Voronya Cave

*1968: A Polish-Russian expedition discovered three caves of the Arabika system: Siberian Cave, Henrich's Abyss and Berchil Cave.
* The early 80s: Kiev Club. Explored the cave up to −340 meters.
* 1999 August: Ukrainian team Second Echelon. They found window (inside the cave) at −230 meters which led to −700 meters 'Non-Kuibyshevskaya' branch to −490 meters.
* 2000 August: Second Echelon team continued the exploration up to −1200 meters.
* 2000 September: UkrSA and MTDE team continued the exploration up to −1410 meters.
* 2001 January: UkrSA and Cavex team. Explore a window at −1350 meters led to a sump at −1430 meters. Then a side passage at −1420 meters which led to −1710 meters.
* 2003 August: Cavex and Kiev Club. The sump at −1440 meters (also known as Sump 1) was passed and led to new passages to the depth of −1660 meters.
* 2004 July: Cavex team. Continued until a new sump at −1810 meters.
* 2004 August: UkrSA. Side passage at −1660 meters led to another sump at −1824 meters.
* 2004 October: UkrSA. Continued to −2080 meters. For first time in the history of speology this team crossed −2000 meters in a cave.
* 2001 August: UkrSA. Search for continuation in the bottom part (1420 meters −1710 meters).
* 2005 January: Cavex. This expedition was canceled due to the fact that the helicopter which was carrying the cavers to the mountain crashed. No casualties reported.
* 2005 February: UkrSA. A sump at −1980 meters was passed.
* 2005 July: Cavex. Continued 160 meters down past the sump at −1980 meters. This led to a depth of −2140 meters. During this exploration 3 sumps were passed below −2000 meters.
* 2007 September: Alexandre Klimchouk explores the cave to a depth of -2190 meters, which is for the moment the world record.

External links

* [http://www.showcaves.com/english/misc/caves/Voronya.html Caves of Georgia: Voronya Cave]
* [http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/27/1093518087377.html?oneclick=true Article on 2004 Voronia Cave Exploration]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4472585.stm BBC coverage of the discovery]
* [http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0505/feature4/multimedia.html National Geographic article]
* [http://www.cavex-team.org/archive/voronja2005topo.html CAVEX: Voronya] ru icon
* [http://selas-voronya.blogspot.com Blog describing SELAS Caving Club's participation in CAVEX expeditions to Voronya, in English]
* [http://www.geocities.com/cnico22000/voronja/arabika_history.html The History of Exploration in the Arabica Massif of the Western Caucasus]