CAVERS 'CAVING' IN ARMENIA

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CAVERS 'CAVING' IN ARMENIA

 

http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2012/11/08/cavers-caving-in-armenia/

Community | November 8, 2012 1:26 pm

 

Members of a US caving expedition to Armenia. From left to right:

James Wilson, Greg Chavdarian, Chuck Chavdarian, Seda Chavdarian and

Steven Johnson.

 

By Alice Nigoghosian

 

Special to the Mirror-Spectator

 

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - On October 12, Dr. Charles Chavdarian, a native

Detroiter whose family was originally from Keghi, provided an

enlightening talk and slide presentation about the caves and caving

exploration in Armenia, at a program sponsored by the Tekeyan Cultural

Association, at the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU)Alex and

Marie Manoogian School.

 

Chavdarian became intrigued with the subject while traveling in the

south of France in 1992, and after reading The Scientific Traveler

- a book about prehistoric cave paintings. Following this trip, he

became interested in caves throughout the US and Canada, learning

about them through the National Speleological Society and a local

caving club in the San Francisco Bay Area and by visiting various

national parks. He learned how to explore caves in a proper and safe

manner from his newfound colleagues.

 

The deepest caves in the world are located in the countries of

Georgia and Mexico. As a result, he believed that there would also

be significant caves in Armenia.

 

Chavdarian decided he wanted to do something for Armenia - and this

led to his organizing the first official US caving expedition to visit

and photograph caves in the Vayots Dzor province of Armenia in 2007.

 

The initial trip involved his fam- ily - his wife, Seda, a professor

of French at UC-Berkeley, and son, Greg, who is a geologist - and

also his caving colleagues, Steven Johnson and James Wilson - all

from the Bay Area.

 

Chavdarian has been to Armenia three times - in 2007, 2010 and 2011

- to continue to explore and photograph the natural, wild caves and

also to visit and photograph church caves and cave villages.

 

In addition to Vayots Dzor, his travels have taken him to Syunik

and Lori provinces, and to Nagorno-Karabagh. The initial, and

most significant caving expe- dition in 2007 was supported with a

National Speleological Society (NSS) grant in the US and organized

with assistance from AdvenTour in Yerevan.

 

The first trip included a visit to four caves, including Arjeri (Bear)

Cave, Mozrovi Cave, Karmir (Red) Cave and Mageli Cave. Mozrovi Cave

includes about 300 meters of known passage and is noted for its

multi-colored limestone formations. Arjeri Cave - at 2.3 miles of

passage with many types of formations - is the largest of Armenia's

caves and included many challenges for the group such as walking

through narrow passageways, crawling, climbing up and down and using

hand lines. Karmir Cave was at the highest elevation of the caves

that were explored - nearly 7000 feet. A visit to Mageli Cave, with

1.1 miles of cave passage, found the cavers in the midst of a huge

bat colony, narrow squeezes, climbs, crawls and even tall, long

passageways. The team visited Geghard, a man-made cave monastery

carved out of a side of a mountain. Known by St. Gregory as the

"Monastery of the Spear," a visit to this site resulted in a deep-

er understanding and appreciation for our ancestors' devotion to

Christianity, and the importance of geography for the survival of

the people and their edifices.

 

The team also visited Jerovank, a water church cave, located at the

end of a narrow, pic- turesque canyon in Vayors Dzor near the village

of Arpi.

 

In fact, it was while traveling through rugged, mountainous Armenia,

that Chavdarian soon realized the difficulty of getting around,

and came to understand why churches were placed everywhere. True

to Armenian hospitality, when the expedition set up campsites, the

near- by villagers would bring them food throughout their stay in a

given area.

 

Chavdarian's slides helped to educate all as he identified various

types of beautiful cave for- mations that are part of living caves,

including bacon strips, pipe organs, stalagmites, stalac- tites,

coral, draperies and flowstone -all com- posed of limestone. The

caves in Armenia are also multi-colored, due to both mineralization

and organic matter leaching into the solubilized limestone and then

depositing in the caves resulting in colored cave formations. The mag-

nitude of colors in the Armenian caves, which are quite stunning, are,

in fact, rarely encoun- tered to this degree in caves around the world.

 

Armenian caving colleagues, led representatives of the foundation into

two caves, including Mozrovi Cave, and later developed a management

plan for that cave.

 

Chavdarian acknowledged the assistance of several cave guides and

experienced cave explorers during his trips to Armenia, including Vrezh

Nazaryan, Samvel Shahinyan and Smbat Armenia and the exploration of

Armenian caves a successful and safe one.

 

Who knows? Perhaps in the future, if a commercial cave is created in

Armenia, group tours of the cave may result in providing an additional

source of pride in Armenia's natural resources.

 

A brief question-and-answer period followed Chavdarian's professional

presentation.