A previously unknown karst cave was discovered during the construction of the Tavrida route on the Crimean Peninsula near the village of Zuya in the Belogorsky district. The first inspection of the cave, which received a working name of "Tavrida", was carried out by speleologists from Simferopol under the leadership of Chairman of the Russian Union of Speleologists Gennady Samokhin. The working group created for its further research included specialists of the Russian Geographical Society, Vernadsky Crimean Federal University and the Institute of Speleology and Karstology.
Tavrida is larger than all the caves of the inner submontane range of Crimea and is unique in speleological potential. Its length is 1015 meters. The cave consists of several main galleries connected by labyrinths of passages. The average height of these galleries is 6-8 meters and the width is 4-5 meters. In some areas, their height and width reaches, respectively, 12 and 8 meters.
The discovery is important because of a huge number of paleontological findings. Remains of ancient animals - bones of an adult and baby mammoths, a spiral-horned ram, a horse, a rhino Merc, an antelope, a camel, a giraffe and other mammals - were found in the cave. Experts suggest that there was a den of cave hyenas in the karst cavity and they dragged their prey here. Now the part near the entrance of the cave is being inspected, where the traces of ancient men could be preserved.
"Not far from the discovered cave there are many monuments of the Stone Age, including very famous, so this area is promising for the search of new archaeological sites. It is necessary to focus on finding the ancient entrance to this cave, because, as the experience of previous studies shows, people settled in front of the entrance. If we are lucky, we will find such a site and traces of human presence," said Konstantin Gavrilov, a senior researcher of the Stone Age Department of the Institute of Archaeology.
According to Alexei Shelepin, the co-chairman of the Commission for Speleology and Karst Studies of the Moscow center of Russian Geographical Society, the cave has a favorable location for research. "The location of the cave is convenient because its galleries lie in close proximity to the surface. And some of them are located directly under the roadbed of the highway under construction. This provides transport access to the cave and does not require constructing special infrastructure," he explained.
At the moment, recognaissance operations are being carried out in the cave, and then expeditions will be organized to study the object. The discovered cave will not prevent the construction of the highway "Tavrida". In the future, it is planned to open the cave to tourists.