page_title: Yagodinska Cave
section_title: Exploration and description
hierarchical_section_title: Yagodinska Cave / Exploration and description
caption_attribution_description: English: Cave pearls in Yagodinska cave, Rhodope Mountains, southern Bulgaria.
context_page_description: Yagodinska Cave is a cave in the Rhodope Mountains, southern Bulgaria. It is included in the 100 Tourist Sites of Bulgaria under № 89. It is named after the homonymous village nearby. With a total length of 10,500 m, Yagodinska is the third longest cave in the country after Duhlata and Orlova Chuka and the longest in the Rhodopes. Yagodinska Cave is home to 11 species of bats.
context_section_description: The exploration of the cave commenced in 1963 by the Speleological Club of Chepelare led by Dimitar Raychev. Initially 8,500 m have been explored and 2,000 m more galleries were discovered during the second mapping of the cave in 1982-1986. The age of the cave is estimated at 275,000 years.
  Yagodinska Cave is 10,500 m long and has three levels, of which only a 1,100 m path in the lowest level was electrified in 1971–1982 and opened for tourists. The entrance and the exit for that level are artificial tunnels with a length of 150 and 80 m respectively. The altitude of the entrance and the exit is 930 m and 937 m respectively. The temperature in the show cave is constant all year round at 6ºС; the humidity is 85%–91%.
  Yagodinska contains a very large number of cave formations, or speleothems, including stalactites, stalagmites, stalagnates, flowstone, draperies and cave pearls.
  The natural entrance leads to the uppermost level, where an ancient dwelling dated to the 4th millennium BC was discovered. Excavations have proven that the dwelling was an important centre producing ceramics. The clay was extracted from the interior of the cave and from the bed of the Boynovska River. The pottery was baked in clay furnaces. The inhabitants abandoned the site as a result of a collapse caused by an earthquake.
caption: Cave pearls in Yagodinska cave
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