The theory about ancient underground tunnels, shrouding almost the entire globe in a web, was born thanks to an event that happened in 2003 in the vicinity of Solnechnogorsk near Moscow. In Bottomless Lake, a local driver discovered a US Navy life jacket, which, judging by the identification inscription, belonged to American sailor Sam Belovsky, who served on the destroyer Cowell. On October 12, 2000, the destroyer was blown up by terrorists, leaving four sailors dead and ten, including Sam, missing. The tragedy occurred in the port of Aden.

As a result of checking the accuracy of the information, it was found that the life jacket really belonged to Sam Belovsky. But how was this thing able to get from the waters of the Indian Ocean to the waters of a lake lost in the outback of central Russia, covering a distance of 4,000 kilometers, and this in a straight line? It was then that an incredible version arose about the existence of ancient underground tunnels connecting remote areas of the Earth’s continents. But who laid these underground paths, when and for what purpose remains a mystery of history. More than once, more than one researcher has drawn attention to the existence, along with subway lines, mine workings and natural caves, of underground cavities created by ancient civilizations, our predecessors, so to speak. We are talking not only about giant halls, the mechanical processing of the walls of which is almost completely hidden by secondary natural processes (stalactites and stalagmites, sagging and cracks). In addition to them, there are also linear structures - ancient tunnels. Interestingly, at the beginning of this century, the frequency of finds of fragments of such “crossings” in different parts of our planet increased significantly.

In order to identify ancient tunnels, comprehensive geological knowledge is required about the natural processes of transformation of the earth's crust and underground cavities that occur during the development of the planet, as well as about the technique of conducting man-made underground work. However, identification is quite real. First of all, ancient tunnels differ from objects of natural origin and modern objects constructed underground by more precise processing of the walls (mostly the walls of the cavities are melted), clear direction and orientation.
The colossal dimensions of the ancient tunnels and their extreme antiquity, still inaccessible to human understanding, are also bewildering. No one has announced the approximate date of their appearance, but it can be assumed that the ancient tunnels were built at different times. Let's look at some actually available information about ancient underground workings and tunnels.

The Crimean peninsula is dotted with caves, but one of the most popular is the Marble Cave, rising 900 meters above sea level in the Chatyr-Dag mountain range. Descending into the cave, many tourists and speleologists are greeted by a huge twenty-meter hall in the form of a pipe. At the moment, the hall is half filled with stone blocks that collapsed during earthquakes and filled with karst deposits. Behind the magnificence of the stalactites descending towards the stalagmites, few people notice the fact that the huge “corridor” is actually an ancient tunnel with smooth processed walls, laid deep into the mountain range towards the sea.

The tunnel walls are not damaged by erosion and do not have karst caverns. We can see part of a destroyed underground structure, starting at a kilometer altitude from the level of the Black Sea and going into nowhere.

If we take into account that the Black Sea depression was formed as a result of the fall of a large asteroid (this happened about 30 million years ago), which destroyed most of the Crimean mountains, then the assumption that the Marble Cave is a preserved part of an ancient tunnel is quite appropriate. The tunnel itself cut through the entire mountain range, which is about 30 million years old, but was destroyed by an asteroid.

Crimean speleologists managed to discover a huge cavity under the Ai-Petri mountain peak and ancient tunnels connecting the Crimean peninsula and the Caucasus.

In turn, ufologists of the Caucasus region discovered a network of tunnels under the Uvarov ridge, located opposite Mount Arus. Two of them deserve special attention. The direction of one of the ancient tunnels found is the Crimean Peninsula. The other stretched to the Volga region through Krasnodar, Yeisk and Rostov-on-Don. During the expedition in the Krasnodar region, a branch from the main branch was also recorded, directed to the Caspian Sea. However, the expedition members did not provide a more detailed report.

In the Volga region, since 1997, Kosmopoisk expeditions have been carried out, which examine in detail the famous Medveditskaya ridge. Tens of kilometers of a branched network of tunnels have already been discovered, which have a round, less often oval, shape in cross-section. The diameter of the “underground corridors” ranges from 7 to 20 meters, while the width is maintained throughout the entire length. In addition, the direction from the surface also changes from 6 meters to 30 meters deep into the mountain range. Approaching the hill itself, the diameter of the ancient tunnels gradually increases from 22 to 80 meters, and already directly at the hill itself it is 120 meters. Under the mountain, the cavities turn into a huge hall, from which, having different directions, there are three tunnels, each seven meters in diameter.

It becomes obvious that Medveditskaya Gora is a junction station of the “ancient metro”, in which ancient tunnels from different regions converge. From here you can get to the Caucasus, Crimea, northern Russia, and then through Novaya Zemlya to North America.

Some ufologists are confident that the tunnels are still used today as transport routes by UFO vehicles, although it is not at all necessary to attribute authorship to the latter. P. Miroshnichenko in his book “The Legend of LSP” claims that all of Russia, including the territory of Crimea, the Far East, the Urals, Altai and Siberia is dotted with ancient tunnels. All that’s left to do is discover and explore them.

The Caucasus can also boast of the presence of mysterious mine tunnels. We are talking about a gorge near Gelendzhik, where there is a one and a half meter, completely straight shaft, going strictly vertically to a depth of more than a hundred meters, with smooth, as if polished walls. The nature of the treatment of the walls suggests that they were affected both mechanically and thermally at the same time. As a result, a very durable layer, 1 - 1.5 mm thick, was formed on the surface, which cannot be duplicated even with the help of modern high-tech devices. Among other things, increased background radiation was recorded in the mine. It is likely that this vertical branch is connected to a horizontal ancient tunnel that leads to the Medvedkova ridge in the Volga region.

To date, materials have already been declassified regarding the construction in the 1950s of a tunnel across the Tatar Strait, which would have connected the mainland with the island of Sakhalin. In the post-war years, the resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers on the construction of the railway was classified as “secret”, but L.S. Berman, a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences who worked there at that time, said in 1991 that the builders were primarily engaged not in construction, but in the restoration of already built ancient tunnels, built taking into account all the geological features of the bottom of the strait. The builders also found strange objects, incomprehensible mechanisms and fossilized remains of animals, which immediately disappeared into secret bases. It is possible that this ancient tunnel stretches to Japan through the island of Sakhalin.

From the expanses of Russia we will move to the expanses of Poland and Slovakia, namely to the Western Beskydy mountain range to their highest point - Babia Gora. Residents of the surrounding villages have kept secrets associated with this mountain since ancient times.

One of the guards said that in the 60s of the last century, he and his father, and at his insistence, went to the mountains. There, at an altitude of 600 meters, they moved aside a protruding rock that hid the entrance to the tunnel. The tunnel was so high that not only a horse and cart, but also an entire train could easily enter there. The oval cavity was dry, and its walls resembled glass, they were so smooth. Having walked along the passage, father and son found themselves in a spacious barrel-shaped room, from which emerged several tunnels of different cross-sectional shapes (triangular and round).

From my father’s words it followed that through ancient tunnels you can get to different parts of the planet. Through the left tunnel you can get to Germany, England and America. The right one leads to the territory of Russia, the Caucasus, China and Japan, and then to the American continent, where it meets the left tunnel.
It remains a mystery who built the tunnels and for what purpose. But it is absolutely clear that the creatures that lived on our planet millions of years ago and, perhaps, hiding in the depths to this day, had deeper knowledge than knowledge about semiconductors, D226 diodes, their characteristics, operating and storage conditions. And this knowledge has not yet been revealed to us.

There is a junction station in the Western Beskids, from which several tunnels depart, connecting on the territory of the American continent. But these are not the only ancient underground highways leading to America. Today, ufologists know about ancient tunnels built under the North and South Poles of the Earth. Each tunnel has junction stations similar to the one found in the Beskids. There is information that underground cavities are still used by UFO devices.

English miners, while digging a tunnel for economic needs, heard strange sounds, similar to the sounds of working mechanisms, coming from below. Having broken through the stone wall, the miners saw a staircase leading into a well shaft, from where incomprehensible sounds were heard with even greater force. No further developments were reported. But, probably, the discovered vertical shaft is part of a horizontal ancient tunnel leading to Germany. And the accompanying sounds indicate its current use.

The American continent is no exception. On the contrary, this territory boasts a large number of horizontal and vertical shafts, the walls of which are also melted and polished. The famous American researcher Andrew Thomas is confident that straight, directed ancient tunnels criss-crossed the entire continent like Swiss cheese.

One of the so-called intercontinental hubs, connecting several mines leading to the states of California and New Mexico, is located under Mount Shasta. Their existence is confirmed by the situation experienced by the spouses Iris and Nick Marall. In the mountainous area of ​​Caso Diablo, located near the city of Bishop, the couple entered a cave with a perfectly smooth floor and walls. The cave was illuminated by weak rays of light penetrating from holes in one of the walls. Then the cave was filled with the sounds of a working mechanism, and the couple left it in a hurry. It is quite possible that they were lucky enough to visit one of the active ancient tunnels.

Not far from the coast of the same California in 1980, an impressively sized cavity was discovered, penetrating several hundred meters into the continent, which can claim the status of a junction station.

The existence of tunnels is confirmed by the unexpected results of deep-sea nuclear tests that took place in Nevada. Two hours after the tests at a military base in Canada (at a distance of 2000 kilometers), a jump in background radiation 20 times higher than normal was recorded. This happened because next to the military base there was a cave connected to the local network of caves and ancient tunnels of the American continent.

Fast forward to Idaho, where anthropologist James McKean was studying a large tunnel in the rocks. Having walked several hundred meters deep into the cave, the scientist was stopped by the unbearable sulfur stench and human remains. In addition to this terrible picture, the researcher heard a strange noise coming from the depths of the tunnel. The natural reaction to what he saw was to stop exploring the cave.

One of the most sparsely populated areas of Mexico hides the Satano de las Golondrinas cave. Judging by its size (about a kilometer deep and several hundred meters wide), the condition of the processed steep walls and the bottom from which ancient tunnels diverge in different directions, it may well exist as a junction station in a network of intercontinental underground tunnels.

From the expanses of North America we will move to the territory of South America, where no less ancient underground tunnels have been dug. Thus, in the course of recent research conducted by Professor Eric von Däniken, a network of underground tunnels stretching for many kilometers was identified under the surface of the Nazca Desert. An important fact: clean water flows through them to this day.

In 1965, the Ecuadorian province of Morona-Santiago attracted researcher Juan Moritz, and for good reason. The scientist was able to discover and map a hitherto unknown network of ancient underground tunnels stretching for hundreds of kilometers. Many facts indicate that these multi-kilometer cavities are not the result of natural processes.

Firstly, the entrance to the system looks more like a neatly cut opening for a barn door. By successively descending onto horizontal platforms, you can reach a maximum cavity depth of 230 meters. At this depth there are rectangular “highways” in cross-section, which have turns at right angles. Secondly, here we are faced with the same smooth-glossy wall treatment. Thirdly, huge rooms and ventilation shafts, the diameter of which varies within 70 centimeters, are located in strict periodicity.

In the center of one of these gigantic halls there are structures that, according to scientists, resemble seven thrones around a table, the so-called “throne seat.” Next to him were large golden figurines of elephants, lions, fossil lizards, jaguars, wolves, bison and even snails. In the same “throne” room, a “library” was kept, consisting of thousands of metal plates dotted with unknown signs. It is unknown whether any attempts were made to decipher the symbols, but each of these plates was stamped in a special way.

The hall in the discovered ancient tunnels resembled a golden treasury, in which a large number of gold items were collected. On its smooth walls there were images of ancient dinosaurs. Some plates were decorated with images of pyramids. As in the underground tunnels of the ancient Mayans, here you can find adjacent symbols of pyramids and flying kites. In addition to these images, the plates conveyed some astronomical concepts and ideas of space exploration.

From these sensational discoveries one can only judge who their builders were, who had so much knowledge and lived in the era of dinosaurs.

A similar find interested scientists in 1976. Then, on the nearby territory of Los Tayos, an Anglo-Ecuadorian expedition discovered several rooms in another ancient underground tunnel. In the first, similar to the one described earlier, there was a table surrounded by chairs with two-meter backs. The second one played the role of a “library”: a long hall, the walls of which were filled with shelves with ancient books (four-hundred-sheet folios, each leaf of which was made of pure gold and covered with unknown symbols).

It is safe to say that the ancient halls, as well as the tunnels, were used by the creators not only as a means of communication, but also as a repository of important and, of course, valuable information.

The next junction of the ancient tunnel system was discovered by an expedition of speleologists in Peru in 1971. At a depth of one hundred meters, scientists discovered a hall with already familiar polished walls, on which one could see symbols similar to hieroglyphs. And, as is typical for junction stations, numerous cavities diverged from it in different directions, some of which lead to the sea and extend further under the seabed.

On the other side, already on the territory of Argentina, in the section of the tunnel chain from La Poma to Cayafate, an increased background radiation and high rates of soil electrification are observed, at the same time completely uncharacteristic microwave radiation and vibrations. Such data were recorded thanks to research by scientists at the Biophysical Institute conducted in 2003. Omar Jose and Jorge Dilletaina are confident that what is happening is a man-made phenomenon, and the reason for its occurrence is the work of unknown devices, carried out at a depth of many kilometers. It is quite possible to assume that this section of ancient tunnels is used as a working to this day.

For many centuries, people have found strange tunnels that are very different from natural caves and grottoes. Such tunnels with traces of artificial processing are found everywhere. Some of them have hundreds of kilometers of artificially created galleries, some simply could not be measured. Both professional speleologists and amateurs who have explored such tunnels suggest that they can stretch for many thousands of kilometers and even connect continents. Who and when could create these grandiose tunnels? Was there or is there some kind of “underground civilization” capable of creating such grandiose structures on a global scale?

In fairy tales, legends, and epics of peoples of all continents, the mysterious inhabitants of the underworld are often mentioned. It is very likely that all these ancient legends had a basis and on our planet, in parallel with us, an underground civilization exists or existed. This can be confirmed by the mysterious man-made tunnels connecting countries and continents.

An example of fabulous inhabitants of the underworld are gnomes and trolls, present in many ancient legends of Northern Europe; especially many such legends were found among the Scandinavian peoples. Dwarves, as a rule, were neutral creatures, even sometimes helping people. They were considered experts in ores, were excellent at blacksmithing, and their products made of metals and processed precious stones were highly valued by the inhabitants of the surface. Trolls were dark and evil creatures who harmed and attacked people in every possible way.

The ancient Egyptians had myths about snake-people who were considered servants of the god of death Set and lived in deep underground caves. Many myths and legends about the underworld of the Himalayas and Tibet. The tunnels located in these mountains have many passages and go far into the earth. There are rumors that Buddhist lamas can travel to the center of our planet and come into contact with the underground civilization.

Indian legends, which have come down from time immemorial, tell of the mysterious underground country of the Nagas, where snake people called Nanas live. It was believed that nanas were the guardians of fabulous treasures. It was believed that human emotions and feelings were alien to them, they were cold in body and had no soul and stole spiritual and bodily warmth from people. Similar legends about snake people exist among the Hopi Indians living in the Andes, where there are many caves called chincanas. The Hopi Indians believe that the Snake People are the creators of these caves.

There is no smoke without fire. Ancient legends did not arise out of the blue, and the mysterious underground world actually exists. Many people, gripped by a thirst for knowledge, curiosity, and the search for adventure, penetrate further into the world of the dungeon and find many new and interesting things there. But not only professional and amateur speleologists make amazing discoveries in the bowels of the earth. They compete with miners, because over the years the mines go deeper and longer. Naturally, in the process of their development, people stumble upon strange underground structures in the form of man-made tunnels going into the unknown.

In recent years, many facts have been discovered about mysterious underground structures. Well-known in speleological circles, Pavel Miroshnichenko wrote a very interesting book dedicated to this topic and personally took part in the research of many mysterious underground tunnels and caves. The book is called “The Legend of LSP”, for those who are interested in this topic, the book will turn out to be an invaluable treasure. The author of the book created a map of global tunnels located on the territory of the former USSR. These tunnels stretch from the Crimea and the Caucasus to the Far East. Pavel also believes that these tunnels do not end in the Far East, but stretch to the Japanese islands and further to continental America.

An example of the opening of such a tunnel is an incident that occurred in the early 50s of the last century and became public only in 1991. On instructions from the Soviet government, an attempt was made to create a tunnel that could connect Fr. Sakhalin with the mainland. According to one of the eyewitnesses who took part in the construction of this tunnel, L.S. Berman, they weren’t so much digging a new tunnel, they were restoring an existing one that had already existed for a long time! The engineer was sure that the tunnel was built in very ancient times. The ancient builders planned it very competently, taking into account the smallest details, geological structure, bottom topography and other factors necessary for the successful construction of this structure. While work on building the tunnel was underway, many interesting objects were found that resembled some kind of mechanisms, most likely used by ancient builders. Workers also found fossils of ancient animals that lived on the planet millions of years ago. All finds were subsequently confiscated by security authorities, and the builders signed a non-disclosure agreement.

On the territory of the Volga region there is a rocky hill called the Medveditskaya ridge. For several years in a row, Cosmopoisk expeditions were conducted there. Researchers discovered a network of mysterious tunnels and conducted a thorough study of them. They examined tens of kilometers of underground galleries and found out that under the ridge there is a huge hall, in which there are many entrances and exits leading in different directions. According to the researchers, the huge hall they found may be an intermediate station in a network of global tunnels.

A lot of man-made structures have been discovered in South America. The scientist and traveler from England Percy Fossett, who repeatedly traveled to various mysterious regions of this continent, repeatedly mentioned in his books about unusually long man-made caves located near the Inlacuatl and Popocatepetel volcanoes in the vicinity of Mount Shasta. These caves are more like artificial galleries stretching over vast distances. Researchers who have visited there call them an underground empire.

In the vicinity of the capital of Ecuador, Cusco, located in the Andes, there are also mysterious underground caves, with which incredible and mysterious rumors and legends are associated. Archaeological scientists discovered a report from an American-French expedition in 1952. Researchers in the vicinity of Cusco discovered the entrance to an underground tunnel, which they decided to study. It was planned to spend no more than five days there; accordingly, supplies were taken for this period. But of the seven participants in this expedition, only one managed to get out of the dungeon, after 15 days. It was the French archaeologist Philippe Laumonter. The scientist was completely exhausted, his speech was incoherent, and he also showed signs of bubonic plague, from which he soon died. It was possible to find out that the remaining members of the expedition fell into a bottomless abyss, and the Frenchman himself found strange creatures, apparently possessing intelligence. The archaeologist also managed to remove from the dungeon an ear of maize made of pure gold. After the death of the scientist, the entrance to the dungeon was blocked with a concrete slab and filled with cement to avoid a plague epidemic.

Dr. Raul Rios Centeno, known for his research into the Inca civilization, decided to repeat the route of the disappeared expedition. A group of researchers found another entrance to the dungeon. It was located in a dilapidated temple on the outskirts of Cusco. The scientists moved through a tunnel that resembled a ventilation pipe. Suddenly, the walls and arches of the gallery stopped reflecting infrared rays, then scientists used a spectrograph to examine the wall. It turned out that it has a high aluminum content; when they tried to extract a piece of the wall for study, the scientists were very surprised; not a single tool could take this wall. The expedition had to be interrupted when the tunnel wall narrowed greatly and it became impossible to continue moving forward.

In Turkey, near the city of Derikuyu in 1963, a huge multi-tiered underground city was found, covering several tens of kilometers. Numerous galleries and halls of the city were connected to each other by passages, the creators of this city thought out its arrangement to the smallest detail, the life support system of the underground metropolis was so perfect that the researchers were amazed by it. The city had not only residential buildings, but also public meeting rooms, housing for livestock, food storage, temples and even schools. The architects of the city seem to have foreseen everything; in the event of an attack, granite slabs, using special mechanisms, blocked all entrances. Fresh air was supplied uninterruptedly with the help of perfect ventilation. The ventilation system still works properly.

This ancient underground city was built by the Hittites, whose civilization lasted for almost a millennium. The Hittite kingdom was created in the 17th century. BC era, and in the 7th century. BC era this kingdom disappeared. The Hittites, pressed by numerous enemies, created an underground empire that existed autonomously from the outside world for several centuries.

Scientists from many countries who studied underground structures independently came to the conclusion that on our planet there is a global system of underground tunnels, galleries, junction stations and even cities located underground from several meters to several kilometers. These underground structures are equipped with advanced ventilation systems.

If we put together all the facts related to man-made underground structures, we can conclude that on our planet, long before the emergence of our civilization, highly developed civilizations with a high level of technical development already existed or existed. Perhaps representatives of these civilizations still live parallel to us in an underground world unknown to us.

There are many kilometers of tunnels under the Sahara Desert: from Sebha in Libya to the Ghat oasis near the Algerian border. These tunnels are a huge underground water supply system. Scientists have calculated that the total length of the tunnels is approximately 1,600 km. These tunnels were carved into the rock more than five thousand years ago, which roughly coincides with the emergence of the unified state of Egypt. Underground tunnels of the island of Malta

Many experts claim that the Maltese Hypogeum was built as a temple, a huge underground temple of death and birth with an intricate system of levels, passages, halls and traps. In addition, skeletons of 30 thousand people from the late Neolithic era and various artifacts were discovered in the Hypogeum. Now historians insist on recognizing it as the eighth wonder of the world - after all, judging by this mysterious room, a developed civilization existed in Malta long before Stonehenge and the era of the Egyptian pyramids. Many underground passages and tunnels, including prehistoric catacombs, were later included by knight builders in the fortification system. As for the network of catacombs near Malta, some ancient sources indicate that it branched not only under the surface of the island: the passages went inland and to the sides, continued under the sea and, according to rumors, stretched all the way to Italy. At least in ancient times, in ancient times, many sources pointed to this. Speleologist Pavel Miroshnichenko, a researcher who studies artificial structures, wrote about the existence of a system of global tunnels in Russia in his book “The Legend of LSP”. The lines of global tunnels he drew on the map of the former USSR went from Crimea through the Caucasus to the well-known Medveditskaya ridge. In each of these places, groups of ufologists, speleologists, and researchers of the unknown discovered fragments of tunnels or mysterious bottomless wells. Since 1997, the Kosmopoisk expedition has carefully studied the well-known Medveditskaya ridge in the Volga region.

Researchers discovered and mapped an extensive network of tunnels stretching for tens of kilometers. The tunnels have a circular cross-section, sometimes oval, with a diameter of 7 to 20 m, maintaining a constant width and direction along the entire length. The tunnels are located at a depth of 6 to 30 meters from the surface of the earth. As you approach the hill on the Medveditskaya ridge, the diameter of the tunnels increases from 20 to 35 meters, and then to 80 m, and already at the hill itself, the diameter of the cavities reaches 120 m, turning under the mountain into a huge hall. Three seven-meter tunnels leave from here at different angles. It seems that the Medveditskaya ridge is a node, a crossroads where tunnels from different regions converge. Researchers suggest that from here you can get not only to the Caucasus and Crimea, but also to the northern regions of Russia, to Novaya Zemlya and further to the North American continent. A bottomless mine with a diameter of about one and a half meters with amazingly smooth edges was discovered under the Black Sea city of Gelendzhik. Experts unanimously say: it was created using technology unknown to people and has existed for hundreds of years. The dungeons of the Urals also keep many secrets. The first dungeons on the territory of Kievan Rus appeared before the 10th century, but all this was amateurish compared to the caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. According to the official version, many kilometers of underground passages, cells, tombs and churches were created as an underground monastery.

Despite the fact that the caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Holy Dormition Lavra have been studied, they keep many secrets. Some corridors have not been used for a very long time due to collapses. This especially applies to the Far Caves, all of whose exits towards the Dnieper have long been abandoned, and in the 1930s they were bricked up and tightly cemented... Also in Ukraine, in the Ternopil region, the second longest cave in the world, “Optimisticheskaya”, is located, not so long discovered by speleologists.

To date, more than 200 kilometers of its passages have been discovered. And it is believed that this is not the limit and perhaps it is connected with other caves, forming a single network. The Gobi caves are also currently under study. Due to its inaccessibility - and the caves are located in the so-called “forbidden territory” associated with Shambhala, the habitat of the highest initiates - the Gobi dungeons have practically not been explored. But this is all just a quick superficial overview. It is simply impossible to even list all the mysterious dungeons and tunnels scattered throughout the world, and, most likely, connected together. The same applies to all the numerous catacombs, which are not just quarries. Their origins go back thousands of years. The catacombs have also not been fully explored and may also be part of a single underground network of tunnels. Legends about the inhabitants of the dungeons It is difficult to find a people who do not have legends about creatures living in the darkness of the dungeons. They were much older than the human race and descended from representatives of other civilizations that disappeared from the surface of the earth. They possessed secret knowledge and crafts. The inhabitants of the dungeons, as a rule, were hostile towards people. Therefore, we can assume that fairy tales describe an underworld that really existed, and perhaps still exists today. There are especially many legends about the underground world of Tibet and the Himalayas. Here in the mountains there are tunnels that go deep into the ground. Through them, the “initiate” can travel to the center of the planet and meet with representatives of ancient civilization. Tibetan lamas say that the ruler of the Underground Kingdom is the great King of the World, as he is called in the East. And his kingdom - Agartha, based on the principles of the Golden Age - has existed for at least 60 thousand years. People there know no evil and do not commit crimes. Science reached an unprecedented flourishing there, so the underground people, who have reached incredible heights of knowledge, know no disease and are not afraid of any cataclysms. The King of the World wisely rules not only millions of his own underground subjects, but also secretly the entire population of the surface part of the Earth. He knows all the hidden springs of the universe, he comprehends the soul of every human being and reads the great book of destinies. The kingdom of Agartha stretches underground throughout the planet. There is also an opinion that the peoples of Agartha were forced to switch to underground living after a universal cataclysm (flood) and the submersion of land - the ancient continents that existed on the site of the present oceans. The underground workshops are in full swing with tireless work. Any metals are melted there and products from them are forged. In unknown chariots or other perfect devices, underground inhabitants rush through tunnels built deep underground. The level of technical development of underground inhabitants exceeds the wildest imagination. But not only wise creatures who give advice to the “initiates” live in the underworld of India. Ancient Indian legends tell of the mysterious kingdom of the Nagas, hidden in the depths of the mountains. It is inhabited by snake people who store countless treasures in their caves. Cold-blooded, like snakes, these creatures are incapable of experiencing human feelings. They cannot warm themselves and steal warmth, physical and mental, from other living beings.

One may not agree with the author’s dating of intercontinental tunnels many millions of years ago; some of the cases described are clearly misleading, but a large amount of evidence and found fragments of tunnels eloquently refutes the official history of our planet...

The year 2003 in the Moscow region (outskirts of Solnechnogorsk) was marked by a mysterious event. In Lake Bezdonnoe, the driver of the Vereshenskaya rural administration, Vladimir Saichenko, discovered a standard US Navy life jacket with an identification inscription confirming that this property belonged to sailor Sam Belovsky from the destroyer Cowell, which was blown up by terrorists on October 12, 2000 in the port of Aden. Tragically, 4 sailors died and 10 were missing, including Sam Belovsky. Maybe the information is wrong and there is no mystery?

As a result of an interview with direct witnesses and participants in the described event, it was found that the life jacket was indeed discovered and the inscriptions on it directly point to the sailor “Cowell” S. Belovsky.

But how could a life jacket from the Indian Ocean get into a lake lost in the vastness of Central Russia, having covered 4,000 km in a straight line in three years? What was his path? Hence; there are some unknown underground paths, tunnels, apparently connecting rather remote parts of the Earth’s continents. But by whom and when were they created, and for what?

It has been repeatedly noted by various researchers on different continents that in addition to subway tunnels, bunkers, mines, and other various caves created by nature, there are underground cavities created by civilizations that preceded humanity. The latter exist not only in the form of giant underground halls, the walls of which are processed by mechanisms unknown to us, with traces of secondary natural processes (stains, stalactites, stalagmites, cracks, etc.), but also in the form of linear structures - tunnels. The beginning of the 21st century is marked by an increase in the frequency of finds of fragments of these tunnels on different continents.

Identification of ancient tunnels is not an easy task, requiring comprehensive knowledge about the technology of underground work, the mechanisms of transformation of the earth's crust and underground spaces during the historical development of our planet. But this procedure is quite realistic if you consider; that the main difference between ancient tunnels and natural and modern underground objects is that, strangely enough, ancient objects are distinguished by the perfection and amazing precision of processing the walls of the cavities (as a rule, they are melted), ideal directionality and orientation. They are also distinguished by their enormous, cyclopean size and... antiquity beyond human understanding. But it cannot be said that they all appeared at the same time. Let's consider the available real information about ancient tunnels and workings.

In Crimea, the Marble Cave is well known, located within the Chatyr-Dag mountain range at an altitude of 900 m above sea level. When descending into the cave, numerous visitors are greeted by a huge hall in the form of a pipe about 20 meters in size, currently half filled with boulders that collapsed as a result of numerous earthquakes and filled with karst deposits. Stalactites hang through the cracks in the vault, and stalagmites stretch towards them, producing a mesmerizing impression. Few people pay attention to the fact that initially it was a tunnel with perfectly smooth walls, going deep into the mountain range with a slope towards the sea.

The walls are well preserved and have no traces of erosion: flowing waters - karst caverns, formed as a result of the dissolution of limestone. That is, in front of us is part of a tunnel leading to nowhere and starting at an altitude of about 1 km from the level of the Black Sea. Considering that the Black Sea depression was formed at the turn of the Eocene and Oligocene (about 30 million years ago) as a result of the fall of a large asteroid, which cut off and destroyed the main ridge of the Crimean mountains, it is quite appropriate to assume that the Marble Cave is a fragment of an ancient tunnel, the main part which was located in a mountain range destroyed by an asteroid, which is at least 30 million years old.

As follows from the latest reports from Crimean speleologists, a huge cavity has been discovered under the Ai-Petri massif, picturesquely hanging over Alupka and Simeiz. In addition, tunnels connecting Crimea and the Caucasus were discovered.

Ufologists of the Caucasus region during one of the expeditions determined that under the Uvarov ridge, opposite Mount Arus, there are tunnels, one of which leads towards the Crimean Peninsula, and the other through the cities of Krasnodar, Yeisk and Rostov-on-Don stretches to the Volga region. A branch to the Caspian Sea is recorded in the Krasnodar region. Unfortunately, the expedition members did not provide more detailed information.

And in the Volga region there is just the well-known Medveditskaya ridge, examined in sufficient detail by Kosmopoisk expeditions since 1997. An extensive network of tunnels was discovered and mapped, surveyed over tens of kilometers. The tunnels have a circular cross-section, sometimes oval, with a diameter of 7 to 20 m, maintaining a constant width along the entire length, and a direction at a depth from the surface of 6–30 m. As they approach the hill on the Medveditskaya ridge, the diameter of the tunnels increases from 22 to 35 meters, further - 80 m and already at the highest elevation the diameter of the cavities reaches 120 m, turning into a huge hall under the mountain. Three seven-meter tunnels leave from here at different angles.

Tunnel diagram Medveditskaya ridges, compiled by Vadim Chernobrov, Kosmompoisk

Some believe that the tunnels are still operational and are used as transport arteries and bases by UFO vehicles, although the latter are not necessarily their builders. It is not surprising that P. Mironichenko in his book “The Legend of LSP” believes that our entire country, including Crimea, Altai, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, is riddled with tunnels. All that remains is to discover their location. And this happens in most cases by accident.

Thus, a resident of the Liski village of Selyavnoye, Voronezh region, Evgeny Chesnokov, fell into a hole in a meadow, which turned out to be a cave with tunnels diverging in different directions, on the walls of which there were symbols depicted.

In the Caucasus, in a gorge near Gelendzhik, a vertical shaft has been known for a long time - straight as an arrow, with a diameter of about one and a half meters, a depth of 6 or 100 m. In addition, its feature is its smooth walls, as if melted. The study of their properties showed that the walls were subjected to a simultaneous thermal and mechanical effect, which created a crust 1–1.5 mm thick in the rock, giving it extremely durable properties that cannot be created even with today’s development of technology, and the melting of the walls indicates its technogenic origin. origin. In addition, an intense radiation background was noted in the mine. It is possible that this is one of the vertical shafts connecting to a horizontal tunnel running from this area in the Volga region to the Medveditskaya ridge.

Known; that in the post-war years (in 1950) a secret decree of the USSR Council of Ministers was issued on the construction of a tunnel across the Tatar Strait in order to connect the mainland by rail with the island. Sakhalin. Over time, the secrecy was lifted, and Doctor of Physical and Mechanical Sciences L. S. Berman, who worked there at that time, told in her memoirs to the Voronezh branch of Memorial that the builders were not so much building as they were restoring an already existing tunnel, laid in ancient times, extremely competently, taking into account the geology of the bottom of the strait. Mention was also made of strange finds in the tunnel - strange mechanisms and fossilized remains of animals. All this then disappeared into secret intelligence bases. So P. Miroshnichenko’s statements that our country and the Far East are riddled with tunnels are not without foundation. And this used tunnel, it is possible, leads further through the island. Sakhalin to Japan.

Now let's move to the region of Western Europe, in particular, to the border of Slovakia and Poland, to the Tatra Beskydy mountain range. Here rises the “Queen of the Beskids” - Mount Babia, 1725 m high. Since ancient times, the inhabitants of the surrounding area have kept the secret associated with this mountain. As one of the residents named Vincent said, in the 60s of the 20th century, together with his father, at his insistence, he went from the village to Babya Mountain. At an altitude of 600 m, together with their father, they moved one of the protruding rocks to the side, and a large entrance opened into which a cart with a horse could freely enter. The oval-shaped tunnel that opened was straight as an arrow, wide and so high that an entire train could fit in it. The smooth and shiny surface of the walls and floor seemed to be covered with glass. It was dry inside. A long path along an inclined tunnel led them to a spacious hall, shaped like a huge barrel. There were several tunnels in it, some of them were triangular in cross-section, others were round. According to Father Vincent, it turned out that through the tunnels from here you can get to different countries and different continents. The tunnel on the left leads to Germany, then to England and further to the American continent. The right tunnel stretches to Russia, to the Caucasus, then to China and Japan, and from there to America, where it connects with the left.

You can also get to America through other tunnels laid under the North and South Poles of the Earth. Along the path of each tunnel there are “junction stations” like this one. According to him, these tunnels are currently operational - UFO vehicles have been moving through them.

A report from England indicates that while digging a tunnel for household needs, miners heard the sounds of working mechanisms coming from below. When the rock mass was broken through, the miners discovered a staircase leading into the well, and the sounds of working mechanisms intensified. True, nothing more is reported about their further actions. But perhaps they accidentally discovered one of the vertical shafts of a horizontal tunnel coming from Germany. And the sounds of working mechanisms indicated its working condition.

The American continent is also rich in reports of the location of ancient tunnels. Andrew Thomas, a famous researcher, is convinced that ancient underground vertical and horizontal tunnels, again with burnt walls, have been preserved under America, and some of them are in perfect condition. The tunnels are straight as an arrow and penetrate the entire continent. One of the nodes where several mines converge is Mount Shasta in California. From it the paths lead to the states of California and New Mexico. This is confirmed by the incident that happened with the spouses Iris and Nick Marshall, who, in the vicinity of the small Californian town of Bishop in a mountainous area called Caso Diablo, entered a cave, the walls and floor of which were unusually even and smooth, as if polished to a mirror shine. Strange hieroglyphic writings were drawn on the walls and ceiling. On one of the walls there were small holes from which weak rays of light streamed. Then they heard a strange noise coming from underground, as a result of which they hastily left the room. Perhaps they accidentally discovered one of the entrances to the underground tunnel, which turned out to be active.

In 1980, not far from the coast of California, a huge hollow space was discovered, extending several hundred meters into the interior of the continent. It is possible that one of the junction stations of the underground tunnels was discovered.

The presence of tunnels is also evidenced by the fact that nuclear tests carried out at great depths at a well-known test site in Nevada gave an unexpected effect. Two hours later in Canada, at one of the military bases at a distance of 2000 km from the Nevada test site, a radiation level 20 times higher than normal was recorded. How could this happen? It turned out that next to the base there was a huge cave, which was part of a huge system of caves and tunnels on the continent. In 1963, while digging a tunnel, we came across a huge door behind which marble steps descended. Perhaps this was another entrance to the tunnel system. Unfortunately, it is unknown where this happened.

But in Idaho, anthropologist James McKean explored a large cave and advanced several hundred meters along a wide stone tunnel before he was stopped by the unbearable smell of sulfur, the terrible remains of human skeletons and a distinct noise from the depths. As a result, the research had to be stopped.

On the territory of Mexico, in one of the most deserted and sparsely populated areas, the ancient cave of Satano de las Golondrinas is noted, which is more than a kilometer deep and several hundred meters wide. Its steep walls are absolutely flat and smooth. And its bottom is a real labyrinth of various “rooms”, “passages” and tunnels, diverging at this depth in different directions. One of the nodes of intercontinental tunnels?

South America does not lag behind North America in terms of tunnels. In the course of recent research by Professor E. von Denikin, many kilometers of tunnels were discovered under the surface of the Nazca Desert, through which clean water still flows.

And in June 1965, in Ecuador, the Argentine researcher Juan Moritz in the province of Morona-Santiago, within the territory outlined by the cities of Galaquisa - San Antonio - Yopi, discovered and mapped an unknown system of underground tunnels and ventilation shafts with a total length of hundreds kilometers. The entrance to the tunnel system looks like a neat cutout in the rock, about the size of a barn door. The descent onto successively located horizontal platforms leads to a depth of 230 m. There are tunnels of rectangular cross-section, varying widths with turns at an angle of 90 degrees. The walls are smooth, as if glazed or polished. Ventilation shafts with a diameter of about 70 cm and rooms the size of a concert hall are located strictly periodically. It was discovered that in the center of one of them there is a structure like a table and seven “thrones” made of an unknown material similar to plastic. Near the “throne” place, large figures of fossil lizards, elephants, crocodiles, lions, camels, bison, bears, monkeys, wolves, jaguars and even crabs and snails were found cast in gold. In the same room there is a “library” of several thousand embossed metal plates measuring 96x48 cm with some kind of icons. Each plate is stamped in a special way. H. Moritz also found a stone “amulet” (11x6 cm) with the image of a figure of a man standing on a globe.

The tunnels and halls are replete with piles of gold items (discs, plates, huge “necklaces”) with various designs and symbols. There are images of dinosaurs carved on the walls. On the plates there are images of pyramids made of blocks. And the pyramid symbol is adjacent to snakes flying (not crawling!) in the sky. Hundreds of such images have been found. Some records reflect astronomical concepts and ideas of space travel.

Without a doubt, the discovery made by H. Moritz to some extent lifts the curtain on who built the tunnels, their level of knowledge and approximately the era when this happened (they saw dinosaurs).

And already in 1976, a joint Anglo-Ecuadorian expedition examined one of the underground tunnels in the Los Tayos area, on the border of Peru and Ecuador. A room was discovered there, where there was also a table surrounded by chairs with backs more than two meters high, made of an unknown material. The other room was a long hall with a narrow passage in the middle. Along its walls were shelves with ancient books, thick tomes - about 400 pages each. The pages of the volumes, made of pure gold, were filled with an incomprehensible script.

Of course, the creators used tunnels and halls not only for movement, but also as repositories of valuable information designed for a long time. It is clear that these premises are no longer in use.

An expedition of speleologists in 1971 in Peru discovered caves, the entrance to which was blocked by rock blocks. Having overcome them, the researchers discovered at a depth of about 100 m a huge hall, the floor of which was laid out with blocks with a special relief. On the (again) polished walls were incomprehensible inscriptions resembling hieroglyphs. Numerous tunnels ran in different directions from the hall. Some of them lead towards the sea, under the water and continue at its bottom.

Thus, we apparently encountered another junction station.

On the other hand, a section of the torus chain stretching from La Poma to Cayafate (Argentina) near the city of Cacho is currently exposed to high levels of radioactivity and soil electrification, vibration and microwave radiation, according to research by scientists from the Equal Biophysical Institute Omar José and Jorge Dilletain , held in June 2003. They believe that this phenomenon is man-made and is a consequence of the operation of certain technical devices (machines) located underground at a depth of many kilometers. Perhaps these are underground workings, currently used as work spaces.

The reports from Chile are absolutely amazing. In November 1972, at the request of the government of S. Allende, a Soviet complex expedition arrived in Chile with mining specialists Nikolai Popov and Efim Chubarin to examine and the possibility of resuming the work of old ore mines for copper production, which the republic needed. Experts went to the mountains to a forgotten deposit located 40 km from the city of Chichuana.

Having cleared the heavily blocked entrance to the mine, Popov and Chubarin walked several tens of meters and discovered a passage going down at an angle of 10 degrees. The passage had a diameter of one and a half meters with a wavy surface. Our specialists decided to examine the passage, and after 80 meters it turned horizontal and led to a large excavation rich in copper veins. They stretched for at least hundreds of meters.

But it turned out that the veins had already been mined, and using a high-tech method: the waste rock remained untouched, no collapses or debris. A little further, experts saw copper ingots, the shape and size of which resembled ostrich eggs, collected in piles of 40–50 pieces at a distance of 25–30 steps from each other. Then they saw a snake-like mechanism - a harvester about a meter in diameter and 5-6 meters long. The snake fell on the copper vein and literally sucked out the veins of copper from the walls of the tunnel. But it was not possible to observe for a long time, since new snake-like mechanisms of a smaller size appeared - with a diameter of about 20 cm and a length of 1.5–2 m. Apparently, they penetrated into places inaccessible to a large mechanism, and also performed a protective function against unwanted visitors.

Now let’s remember the chemical composition of UFOs, which are 90 percent copper. And it is possible that our specialists accidentally discovered one of the copper deposits being developed by UFO representatives for their needs to repair and create new types of UFO devices, one of whose bases is located in the mountains of South America. However, this also makes it possible to understand how large tunnels with their shiny, polished walls were created.

Thus, the legends about the presence of an extensive system of underground tunnels in South America are not without foundation, and it is absolutely possible that the Incas hid the gold and jewelry, the search for which the conquistadors devoted hundreds of years to, in underground tunnels in the Andes, the center of which is located near the ancient capital Cusco, and they stretch for many hundreds of kilometers not only under the territory of Peru, but also the Equator, Chile and Bolivia. But the wife of the last Inca ruler ordered the entrances to be walled up. Thus, the deep past is adjacent and intertwined with the events of the recent present.

Southeast Asia also does not suffer from the lack of ancient tunnels. The famous Shambhala is located in numerous caves in Tibet, connected by underground passages and tunnels, with its initiates, who are in the state of “samadhi” (neither alive nor dead), sitting in the lotus position in them for many hundreds of thousands of years. The finished tunnels were also used for other purposes - preserving the Earth's gene pool and core values. It was repeatedly mentioned, from the words of initiates who have access to those in the state of “samadhi,” about the unusual means of transportation stored there and about tunnels with absolutely smooth walls.

In Hunan Province of China, on the southern shore of Lake Dongting, southwest of the city of Wuhan, next to one of the circular pyramids, Chinese archaeologists discovered a buried passage that led them to an underground labyrinth. Its stone walls turned out to be very smooth and carefully processed, which gave scientists grounds to exclude their natural origin. One of the many symmetrically arranged passages led archaeologists to a large underground hall, the walls and ceiling of which were covered with many drawings. One of the drawings depicts a hunting scene, and above were creatures (gods?) “in modern clothes” sitting in a round ship, very similar to a UFO apparatus. People with spears are chasing the beast, and “supermen” flying above them are aiming at the target with objects that look like guns.

Another design consists of 10 balls at equal distances from each other, placed around the center, and resembles a diagram of the solar system, with the third ball (Earth) and the fourth (Mars) connected by a line in the form of a loop. This speaks of some kind of connection between Earth and Mars. Scientists have determined the age of the nearby pyramids to be 45,000 years.

But the tunnels could have been built much earlier and were only used by subsequent inhabitants of the Earth.

But in the north-west of China, in the desert and sparsely populated area of ​​Qinghui Province, in Tibet, not far from the city of Ikh-Tsaidam, Mount Baigong rises with nearby fresh and salt lakes. On the southern shore of the Toson salt lake, a lonely rock with caves rises 60 meters; in one of them, with smooth and smooth, obviously artificial walls, a rust-covered pipe with a diameter of 40 cm protrudes obliquely from the upper part of the wall, another pipe goes underground, and at the entrance to the cave there are 12 more pipes of smaller diameter - from 10 to 40 cm. They are located parallel to each other. On and near the shore of the lake you can see many iron pipes protruding from the rocks and sand, 2–4.5 cm in diameter and oriented from east to west. There are tubes with an even smaller cross-section - only a few millimeters, but none of them are clogged inside. Such pipes were also found in the lake itself - protruding outward or hidden in the depths. When studying the composition of the pipes, it turned out that they contain 30 percent iron oxide, a large amount of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide. The composition indicates long-term oxidation of iron and indicates the very ancient origin of the pipes.

Everyone knows the pyramids and ruins of ancient temples on the Giza plateau in Egypt. But little is known about what lies beneath the surface of the earth. Recent research by scientists shows that huge unexplored underground structures are hidden under the pyramids inside the plateau, and scientists suggest that the network of tunnels extends over tens of kilometers and stretches both towards the Red Sea and towards the Atlantic Ocean. Now let’s remember the results of a study in South America of tunnels going under the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean... Perhaps they are moving towards each other.

Evgeny Vorobyov

The oldest underground tunnels penetrating the entire planet! Who created them?

Tunnels underground between continents - documentary film

In the beginning there was Sablino.

Introduction.

I want you, as in my time and for me, to begin your acquaintance with the dungeons of the Leningrad region with Sablino. This place seems specially adapted for this - you start with a walk through the canyon, then get acquainted with the caves, immerse yourself in their world, study, communicate with your own kind.

So you can become your own here and the cave will almost be your home, and, like every house, on the one hand, it attracts and binds you to itself, and on the other, it gradually becomes boring and trivial.

At this stage, most cavers stop. But if at some point the labyrinth of caves becomes too small for you and you want to go beyond their boundaries, then Sablino can give you a clue so that you understand: there are more important things and many times cooler than any caves. Our travels are more likely to have a philosophical rather than a local history bent, so I don’t want to reduce them to the level of geological excursions, especially since K. Khazanovich did this well before me, whose book, although not without inaccuracies, is still generally available, you probably once already read. However, knowledge of rocks and their properties is mandatory for a spelestologist, and to get acquainted with our business we will need some information on geology and mining. I am forced to do this by the extremely meager level of knowledge even among the public crawling around Sablino.

But don't feel bad: if you were to come with us physically, you might have to dig in, learning all this hands-on. Unlike some (they'll get the hint!), I accurately counted the number of caves, and we'll get to know almost every one. It is very difficult for me to write about Sablino, not only because this place is quite famous, and you will not allow me to lie too much, but also because it was from here that our history began, here is a kind of singularity point, from where, as a result of some cataclysm, the There are very unusual people and deeds around the world.

First we will walk along the right bank of the Tosny, then the left. For those who know nothing at all, a few touches for the overall picture. The Tosna River, on the eve of the cliff, forms a real canyon, with steep, often sheer banks composed of crimson, red, yellow sandstones, and, alas, gray limestones. The canyon of the Sablinka River looks about the same, maybe even steeper. Each river has a waterfall, they are worth seeing. I think you don’t see waterfalls in the Leningrad region every day, so I advise you to take a look.

Tosnensky, or more correctly Gertovsky waterfall, arose on the site of a dam, they say, the first in St. Petersburg. province of the hydroelectric power station, the ruins of which can be seen all around him, they are in the remains of walls reminiscent of fortresses, and in the remains of the canal, and in the skeletons of houses a little further downstream. Take a close look at a piece of the wall, an ancient one that fell on board a ship, lying in the riverbed. What wild force threw him here? In summer, Tosna can be crossed directly above the waterfall - here it is no deeper than 30 cm, and below it - a little more, and most of the boulders, debris, slabs and other obstacles stick out from the flow bubbling between them.

Calm and lazy during low water, the Tosna literally goes berserk during the flood, turning into a roaring, raging mountain river, on the rapids of which it can smash any vessel into pieces, drown, grind, as if in a ball mill, in barrels under a waterfall, where a mixture of water, stones, air, its inhabitants, and throw the remains further, down the graters of the rapids - there are any number of such cases. In particular, our boat Glyukalo ended its days there (I, as always, was not in it, thank God), which drowned two people to death - Marinka and Vaska in Losevo, and tried two more on Tosnya. Later they found only a piece of skin and a string that was all twisted and riddled like bullets. Such is the power of the Gertovsky Falls.

Introducing the Darkness.

We breathe air and often do not notice that it has a smell. We do not know that it is possible to distinguish shades of pitch darkness. When we enter, or rather walk, into the mouth of the cave, we are enveloped in thick, all-consuming darkness, its quantity is infinite, and no flashlight is able to illuminate it completely. It’s as if she’s lifting the lid off our skull and filling the space inside our head with a pressing, ringing emptiness. We will spend a few minutes in darkness and silence, only going a little deeper to escape the power of daylight; the border between two worlds is always sharp - just one step and you are there, one step and you are here.

This is called adaptation - the eyes, ears, all feelings, consciousness and mind get used to the world that is opposite to the daytime, in general alien to life, but close to what happened before and what will happen after. If you go even further, the darkness will become absolute, but this does not mean that you cannot see anything in it. In Sablino, after good adaptation, you will be able to distinguish different shades of darkness - you can distinguish a human figure against the background of a wall, or a blacker passage against the background of a black wall. The effect is absolutely real, it can be used to escape without light - there is even such a training: a person is left with only 3 - a counted number of matches, and he must independently leave the most remote part of the cave in complete darkness.

If you sit like this for several hours, glitches will begin. Most often there are distant female voices, although there are also musical images: I once heard a naval choir perform “Varyag”. It’s better not to wait for visual visions; if they come, they may never leave. Soft sand on your feet dampens footsteps, but sound travels well through the rock, and any knock can be felt by your feet or body many tens of meters away.

When you enter a cave, you often feel whether someone is there or not, not by sound or smell, but rather by a feeling of emptiness or busyness. When you return back, the change in sensations is different than on the way there. First, you will feel a barely noticeable heat wave on your face, or the quality of the inhaled air will subtly change in some way - it will become what is usually called fresh, but, strangely, it does not seem like that - the air turns out to be filled with smells and seems more familiar, familiar , like the smell of home, where you return after a long journey, than fresh. Still, our house is the surface, and not what is below it...

Beach walker, or a small excursion for beginners.

When a person approaches the Sablinsky caves from the station or looks at the canyon, the first thing that attracts his attention is an orange-yellow rock mass, with bizarre ledges, columns, grottoes; this is the Beach Man. This is a favorite place for rock climbing training, so in winter and summer it is often hung with ropes on which some people climb.

On this cliff we need to trace the geology of nearby places, without this it will be difficult for us to explain further. So, let's start analyzing the layer cake from bottom to top.

At a height of about a meter above the Tosny level lies a local aquifer - a layer of clay; Springs flow from this level. Above are sandstones of the Silurian time: grayish-bluish, with a high content of clay particles, their thickness is about a meter, then white quartz sandstone is an industrial horizon, a local mineral used in the glass industry - it was for its extraction that all the local caves were cut down. Its thickness varies - from 4 m in Pomoika to 1 m. It does not lie evenly everywhere: sometimes it forms lenses - thickenings, or, on the contrary, disappears and bends into folds. Caves, or rather workings, sensitively monitor the quality and quantity of white sand: where there is a lot of it, the workings are large and there are many of them; where there is little of it, the workings are narrow, as if in a hurry to quickly leave a poor place. Even higher, the color of the sandstone becomes creamy or pinkish, and the higher you go, the greater the density of the red color. The upper layers are already dark crimson, their thickness can reach 10 meters or more, they are unsuitable for glass production. Above the sandstones there is armoring - a layer of Ordovician limestones, in the form of slabs, which cavemen call flagstone, and stonemasons call rubble. The thickness of one slab is usually 10-15 cm, and the thickness of the entire layer is up to half a meter. This is true only for the cave area - at the Gertovsky Falls, which is several kilometers up, the picture is completely different. Above the rubble, there are still weakly cemented sands and sandstones, but they are of little concern to us, the main thing above is a few meters of moraine Quaternary soils, and that’s all: the level, as we say, is “mirrors of grass.”

I told this only so that you can laugh in the face of those who will screw your brains about passages under rivers and second tiers that you can supposedly get into from caves, like me.

We are interested in Plyazhnik as the location of a number of interesting, albeit small, caves. There is no need to look for the entrances here - they are visible from a distance, many are convinced that the main Sablin caves are located here. Having been caught up in the grandiose size of the entrances and their picturesqueness, the visitor will most likely be disappointed: a few short galleries and sand-covered skins - that’s all he will see here. Naturally, like everything that gets on these pages, there is a secret, even two.

Once upon a time, at the dawn of our search activities, we inherited from our predecessors several maps of caves, well made: Pomoika scale 1:200, Trekhglazka, Plyazhnik and Mechta scale 1:100. But if the Trash corresponded quite well to its map, Three-Eyes was one to one with its map, except for one little thing, there were difficulties with the Dream, about which a little later, then it was surprising that the Beach Man’s map had nothing in common with the real caves, not being compared with any with one of them. Therefore, we began to examine the Beach Man, to the great surprise of the voluntary hangers, accustomed to a monopoly on their rocks.

I will tell you one case that can serve as an illustration of gravitational growth - the process that creates the modern form of caves. If you don't know how caves are formed, then a cave for you will remain just a place where it is dark and dirty. So, many years ago we climbed into Plyazhnik through an arched entrance that yawned in the cliff. Behind the entrance there is a large domed hall stretched along the entrance gallery. It is large enough to accommodate a kayak, a rubber boat, their crews and a mountain of equipment - checked. A low hole leads out of the hall, a typical selfish hole, to the right. Behind the skinner is a human-sized gallery; parallel to the input. On the side of the cliff there was a slightly littered second entrance to the Plyazhnik system, and the opposite side ended in an obvious dead end.

The gallery gave the impression of a well-preserved, uncollapsed shape, close to rectangular, and its end was almost vertical - just the end of the cabin. It was somewhat confusing that all the workings were made of white sandstone, and this one was already in red, and that the skinny tunnel through which we crawled here was once the same well-preserved gallery of human height. These are all skins with the original rocky, white or red ceiling, and sandy floor, but this will become clear later. In the meantime, we, still novice spelestologists, decided to dig archaeologically into a dead end, obeying more instinct than common sense.

Somewhere at a depth of 30 cm below the modern floor in the sand, we came across a certain wooden structure, the purpose of which we did not immediately understand: 2 thick pillars and a rotten, but still strong board - a crossbar. The first, not very smart thought was that this was a bench on which the soldiers who supervised the work of the convict miners rested. Continuing the clearing, we realized to our surprise that we had found the remains of a support called a full door frame: 2 posts and a top board. That is, the real ceiling of the mine was 30 cm below its modern floor!!! It turned out that the excavation had grown by more than 2 meters in 100 or 200 years, and the shape of the new, secondary cave closely repeated the original one. But the skinner, either because he was already there, or for some other reason, did not grow so much. The hall at the entrance has grown even more - its height is 4 meters. And only God knows how many of these selfish people who remained below the level of the modern floor are still there.

Halls, galleries, and drifts hidden in such a natural way are a common thing for sand quarries. To do this, it is enough that different parts of it grow upward at different speeds. Moreover, unlike collapses, which leave a trace in the form of collapse cones - tongues of collapsed rock protruding from the remains of galleries, from which one can always tell where at least there was a continuation - in our case everything happens without a trace. Therefore, when you see a small cave in sandstone, do not believe it. It can actually be very big. It just lies lower and to the side. You just need to find which one. In old quarries, the galleries and halls that we see lie, as a rule, several meters higher than those that were originally dug: the vault gradually, tile by tile, grain of sand, or all at once collapses to the floor, thereby performing an elementary act of growth, or ascent. Everything is as it should be: the heavy falls, the light floats up. This is a kind of Archimedes' law (remember this name! - we have our own Archimedes, he also has a law; but now we mean the one who is Greek).

Most often, the cavity that arises as a result of ascent, or scientifically, gravitational growth, retains a portrait resemblance to the one that gave birth to it, but not necessarily. You should especially know that the entrance part grows the fastest; this leads to self-clogging of caves, the deep part of which may be in good condition. On Sablinka there are small caves “Fox Holes”, which have already grown to the butte, having passed through all the layers of sandstone, 6 meters or more. It may very well be that they are not really small at all. They may be directly related to what appears in the legends about the 12th cliff and the partisans. I personally once had the opportunity to participate in the excavation of one of the Fox holes. We dismantled a meter or a meter and a half and saw a vault going steeply at a negative angle.

In search of Big Pearls.

Zhemchuga, or Zhemchuzhnaya, is the most famous cave of Sablino. Most visitors only know it, which is correct to some extent, since Zhemchuzhnaya is an exemplary cave. I do not consider the Shtany Cave separately, which, of course, is completely independent, has its own unique pattern, its own unforgettable topology, because it is connected to Zhemchuzhnaya through the Pipe, and in the past they represented a single array of developments.

The legend about large Pearls excites the minds of all novice cavers. It says that previously the Pearls extended all the way to Nikolskoye, to the Sokol gunpowder factory. Then the distant tunnels and drifts going towards Sokol were blown up by sappers, and have been cut off ever since. From time to time, Sablino is shaken by another heartbreaking revelation from one of the cave dwellers, however, always the same ones. The stories are different, but the essence is always the same: someone, not being completely sober, climbed, crawled, dived into a certain passage, and ended up in Big Pearls, where he walked 1, 2, 3 and so on kilometers, and, As a rule, he got out somewhere in Nikolskoye, in the middle of a field. Well, since it was due to drunkenness, naturally, they cannot remember and show, even approximately.

Exactly the same stories are told in Pomoika, where they walk underground to Popovka, to Kolpino, under the Izhora plant, or at least to the station. If the narrator’s horizons exceed Sablino and its environs, then the action of his stories is transferred to other places, new toponyms appear, but the plots are surprisingly similar: he walked again, crawled, fell through, dived, and I never remember where. Knowing very well the value of such stories, the drunken cavemen listen attentively, nod, and believe themselves, just as hunters and fishermen believe their stories. Today they tell you, tomorrow you will tell you how you failed somewhere. It’s just very difficult not to believe when people whom you know well, with whom you may have been in various troubles, who are quite honest in other things, lie so shamelessly when it comes to caves and especially underground passages. This is not an occupational disease of cave dwellers; all people who are questioned on this topic behave the same way. I even formulated the rules by which any stories about caves and passages are formed. They are in the application.

Laughter is laughter, but the reality is that Pearls do not follow the contour. This technique is used to determine the outer boundaries of the labyrinth. Consistently, dead end after dead end, nook after nook, blockage after blockage, regardless of dirt, danger, water - the entire cave is walked in a row along the right or left wall. Or it doesn’t, then the cave is considered not closed, and the question of its continuation is legitimate.

Huge, multi-meter halls and galleries in Zhemchugi, usually secondary - resulting from gravitational growth, are often entirely made up of limestone skinners. The chaotically falling slabs formed a fairly rigid structure, which for the time being holds itself together and holds the entire thickness of the rock above itself. The gaps between the slabs are often sufficient for a person to crawl through, and are approximately oriented along the former galleries. The properties of these places are indicated by their names: “meat grinder”, “guillotine”, “fly swatter”, “tram”. The name "tram" is associated with the passage algorithm - like a tram during rush hour. So, there are a great many of these “trams” and “meat grinders” of varying degrees of passability and danger, and this picture changes from year to year, something collapses, something, on the contrary, opens. Here we must also add clay rubble, siphons and other cave abominations that are partially passable along the edge.

It is believed that the total length of the Pearl passages is 5.5 km, but this is still a matter of calculation; it is more correct to estimate such quarry caves by the area of ​​the mine field - it is about 10 hectares. It is impossible to rule out that one day someone will get lucky and stumble upon an unknown section of the labyrinth; it happens. Sometimes, to do this, you just need to deviate from the canon, and walk differently than everyone else. Cave explorers think with their feet and there is even a saying that a speleologist’s main tool is his butt. Having walked through the labyrinth several times along a certain route, a person subsequently navigates practically with his feet - due to motor memory. And this is good, because in this case the consciousness is freed from the need to track every step, which is generally useless. The only bad thing is that your attention is occupied by all sorts of nonsense, as when you are idly wandering along the street.

If you have heard or read somewhere about how people, in order not to get lost, pull a string behind them, count turns, or mark each drift according to some very clever system such as the Tremo rules - then this is a slander against cavers. Usually they don’t think about the road at all - they just go where they need to go, like in the city, even better. There is even a saying: “This is not a cave, you can get lost here.” Yes, sometimes in a new, very large, or branched system you have to make markings, they do it even when motor memory fails, when you start to be led in circles, and you can’t jump out to the right place. A calm mind, a certain amount of time, and preferably light - all you need to get out if you get lost. All algorithms boil down to not visiting one place more than twice. Those who love ropes, and almost every cave is entangled with traces of their presence, will sooner or later face punishment, but more on that later.

Walking through the cave you always repeat one of your routes, like the famous blind miner's horse. But if you go very slowly and carefully, better alone, although this is prohibited by TB, as if for the first time, you can see a lot of things that were not noticed before. It is important not to use an already established image of an object, to destroy identification with it. We also contributed to the search for the Big Pearls, and - I confess! - even passing under the river. Although, to be honest, I only poked my head into the meat grinders a couple of times somewhere behind the “Bar”, and left this activity.

I explored all the caves on my own, without guides - it was a matter of principle, while I still knew none of the cave explorers, only my colleague Uncle Seryozha. Lieutenant and Tanker, who, I hope, have the best memories of Sablino, also helped me. Later, Uncle Seryozha and I founded the Pilgrims team. And when I was left alone, I automatically accepted the team name. We rarely used the map of Pearls, which is in circulation among the people, because it has little in common with the real cave. A real map is always made in 3 projections: plan, section, section; it indicates blockages and must be adjusted annually. And according to the Zhemchugov map, you can’t even distinguish the blockage from the end of the mine, and it became popular later, in connection with the idea of ​​searching...

And now I need to make a small lyrical digression about saberism and cave morals.

Cave dwellers love jokes, for example the following: In a cave with a sandy floor, in a busy place, preferably where you have to run on all fours, a hole 40-50 cm deep is dug, an inflated balloon or a substitute product is placed in it, after which the hole is carefully filled up sand, compared and masked. The trap is ready. Now a man running quickly on four bones hits it with his front paws, the ball explodes with a deafening crash, and a pile of sand hits his face. The day before, we need to tell more scary stories about Bely, ghosts; then, or in parallel, someone pulls a thread at chest level in a fairly distant hall, and a burning candle is attached to it. The thread is not visible from a distance and the candle seems to be floating freely in the air. When you suddenly see such a sight, it is very impressive. A group of dummies, no less than 15 people, are led into a complex labyrinth, led for quite a long time so that their attention is dulled, and they forget who was following whom, and imperceptibly loop the tail of the group to its head, and the leader himself secretly crawls away and watches the crowd rush around circle. The person sleeping in a closed sleeping bag is carefully dragged into a narrow skinner, where one can barely squeeze through, and left there. Upon awakening, a sea of ​​impressions from the life of those buried alive awaits him. Having seen a fresh rope on which someone is walking, its end is removed away from the entrance, and if possible, closed in a circle. This is the best way to teach rope walkers a lesson.

There are a lot of interesting jokes involving burying entrances, and in general we have a lot of imagination. It is important to observe a sense of proportion, otherwise sometimes chemical wars, arson, explosions of ceilings, and other, to put it mildly, unsafe games begin. I will cite only one, and not for repetition. It's called a fire drift. In a certain gallery, gasoline is spilled on the floor, and additional gasoline is sprayed in the form of an aerosol, then, of course, it is set on fire. A volumetric explosion occurs, such as in the famous vacuum bombs, equated to weapons of mass destruction.

Cave dwellers have their own traditions and rituals, and as a rule they do not violate them. Almost every cave has the grave of the White Speleologist. Who is White, why are his graves made, how to behave so as not to bring his wrath upon your head, and many other legends about him will be told to you, but only in the cave. This is not accepted at the top. After entering the cave, go to the grave and sit next to it. There are usually different things on the mound: matches, cigarettes, candle stubs - you can’t touch them, they belong to White. Light a candle and share with White matches, smokes, whatever you are rich in. If you drink wine, don't forget to pour it for White. The belongings of dead cave dwellers are also brought here. In ’83 we gave Bely Marinka’s flashlight, in ’84 Valentin’s (Bes) helmet.

The destruction and desecration of Bely’s grave is severely punished according to cave laws, not only by people, but also by himself. This is a warning for "archaeologists" and "materialists". Something might happen to you. After resting near the grave, remember Bely - with this you remember all the dead cave dwellers, and move on on your way. Leave the candle and let it burn...

At first we played magic with the map, trying to understand their original appearance from the drawings of the surviving galleries and calculate in which direction the continuation was likely. The map of Zhemchugov somehow reminded me of the map of the former USSR, and, as if planning an escape from the Sovdepia, which had reached its senseless, drunken apogee, having just buried the next tsar, we applied a ruler to the map, building straight arrows that burst out beyond the boundaries of the mine field, far ahead, under fields, to freedom, further, further...

The whole country froze on top of the red wheel, which, having exhausted its energy, froze for a few moments before starting to move, not yet clearly forward or backward, but definitely downward, with acceleration. Almost everyone understood or felt that we would soon be carried away, and many took measures. Growing up, the next generation had to grow into society, accepting it, or, to one degree or another, develop an alternative way of life and belief system - and there is nothing overly complicated about this. Some people preferred the “system” - an environment ideal for lazy city dwellers, and those who were of a different type, did not look like foreign hippies, and knew how to put on a backpack - went into tourism, into the mountains, into the catacombs. Literally.

This was not a flight, it was more of a guerrilla war. Free cavemen, oh, how they could show themselves - from any side. The level of training of the underground brethren was quite high. These people were hardy, not afraid of dirt, they knew how to do a lot and looked down on the city’s “candy” public. Of course, sophistication and intelligence were not the most valued qualities here, but their bearers could also find their ecological niche here.

Up to 300 people, grouped into teams and groups, lived in the underground labyrinths of Sablino in 82-84. It was the abode of freedom. Perhaps there were informers here too, but I didn’t know of a case where anyone got hurt. The teams were more often generalists - they not only went to caves, but also engaged in different types of tourism: water, mountain, speleo, hiking, and went on expeditions. They were attracted to Sablino not only as a very beautiful, unique place where there are rocks, caves and a river, but also as the center of crystallization of a unique society, mirror-symmetrical relative to the earth’s surface to what remained in the city. Some teams resembled combat detachments and had some kind of discipline, others, on the contrary, were particularly careless. There were also people who walked on their own, without joining any teams. Usually they enjoyed great authority, among them there were those who were fanatically devoted to the caves, who knew every corner, every selfish person perfectly.

I will give a number of names of teams and groups that were there over the years: Byaki, Grands, Edelweiss, Atas, Razdolbai, Sadists, Shafts, Pilgrims, Bats, Kamikazes and many others. Sometimes the teams lived peacefully, sometimes quarrels broke out between them. Sometimes very cruel, combative. Relations with the locals, who had their own views of the caves, were also difficult. There were different things, but I tried to maintain correct relationships with everyone.

As soon as Friday came, already at the Moscow station at the “head” (then still Lenin, now the same function is probably performed by the head of Peter I) a joyful revival reigned: strange-looking people with ermak or sausage-shaped backpacks - transport workers, in overalls and helmets , bawled songs to the accompaniment of guitars and drank port wine, sometimes straight from their helmets. The circus continued on the train, on the bus, on the drunken slide, and reached its apotheosis in the cave. Then followed a lull during the day, and in the evening the second shift arrived, armed with heavy landmines, and the orgy continued.

The cave, empty on weekdays, came to life. Cozy halls, dead ends, and habitable parking areas were filled with people, sleeping bags were laid out, “tables” were set, and humming primus stoves were lit. Almost 48 hours of strange life, in darkness, traveling from fire to fire, from one site to another - one cave day.

Each team had their favorite habitats where their camp was located. After drinking libations, they visited each other and wandered around the caves. In a number of well-known, remote places: in the Kitchen, in the Bar, in the Zaozernaya part of the Garbage, a special notebook was usually placed, we called it SUPERTALMUD. In this Talmud, everyone wrote whatever came into their heads, from the banal “there were such and such, hello everyone!” to very sophisticated writings with pictures. I do not undertake to retell their contents: they must be published as a facsimile copy and sold at auction. A Russian-cave dictionary and phrasebook should also be published.

So that I won’t be reproached for idealizing saberism, let’s pour a couple of buckets of slop on the cave heads. If we take the purely eventful plan of Sablinsky’s life and existence, then everything will be quite boring: we got ready, drove off, made some noise along the way, climbed in, set up camp, ate and drank, climbed, bastardized, signed up and left. Naturally, there are also adventures: a chance meeting, a treat, or, on the contrary, a fight, unexpected joy for no reason, or an attack of shovelism - people gave up digging for something. Yes, of course, plans are made here, expeditions and hikes are thought out, sometimes interesting people and just old acquaintances meet here, and finally, there are many secrets here, but still this is the exception rather than the rule. Often, psycho-emotional hunger, boredom and a thirst for thrills, which does not leave some even in caves, and the inability to find any meaningful activity, push people to recklessness.

Many cavers and tourists love to take risks, and if they do it in their right mind, then it is their right. Often this is done more demonstratively, for example, by drawing a target on the back and writing “KAMIKADZE”. They say that in Moscow one of the cave dwellers, “moles” as they are called there, walked around Moscow in overalls painted with skeletons, the inscriptions “I am looking for death” and so on... Later he shot himself in the forehead, but the bullet got stuck. That's how it goes. They also show a rubble where the hands of a skeleton stick out from the slabs - they could not pull out the deceased. Someone is looking for and does not find, but she finds someone herself. Such a living, or rather dead example.

Some schools of speleologists consider working with quarries dangerous, and worse, useless. Thousand-meter underground abysses with wells and siphons seem safer and more useful to them. We believe that they are simply very different things that require different training (and mindsets).

Despite the simply fantastic disregard for TB, thank God, no one has been killed in Sablino yet, but the mortality rate among tourists and cavers is quite high. The main causes of accidents are kayak accidents and falls from heights. Few years passed without sad events. I thought a lot and tried to understand the reasons for these accidents and accidents - how many people can you lose almost every year, turning your life into an almost continuous chain of funerals and wakes, wondering who is next. Let's not disturb the dead, all our words have no meaning, and can hardly even serve as a warning. Who has the right to judge and teach? If I say that adherence to TB, sobriety and attentiveness will allow you to avoid situations in which our friends died, will you become like that? And if you do, then you will be labeled as a “reinsurer”, not in LSP, of course, but in almost any company.

The game called “tourism” has its own rules, according to one of which someone must sometimes die, and the rest must organize rescue teams and beautiful funeral rituals, with standing up for the third toast, helmets in a circle, etc., which gives this activity has a romantic connotation and provides an inexhaustible number of topics for conversation. This is not the worst of games, because for many ordinary life is such that it makes sense only if it is constantly compared with death, and therefore the guys do not miss the opportunity to poke their noses into places where there is at least the slightest chance of breaking their necks. Thanks to this game, I learned to appreciate life and much more, and I still believe that for a modern person, tourism is one of the few activities that does not make him worse. But my observations show that in the tourist environment there is a psychological demand for emergencies, accidents, rescue teams, etc., and therefore those who like to break their necks, as well as those who unobtrusively provoke them to do this, have neither my sympathy, much less approval. This is the position of LSP. Nobody will extol those who stick their heads under the slabs as heroes, and they will be treated the same way as sappers treat those who like to dismantle mines, they will be called the most decent thing - CRAZY - crazy, as it is written on the helmet that hangs on the grave a guy who died in the Nikitsky quarries near Moscow. In LSP, only success in finding and digging through old dungeons is valued, plus something else.

Why am I telling all this? When the whole country is on edge, when thousands of people are dying in civil wars, who is interested in the games of young people ten years ago? Well, first of all, I introduce you to the catacombs and their life, and therefore to the morals of their inhabitants. Secondly, what is happening now is not forever, and it does not affect everyone; people will still leave the city and society for the forests and catacombs, and I would like to believe, not with machine guns. Thirdly, people in society play the same games. Having lived for a year in this panopticon, then in another - called "LSP", I was sure for a long time that I was participating in the performance of a "parody of society", but recently I realized that everywhere: both in the city and in Sablino, there is one and the same performance, called "parody of life." And I am grateful to the gloomy but free catacombs for the unique, absurd experience of a strange life, which is still unexpectedly useful to me.

There is no point in hanging around there for too long, otherwise you can become covered with calcite bark, overgrown with moss, and gradually turn into, at best, an exhibit or an underground jester entertaining visiting tourists. This life was, of course, more interesting than the city life of those years, but, by and large, it was just a pastime, like the life of the hippie system, etc. organizations. Many saber players understood this - and expected something else. In addition, the Sablin system was supported by a thin layer of the old cave guard, which had a concept of honor and preserved traditions. As she left, the system instantly degenerated, and by the time in question there was little left of it. I wanted to preserve the undoubted achievements of Sablinism: a unique style and way of life, simple and brown, incorporating the traditions of old tourism, but at the same time free from its ultimate meaninglessness. It was necessary to preserve this uniform, which had become familiar, like old equipment, but to fill it with meaning, to occupy not only the hands and mind, but also the heart. Neither Sablino nor the city could provide any of this.

The now quite obvious idea of ​​​​a breakthrough beyond the boundaries of the crude material world, which was already aware of its limitations, bizarrely surfaced in consciousness in the form of the idea of ​​​​searching for new caves, quarries, passages, and studying them. And indeed, from one thing the other followed, and starting with the search for moves, you can get, well, let’s say quite far. More and more often one could see a shovel in people’s hands; they spent more and more time on the surface, looking for, sniffing out littered entrances and other signs of caves that had not yet been found. The search became an obsession, there were no other topics for conversation, more and more often they measured something, drew and applied rulers to the map...

Dream and Rope.

Among the cave stories, strangely enough, there are also truthful ones, they are no different from the others, that’s the whole difficulty. So, among the stories about the Big Pearls, passages under the river, tunnels to Kolpino, the Partisan Rope and so on, two completely real ones were found: about the Dream and Rope caves.

Back in the early 80s, living witnesses of them went to Sablino - they pointed out exactly the places where they had to be looked for: there were entrances, but they were blocked by landslides - the usual fate of entrances if they are not monitored. Judging by this, Dream and Rope were not popular at one time. So, the Dream was located immediately behind the Beach Man, in the same massif, and the Rope was upstream, about 800 m, in front of the next pink cliff, close to the water.

There was even a map for the Dream, as well as for the Beach Man. Only the entrances themselves were missing. We tentatively identified the dream with a half-buried, swollen, sinkhole entrance, where the path climbs up the Plyazhnik rock, leaving it on the left, closer to the top. This is a rather wet, squelchy hole that goes steeply and deep into the mountain. There is enough space inside, in any case, to dig and make sure that in front of us is the collapsed entrance part of some cave.

We made our first attempt to clear the rubble back in the summer of 1983, with Max; having thrown more than one cubic meter, we walked along the arch, about 2 m forward, then we had to throw the soil outside the cave, along a long sandy slope up, then down, which was clearly beyond the power of two. In the spring, when meltwater rushed into the hole, our work was canceled by a new landslide. The next assault was undertaken, it seems, by Archimedes and Shoe; however, with the same result. They still dug up something in Plyazhnik, but the Dream remained a dream. This excavation reliably locks itself, which is due to the high location of the entrance.

In fact, we were most likely not far from victory: we just had to gather ten people with shovels and work 2-3 regular shifts, and that’s all. This would be enough to tear down the landslide cone, clear the sand blockage, and cut off part of the landslide-hazardous rocks from above. But then, when it seemed relevant, the cavemen were unable to organize themselves, and even work, especially digging for more than 2 hours, was beyond their strength. Climbing, drinking, hanging on ropes, dragging a backpack, grinding your tongue - this is at least 24 hours a day, but there was such a strange dislike for digging. LSP was also small at that time and could not provide such a scale.

There is an alternative version of the identity of this blocked entrance. According to it, this is not a Dream, but a Beach Cave, the plan of which we have, but is not comparable with the known Beach Cave. The dream is located about a hundred meters upstream. To be honest, I didn’t quite understand which of the caves was named Malaya Sablinskaya in Khazanovich’s book, but most likely it was this one.

Now about the Rope. While everyone was looking for the Partisan Rope between Pomoika and the 12th cliff on Sablinka, the real Rope calmly rested in its place, uninhabited by anyone, unknown to anyone, along the very shore of Tosny, a little short of the Pink cliff. They were looking for her even before the LSP, and I was looking for her personally. I don’t remember with whom I stood at the site of her entrance and slipped the handle of a shovel under the visor of her arch. It seems that I was too lazy to dig as always, or there was no inspiration. And then something switched in people’s moods, and for a long time we forgot about Rope, and about many other things that we had already seen and knew.

Meanwhile, someone found Rope. I think it took them no more than 2 hours of work to get into it. Even one person could have done this, any of us, but I don’t even know him.

The rope is fresh, almost uncontaminated, and has an interesting topology that gave it its name, including a curved roadway reminiscent of Three-Eyes without bends. There is a random collision of two neighboring galleries - a rather rare occurrence. Unfortunately, we were unable to complete the work of mapping and closing the Rope, for a typical Sablin reason - a sudden conflict with one of the local groups. It’s a pity, the work was 2/3 completed, so I cannot give accurate information about its prospects. But there is room in the array for 2 or 3 more ropes.

Big dump.

So we got to the systems of the left bank.

When in the fall of 1982 one of the 2 people who received 5 gold coins in the land of fools died, the cavemen called the fresh sinkhole in the Pomoika the failure of Brezhnev; through it, through the gumy skin, always bleeding with mud, it was possible to climb into the cave. After some time, little Andropchik was added to him; and the biggest old hole, where the entire Palace of Congresses could be pushed without a trace, was called Corpses without any ulterior motive, since dead dogs were thrown there, obviously, to ward off cave dwellers.

The main entrance to the Garbage Waste was called the Grille. So, a list of toponyms of the Tosnensky left bank: Lattice, Brezhnev’s failure, Andropchik, Corpses, Drunken Hill and Leninsky Dead End.

Pomoika Cave, or at a decent rate, Beregovaya, opposite Zhemchugov; in particular under the road, it is the second largest after Zhemchugov. This is if we mean the known part, and with the unknown - the first.

How can you compare two unknown parts? How do mathematicians compare two infinities? Also. According to the roughest estimates, over the 50 years of operation of the glass factory, about 140 km of workings were dug underground, and the plant operated from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Now the total length of all known Sablino caves is about 11 km. The rest is “walking” somewhere. So it’s not a sin to search.

If they reproach me for going too far, then I’ll give you another figure: 140 km is a column of only 600x600 meters. That such a volume could get lost and spread out along the banks will not raise any objections. Therefore, whether it is little or much - decide for yourself.

Most of the Pomoika is occupied by two columns, separated by a collapse line with one pass. The inner column is well preserved in its original condition. It is almost not subject to growth, but the outer one was probably collected later, and it was preserved worse. Here, no norms of maximum permissible sections and sizes of pillars were observed. These are huge, up to 4-meter galleries and 20-meter halls. Several years ago, a pillar collapsed in one hall, and soon there was a severe collapse - and from a significant part of the column only a beautiful photograph and an old map remained.

In Pomoika there is Broadway - a central drift, from which columns radiate in both directions in a grid. Its length is 110m. One edge of Broadway rests on a very old dry rubble, this was once the main entrance to the quarry. Broadway opened into the cliff of Tosny, like the modern Plyazhnik, whose wide arched entrance is the first to attract the attention of those who come to the canyon. Its opposite end goes under water and ends in the Zaozernaya part.

The garbage dump without the Zaozernaya part is bypassed along the contour - not with the Zaozernaya part, at least until the water is removed. Here the existence of a vast flooded, or cut off by water, part is guaranteed. There are 2 known roads to the part beyond the lake: through the lake, or through the Cat's Latch, which is near the Trupa failure. I personally twice participated in expeditions to the lakeside part with a wetsuit and a rubber boat, not counting the walking, or rather crawling, forays through the Cat's Latch, of which there were countless. In some places in low water you can swim by clinging to the arch with your hands and hiding your head in the boat. The boat raises waves that roll in an intricate way through the flooded labyrinth, hitting arches and walls, rolling in a sleepy swell onto gently sloping, beach-like drifts that smoothly emerge from the water. The waves disturb the eternally reigning dead calm here, emitting sounds that are completely inadequate to the impact, sometimes focused, squeezed, they create local storms, frantically trying to overwhelm the fragile boat.

The sight of flooded labyrinths evokes from the depths of memory eerie scenes such as Demidov’s flooding of underground workshops in Nevyansk, or the Berlin metro. There are floods here, they start quite abruptly - if this happens, you will have to run away.

When you walk in a hydra, the usually clear waters instantly become cloudy from rising bottom clay sediments. An underwater flashlight cannot illuminate even 30 cm in front of itself. It was practically useless to look for underwater entrances to the siphons. Having tried to feel our way into several places, we declared failure. In the same way, Blankenship was forced to retreat before the impenetrable turbidity in the flooded underground chamber of Gloucester Island, when the target was very close, and it was much harder for him than for us.

Many thousands of cubic meters of water are hidden in Pomoika. This is due to the structure of the industrial horizon; the layer of white sandstone here has a thickness of 2-4 m and does not lie horizontally. Therefore, some of the workings are located 2, and possibly 4 meters lower than the others, and they are flooded to this depth.

The garbage dump has always attracted attention. A lot said that it was possible to go much further from it. The places of exits were mentioned in the post office area, at the station, in the cliffs on Sablinka, there were stories that were completely inexplicable at that time....

All this could be checked only by removing the water, and we began to develop a project for draining water from the Pomoika. The dumbest, but most beautiful option was to break through the drainage adit. It had to be dug into siliceous sparkling sandstone, from which the crowbar bounces off with a ringing sound, as if from granite, and the length of the adit was at least 8 m. The water had to be dumped to a level of at least 2 m, and the adit, naturally, had to be made from the outside, because cutting it under water is difficult, to put it mildly; from outside, I would also give a lot to see how, at the moment of failure, a roaring stream, along with fragments of rock, would fall on the author of the project.

An intermediate option was proposed: to open the other end of Broadway into a cliff, and along it, slightly hollow out, where necessary, a groove for water, no more than 30 cm. In 2-3 years, due to mechanical destruction by flowing water and sand, this drain will be already 50 cm.. . and so on. But this did not suit the impatient cave guards. In the 9 years that have passed since then, a lot of water has flowed away from the Pomoika, it flowed away in vain, without doing any useful work, and Sablino lost the opportunity to have its own underground river.

There was another option that did not require any effort at all. While exploring the lake, I noticed that its existence is largely due to a layer of clayey sediments, the same one that muddies the water, which also sharply slows down the filtration of water through sandstone. And the task was to regularly destroy this layer with anything. For example, riding rubber boats and plowing the bottom with pitchforks and shovels. This idea of ​​mine was crazy even by the standards of caves, where they seriously discuss and sometimes make multi-meter drifts in a monolith, where they believe in passages under rivers, passages from Kyiv to Novgorod, dug 6,000 years ago. But in vain. The existence of Sablinsky underground lakes in all caves is associated precisely with filtration anomalies. Pearl Lake either lasts for years or disappears within a day. It is possible that there are already ready-made filtration channels of the pseudokarst type, now washed out by clay plugs that sometimes break through, and water, as if from a broken toilet, is carried into Tosna, emerging through many fontanelles and springs along the caves. The level of the real aquifer from which the springs gush is 1-2 m above the Tosny level.

Studying the map of Pomoika allows you to get a sense of the general design of the mine, the directions of the proposed extensions - towards Zaozerye, along Broadway. The cave carefully avoids the Three-Eyes located on the left.

There are many legends and eyewitness accounts associated with Pomoika. They tell how they walked from it under the village to the post office, to the caves on Sablinka and, naturally, to Popovka. The “plan of a sand mine for a glass factory near the village of Nikolskoye, 1789,” which we found in a strange way, has a number of places similar to the modern Pomoika, but extends for several kilometers. But this is too unclear a story...

Here's the latest story. Not long ago, the pressure of a monstrous mass of water knocked out, like a cork from a bottle, a blockage near the end of Broadway, and when the water subsided, a new entrance to the Garbage Waste opened, or rather, the main entrance. And good people, I even know who, made a groove along it for water, just like we once intended.

Three-Eyes

The night trembled and the darkness trembled

The mine opened its mouth before me

Satan himself would go crazy here

Here the devil could disappear without a trace

I couldn't close my sore eyes

Fear grabbed and called, beckoning into the depths

I went down, every heavy layer

As if a midge could crush me...

(Archimedes 1983)

The popular name - Lenin's Dead End - is associated not only with the presence not far from it on the highway of a stand with the image of the above-mentioned leader, who, as always, called for something, and not only with the state that one can achieve by following his ideas, but also with one an incident from his life.

As you know, the leader often visited Sablino, his relatives lived here, and one day he, an aspiring revolutionary pursued by the police, was taken by local elders through some underground passage to the Popovka area. He had poor orientation and, naturally, did not remember the route, but since the walk made a strong impression on him, he decided to take an independent trip. The future leader, it seemed, had unmistakably found the cave from which their path began - it was Three-Eyes - and he decisively rushed forward along a narrow long corridor, exactly the same way the old man led him. Imagine his disappointment when, after about 200 steps, he came to a dead end!!!

Three-Eyes is located away from the usual cave routes and only pioneers enter it. By a strange coincidence, it turned out to be the first cave where I was taken. Straight, with one zigzag, narrow gallery, 177 m long, a pair of side cuts in the entrance part - that’s the whole Three-Eyes. Its three eyes can only be seen from the area of ​​the old cemetery on the other side of Tosna. From there it yawned picturesquely from a crimson-colored cliff, decorated with an old larch and a geodesic sign.

That's all, there is nothing more to see, no continuations, not even a hint of them here, but a strange feeling that I missed something important prevents me from leaving, something is NOT THE same here as in other caves, not right - and that's all. This not entirely rational feeling of some kind of mystery forced me to return there again and again, but the solution still did not come.

It happens that when you enter a cave for the first time, especially if you dug it up yourself, you see one or two halls, a piece of a drift and that’s it: no rubble, backfills, collapse cones, mysterious niches, cuts and cracks, which always give it a feeling of openness, leaves hope for a continuation. And here there is nothing. Everything is simple and clear, like in the kitchen - one step forward, one step to the left, two steps to the right - there are walls and dead ends everywhere. An exclamation breaks out: “Is that all!? It can’t be!!!”

We cannot forgive our cave for being small. Once again we meticulously examine it, looking into every crevice, with care unprecedented in large caves, and as a rule we forget about it forever.

The case with Three-Eyes was different, it required an explanation, and one was found, or rather, far-fetched, in order to somehow calm the mind. It was announced that Trekhglazka was an exploration mine, as if it were a test mine. But this explanation did not fit with any kind of completeness. It gave the impression of a finished work, but of unclear purpose. When the decision came, it was very simple, but shocking, like nonsense...

This man was at least strange. His appearance, his clothes, his look, his manner of speaking clearly indicated that he had a weak relationship with this world. His words had nothing to do with him. We met him near Three-Eyes, under an old larch tree, and then at the foot of a crimson cliff in the shadow of its arches, he said things that made his head open like a tulip, and at times it seemed as if it would burst like a rotten watermelon.

If this had lasted 5 minutes, his speeches would have aroused interest; if it had lasted half an hour, it would have resembled delirium, but in 4 or 5 hours it simply became a reality.

"...I was very afraid that this man would leave and we would not see him again, it seemed that grandfather was doing us a favor by condescending to Sablin’s pranks. We were completely stunned, it was a blow to the head with a shovel; I didn’t understand anything except that there is something secret in the Earth, and there are very brown people - sorcerers and magicians who do this, and here is one of them. In the main thing, I believed him right away, although later there were painful doubts, and the confidence that I was right, and not he, and much more. But I am ready to see God’s providence in the fact that we met. I don’t remember exactly what I felt then, but he famously screwed our brains, and it seems like forever..."- I wrote in an old diary.

His name was born on the same day - Archimedes. What is the essence of his story: In addition to ordinary caves, that is, simply abandoned mine workings, there are underground structures of other, secret purposes, underground passages and their systems. No one knows exactly when and for what purpose they were made, whether they were made, and whether there was such a purpose. The passages were made above the level of aquifers, in the form of straight, arrow-like workings, for which they were nicknamed White Arrows in limestones, and Red Arrows in sandstones. The arrows are usually 2-3 m wide and extend from the river banks perpendicular to the cliffs. Not reaching the edge of the cliff a few meters, they ended in T-shaped dead ends and continued on the other side of the rivers. In these dead ends, shafts were sometimes located to connect with passages below the river level, traversed in brickwork in the thickness of blue Cambrian clays. There were also passages below the level of rivers, and even the Baltic Sea, the so-called “pedestrians” - narrow single drifts in brick or stone masonry, and “horses” - parallel trunks with a cross-section of 3 m, always 2 pieces, with periodic bows. But it’s useless to talk about them, because that’s almost all that is known about them.

Nevertheless, there is even a classification of these objects. It is assumed that the fortified cities of ancient Rus' were interconnected by agricultural systems, forming a kind of defense ring, including underground and above-ground structures. There were underground systems of ancient temples and monasteries, entire underground cities, the purpose of which cannot be understood based on the psychology of man in the 20th century. This is the first creation. It is assumed that agricultural systems were widely used in Moscow and Novgorod Rus'; many testimonies and legends, including written ones, have been preserved about them. This is the second creation. In the time of the Russian Empire from Peter to Paul, there is also data on the construction and use of underground systems for the needs of the state. This is the last, third creation.

Of course, every person, especially those who read novels on a medieval theme, has heard something about underground passages. But few people think that these objects can form a system. You can see it, but for this it is not enough to dig through a lot of literary and, most importantly, mountain material, you also need to have a certain level of awareness.

But let's return to Three-Eyes.

The man asked, do we know what Three-Eyes is, do we know about wells?

It’s strange, we’ve been there so many times, but haven’t seen any wells. They are covered with sand, so people do not notice them, although above the last well in the vault there is something like a conical depression where a gate stood, and through the top of it there is a narrow well going up, and an attentive person would certainly have noticed something unusual. But our attention is worthless if we look and don’t see things that simply hit our eyes! As long as our mind is tuned to see only trivial things, it only sees them, and our world is meager and boring.

When I saw the first well, the world began to take on not quite real shapes, the reality of the well was greater, after the other 2 I went a little crazy...

...One day in the summer of 1724, already after midnight, at the foot of a crimson cliff on the high bank of Tosna, two people were having a quiet conversation. They didn't want anyone to see or hear them. One, taller, was wearing a wide, long cloak and a hat pulled down over his eyes, and although he was dressed in an emphatically simple manner, something about him revealed a noble nobleman. The other was dressed in a black robe, like a monk's, belted with a rope, with a hood, and covered the door of a secret bat lantern with his hand. The gist of their conversation boiled down to the following: At this time, in addition to the two already existing secret systems of underground communication passages, the construction of a third - more modern, made according to the latest word in mining science - was underway. The underground highways of the ancient metro construction passed through the area of ​​modern Sablino; the problem was crossing the Tosna River. It was decided to make a special opening in the area of ​​the Nikolsky sand mine, disguised as an ordinary quarry, with shafts-wells, through which mining work would be secretly carried out by sinking shafts under the Tosnaya River, and the rock pulled up the mountain would be dumped into the general dump of the mine. Thus, the nobleman and the monk decided to ensure the secrecy of their construction. The nobleman promised to arrange things in such a way as to exclude the possibility of accidental intersection of the mine drifts and special-purpose passages, and the monk would make sure that the system was practically impossible to detect by other means. They said goodbye, exchanging a gesture that only they understood, and the nobleman walked away with a light gait, trying not to make too much noise. The monk waited until his steps died down, extinguished the lantern and disappeared into the darkness, as if he had never existed. And it was only night, and only an angry wind that came from nowhere, whipping torn leaves and raindrops over the ancient cliffs...

The sense of reality of the world of the cities and their contents took its toll over time, one time was not enough to make them disappear forever, but the mines in Three-Eyes were also completely real. Many people for many years tried to dig them to the bottom, and so did we, but at a depth of a meter to three, heavy water inflows usually began, we scooped up water with buckets, but the fight was unequal. One summer, taking advantage of the abnormally low groundwater level, ours finally reached the bottom of the third mine at around 3.1 meters. Next was a plug of blue Cambrian clay, which can be mistaken for the bottom.

Throughout its entire depth, the shaft has smooth, polished edges and a cross-section of 117x117 cm. The next morning, the researchers were greeted by a painfully familiar picture - the shaft was filled with water to a level of 1 meter. Remains of a “jacket” - waterproofing - were discovered in the mine. The creators of this strange object used submersible fasteners to protect it from water.

There were many more strange stories associated with Three-Eyes. I hope you remembered Gloucester?

In conclusion, I will give a few quotes from materials obtained through information search, i.e. collecting legends and eyewitness accounts.

In 1927, a group of sappers, while examining the Beregovaya /Pomoika/ catacomb, came across an adit. The adit was lined with white stone, after about 200m it was filled with dry stone plug.

In 1974, while digging a well near the Sablino station at a depth of more than 15 m, they ran into the remains of brickwork.

A resident of the city of Kolpino claimed that he fell into straight drifts cut into sandstone, with bends after about 900 m, the height above the river level. Tosny about 1 m.

Pavel Miroshnichenko

(Pilgrim)