Red Caves and Dolgorukovskaya Yayla
Caves Kizil-Koba, Kyzyl-Koba
Crimea, Simferopol
On the western slope of the Dolgorukovsky Yaylin massif, on the opposite side of the Chatyr-Dag from the Angarsk-Salgir valley, 3.5 km from the village. There is a tract and cave Kizil-Koba (Red) - a natural monument of national importance. A gorge cut into the thickness of the Upper Jurassic limestone leads to the cave. It was created by the waters of the small mountain river Kizilkobinka, which, carrying dissolved lime from the depths of the Dolgorukov massif, deposited it in the form of limestone tuffs. Gradually, not far from the entrance to the cave, a vast tuff area was formed, the high ledge of which, like a dam, blocks the gorge. The volume of tuffs here reaches 400,000 cubic meters! The waters of the river, rushing down, form a waterfall-cascade with a height of more than 50 m on the steep slope of the site. A variety of trees and shrubs grow in the lower part of the slopes: hornbeam, field maple, pear, oak, hazel, dogwood, blackthorn, wild rose. The upper parts of the slopes of the gorge are almost sheer. They are composed of pinkish-reddish limestone - hence the name of the gorge and the Red Cave located in it. Long-term studies of karst experts have established that the total length of all known passages of Kizil-Koba is more than 13 km, the depth is 135 m. This is the largest limestone cave in our country.
The first information about Kizil-Kobe appeared in print in 1843. For a long time it was believed that the length of the cave passages was about 2 km. However, after a new passage ("Shamansky's throat") was opened in 1957, more than 10 km of underground cavities were additionally examined and described - grandiose halls and vast galleries decorated with calcite sinter formations. Individual stalactites here reach 5-8 m in length.
The so-called Indian and Chinese halls are distinguished by the special beauty of the openwork sinter decoration. Majestic is the Academic Hall, whose area is about 300 square meters, the height of the vault is up to 8 m. The halls, located even further away, reach 30-40 m in height, 20-25 m in width and stretch for tens of meters along the main direction of the galleries. In the old part of the lower cave, 180 m from the entrance, at the end of the Griboedov corridor (named after A.S. Griboyedov, who visited here in 1825), a small underground lake and river have long been known. In the newly opened galleries and halls, flooded cavities stretch for hundreds of meters; the area of some lakes reaches 500 square meters at a depth of 3 m or more. Groundwater reserves in the cave, depending on the season, range from 15 thousand cubic meters to 250 thousand cubic meters.
The words of Academician A.E. Fersman, which he said about the Crimean caves in general, can be rightly attributed to Kizil-Kobe: "... what is especially remarkable in the caves is their outfit of decorations; sometimes magnificent decoration is made of snow-white, delicate patterns, sometimes from long columns, slender, like a young forest, sometimes from long icicles, garlands, curtains hanging from above.White, yellow, red minerals cover the walls of caves with their deposits: in their bizarre forms mysterious wonders lurk, reminiscent of the figures of some kind of frozen giants, then the bones of giant lizards..." Kizil-Koba is also known as an archeological monument: bones of cave bears and material traces of people of the so-called Kizil-Koba culture were found here. Currently, work is being planned to turn the nearby halls of the unique cave into an underground museum-reserve.
