“Milkstone” Karst Cave
Karst cave “Molochnyi Kamen” – Rakhiv district, Zakarpattia region.
On the Velyka Uholka, on its left bank, three large Beskydy (three cliffs) can be seen above the forest. The largest of them is a karst cave called Molochnyi Kamin (Milk Stone), which is not named by chance – it consists mostly of white marble limestone with a mixture of blue, thus the cave justifies its name.
The rock “Milk Stone” in its shape resembles a boomerang, oddly enough. It is overgrown with forest and dissected by a large number of tectonic cracks. On its southern slope, an oblong hole can be seen from afar, which is the entrance to the cave.
Thanks to this spacious entrance (its size is 10×2.5 meters), in daylight the cave is illuminated with sparkling light from the inside. But 5 meters from the entrance, it splits, and the light seems to gradually fade, giving rise to a moderate darkness.
The next passage, the western one, is a dead end, but the eastern one leads to a large cave hall measuring 10×15 meters and up to 15 meters high. At an altitude of 10 meters, the Molochnyi Kamen cave begins to go deeper into the limestone massif with its combination of two perpendicular crevices. By the way, the total length of the cave is 92 meters. This makes it possible to keep the temperature inside its large hall to only +3°C, while maintaining one hundred percent humidity.
The caves of Mala and Velyka Uholka are diverse in themselves, differing in their internal morphology. They contain many different shapes, volumes and floors. The increased number of caves in the Zakarpattia region indicates the intensity of the “evolution” of underground karst in this region.
However, the presence of caves contributes to the development of history, paleoclimatology, and paleontology. For example, paleobotanists have found a large number of imprints of leaves of laurel, grapes, palm, myrtle, magnolia, and other tropical and subtropical plants that grew about 25 million years ago in the strata of the Molochnyi Kamen cave. In addition, a campsite of primitive hunters was discovered here, and neat campfire sites were found around it.
The cave is also remarkable for its heavy stalactites, stalagmites and alluvial formations, which have been growing for a long time – hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years!
The Molochnyi Kamen cave is often visited by tourists and people spending their winter vacation. And if you come to the ski resort of Rakhiv, be sure to visit this karst cave, and the Carpathian mine “Druzhba”, which is located nearby.