2017 will remain in the history of Bulgarian speleology with a new record set in the list of the deepest caves on this territory. The top position is now taken by Kolkina Dupka /Kolkina Hole/ near the village of Zimevitsa, Svoge Municipality with its depth of 408.5 m. On February 1 speleologists exclaimed on their website: ‘Raichova Dupka used to be the deepest cave till yesterday with its 387 m, but today it has woken up shocked, as it will have to pass on the record to the beauty of Kolkina Dupka.’

The applause goes for the Pod RaBa /Under the Edge/ cave club, legitimate as of 2007, but existing long before that. A childhood friendship has united a bunch of young people with one common goal – to support and develop speleology both in Bulgaria and abroad. The club visited Kolkina Dupka for the first time a decade ago, but the depth measured then was barely 85 m. However, a couple of years later the enthusiasts spotted a significant slope which took them to a new and unknown part of the cave. They were about to see numerous lakes with cave brilliants, meanders, dendrariums and rivers – a marvelous underground kingdom. Nowadays the 408 m are mapped and the website is exalted to share that the bottom hasn’t been reached yet!

Speleologist Pavlin Dimitrov gives us details on the start of the discovery in 2009:

‘We were provoked by some constant draft inside which remained unchanged. So we were convinced that we had to work there. After two visits to the old bottom of Kolkina cave we managed to penetrate a new meander, ending with a slope of 40 m in height. However, the narrow bottom part was the thing that initially stopped us. It took us no less than 5 years to broaden it. Then we saw a pretty big cave with three halls in a row. We named those January1, January 2 and Tserovo.’

The research and mapping of Kolkina cave took nearly 8 years of hard work in really bad conditions – galleries semi-flooded, slopes, covered in water and narrow passages. The self-funding was also a tough task, but the speleologists are thankful to several companies which financed some of their equipment. No matter the difficulties, Pavlin Dimitrov points out:

‘Kolkina is Kolkina! It doesn’t look like any other cave around the globe. There is this pearl hall in its bottom part, right over the small waterfall. We found 4 pearls there, with the size of plastic balls and there are also small sinter pockets where the pearls are like sugar – thousands of small seeds. One can also see those rocky formations that we named Melnik’s Pyramids. These are gatherings due to the falling water which forms cones with seemingly small stones placed on top. That is how the clay pyramids have been formed.’

According to the speleologists of the Pod RaBa cave club Kolkina has its hidden potential that is to be fully revealed. It might even set another record in the near future.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev