Primož Jakopin, photo diary
Uzbekistan 2024
Boybuloq cave*
August 16, 2024, 36 pictures
Most images are approximately 768 x 1024 pixels in size, numbers in front of the picture
descriptions are serial numbers of the original photo files.
Made with participation of Holidin Pojonov with his daughter Farangiz Kudratulaeva from Dehibolo,
Gorana Perić - Goga from Zagreb and Paul Karoshi from
Graz, Čedo Josipović, Luka Ivančić and Vedran Ferenčak
from Zagreb, participants of the Chul-Bair 2024 Caving Expedition (organized by the ASU - Ural
Speleological Association): Aleksandr Kuznecov - Saša from Snežinsk,
Aleksej Serëgin from Miass,
Marija Studenikina - Maša from Ekaterinburg,
Alexander Zalesskij - Doktor from Pervouralsk
and Zdeněk Dvořák from Brno.
Page, texts and photos copyright (c) Primož Jakopin - Klok 2024 except for the photo 54049, which
was taken by Maša and is published with her permission.
In the camp of the expedition Chul-Bair 2024
54013. The first night was quite turbulent due to the inclined floor (the donkeys from Dehibolo were also a bit of a nuisance - not the Holidin's two, the other two, who grazed right next to the tent). The author, Holidin and Farangiz slept in the tent, our heads were higher than our feet, and we were sliding down all night long and had to move upwards quite often. Therefore, in the morning, the author and Holidin decided to dig up a better base for the tent. After a good hour of work, there was only about a hundred-kilogram stone left in the way (in the picture it is shown next to Holidin and Farangiz), which Holidin, with a little help from the author, dug and pulled out to the surface, using tools that Saša lent from the expedition's supplies.
54014. Holidin, the stone, the hole it was in, and Farangiz. The next night was much more pleasant because of the completely horizontal floor.
54015. Shrub, called an gurak in Tajiki, with sweet and tasty stone fruits.
54016. Farangiz, author's knee and Holidin in front of tent at lunch. The trio's trip to the mountain was largely salvaged by the gas cooker in the photo. Gas cartridges are not allowed in the luggage on airplanes, and in Uzbekistan (and the surrounding areas), the cartridges we are used to in Europe, especially the 190 gram ones, are not known and therefore not available. They only use the 220-gram ones, which are twice as expensive, but have a valve and are used in very capable cookers with a power of 2200 W, such as the one in the photo. After problems with the online purchase - through the Temu company website, the author ordered and paid for a cooker with a three-part windshield made of sheet metal, but received (and successfully returned) only the windshield - and an unsuccessful request that the cooker be purchased by a tourist agency from Tashkent, which took care of the logistics of this expedition in Uzbekistan - according to the principle: My concern, pass on to someone else, they advised sharing the expedition's cookers - the author finally found a cooker in a store with leisure accessories at Rudnik in Ljubljana. Neither the cooker nor the cartridges for it were noz yet available in Slovenian stores last year. In the photo, a compote made of dry prunes, raisins, dry goji berries, and very small but tasty apples that Holidin and Farangiz picked up in the garden of an acquaintance in the village, broccoli cream soup from a bag (in a pan) from the Turkish shops on Ižanska cesta in Ljubljana, very good dark bread from Samarkand - in the village they only bake hard, flat, round loaves of white bread - tomatoes with onions, and a few pieces of roasted meat (not shown) baked by Dilafruz, Holidin's wife in Dehibolo.
At the cave entrance
54017. Goga and Čedo on the rock west of the entrance
Boj-Bulok
54053. The first seven meters of the cave is a low horizontal passage, with mud, water and solid rock here and there, where a heavy-duty caving suit with knee pads, rubber boots and rubber gloves, long to the elbow, is a must. In the photo - a view to the outside, with Maša at the end.
54018. Farangiz at the end of the passage, where you can, sort of, stand up.
54019. Farangiz in a meander, which is very narrow on the floor, ...
54020. ... and greatly expands ...
54021. ... higher up, also with Saša and Maša.
54024. On the floor with a thin coating of dripstone, water flows at a rate of just several "shot glasses" per second. In rare places gravel can also be found, and very rarely pebbles.
54025. The upper parts of the meander are generally wider, but climbing there (and descending again) is time-consuming. In the photo (counter-clockwise from top to bottom): Saša, Holidin, Farangiz and Maša.
54026. A slightly more diverse part of the meander, Farangiz...
54030. ... and all the party, in an accentuated "chiaro-scuro" shot.
54031. In a few places one has to climb along shelves above the water, which is here over knee-deep.
54033. Holidin in the vividly eroded top of the meander
54034. The meander is almost everywhere too narrow in the lower part for normal walking, because it has a convex profile (shaped like a banana), sometimes bent in one direction, sometimes in the other one. For the most part, it allows advancing in a lateral direction, in upward position, but it often requires changing sides, the caver to turn 180 degrees. Which usually requires moving back a few meters to a place wide enough to allow such turn. Sometimes it is possible to proceed forward with some force, with consequences for the caving suit (gets torn). Here it is shown with Saša.
54035. We carried three long sticks as stands for LED floodlights while photographing the halls. But there were no halls and we only used a single stick once, in the photo 54031 - it held the floodlight above the water. In the photo: Holidin, Saša and Farangiz.
54036. Shortly before the end of the photo shoot, we were met by Aleksej and the Doktor, who were returning from an exploration assignment. In the photo is a group shot in one of the widest parts of the tunnel, where they could easily pass us ahead: Saša, Doktor, Aleksej and Maša.
54038. Quite often, to get away from the heat, grazing sheep retreats to the coolness of the cave, and if an animal dares a little too far inside, and cannot find a suitable place to turn around, the venture can end sadly. In the photo: a ram's skull that we found wedged higher in the meander. The remaining bones were washed away.
54049. A little closer to the entrance, in a side niche, above the water, there was a full skeleton. Holidin recognized this as a ram, again.
54046. Maša in a slightly wider meander...
54050. ... and in a little tighter one, where she moves sideways above the water. A person is more narrow with hands up.
54039. Aleksej
54040. Doktor
54041. Saša
54042. Farangiz
54044. Holidin ...
54045. ... and Maša
54052. Rock wedged in the meander, view towards the exit - the correct way to go is under the rock
At the cave entrance
54056. Sunset over Boj-Bulok: Maša, Holidin, Saša, Aleksej and Doktor
54057. Paul
54058. Luka
54059. Vedran
54061. and Zdeněk
On the way back to the camp
54062. The moon is rising over the Boj-Bulok canyon
Related pages:
*For greater accuracy the cyrillic names in this report were romanized
according to the
Scientific transliteration
of Cyrillic with the pronunciation of the main additional characters as: č = ch, š = sh, ž = zh,
y = hard i, j = y, ë = yo, u = oo - i. e. Dmitrij Čeredničenko = Dmitriy Cherednichenko.
From the Brnik airport to Boybuloq cave, August 13 - 15, 2024
From the mountain back to Dehibolo, August 17, 2024
This page, text and photos by Primož Jakopin,
member of the Ljubljana Cave Exploration Society (DZRJL).
Send inquiries and comments to primoz jakopin guest arnes si
(insert dots and at sign as appropriate).
Page initiated on August 26, 2024; date of the last change: November 2, 2024.
URL: https://www.jakopin.net/primoz/slike/2024/PJ20240816_en.php
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