Пеще́ра Кру́бера-Воро́нья

Voronya Pestera - Voronya Cave - Voron'ya Cave - Veronja Cave - Crows Cave - Krubera Cave

Useful Information

Location:	Orte-Balagan. Arabika Massif, Western Caucasus, Abkhazia region. (43.419778, 40.302306)
Open:	not open to the public. [2021]
Fee:	not open to the public. [2021]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	none
Dimension:	L=16,058 m, VR=2,197 m. [2021]
Guided tours:	cavers only
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:	Alexander Klimchouk, Yury Kasjan (2001): In a search for the route to 2000 meters depth: The Deepest Cave in the World in the Arabika Massif, Western Caucasus, NSS News, September 2001, pp. 252-257 plus maps and colour picture in the center.
Address:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1960	discovered.
1968	Sibirskaya and two other caves visited by an international expedition: 36 cavers from Krasnoyarsk-Novosibirsk-Tomsk and 8 cavers from Poland.
1983	Sibirskaya cave was renamed to Voron'ya (Krubera).
1999	two new branches discovered (-720 m and -470 m).
2000	exploration to a depth of -1,410 m.
2001	new world record in Voron'ya cave: -1,705 m.
MAY-2005	new world record in Voron'ya cave: -2,080 m.
OCT-2005	new world record in Voron'ya cave: -2,140 m.
AUG-2017	Perovo speleoclub reaches the depth of 2,204 m and Veryovkina becomes the deepest cave of the world, Voronya second.

Description

At the moment Пеще́ра Кру́бера-Воро́нья (Voronya Pestera, Krubera Cave) is the second-deepest cave on earth. The height difference inside the cave is 2,197 m [2021], which is much deeper than the Grand Canyon. While the cave continually grew at the beginning of the millennium, this finally came to an end when the groundwater was reached. The cave extends underwater to the Black Sea, but it's extremely difficult to explore. At the same time several other caves were explored nearby, among them Cave Veryovkina, which actually ends at the groundwater too, but extends further up the mountainside, and so it became the new deepest cave in the world.

In early January 2005 an accident happened, and a helicopter with cavers on board crushed at the cave. The helicopter brought cavers and material when it kicked up a lot of the powdery snow at the landing spot. The pilot could not see the mountain anymore and the rear propeller hit the side of the mountain. The helicopter started to spin on its own axis, three cavers fell out of the rear door and hit the soft snow 10 m below. Finally, the helicopter grounded. There were no casualties, but the three cavers who fell out and the pilot were injured. Some equipment was damaged and the expedition was aborted.