Boy-Bulok Cave

The deepest cave on the Asian continent, Boy Bulok (1,415 m), is located in the Surkhandarya region, 60 kilometers from the district center of Baysun, in the Chul-Bair mountain range (Surkhantau Ridge). Locals discovered the entrance to the cave long ago, as a small stream flows out of it all year round, but no one dared to go there for a long time, especially after the local teacher Mustafa disappeared in the cave. Only 20 years later, his remains were brought to the surface by speleologists from Sverdlovsk.

Year after year, thanks to their efforts and incredible efforts, the cave revealed its secrets, and finally in 1995, at a depth of 1,415 m, its lowest point was reached. Then the path was blocked by an impassable siphon (a passage filled with water). This cave is completely unusual: it has only three wells 20-30 meters deep, but there are an infinite number of ledges up to 8 meters high, and one continuous narrow meander (a winding crack, 0.5 to 2 meters wide), along the bottom of which a stream flows.

After the bottom of the cave was reached, studies of the side passages began. And so another gallery was discovered in the wall of the main entrance at a height of three meters. It led to a new, younger part of the cave, larger in size and deeper in the inner shafts. But this promising part of the cave ended with a massive blockage in a huge hall at a depth of 680 meters. Research is still ongoing, because the potential amplitude of the cave (the distance between its upper and lower points) can increase by another kilometer due to the upward movements, and this will give a hitherto unprecedented cave amplitude in the world – more than 2.5 kilometers!

In the expedition of 2023, the ascending tributaries in the area of PBL 0 of the Boy Bulok cave were investigated. In the last visible tributary, which continued with a new gallery towards the wall. The gallery has been completed up to +357 m and continues further. As a result of this discovery, the amplitude of the Boy Bulok cave increased to 1,517 m.
The great success of the expedition is the establishment of an auditory connection between the caves of Boy Bulok and A. Vishnevsky, but the physical connection of the caves has not yet been established.