, Spain, France, and Australia. It is here that the Ukrainians set their world record in 2001. This expedition also brought great achievements. The Ukrainian Oleh Klymchuk (in charge of auxiliary technical operations) was the first person in the world to pass a siphon (water obstacle) at a depth of 1440 meters. He and expedition leader Denis Provalov were fifty meters short of a new world record of a 1680- meter depth. They were stopped by such trivialities as their shortage of equipment and time. However, the expedition had to face not only discoveries but also some serious difficulties, such as a bolt of lightning that struck a telephone cable, hit Illia Zharkov at the depth of 1200 meters, and de-energized the main phone stations; an earthquake (fortunately without damage); and breakage of a spelunker’s rope at 500 meters. This spelunker, Aleksandr Kabanikhin from Arkhangelsk, fell from thirty meters and received very serious injuries (open fracture of an ankle-joint, fractures in pelvic bones and spine). The spelunkers carried out a hitherto unthinkable rescue operation. The injured was lifted 500 meters and rushed to hospital within 63 hours. This promptness saved Aleksandr’s life and left him a hope: doctors say he will be able to conquer the Earth’s bowels again after eight months.
These discoveries inspire the hope in Ukrainian spelunkers that Ukraine will again be the world’s first in speleology after the next expedition. For they also care about this country’s image and not only about geographical discoveries, no matter what the cost. The final group photo of the expedition participants showed the spelunkers’ happy faces plus an eloquent placard reading, “This made it worthwhile to put up with each other.”
