Description of the attraction
Borshchovskaya caves, located in the Leningrad region near the small village of Oredezh, are the most famous among the many quarries in this area. Almost all quarries in this area owe their appearance to the numerous deposits of sandstone, which originally served for the extraction of white quartz sand used in the production of glass. It was in the village of Borshchovo, namely on the shore of the small Antonov Lake, that this production was located, after which the spent raw materials were sent for further processing to a glass factory in the village of Torkovichi.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the process of extracting sand completely stopped, a small factory fell into complete desolation, and the Borshchovsky quarries were used for personal purposes by robbers, local workers and partisans. After some time, the quarries almost completely crumbled, rising to an incredible size of more than 4 meters. As it turned out, the sands of the quarries were not very stable, which is why the inevitable destructive process took place so quickly that only a small fraction of the long passages remained.
It is believed that this place was previously occupied by a system that was broken by the strongest debris into its component parts - in the Twelve-Column Gallery one of the landslides can be clearly seen. Above the cave itself there is a huge funnel, the diameter of which reaches 25 meters and a depth of 5 meters. The very first cave is a pillar with 12 pillars. This is followed by the Wolf Cave, equipped with closing passages.
The Twelve Column Gallery can be accessed through the entrance located in the cliff just above the path. The manhole has a small height, but as you move, it increases to 2.5 meters, as a result of which you can go without bending over.
The most distinctive feature of the cave is its unusual shape, as all the passages are very reminiscent of the arches made in the Gothic style. The secret of this shape lies in the degree of cementation, which leads to a small stability of the ceilings, for which reason it was decided to give the form the best stability, held by the full balance of pressure and gravity. But, despite this, there are quite a few areas in these systems where there have never been landslides. The largest number of galleries and halls has grown dramatically, so the floor is practically flush with the ceiling. In some halls, you can see that their height reaches 5-6 meters when the caves are 7-10 meters high. In the process of inevitable growth, most of the halls become unstable and gradually collapse.
Today, the halls exist, but the layering of the existing rocks is noticeable in them: the largest layer is presented in the form of quartz white sandstone, above which a small layer of orange or yellow is clearly visible, which turns into a bright burgundy color with small multi-colored veins. There are halls that literally amaze with their beauty and natural design, as well as forcing, without stopping, to admire the extraordinary color of various colors. On the uppermost layers, you can see nodules made of clay, which are small balls that reach several centimeters in diameter and make the walls look somewhat like fluffy buns with raisins.
To this day, numerous traces of tools used to break the sandstone are visible on the ceilings and walls; you can also see the soot from the torches, which at one time illuminated the Borshchovskaya cave.
It is worth noting that during the entire time of quartz sand mining, the length of the cave passages reached up to 15 km, although now only a small part of the previously existing passages have survived. It is important that soon the Borshchovsky caves may disappear, because every year more and more landslides are recorded.
