Text and photos by Andrey Bizyukin, PhD The first cave diving explora- tion in the USSR took place in May 1964 (image taken from an old film movie). The date marks the official birthday of Soviet cave diving science The longest underwater cave in Russia Ordinskaya Cave Cave diving is very fasci- Decades have now passed since in underwater caves. Insufficiently nating, but it is also a most this pioneering event. Inventors of trained divers can perish in caves diving equipment have steadily only too easily. Therefore, few peo- dangerous passion to have. created more perfect and trouble- ple venture there. The advances in underwa- free underwater devices, but cave In this little community, most ter cave exploration have diving in Russia is still an activity for divers know each other well. always been determined a devoted few. Members of this little select group Today, in Russia there is an esti- are at the same time heroes and by the state of the avail- mated fifty thousand certified outcasts of the diving community. able equipment. In Russia, SCUBA divers, among which no Their passion for underwater spe- the first underwater cave more than 50 (only 0.1 percent of leology is “vicious”, but the per- exploration took place the population of divers) venture formers are also seen as idols and into cave diving. These people use brave individuals such as Sheck in 1964 when a group of special equipment for diving, and Exley and Jocben Hasenmayer. enthusiasts managed to get they are easily recognised. They Underwater cave explorations past the first sump (a sec- always use at least two regulators, and the achievements of Soviet carry dual cylinders (either a twin and Russian cave divers were so tion of completely flooded set on the back or a side mount insignificant on a global scale cave passage) in the cave configuration where two or more that very few people in gen- system of Ayan on the tanks are carried on each side), a eral knew about the existence of Crimean Peninsula. Without minimum three torches, a helmet, underwater caves in our country. a reel with a strong thin rope (the Russian caves, with their difficult fins, they passed the sump guide line) and their particular entrances, vertical pits, narrow by walking on the bottom. swimming style, frog kicking, which passages and cold muddy water, The length was seventy prevents whirling mud or silk to kick are strikingly different from those in meters, and the maximal up from the bottom. They reel out the warm-water recreational des- a guide line to mark their route tinations such as those in Florida or depth was five meters. Not during the dive. Wreck divers use Mexico where it seems that only much by today’s standards very similar techniques for wreck the laziest divers don’t pursue div- it seems, but this achieve- penetration. ing in the underwater caves found To perfect cave diving tech- there. Recreational cave divers in ment is now considered the nique and skills, it is necessary to these spots can set up a dive rig- birth of underwater speleol- undergo a long training program ging directly out of their car trunks. ogy in the former USSR. and to be passionate about diving The hitherto previously unknown underwater world of Russia, Ordinskaya Cave—huge under- ground cavities filled with crystal clear cold water. This is exciting darkness that beckons 52 X-RAY MAG : 10 : 2006 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY EDUCATION PROFILES PORTFOLIO CLASSIFIED A lot of underwater space and clear water Ordinskaya gives unexperienced feature ◄ This is a nook in the endless underwater cave beginners the oppor- system. Many narrow and wide passages divide tunity to swim with fins into different directions, so cave explorers kicking in a similar way have to search for the right way out. Big to that of typical PADI heavy stones that have fallen from instructors. There is not the ceiling to the floor of the cave so much silt, so water remind one about the dangers clears quite quickly. You need only a good dry suit, a maximum size twin set and the big- Igor gest torch batteries you Lavrov, the can find (the big steel well-known scien- cylinder on the diver) for long life to get two tist and researcher hours of fun diving in of the Ural caves, vis- the very cold ited the cave for the water first time in 1993, where he made topographical maps of underwa- the dry part of the cave. He also ter tunnel. invited Victor Komarov, a cave Subways diver from Ryazan City, to do the with snow first reconnaissance dive in one white walls of the cave’s underground lakes spread out in April 1994. in different Much to their surprise, they directions, found that the cave lakes were leading the covered with a 20cm-thick layer cave diver fur- of ice. Not letting this stand in ther and further their way, Lavrov and Komarov into this under- asked local fishermen if they ground realm. could borrow some of their spe- Komarov had cial devices for ice drilling. With already let out 70 these tools, they made a small meters of the guide hole in the lake ice that was line when it became big enough to squeeze a diver stuck in the narrow entrance The beginning of modern through. crack underwater. He couldn’t go cave diving in Russia For this first dive under ice and into the any further and had to turn back. Koramov The picture in Russia was about to change cave, Komarov took one 7-liter tank. Lavrov gathered up the rope by rolling it around when a landslide on the banks of Kungur secured Komarov at the surface with a safe- his elbow and managed to untangle it and River, which is about 80 kilometers from ty line that Komarov gradually let out. The Kungur City in the Ural Mountains of the diver let out about 30 meters of line when he Perm’s region, exposed an entrance to a suddenly plunged into a narrow crack and hitherto unknown cave. went down to a depth of seven meters. The first visitors to the cave were local Komarov had fallen through the ceiling of people who had gone down the slope of a wide underwater tunnel. Absolutely clear clay in search of a cow which had fallen water, huge spaces and prospects of future down into the cave. When they got down exploration were tantalizing. But to venture there, the rescuers caught a glimpse of the further on one little tank was too danger- big cave halls, chambers and three under- ous. So, Komarov came back to the surface ground lakes with crystal-clear water. The to get another cylinder and returned to the cave was named Ordinskaya in honor of the location for a second look. nearby Orda village. This time, Komarov went much further into captions Cave divers descend into the entrance of Ordinsakaya Cave 53 X-RAY MAG : 10 : 2006 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY EDUCATION PROFILES PORTFOLIO CLASSIFIED Modern equipped Ordinskaya underwater cave feature The first Russian cave divers used old explorer military stuff or homemade equipment and unduplicated breathing devices. It was a time when divers thought that it was very unprofessional to use fins for swimming, and they got past sumps by walking on the bottom in the body of the mountain named ile mineral—so after Kazakova. The greatest part of collapses occur the cave labyrinth is filled with very quite frequently strong mineralized water, so after in gypsum caves each dive, all dive gear is covered above the by a thick coating of gypsum salts. surface, espe- Gypsum is not very solid—a frag- cially after strong rains in the spring and in the autumn. Underground halls of gyp- sum caves on dry land very seldom exceed 20-30 meters unforeseen occurrences or inci- in size. dents under the surface. But in The maximum depth of any of the under- the known underwater passages in water gypsum Ordinskaya Cave does not exceed caves, water helps to sup- port 20 meters. Therefore, even the long- the caves against the tug of gravity, est dives during the exploration of the which is why the underwater tun- cave did not require decompression. nels and halls of underwater gypsum Cave divers from Krasnoyarsk, caves are bigger than their above Chelyabinsk, Novokuznetsk, water counterparts. Ekaterinburg, Perm, Arkhangelsk, pull out the guide line from the away into all the underground However, vaults in Ordinskaya Chernomorsk, Alapaevsk and crack. He eventually made it lakes of the cave. Cave have collapsed every year. Moscow have found underwater pas- out of the sump. They dived in buddy teams Huge gypsum boulders break loose sages connecting all the lakes of the Intent on having this cave a couple of times a day, and from the ceiling and fall to the bot- cave and have navigated through for themselves and not hav- there were enough first explo- tom stirring up a lot of silt. On one all the widest underground tunnels, ing other cave divers run- rations in this huge system to occassion, a five-ton plate collapsed which have many smaller branches ning around in it, Lavrov and go around for everybody. New from the ceiling and fell onto sev- and air chambers under arched ceil- Komarov decided not to speak underground labyrinths crossed eral meters of the main guide line ings. They have laid out several kil- to anybody about the cave for huge halls, underwater passag- of a group of divers.