Boybuloq

Boybuloq (also known as Boy-Bulok and Boj-Bulok, Uzbek: Boybuloq, Russian: Бой-Булок) is a limestone cave in Uzbekistan, the deepest cave in Central Asia and all Asia except its western part. The cave is 1,523 metres (4,997 ft) deep and 19,900 metres (65,300 ft) long with the main entrance at an elevation of 2,647 metres (8,684 ft) above sea level. It is situated at the edge of Baisuntau mountain ridge, the southern spur of the Gissar Range, in the southeast of the country. The nearest village is Dehibolo (Дюйбало in Russian), to the northeast of Boysun.

The cave developed in the covered karst of Upper and Middle Jurassic limestones, in monoclinal strata, in the preserved wing of an anticline. The thickness of limestone strata is 200–350 meters. Contrary to most limestone caves, it was not formed by water precipitation penetrating from the surface, but, as the soluble rock is covered by insoluble strata, by condensation. Hence the cave consists mainly of very narrow passages which descend along the incident angle of strata, from time to time interrupted by vertical shafts, no deeper than 30 metres (98 ft), and ends with an impassable siphon.

It was explored by Russian cavers since 1984, in the framework of Ekaterinburg Speleo Club (SGS) and the Association of Speleologists of the Urals (ASU), with the participation of cavers from Italy, Great Britain, Slovakia, France, and Switzerland (in chronological order).

Naming

After a period of rain—a rarity in an otherwise very arid mountain climate—a small stream began flowing from the cave's entrance. This phenomenon was referred to as boybuloq, a fusion of the words boy and buloq, meaning "rich spring" in the Uzbek and Tajik languages.

Early history

The cave was known to local people since ancient times, because from its entrance a stream of water flows down the slope of the otherwise-very-arid mountain landscape. In the winter, the village Dehibolo, at an elevation of 1,750 metres (5,740 ft) (whose name translates to "the highest village"), is cut off by the snow; later in the summer the few springs, which provide water to residents, can dry up. In May 1970 Mustafo Zokirovič Holmominov (born 1917), a farmer from Dehibolo, departed on a 4-hour trek to the cave (8 km) with his son Hudojberdi (born 1955) on three donkeys. The cave was known to him; he had visited it several times before. The two reached the cave and Mustafo went into the cave to pray. After a crawl of about one hour, he reached a point close to the first shaft, where his kerosene lamp went out. In the darkness he missed the direction towards the entrance, and fell to his death into the abyss. Hudojberdi waited at the entrance for two days until the villagers from Dehibolo came and returned him home by force.

Young men from Dehibolo tried to find Mustafo in the cave on several occasions that summer and in the following years but to no avail. His remains were not discovered until 1985, during the first speleological exploration of the cave.

Exploration

After the discovery of Kiev Cave on the Kirk Tau plateau in Uzbekistan in 1972, 2340 m a. s. l., which was in the subsequent years explored to the depth of 990 m and was in the years 1977–1978 the deepest-known cave in the USSR, Russian speleologists from Yekaterinburg (SGS) in the late 1970s and early 1980s started to search for new deep caves in the wider area of the country. In May 1981 they discovered the Zindan cave (later renamed to Urals-Zenkov cave), 3100 m a. s. l., in the Ketmen'-Čapta ridge. Its spring at the elevation of 1300 m indicated the possibility of a very deep cave. In January 1983, the final depth of 565 m was reached, in a siphon too narrow to dive. Several expeditions in the summer 1983 were fruitless, while in 1984 a token SGS expedition to Hodja-Gur-Gur-Ata massif discovered a number of promising entrances.

During a larger expedition in 1985, a group of five expedition members was sent to Surkhan-Tau ridge to scout its surface for new caves. On the way, in the village Kurgancha, 1455 m a. s. l., they were told of a cave higher in the mountain, called Boybuloq, into which a villager from the highest settlement in Uzbekistan, the village Dehibolo, went in 1970 and never returned. They followed the stream bed and discovered the low cave entrance, at an elevation of 2647 m. The cave began with 7 meters of a crawl in liquid mud, with scattered stone supports, after which it was possible to stand up. A high-but-narrow meander followed, it slowly ascended for 600 meters in straight direction, to a height of 90 meters, where it turned down. Soon a 27-meter pit was reached and they discovered human bones at its bottom. They belonged to Mustafo Zokirovič Holmominov.

Boybuloq and most other caves in the area are a long sequence of tight passages which are difficult to pass, and where possibilities for help or rescue operations are very limited, as described by Sergej Kuklev, a member of the SGS team:

I asked Ilija, trying to speak as calmly as possible, how, in his opinion, would it be more convenient to get through the tight meander, top or bottom? After some thinking he responded that the bottom choice would undoubtedly be more convenient. And so, I, flattened like a flounder, climbed in a hole under the rocks, barely wide enough for my head. And got stuck, of course. The caving suit, torn in all possible places, didn't let go, so I had to stop to take a breath... Only God or his/her own might can help a person which got stuck in Boybuloq – two people together just do not fit in a tight corridor. On one of previous expeditions it happened that a caver fell off a rope in a pit and, flying 17 meters, broke both legs. All we could do was to have painkillers ready at all times. It took him two days to crawl out of the cave on his own...