Only professionals risk diving into the Orda underwater cave; it is so unpredictable in its labyrinths: narrow dead ends and many kilometers of tunnels, sharp turns and descents, giant halls and tiny grottoes. And at the same time - transparent water (if there is no movement), which is rare for such objects. Due to the effect of transparency, as divers say, you find yourself in an unreal unearthly world. But sometimes, with a very sharp movement of a person, transparency disappears: gypsum dust crumbles, visibility becomes zero, clear water turns into a cloudy cocktail.
The cave is the longest underwater gallery in Russia, laid in gypsum rocks, located in the Perm Territory, on the left bank of the Kungur River near the village of Orda. The dry part is 300 m long, the underwater one is about 5000 m long. The dry part consists of several grottoes. In winter, beautiful ice formations appear here. The floor is covered with boulders that have fallen from the ceiling - similar collapses are typical for gypsum caves. The cave has several lakes that connect to its underwater part. In addition, in its underwater part there is the longest siphon in the CIS - 935 m. Siphon is an underwater tunnel completely filled with water; it is dangerous for swimmers, as in some places it can be impassable for humans.
The longest in Russia and the second longest in Eurasia system of underwater galleries, the world's longest gypsum underwater cave, the largest siphon in Russia, deep lakes, ice stalactites, stalagmites and crystals that appear in the grottoes in winter, over-cavernous karst landscape, rare species of Kazakovskaya mountains - all this makes the Orda cave a unique natural object. Scientists recommend that this territory be given the status of "specially protected natural area" and included in the UNESCO list.
Exploration of the cave began in the 1990s. In this century, several international expeditions plunged into it for scientific purposes. The Japanese state-public central television and radio company NHK, one of three world-famous television companies, along with the BBC, CNN, which broadcast regular TV programs, edited a documentary about the Orda Cave in 2017. The shooting, which took place in 2016 and 2017, was provided by about 40 divers from different cities of Russia and Japan.
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