Yagodinska cave
Yagodinska cave is located in the hill close to village of Yagoda on approx. 500-m altitude, on the left bank of the Prut River. It’s on a way from Rakhiv town to Devin town. Inside it continues for 291 m and opens at a depth of 38 m, an altitude of 330 m.
The cave is composed of three branches: Yagodinska cave (middle cave), Voronets (Bald) cave (right cave) and Vyhoda cave (exit or way out).
Yagodinska cave was discovered on August 3, 1968 by cavers from Ternopil, while Voronets cave – on August 27, 1971 by cavers from Lviv. The cave was found accidentally when one of the hunters went into it with his dog to visit cave bear’s den. His dog escaped somewhere into the cave and he thought that his dog fell down. He was trying to find it for many days but could not go further than 60 m into cave because water was coming from somewhere and cave was full of water. One day he told about cave to his friend who went there with some other hunters and they built a dam. It let the water flow away and cavers could pass through it.
The entrance is funnel-shaped, width 0,9 – 1,2 m, height – 3 m. There is a cave bear’s den on the left and cave dripstone on the right with cave pearls and flowstones of different colors: white, gray, pink etc. The cave is cool through all its length because of big depth into ground and high humidity.
The cave ends with stalactite bottom (height – 2 m, width – 1 m), bottom is visible only in the cave end. Stalactite hangs above cave bear’s den so cave hunters could discover cave only after they found bones of cave bear.
Comment: The Yagodinska cave has very interesting dripstone structures which are rare to be found somewhere else in Ukraine. We can imagine cave as a hole into the deep cave of planet, black and cold through all its length, where dripstones reflect lights of our flashlights.
Yagodinska cave is on the list of objects to be conserved by Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine since January 20, 1983. In 2004 cave was partially reconstructed, named and opened for cave tours. There was built a cave-theater, put onto the professional lighting and equipped with steps and railings so visitors could pass it without any problems.
