The 19th of June, 2016 in Shebalinsky area of the Altai Republic there started international research expedition «The depths of Altai – 2016», which will last till the 30th of June. It is aimed at studying of Altai caves, the unique cave Kok-Tash studying first of all. The expedition is headed by the chairman of the commission on speleology of the Novosibirsk regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society, the head of Novosibirsk cavers` club Stanislav Kuptsov.
- Everything is in the normal mode, - Kuptsov tells. – The participants from Moscow, Crimea and other regions came on time. We hope that we will have the first news soon.
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The start of the expedition must be unusual: the cavers are planning to fly around the vicinity of the Kok-Tash cave on powered parachute. That is motor ultralight aircraft with a wing parachute design. There is a researcher with a GPS-equipment and camera on the suspension of the vehicle. The participants of «The depths of Altai» project are marking potentially interesting places on the map, where more unexplored caves can be found.
The expedition, headed by Stanislav Kuptsov, is unusual for two reasons at the same time. Firstly, on the quantity of participants: the team of more than 60 participants goes to the cave, whereas normally a speleological party consists of 7, or 10 researchers as maximum. At the same time, all the participants are well prepared – both from the scientific and from sports and technical point of view.
Secondly, the object of study of «The depths of Altai» is not simple as well. The Kok-Tash cave is the deepest cave in Siberia and the only cave deeper than 300 m on the territory of North Asia. This cave system, one of the most difficult in Russia, has not been fully explored yet.
Finally, a lot of public organizations took part in preparation of the expedition of 2016. First of all, that is Russian Geographical Society and its branches: the Novosibirsk regional branch, the Irkutsk regional branch and the Crimean regional branch of the society. The expedition is being actively supported by the following branches of the Society: the Altai, Krasnodar and Krasnoyarsk regional department of the Russian Geographical Society, Sverdlovsk, Astrakhan and Orenburg Regional Branch, Department of the Russian Geographical Society in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Adygei regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society, St. Petersburg and Moscow department of the Russian Geographical Society, and the Cave Rescue Volunteers Union of Russia and the Plenipotentiary of the President of Russia in the Crimean Republic Oleg Belaventsev.
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The Kok-Tash cave is located on the territory of a large karst region in the region of Gorno-Altaisk on the left bank of the Karun river. The cave and the region itself have been studied poorly. The detailed spelunking, bio-psychological, mineralogical studies allowing to conduct detailed speleological, bio-speleological and mineralogical studies, and also scientific studies of the Kok-Tash cave for proving the record depth of it.
In order to implement the project «Creating a database (electronic inventory) of the caves of Russia and large caves of neighboring countries» under the instruction of the President of the Russian Geographical Society Sergey Shoygu «The depths of Altai-2016» expedition will conduct accounting of the caves of Shebalinsky area, and will assign cadastral numbers to these caves and will include them to the inventory.
«The depths of Altai» expedition continues the rich history of the Russian scientific speleology, originating in the XVIII century. One of the founders of the Russian Geographical Society Admiral Ferdinand von Wrangel in particular was the cave researcher – as information about the caves contains in his reports about coasts of Siberia and the West Coast of North America study. In the middle and in the second part of the XIXth century the cave research goes under the auspices of the Society in the Urals, Altai, Baikal, the Caucasus, in the mining regions of Central Asia and Siberia. The Siberian caves were for the first time studied exactly in the framework of the Russian Geographical Society, - in particular, by Petr Kropotkin, Alexander Chekanovsky and Ivan Chersky. In the beginning of the XXth century the Society and its researchers are taking part in the publication of major general works on karst and caves, which laid the foundation of theoretical psychology.
The photos of compilations devoted to Russian caves. Photo report from «The Depths of Altai-2016» expedition will be published after receiving of the materials.