Borshchovskie caves description and photos - Russia - Leningrad region: Luga district (Topic)

Borshchovskie caves description and photos - Russia - Leningrad region: Luga district. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photos and a map showing the nearest significant objects.

Photo and description

Borshchovskaya caves, located in the Leningrad region near the small village of Oredezh, are the most famous among the many quarries in this area. Almost all quarries in this area owe their appearance to the numerous deposits of sandstone, which originally served for the extraction of white quartz sand used in the production of glass. It was in the village of Borshchovo, namely on the shore of the small Antonov Lake, that this production was located, after which the spent raw materials were sent for further processing to a glass factory in the village of Torkovichi.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the process of extracting sand completely stopped, a small factory fell into complete desolation, and the Borshchovsky quarries were used for personal purposes by robbers, local workers and partisans. After some time, the quarries almost completely crumbled, rising to an incredible size of more than 4 meters. As it turned out, the sands of the quarries were not very stable, which is why the inevitable destructive process occurred so quickly that only a small fraction of the long passages remained.

It is believed that this place was previously a system that had been broken the strongest collapses into component parts - in the Twelve Column Gallery one can perfectly see one of the collapses. Above the cave itself, there is a huge funnel, the diameter of which reaches 25 meters and a depth of 5 meters. The very first cave is a pillar with 12 pillars. This is followed by the Wolf Cave, equipped with closing passages.

The Twelve Column Gallery can be accessed through the entrance, located in a cliff just above the path. The manhole has a small height, but as you move it increases to 2.5 meters, as a result of which you can go without bending over.

The most distinctive feature of the cave is its unusual shape, because all the passages are very reminiscent of the arches made in the Gothic style. The secret of this shape lies in the degree of cementation, which leads to a small stability of the ceilings, for which reason it was decided to give the form the best stability, held by the full balance of pressure and gravity. But despite this, there are quite a few areas in these systems where there have never been landslides. The largest number of galleries and halls has increased greatly, so the floor is practically on the same level with the ceiling. In some rooms you can see that their height reaches 5-6 meters with the occurrence of caves at 7-10 meters. In the process of inevitable growth, most of the halls become unstable and gradually collapse.

Today there are halls, but the layering of the available rocks is noticeable in them: the largest layer is presented in the form of quartz white sandstone, above which a small layer of orange or yellow is clearly visible, which turns into a bright burgundy color with small multi-colored veins. There are halls that literally amaze with their beauty and natural design, as well as forcing, without stopping, to admire the extraordinary flavor of various colors. On the uppermost layers, you can see nodules made of clay, which are small balls, reaching several centimeters in diameter and making the walls look somewhat like fluffy buns with raisins.

To this day, numerous traces of tools used in the process of breaking sandstone are visible on the ceilings and walls; You can also see the soot from the torches, which at one time illuminated the Borshchovskaya cave.

It is worth noting that during the entire time of the extraction of quartz sand, the length of the cave passages reached up to 15 km, although now only a small part of the previously existing passages have survived ... It is important that soon the Borshchovsky caves may disappear, because every year more and more landslides are recorded.

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Topic: Borshchovskie caves description and photos - Russia - Leningrad region: Luga district.