Veryovkina Cave

The gorgeous mountainous landscape of the Russia-backed Georgian state Abkhazia is known for its deepest-known cave on Earth. The cave’s relatively small entrance with a seemingly endless configuration of craggy passageways that pierce deeper and deeper into the limestone of Earth’s crust. At 2,212 meters deep, It is located in the Arabika Massif in the Gagra Mountain Range of the Western Caucasus, on the pass between the Krepost and Zont mountains.

The depth of the entrance shaft is 32 meters. Georgia, is home to all four of the deepest known caves in the world, including Krubera Cave, once the deepest and now second to Veryovkina Cave, which, at 2,205 meters down. When Veryovkina Cave was first documented in 1968, it was only 115 meters but since then, with continued expeditions, it has grown deeper and deeper.

deepest known caves. There are a lot of caves in Arabika Massif to explore. The entrance to the Veryovkina vertical cave system lies between two mountains-Fortress and Umbrella, in the Arabika Massif. This remote place is tough to access, and it took dozens of speleological expeditions and nearly 50 years for it to finally claim the record, in 2018, when members of Moscow-based speleological clubs reached its final depths.

History of Veryovkina Cave 

In 1983 speleologists from Moscow, entered the semi-forgotten cave and they noticed that a strong breeze was coming from a small fracture.

They followed the fracture zone and speleologists reached a depth of 120 m and saw that cave extends further below. After much danger and some injuries in 1986, Speleologist reached a depth of 440 m.

Veryovkina Cave, named after Alexander Veryovkin- a speleologist who died in 1983 in Su-Akan, another Caucasian cave.

After 2000 the exploration of the cave was restarted by a team of Russian Speleologists in Arabika Massif. Cave was thoroughly mapped in 2015 and was found the entrance to the next abyss.

In 2016 the cave was discovered at a depth of 1 350 m, and in February 2017  further discovered up to 1 832 m. After long years of hard and risky work speleologists reached the world-record depth of 2 204 m. with the discovery of a lake in 2018 on the bottom of the deepest shaft-thus adding 8.5 m and a cave achieving a depth of 2 212 m.

Thus Veryovkina Cave’s deepest point is 2212 meters. The entrance of Veryovkina Cave is 2,285 meters above sea level. The entrance of the cave has a cross-section of 3 m × 4 m. The Cave is a very dangerous and technically complex cave for explorers all around the world.

How to get into Veryovkina Cave

Abkhazia is the extreme southwestern historical province of Georgia. The area of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia is currently occupied by Russia. Before you can head out to Abkhazia from Georgia, you have to get an entry permit from the Abkhazian government.

One can easily take a train to a border city named Zugdidi from Tbilisi station. The  Tbilisi International Airport is located 17 kilometers from Georgia. Georgia is reachable by all major domestic and international airports.