The deep­est in Rus­sia. The depth of the cave reach­es more than 900 meters, and the length is 3 kilo­me­ters. Start­ing from a depth of 170 meters, the cave is quite heav­i­ly flood­ed, which leads to fre­quent col­laps­es. Sci­en­tists have rea­son to believe that the true depth of the cave is much greater, but it was only dis­cov­ered in 1994.

In terms of sports and tech­nol­o­gy, the karst cave is very dif­fi­cult, so only spele­ol­o­gists with spe­cial skills can move through it. The descent is a nar­row well, through which a cold stream con­stant­ly flows. Below 170 m, in the depths of the cave, there is strong humid­i­ty, which leads to fre­quent col­laps­es. Inside there are many beau­ti­ful sta­lac­tites, sta­lag­mites, under­ground rivers and lakes.

It is named after one of the heroes of Tolkien’s epic “The Lord of the Rings”. You can get into the cave only with the help of spe­cial climb­ing equip­ment. Inside, vis­i­tors are greet­ed by an abyss called the Grey Troll: a ver­ti­cal cliff 160 meters deep. It is quite cold inside and there are flood­ed areas, so a wet­suit is need­ed to pass through. In addi­tion to sta­lac­tites and sta­lag­mites, researchers have dis­cov­ered large deposits of trans­par­ent cal­cite in this cave. This min­er­al was used in ancient times to cre­ate the first stone struc­tures.