Bell caves in the very center of Israel. Serpievsky caves We conquer the underworld

Shouldn't we go to the underground cities? See the unseen halls hidden from strangers, dip your palms into the icy water of the lakes, admire the fantastic pattern of calcite deposits and bizarre limestone sculptures created over the centuries.

Yes, they are caves! Dark, mysterious, alluring unique beauty, ancient secrets and treasures hidden in the depths.

In the coming weekend, frosty and invigorating, you should not sit at home, but rather rush to natural Park"Serpievsky cave city" and become the conqueror of the underworld. Especially the winter best time to visit the caves!

Just a warning, the caves are not for the neat. The stone walls and floor are wet and dirty, but beautiful and... unusual. In them, it is not always possible to move while standing, and often even squat or crawl on bark. Sometimes you have to lie down on your belly and crawl. Crawl, crawl and crawl...

But today the story will be about two caves, where the skills of plastun movement are not needed for new impressions.

cave city

The valley of the Sim River is famous for the abundance of a wide variety of caves. There are over 150 of them! But the most popular and easily accessible are located near the village of Serpievka, Chelyabinsk region. It is these caves that are called "Serpievsky Cave City". underground city stretched along the river bank for 15 kilometers! Karst caves are located here one after the other. Among them there are funnels, and failures, and niches, and arches, and grottoes. Underground rivers flow in large caves, forming lakes.

Serpievsky castle is not only famous a tourist route, but also a unique archaeological monument of world importance, as in many caves and grottoes traces of the stay of primitive people were found and many bones of prehistoric animals were found.

For ordinary, not accustomed to cramped skins and manholes, but very curious tourists, caves are ideal Bell tower, Mayskaya and world famous Ignatievskaya.

Conquer the underworld

The trail to the caves starts from a steep cliff on the banks of the Sim, from where a picturesque view of the pine forest and the river valley opens.

The first cave that you will meet on the way - Mayskaya. The entrance to it is wide, but you need to go bent over. But the kids are just the right size.

Inside, at a distance of about one meter from the floor to the ceiling, there is constantly fog, which settles with moisture on the ceiling and walls and immediately turns into a snow cover, similar to large white moss.

The clay floor of the cave is decorated for the winter with unusual decoration. Water, dripping from the ceiling, gradually creates transparent ice columns that dot the entire floor. Ice stalagmites look like rock crystals that shimmer and shimmer under the rays of lanterns. A very unusual sight! At other times of the year you will not see such beauty!

The whole cave is essentially one big corridor. The exception is the hole at the end, through which you need to go on all fours or crawl. It leads to another large hall. The May Cave is easy, it is impossible to get lost in it.

On the way to the next cave Bell tower, we will meet a couple of small grottoes in the rock, unremarkable, but nevertheless you need to look at them with one eye and be surprised at the beauty of your native land.

The second cave is quite spacious, with a high ceiling. It is unrealistic to get lost in it, because the cave has only one main passage.

The entire floor of the cave, as in Maiskaya, is dotted with ice columns. But there are many more calcium deposits and limestone figures, which turned the smooth, torch-smoked walls into incredible paintings.

People with a good imagination see petrified echoes of the distant past of our planet in the rock carvings: the ridges and bones of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals, the trunks and branches of giant trees and ferns, the shells of prehistoric mollusks, and even the imprints of unprecedented paws and claws.

However, who exactly lives in the cave is bats! Small brown creatures hanging from the ceiling can be easily spotted by looking up and lighting up the upper walls. Mice hibernate during the winter, so be careful not to disturb their long sleep.

Once in the Kolokolnaya, in its very bowels, there was an Old Believer church and divine services were held. According to one version, the cave got its name because of the bell that hung in the back room. In order for it to ring, it was necessary to pull the rope hidden at the entrance. Only the initiated could know about it. Thus, the caller warned the others that "one of his own" was going into the cave. On one of the rocky ledges, a bell was hoisted, which rang during a church service.

There is also a hole in the cave, about eight meters long, which can only be overcome by crawling. The guides say that this tunnel was one of the elements of ritual initiations, through which they crawled through pitch darkness the boys, symbolically passing through the birth canal, said goodbye to childhood and were already becoming adults.

In our times, the Kolokolnaya cave has not lost its mystical appeal either. And it still serves as a place of worship for higher powers, judging by the candles placed in the hall, and the symbol of the sun-svarog on a stone in the cave.

It is said that scientists have found drawings of primitive people here. Now they are all hidden under a layer of soot and inscriptions of contemporaries.

Near the cave Kolokolnaya there is a small rocky arch, called Ring rock, and under the arch are two stones carved in the shape of hearts, which bring happiness to lovers if a certain ritual is performed.

A lot of legends and legends are connected with caves, mountains and rocks in the Urals. They intertwined and legends about the Old Believers-hermits, and faith in magic stones and wonderful places. In the same Belfry there are stones, according to beliefs, that give male strength, treat female problems, help with infertility, and cleanse the body, heart and soul. Believe it or not, it's a personal matter. But the locals sincerely believe.

And finally

There is a beauty to underground travel. You enjoy an adventure in pitch darkness, (dim lights don't count), from unusual place and atmosphere and go to the surface realizing yourself as a dungeon conqueror, because everything here is REAL. Here, as in the replicated tourist caves (Kungurskaya, for example), there is no foppish concrete path, no electricity that goes out right behind the backs of the tourists, no annoying screams organized groups, delivered by Ikarus every 15 minutes - only authentic caves, as they were hundreds of thousands of years ago and YOU.

By the way, not far from these two caves, there is a very famous Ignatievskaya cave. A whole art gallery of the Paleolithic era was found in it - there are only two similar caves with so many ancient paintings in the world - one is in Spain, the other in France. And, besides, here is the greatest treasure of the Ignatievskaya cave - the miraculous Ignatievskaya Mother of God, created by nature itself. But that story is for the next article.

How to get there?

From Ufa we leave for the Chelyabinsk highway, past the city of Sim, to the fork in Kropacheva. We turn right at the sign Serpievka and drive to the village. We pass it, and right behind the "ancient" ruins of the farm, which the cheerful tourists dubbed the local "Stonehenge", there will be an exit from the road to the pine forest. We leave the cars and go deeper into the forest. After 200-300 meters there will be a rocky cliff and several equipped pavilions and bonfires. You're at the place.

The Serpievsky karst site is located in the Katav-Ivanovsky district of the Chelyabinsk region. Our expedition to this most interesting area took place in mid-July. We visited the Mayskaya, Kolokolnaya and Serpievskaya caves, the Big Grotto and saw the Ring Rock located near the village of Serpievka.

Spending the night on the beach Sima we went to, visited the place of Sim's disappearance in the karst voids and the exit of his waters from Essum cave. Walking route(35 km) ended in Sim city, before which we settled down for the night near a small stream.

Bell Cave

Bell Cave is located in the Katav-Ivanovsky district of the Chelyabinsk region near the village of Serpievka (1.5 km southeast of the village), 300 meters downstream of the Sim River (on the right bank) from the bridge on the highway Katav-Ivanovsk - the village of Serpievka and 50 meters from Mayskaya Cave.

The cave is built in dense light gray Devonian limestones. The entrance to the cave is oriented to the South-East, has the shape of an arch 3 m high and 4 m wide. It is located at a height of 11 m above the river level. After 5.5 m after the entrance, the arch of the cave goes down.

A cave of corridor-grotto type, developing in the direction of the North-West, is a gallery from 2 to 5 m wide and from 1 to 6-8 m high (in grottoes). At a distance of 30 m from the entrance and further up to 70 m, there is a passage parallel to the main corridor - "Metro", connected to the main passages. The passage of the "Metro" is rather narrow - 1.2 m wide and 1 m high and has very smooth walls and a semicircular ceiling. The floor is clay and dry. From the "Metro", which is about 40 m long, to the left - three passages go into the main corridor, which are located at a distance of 2 m, 13 m, 10 m from each other. There are several distinct grottoes in the cave with a vault height of 6-8 m and a width of 5 to 10 m. All of them were formed at the intersection of cracks with the main gallery.

In total, there are four halls in the cave:

1st from the entrance - "Narrow" - 4.5 X 10 m. and up to 6 m high.
2nd from the entrance - "Round"
3rd from the entrance - "Stalactite" - 20 X 8 X 4 m.
4th from the entrance - "Far" - 9 X 8 X 5 m.

Connecting with the main passage, the "Metro" forms the "Stalactite" hall, which is connected to the "Far" 20-meter gallery. At the entrance to the "Far" there is an organ pipe up to 10 m high. On the right, in the side of the hall, there are small guras, cave pearls, small pebbles. Two narrow walkers up to 0.8 m wide lead from the hall to the left. There are active gours in front of the walkers. Both walkers are connected after 15 m into one corridor 5 m wide, 10 m long and 1.2 m high. There are three lakes in the left walker. There are sinter formations on the walls, many of which have been broken off. In the same passage, 7 m from the hall, an organ pipe 2.5 m high goes up, which also has many chips. The corridor rises by 30o and ends with two cul-de-sacs, two cul-de-sacs that form a rounded grotto. One of the dead ends faces west and the other faces east. In the western dead end, the dimensions of which are 3 X 1.2 X 1.4 m, the walls and ceiling are covered with mondmilch (moon milk). On the left is a stalagmite with inscriptions on the walls. In the eastern dead end, the dimensions of which are 5 X 2 X 1.3 m, there are sinter formations, many chips. On the right is a stalagnate.

In the entire cave, the floor is made of clay, rubble, fragments of bedrock. In the "Far" grotto, the floor is covered with sintered calcite crust. The walls of the cave are smooth, in places corroded by the streams of water that once existed here. In the grottoes "Stalactite" and "Far" in the summer there is dripping, puddles on the floor. In winter, ice sinter formations.

Once the cave had calcite decorations - sintered crusts, stalactites, stalagmites. At present, they have been preserved in the Stalactite grotto, but they have been significantly smoked by torches and chipped.

According to the stories of local residents, religious rites were performed in this cave, which is why it was called “Bell”.

The cave is mostly horizontal throughout its length. In 1982-1984, the Kolokolnaya Cave, along with other karst cavities in the area, was explored by an expedition of archaeologists from the Novosibirsk Institute of History, Philosophy and Philology of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, led by V.T. Petrin, Candidate of Historical Sciences. In it, as well as in the Ignatievskaya cave, they found several groups of drawings of ancient people of the Paleolithic era. One of the drawings is an image of a harpoon, while others require further clearing and decoding. In the summer of 1984, two more new images were discovered, made in ocher on the walls of the Krugly and Dalniy grottoes. Thus, the Kolokolnaya cave became the third cave in the Soviet Union (after Kapova and Ignatievskaya), which has Paleolithic drawings of primitive people. Therefore, it is of exceptional value for science and society as a complex monument of history, culture and nature, which has not yet fully revealed all its secrets and mysteries.

The total length of the passages is 268 m.
The total depth of the cave is 7 m.
The average width of the passages is 3.2 m.

Maiskaya Cave

Maiskaya Cave located next to the Bell. Two entrances lead to the cave, located 15 m from each other and connecting into one corridor after 6 m. The main entrance to the cave has an irregular shape and dimensions 5 X 1.2 m and is located at a height of 18 m above the river level. The entrance is oriented to the northwest. The dip angle of the seams is 20o, and the strike azimuth is 120o.

From the entrance to the northwest leads a wide, but low, 100-meter corridor 1-1.5 meters high, the floor of which is covered with small slabs and stones. At 15 m from the entrance there is a small grotto with dimensions of 6 X 5 X 1.5 m. At 55 m from the entrance the corridor narrows slightly, and a low and narrow 60 m manhole begins to the right. After walking 25 m along this path, you can get into a very beautiful "milk hall". The walls and ceiling of this hall are covered with monmilch, in some places very fresh. Rubble on the floor. To the right there is a passage to the main corridor, and to the left this manhole continues and connects with the main corridor 95 meters from the entrance. At 70 meters from the entrance there is a grotto with dimensions of 10 X 6 X 2 m. At the end of this grotto there are stalactites, stalagmites and stalagnates.

At 100 meters from the entrance, the corridor narrows and turns to the north and leads to a large round hall, 22 meters in diameter and up to 8 meters high, decorated with stalactites and stalagmites. Many of them are unfortunately broken. At the entrance to this hall are small guras filled with water. At the end of the hall there is a large blocky scree. Its angle of inclination is about 30o. There are streaks and stalagmites. The cave ends with a dead end, directed from the hall to the northwest, with dimensions of 12 X 4 X 1 m. To the right, at the end of the dead end, there is an impassable gap. There are stones on the floor, there are streaks. The cave is mostly horizontal throughout its length.

The total depth of the cave is 7.4 m.
The average width of the passages is 3.5 m.
The total length of the passages is 378 m.

Cave Serpievskaya

Cave Serpievskaya is located near the village of Serpievka (0.6 km south of the village) on the right bank of the Sim River (30 m from it), 1.25 km. from the bridge down the river.

The entrance to the cave opens at a height of 3.5 m above the river level in a low (approximately 10-15 m) limestone outcrop of thin-slab layering with an azimuth of 20o and an angle of 6o. The entrance to the cave is arched, 3 m wide and 2 m high, oriented to the northeast. 30 m downstream there is a second entrance about 0.5 m in diameter, very narrow and difficult to pass.

The main tunnel-shaped gallery develops in a northeasterly direction and has a length of about 30 m. At the end, the gallery expands to 5 m and rises to 6 m, forming a grotto. There is liquid sucking clay on the floor.

In the middle of the grotto there is a pillar-outlier 2 meters in diameter. The floor of the gallery from the entrance goes down (6-8o) and is made of rubble and earth. In the far part there is a small (2-3 m) and shallow lake. During dry periods of the year, the lake may disappear. The walls of the cave are almost vertical, slightly corroded, covered with small cracks. The walls and the vault are covered with white limestone coating, currently heavily smoked.

To the left, after 6 and 12 meters from the entrance, there are narrow passages perpendicular to the main gallery. Intersecting with passages going in the same direction as the main gallery, they form lattice-type labyrinths. To the left of the main passage and 10 meters from the entrance there is a passage, rather narrow and low at the end. Going to the northwest, after 30 m it turns to the southwest and comes to the surface by entrance No. 2. This move is called "Pioneer" and has a clay floor, and the ceiling and walls are stone. Along its entire length, you can see a lot of insects.

The cave lies in light gray limestone. Of the sinter formations in the cave there are corallites (in the labyrinth), small calcite scallops. In the cold periods of the year, ice formations appear in the inlet part.

The cave is mostly horizontal throughout its length. The floor of the cave is clay, in some places there is sand, there are blocky blockages. The ceiling of the cave is stepped, in some passages there is a capezh. There are no landslides and siphons in the cave.

The total length of the passages is 185 m.
The total depth of the cave is 2 m.
The average width of the passages is 1.3 m.
The average height of the cave is 2 m.

Karst arch - Rock-ring

Karst arch - Rock-ring. It is located in the Katav-Ivanovsky district, southeast of the village of Serpievka, in a rocky outcrop on the right bank of the Sim River. The karst arch has a complex shape with three holes. The dimensions of the largest of them are three by four meters, the length of the arch is five meters. Its walls and vault are composed of thick layers of limestone. This form of karst relief is a remnant of the rock mass in which the ancient cave. Over the course of many millennia, water and wind gradually destroyed the limestone massif, exposing one of the galleries of the former cave. Thus, she got access to both sides of the rocky outlier.

Ignatievskaya cave

Ignatievskaya cave(also known in the literature as Ignat's Cave, Ignat's Cave, Ignatievskaya, Dalnyaya, Serpievskaya, Yamazy-Tash). It is located in the Katav-Ivanovsky district, on the right bank of the Sim River.

The grand arched entrance to the cave is located at a height of 11 meters from the river level. A corridor-type cave with several grottoes, the main development of the galleries is north-western. The first grotto opens to the south, it is accessible to daylight and therefore warms up well by the sun in winter and summer. There is a thick cultural layer and traces of an archaeological excavation on the floor. It is established that there was a camp of primitive people.

The entrance grotto is followed by a wide but low passage leading to the main gallery of the cave. To the right, in the direction of travel, there is another grotto, from which a system of narrow, labyrinth-type passages begins. They eventually lead back to the main gallery in the area of the Stolba grotto.

The main gallery of the cave is over 130 meters long. Its southern part - the Zubasty duct - is damp, on the floor there are puddles of condensation moisture, clay, calcite formations in the form of gours and sinter crust. The northern part of the high and wide gallery leads to the Stolba grotto and then ends with a narrow impassable gap. In the center of this grandiose hall rises a huge limestone remnant pillar, on which the vaults of the grotto rest.

From the grotto of the Stolba, along a wide gallery, you can get to the last grotto of the cave, the so-called "Cell of Elder Ignatius". There are two steps leading into it. One of them is a narrow hole at the base of the right wall of the gallery, the second is an oval hole in the wall at a height of 2.5 meters. It is very damp in the Cell, water is constantly oozing from the walls and ceiling, there are large blocks of limestone and small gravel with liquid clay on the floor. But this is exactly where it is main riddle caves.

On one of the walls of the grotto, a figure of a woman is carved from calcite incrustation. According to ancient legends that still exist in the village of Serpievka, this image is an icon of the Mother of God, made by a certain elder Ignatius, who lived here in late XIX century, who is considered the Grand Duke Constantine.

Here is what the Orenburg Diocesan News wrote in 1908: “...According to rumors that spread in Ignatova cave, a royal person died - Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich (brother of Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I), who replaced the glory of this world with the heavy cross of wandering. According to existing legends, the Grand Duke, after his imaginary death, when someone else was buried instead of him, allegedly hid within the Ufa province and died about 25 years ago (about 1883) in a cave near the village of Serpievka, Ufa district ... "

Primitive people lived in the Ignatievskaya cave for a long time. Recent studies carried out by archaeologists from one of the institutes of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences confirmed this by the discovery of drawings of primitive people in the Ignatievskaya cave. The age of the images is determined at 14 thousand years and refers to the Paleolithic. As noted by the famous archaeologist academician A.P. Okladnikov, "The discovery is fundamentally important for Russian archeology". To date, archaeologists have identified more than 30 different groups of Paleolithic drawings on the walls and ceilings of the cave. Some of them are united by a single compositional concept. Among the drawings there are many still undeciphered geometric symbols. Here are realistic images of a bull, a horse, mammoths.

Cave Ignatievskaya is of particular value as a historical, archaeological and natural object. The presence in it of the site of primitive people and Paleolithic drawings puts this cave in the category of completely unique monuments of our country and the world. The images of the Ignatievskaya Cave lose in perfection to the magnificent murals of the caves Western Europe. But the paintings of the Ignatievskaya Cave are important to scientists primarily as a fact, as a link between the ancient cultures of primitive society at opposite ends of the vast territory of the Euro-Asian continent - Western Europe and Siberia. In terms of significance, the Ignatievskaya Cave can be compared with such world-famous caves. famous caves, like Lascaux in France, Altamira in Spain and in Bashkiria.

Essum cave

Essum cave. Located on the left bank of the river. Sim 100 m downstream from the Ignatievskaya cave, under an overhanging rock. The entrance to the cave is located in the lower part of the rocky outcrop, composed of thick layered limestones of light gray color. From the side of the Sim River, the entrance to the cave is not visible, as it is closed by a large heap of limestone blocks. The fall of these boulders occurred as a result of the collapse of the overhanging cornice of the rocky outcrop. Here, along the foot of Mount Essum, at a distance of 250 meters, the absorbed waters of the Sim River burst to the surface with four powerful springs from the ground. One and a half kilometers up the river bed and 600 meters in a straight line, Sim disappears underground at the foot of a hundred-meter cliff.

The entrance to the cave, in the form of a small hole 0.5 by 0.7 meters, opens between the base of the rocky outcrop and the blocky blockage. It is in this place that the most powerful stream flows out from under the stones. Through a low hole you can get into the first grotto of the cave - the Riviera Hall. It is almost entirely filled with an underground lake. This is the River Sim dammed by a blocky blockage.

In the northeastern part of the grotto, the low ceiling merges with the surface of the underground lake and forms a siphon. It opens only at the lowest low water level in the river in winter or during the driest periods in summer. Behind the siphon, the cave continues with a huge tunnel-like gallery, which is three to four meters high and up to five meters wide. The main feature of the gallery is that it does not change direction at all for 165 meters. At the right wall of the gallery there is a clay slope, and the left wall descends steeply into the water of the underground river. Its depth fluctuates slightly and averages half a meter. 100 meters from the entrance siphon
the underground river at a right angle changes direction and turns right. And the gallery itself rests on a clay slope up to two meters high, which almost merges with the ceiling. Behind the slope, the walls and ceiling of the gallery narrow sharply, and after 10 meters an almost impassable gap about 15 centimeters high remains between them.

20 meters after the turn of the underground river, the cave ends with two narrow passages. One of them is dry and raised above the river level by two meters, the other is completely flooded with water. The depth of the river in this place is about three meters. From under the wall of the passage, from a hole about a meter in diameter, a powerful jet of water escapes. This is a complex, completely closed siphon, beyond which the cave undoubtedly continues to develop towards the point of disappearance on the surface of the Sim River. It still remains more than 400 meters in a straight line.

Secondary formations in the cave are represented mainly by cone-shaped stalactites, as well as calcite sinter crusts, in the form of a loose, tuff-like mass. In winter, in the entrance part of the cave, in the Riviera Hall, various ice formations grow: large, up to 10 centimeters, hexagonal frost crystals, stalagmites up to a meter high. In the coldest years, the entire surface of the underground lake in this hall is covered with ice. Of the other features of the cave, it should be noted that crayfish and fish live underground in complete darkness.

Bell tower, Serpievskaya 2, Simskaya 1, cave. A complex natural-historical and geological-geomorphological monument of regional significance (1985). Horizontal karst cavity of a corridor-grotto type with a system of ring passages.

The cave is laid in an array of light gray limestones of the Upper Devonian. Located in the Katav-Ivanovsky district, on the right bank of the Sim River, 1.5 km southeast of the village of Serpievka, 50 m south of karst arch Rock-ring.

The main entrance to the cave is oriented to the south, has the shape of a regular arch 3 m high and 4 m wide. A few meters east of it, at the base of the rocky outcrop, there is another entrance opening up to 0.5 m in diameter. 30 m from the entrance from the main corridor begins a narrow passage that runs parallel; for 40 m, it connects to the main gallery with 3 short through passages (a system of 4 annular passages is formed; a similar system of 2 annular passages is found in another grotto).

In total, there are 4 grottoes in the cave: the first (Narrow) is the largest: dl. 10 m, 4.5 m wide and 6 m high. It is followed by the Krugly Grotto. Adjacent to it is the Stalactite Grotto, connected to the last grotto (Far) by the 20th gallery. The far one ends with a narrow opening (0.7x1 m), behind which the floor of the cave goes down steeply. At the right wall there is a ledge with 2 holes 3 m deep. The cave ends with 2 dead-end passages, at the intersection of which a small rounded hall was formed. There is a siphon in the floor of one of these passages, blocking further advancement deep into the massif.

Calcite formations (sinter crust, corallites and scallops on the walls, cover crust on the floor) are present in small quantities in the 2nd and 3rd grottoes, in the far part of the cave they are much more numerous. In hard-to-reach places, individual specimens of stalactites and stalagmites have been preserved. In the entrance part of the cave, within the limits of illumination, mosses, lichens, and ferns grow. Bats live in the depths of the cavity.

In the main corridor and the Round Grotto in the winter-spring period in in large numbers ice stalactites and stalagmites of considerable size are formed. During periods of high spring-summer floods, water from the Sim River enters the cave through cracks and karst channels and floods its far part; then on the floor of the Far and Stalactite grottoes an extensive underground lake up to 1.5 m deep.

The total length of the cave passages is 213 m, the average height is 2.2 m, the floor area is 939 m2, the volume of the cavity is 2066 m3.

According to the testimony of local residents, religious rites were performed in the cave in the 2nd half of the 19th century (hence the name).

In the 1950s-1960s. the cave was explored by karst scientists from ChSPI (A.D. Sysoev, V.N. Dubovik, etc.); in 1975, a group of speleologists from the Chelyabinsk club "Pluton" (headed by E. A. Saburenkov) compiled a topographic plan and description. In 1982-1984 the cave was explored by members of an archaeological expedition led by V. T. Petrin. In loose deposits on the floor, traces of the stay of ancient animals and people were recorded. The main discovery is 8 groups of Paleolithic drawings on the walls of the main corridor of the cave (see Serpievskaya 2 for details). The cave has great scientific and practical, historical and memorial, cultural and educational and tourist and excursion significance.

Cave Kolokolnaya is located within the boundaries of a specially protected natural area Chelyabinsk region - Serpievsky state natural complex reserve.

Entrance to the Cave

The entrance to the cave is oriented to the south, has the shape of an arch. The cavity is of a corridor-grotto type, the main development of passages is northwestern. There are several pronounced grottoes in the cave with a vault height of six to eight meters and a width of five to 10 meters. At a distance of 30 meters from the entrance and further up to the 70th meter, parallel to the main gallery, there is a narrow passage connected to it by several passages.

Grottoes of the Bell Cave

In total, there are four grottoes in the cave: the first from the entrance is Narrow (4.5x10 m), six meters high, followed by the Round grotto. Adjacent to it is the Stalactite, which is connected to the next, last grotto of the cave - the Far, 20-gletra gallery. The Dalniy grotto ends with a narrow opening (0.7 x 1 m), behind which the floor of the cave drops steeply. At the right wall there is a ledge with two holes up to three meters deep.

The cave ends with two dead ends, at the intersection of which a small rounded hall was formed. Calcite formations are observed only in the far part of the cave in the form of sintered crust on the walls and floor. There are also stalactites and stalagmites, as well as gours with calcite crystals and filled with water. The total length of the cave passages is 190 meters.

Progress Metro

Kolokolnaya is a cave of corridor-grotto type, developing in the direction of the northwest, it is a gallery from 2 to 5 m wide and from 1 to 6-8 m high (in grottoes). At a distance of 30 m from the entrance and further up to 70 m, the Metro runs parallel to the main corridor, connected to the main passages. The passage of the Metro is quite narrow (1.2 m wide and 1 m high) and has very smooth walls and a semi-circular ceiling. The floor is clay and dry. From the Metro, which is about 40 m long, there are three passages to the left (to the main corridor), which are located at a distance of 2 m, 13 m, 10 m from each other. There are several pronounced grottoes in the cave with a vault height of 6-8 m and a width of 5 to 10 m. All of them were formed at the intersection of cracks with the main gallery.

In the entire cave, the floor is made of clay, rubble, fragments of bedrock. In the Far Grotto, the floor is covered with sintered calcite crust. In the Stalactite and Far Halls, dripping is observed in the summer, puddles on the floor. In winter, ice sinter formations.

In 1982-1984, the Kolokolnaya Cave, along with other karst cavities in the area, was explored by an expedition of archaeologists from the Novosibirsk Institute of History, Philosophy and Philology of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, led by V.T. Petrin, Candidate of Historical Sciences. In it, as well as in the Ignatievskaya cave, they found several groups of drawings of ancient people of the Paleolithic era. One of the drawings is an image of a harpoon, while others require further clearing and decoding. In the summer of 1984, two more new images were discovered, made in ocher on the walls of the Krugly and Dalniy grottoes.

The cave is mostly horizontal throughout its length. The total length of passages is 268 m; the total depth of the cave is 7 m; the average width of the passages is 3.2 m.

I continue a series of publications about our weekend trips. This time I will tell you about the hike along the route of the village. Krasnaya Volya - confluence of Kudepsta and Psakho - Kolokolnaya cave - Dry canyon - Trout farm.

On Sunday morning, our small company gathered at the Khosta-most stop. The desire to go was expressed by about 20 people, and as a result, only seven gathered, and this is for the best.
By bus, we got to the village of Krasnaya Volya. On this day, I had the intention to visit two caves (Shirokopokosskaya (Bogomolnaya) and Kolokolnaya), which I had not been to before. I did not know their exact location, and therefore I was guided by the story of a person who recently visited them.
From the stop we went along the road towards the Kudepsta canyon.

We go along the road.

The asphalt road ended, we went down the dirt road to the right, and then at the apiary we went to the marked path that runs along the canyon. As it turned out later, we slipped through the cave a little.
From this path there was a descent down, the path is not very trodden, but there is.

Descent.

A small snake in a crevice.

We did not meet anything particularly interesting there and climbed the main path, along which we descended to the confluence of Psakho and Kudepsta.

The beginning of the Kudepstinsky canyon.

At this point we crossed the river and began to climb along the other side of the canyon. Somewhere in this place there should have been a path to the Bell Cave. The path to the cave is well-trodden, but it can be easily missed. After some searching, we finally found it. It turned out that last time we did not reach the beginning of the trail quite a bit.

We go to the cave.

Soon we came to a cave. The entrance to it is narrow, and the ascent is quite steep, but it is worth visiting the cave.

The cave was dry, only in a few places in the passages it was damp and dirty. We walked along the right path to two high halls. They did not go up to the second tier.

In the Bell Cave.

Dome.

Pass.

To the exit.

After exploring the cave, we made a short halt in the clearing at the entrance, had a snack, ate pancakes (the last day of Maslenitsa after all) and drank delicious tea. After lunch, we returned to the main trail, climbed it to the clearing, and then went through the clearing to the Dry Canyon.

In the meadows

In Dry Canyon.

dry canyon.

Blockages.

We did not stay long in the Dry Canyon. At the very beginning of the canyon there is a path descending to the river, along which we went to Psakho in the area of the waterfall.

Waterfall on the river Psakho.

Here they arranged a small halt, and after that they crossed the river ford.

Ford.

There is a marked trail along the river. It probably leads to a base downstream. We didn’t go to the base, but climbed up the slope without a path, and then went out onto the road near summer cottages.

Climb.