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New big discoveries in CAVE OPTIMISTICHESKAYA - Ukraine Contributed by Alexey on Monday, December 22 @ 23:30:08 EET
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 On 06.05.2008 from Ukraine returned a group of 9 Bulgarian cavers from SC“Speleo+”, SC”Vitosha” from Sofia, SC “Pod raba”-Svoge and SC“Nepiast”- Burgas. They took part in the serial expedition with underground base camp with aim to discover and explore new parts of the giant cave labyrinth – "Îptimisticheskaya".
The cave "Îptimisticheskaya" is situated in West Ukraiane, vill. Korolivka, in a gypsim massive and covers a huge area of over 1000 sq. km. It is discovered by Ukrianian cavers from speleo club "Cyclop" – the town of Lvov in the beginning of May, 1966. More than 40 years this cave is an object of research by cavers from Lvov and from other clubs from Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, Moldova and this giant labyrinth is explored and documented. Up to now are undertaken 173 expeditions, 15 underground camps were built, were digged thousand meters underground galleries. As a result today this cave labyrinth reaches 220 km length and becomes the second longest cave in the world and the first longest in Europe. To explore such giant labyrinth (and some smaller ones in West Ukraine) are necessary the efforts of vast number of capable cavers. In 2005 is established West-Ukrainian Regional Union for Horizontal Speleology (in Ukrainian language abbreviature is ZURSGS), which include 14 clubs from West and Central Ukraine. The same year the cave club "Cyclop" – the town of Lvov started a project of ZURSGS named "The Smell of the Sun" and aiming to make the cave "Îptimisticheskaya" to become the longest cave in the world.
Since May 2007 cavers from cave club "Speleo plus" – Sofia took an acive part in the explorartion of the cave "Îptimisticheskaya". Since August 2007 the Bulgarian cave club "Speleo plus" is an official member of the union ZURSGS. The first task of the Bulgarian cavers was to equip and build an underground camp, called "Oasis", situated in the most remote and most perspective for continuation cave part. In the end of April – 25 April 2008, Bulgarian cavers – Martin Tranteev as a leader, Vyara Markova, Simeon Tonkin, Simeon Petrov, Martin Stoyanov, Nikolay Orlov, Lazar Milchev, Kaloyan Liubenov and Tzvetan Kosturkov arrived to take part in the work of the 173th expedition in the already prepared underground camp "Îŕsis". The aim of the 7-days stay was to find places for continuation of the cave in north and west direction and to enlarge the narrow passages in the galleries to the underground camp. On the second working day the efforts of Ukrainian and Bulgarian cavers gave results. They opened a wide gallery 250 m long, which enters in serial consequent parallel galleries, from where in all directions start networks of labyrinths. It became clear that the explorers are in the begining of a new and very perspective cave region, which, according to the experienced Ukrainian explorers of "Îptimistichekaya" cave, could reach the lenght of over 40 km galleries and labyrinths. The first gallery from where starts the new region, digged out wth the participation of Bulgarians, was named "Bulgaria". After the first steps in the untouched new part of this gallery, was discovered a hall with unique formations – helictites with transparent yellow-honey colour. According to the Ukrainian cavers, this is the most beautiful part of cave "Îptimistichekaya" and probably, the most beautiful in whole Ukraine. In honour of the founder of the contemporary cave activity in Bulgaria - Petar Tranteev, the Ukrainian cavers named this part "Herr Tranteev". With the help of Bulgarian cavers were mapped 1,280 m new parts of the cave. The next underground days in the base camp, Bulgarians and Ukrainians enlarged the narrow galleries on the way to the exit. A small group made an attempt to pass through a blockage in the end of the hall "Kievo-Pechorskaya lavra" in west direction, where is the other opportunity to continue the cave. Our cavers managed only to look and see a new gallery about 100 m in lenght, that continues through narrow passages, which cannot be passed due to the lack of time for stay in the underground base camp.
From Alexey Zhalov
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