Huge and amazing, large-scale, spectacular, extraordinary and magical. There are not enough epithets to describe it. Starting from the movement in trailers inside the cave and each incredible hall leaves a deep impression. I would call it the largest of all that we have seen. But it is really not the largest in Abkhazia. After a photo tour of the New Athos cave, at the end of the article I will tell you about the largest one.
Shooting inside a cave is something special. The shutter speeds are very long, there is not much support, only hope is for strong, experienced hands and a stabilizer in the lens. I just don’t have the latter, so only hands 
and shooting while inhaling, as they taught at the institute at lectures on photography 
. The result is for you to evaluate!
New Athos Cave is a very large karst cave, you don’t understand the scale until you visit it. After paying for the ticket, we are waiting for our trailer, it is on it that we descend into the bowels of the cave along a route 1300 meters long. There are 11 halls, each is unique and has its own name. The largest hall is more than 250 meters long, the highest is almost 100 meters high, just imagine such dimensions 
. The hiking trail is 1400 meters long. Some rooms have lakes. The temperature in many caves is about the same, + 14, jackets are a must. Also because it is damp and drops are constantly dripping from the arch of the cave.
The cave was discovered relatively recently, in 1961 the first visitor went down there. The cave of 1975 accepts tourists. An artificial tunnel was laid in the bowels of the cave, through which a train or “cave subway” as it is also called is now moving. By the way, the trains for this «metro» were created on an individual project and have no analogues, their feature is in a lightweight design.
There is undoubtedly a unique microclimate in the cave, it is a pleasure to breathe there. The only thing that gives the impression is that you breathe water, but this is understandable, since the humidity in the cave is 100%.
Walls of the New Athos cave Walls of the New Athos cave Minerals on the walls of the cave close-up Minerals on the walls of the cave close-up
Impression! They will probably be remembered for a lifetime, perhaps until you get into an even more spectacular and large cave. It really strikes and makes you once again convinced of the greatness of nature, the scale of natural formations and how little we sometimes know what grandiose things can be under our feet. After all, they had not yet descended into this cave — they did not understand its size and scope. I hope that they will continue to explore it and show visitors new halls.
And now about the largest cave in Abkhazia:
It is called Krubera-Voronya and it is not only the largest in Abkhazia, it is the deepest in the world! Its depth (which is currently explored) is almost 2200 meters. This cave is not a tourist site, only speleologists descend into it, we will not be able to visit it, at least for now. But I think if you really want, then everything is possible! If you are interested, read about it without fail, there is information on the Internet.
More interesting things in our magazine:
Bogatyrsky caves. Wild caves in the Krasnodar Territory
Vorontsovskaya cave. A large and very beautiful cave in the Sochi region
St. Michael’s Monastery. Cave Monastery of the Mikhailo-Athos Desert
Dolmen «Ubinsky», 60 km from Krasnodar
Grotto «Angel Wing»