Gissarskaya Cave

Пещера Гиссарская находится на карстовом плато Кызыл – Шавар ( Гиссарский хребет ). На абсолютной высоте 3530м.н.у.м. Административно пещера расположена в Яккабагском районе Кашкадарьинской области Узбекистана.

The Gissarskaya cave was found by a joint expedition of the Ternopil and Kiev speleoclub in 1981 and received the code T21. The entrance to the cave is located in a small crater in the talweg of a seasonal stream in the middle part of the plateau.The cave is a cascade of vertical icy wells with a total depth of -60 m, which turn into a system of inclined meanders. In August 1882, the expedition of the Kiev IC "Podillya" (directed by V. Lobarev), in which 13 people participated, was continued by the “Diadems” course “massage” – A. Grachev, O. Zhuravleva, then the narrow well “Lope de Vega" – V. Lobarev, A. Grachev, S. Kersnovsky. And the “Bottom” on the 150th is A. Grachev. The old part is full of beautiful ice crystals, stalactites and stalagmites, the bottom of the meanders is a thick layer of ice.

During the expedition of the Chertkovsky club of speleologists “Kristall” ( Ternopil, Chernivtsi ) in 2011, a continuation was found in the form of a narrow lateral slit that led to the bottom of a winding meander. The meander extends in a northeasterly direction for 370 meters and descends in height by more than 70 meters. The first 100 meters are a meandering gallery with a frozen underground river, icefalls and onslaught formations. Later, a stream appears, large drainage pits and, after another 100 meters, a large well of "Humming Stones", which has a depth of -98 m. A permanent watercourse appears at the bottom of this well. The fossil gallery does not end with a well, but goes further in the same direction, but its character changes dramatically. Now it is an old fossil gallery with numerous onslaught formations from white to dark brown colors: stalactites, stalagmites, gurov baths, cave pearls. This part is crossed by 3 more wells with a depth of -27 m (the "Sweet Ace" well), -10 m (the "Blocked well"), and another "old" well ("Chocolate") with a depth of -80 m.

In the last days of the expedition, a study of the branches of the Large Meander was carried out, as a result of which another well was found with a depth of -45 m and several ascending ones with a height of 20-35 meters. Work in the cave was stopped due to the end of the expedition.

The temperature regime in the cave does not differ from the temperature regime of the cavities of this plateau. In the icy parts, the temperature is 0.0 °C, in the meanders with a stream +1.5 °C. As a result of the research, the total depth of the Gissarskaya cave was -204 m, the length of the explored and mapped new part of the cave was 801 meters + 357 meters of the old part, and the total length of the cave, taking into account the topographical data of previous years, was 1761 m.