Simferopol, the 17th km of the Simferopol-Yalta highway, the turn near the village of Zarechnoye to the holiday village following the village of Mramornoye (tel.: (+38 0652) 25-63-48).
The Mramornaya Cave (literally translates as Marble Cave) is situated in the mountainous massif of Chatyr-Dag. The picturesque silhouette of this mountain is seen from very different points and distances and is considered to be a symbol of the Crimea.
The Chatyr-Dag plateau is dappled with numerous karst caverns making it look like the moon. More than 160 karst caverns, pits, and wells are included in the preserved area. The most interesting of them is the Marble Cave discovered in 1987 and opened to visitors in 2001.
The entrance into the cave is 920 metres above sea level. It lays in the brick of upper Jurassic limestone and consists of three parts: the Main Gallery, the Lower Gallery, and the side Tiger Pass.
The dropstones separate the enormous galleries into several halls. The explored passages are 2050 metres in length and 60 metres deep. The tourist routes are over one kilometre long.
The Simferopol speleologists, the Centre of Speleotourism "ONIKS-tur" and its manager A. F. Kozlov discovered, preserved and improved the Marble Cave for tourists.
The Marble Cave is renowned throughout the world for its unique character. The most famous speleologists list it as one of the top five most beautiful tourist caves in our planet. In 1992, the Marble Cave, one of the most visited European caves, was admitted to the International Association of Tourist Caves (Ghenga, Italy).
The Marble Cave welcomes its visitors with the Gallery of Fairy Tales where they come through the man-made tunnel that is 10 metres in length. The Gallery is 20 metres wide and rich in stalactites, stalagmites, and dropstones. The well-lighted way goes deep down the Cave. The tourist path rounds the fantastic stalagmite sculptures strikingly resembling fairy-tale characters in their shapes. Light brings out of the darkness the "Elephant calf", "Mammoth", a head of the "Owner of the Cave", "Father Frost", and "Frog Princess". It is hard to believe that all these characters have been created by water drops but not a talented sculptor through many million years.
In the Gallery of the Tiger Pass the cave roof goes down and you can see the bell-shaped holes washed out by pressure water and then adorned by stalactites. A good tunnel, carved through solid rock in the place of the previously discovered siphon channel, leads to this Gallery. The picturesque dropstone columns separate the Gallery into halls. Small cups with water are seen at the bottom. The dropstone curtains, stone waterfalls, cascades of lakes, "the cave pearls", and the unique shelter of "helictite flowers" are wonderful. From the tourist path you can see the bottom of the well where bones of a cave bear were found at a depth of 6 metres.
The Hall of Perestroika* is covered with mysterious gloom that falls back in the flashlight and soon the Hall's size amazes. It is one of the largest tourist halls in the world. It is 4,000 sq. metres in area and over 20 metres in height. The giant masses of rock cover the floor. For 6 or 8 metres up the eastern wall is lined with a snow-white corallite carpet of stone flowers, which is about 40 metres in length. A unique giant, the seven-metre stalagmite, which is referred to as a Fallen Tower and lies sidelong, is next to the elegant fragile lace of lakes, at bottoms of which the so called "cave pearls" are being found.
A wonderful view opens up from the edge of one of the largest calcite dams (the dam base is 56 metres wide) in Europe. The grand dropstone columns "King" and "Queen" with their "escort", the stalagmites of various shapes, stand in the centre of the Palace Hall (part of which is seen from the dam). The lakes go up to the Clay Hall. It has not so many dropstones but each of them is unique. And here the Main Gallery ends. The Lower Gallery is a geological and mineralogical preserve. A narrow passage becomes a twelve-metre deep well leading to the Hall of Roses, which is a chaos of rock masses covered with the glittering corallites and stalagmites. Then an absolute harmony of the Hall of Hopes follows. It is next to the Balcony Hall, Lustre Hall, Avalanchine Hall and Channel Hall as well as Chocolate Hall and Helictite Hall. This is the place where the courses branch away…
A tour of the Marble Cave lasts for about one hour. The air temperature does not change and is 9C.
* Perestroika is the Russian term (now used in English) for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Its literal meaning is "restructuring", referring to the restructuration of the Soviet political and economic system.
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