50-YEAR SPELEOLOGICAL COOPERATION

Two forums were organized in order to confirm the established tradition in the frameworks of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Student Cave Club “Academic” – Sofia, and later – the 80th jubilee of the Bulgarian Federation of Speleology. The first one – the conference „Exploration and Protection of Karst and Caves” took place on 24 October 2008, where were presented 12 reports from 22 authors with various subjects. One of the numerous events, which the Bulgarian Federation of Speleology dedicated to its 80th anniversary, is the jubilee symposium „80 Years Organized Speleology in Bulgaria“. It took place on 22 March 2009. Related events, organized by BFS are the official meeting, exhibitions, National Cave Assembly, expeditions, etc. The host of the both events was the National Museum “The Earth and Man” – a place, which owing to its director Ass. Prof. Dr. Michail Maleev was turned into a national centre of the Bulgarian cavers and speleologists. In advance participation in the symposium declared 22 authors with 15 reports in the sphere of history of speleology, karst researches in Bulgaria (including mineralogy, hydrogeology and dive work, geology, climatology, as well as informatics, history, archaeology and archaeo-astronomy, rational use and research of regions in and outside the country. In the spirit of the established cooperation in the frameworks of the speleological society, we took the decision to publish the materials from the two scientific forums in one inner book, entitled “Symposium 80 Years Organized Speleology in Bulgaria“, divided into two parts: Materials from the jubilee „80 Years Organized Speleology in Bulgaria“ as well as materials from the conference „Exploration and Protection of the Karst and Caves”. We are convinced that this edition would contribute to the enlargement of the book heritage of the speleology in our country. We hope that the edition would be of use not only to cavers and speleologists but also to larger range of readers, who are interested in the caves and caving.

History of Bulgarian-Albanian explorations from 1991-2013 including the resuts

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The Balkan Conference of Speleology - Sofia’2014 was organized as one of the events, marking the 85th anniversary of organized caving in Bulgaria as well as the 50-year anniversary of the Caving Club “Helictite” - Sofia. It was held from 28 to 30 March 2014 in Sofia. In this book find place 25 papers. They are written from 48 authors from Bulgaria, Greece, Iran, Russia, Turkey. In the poster session as listeners and participants in the excursions joined also colleagues from Montenegro, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania and Serbia. There are five main topics of the conference: • History of Speleology and the study of karst • Research and research methods of the karst and caves • Archaeology and Palaeontology • Biospeleology • Ecology, Conservation and management of karst and caves; Geotechnical problems in karst terrains • Other Topics

16th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF SPELEOLOGY Brno 21/28 July 2013 Session: Speleological Research and Activities in Artificial Underground (Volume 2), Brno, 2013, 2013

In this article we consider the largest, interesting and meaningful man-made underground structures of NorthWestern Russia, which are located on the territory of Leningrad and Pskov Regions and the Republic of Karelia. These are: Sablinskaya, Staroladozhsky man-made caves, Petrovskaya underground quarry, cult caves Svyataya (" The Saint cave ") and Dolozhskaya, Taitsky sluice-way (Leningrad Region), underground complex of the Pskovo-Pechersky Dormition Monastery (Pskov Region), mine workings of Ruskeala and Rogoselga fields (Republic of Karelia). This review does not include fortifications and modern existing fields.

Proceedings of the 14 International Congress of …, 2005

The work presents summarized data, most of them unpublished, collected in the period (1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005), when 14 Bulgarian speleological expeditions were undertaken in Albania.

Proceedings of the 6-th Inter.Symposium on history of speleology and karstology in Alps, Carpatians, and Dinarides , 2002

The present Almanac is intended for readers, who are mainly among the wide range of cavers, who have a sense of historicism and desire to "dig" in the past. The idea of compiling such book belongs to Mr. Vanyo Gyorev – a member of the Management Board of the Bulgarian Caving Society and appeared in the process of preparing the coming 10-th Anniversary of the Balkan Cavers Camp in Bulgaria. We, the organisers as hosts of the event, turned to speleological or-ganizations in the Balkans with a call to join the initiative by sending us materi-als, containing a brief history of caving in their countries and information on the 3-rd emblematic caves of each country. Meanwhile, we gathered and summarized the available information about the conducted so far 9 Balkan Cavers„ Camps. Not all responded immediately to the calls. However, after several appeal letters, we managed to gather not all of the requested information. Unfortunately, in the Almanac there is no data about the speleological ac-tivities in some Balkan countries and also of the most interesting caves on each country. That is way this Almanac is not fully complete. It could be seen only as the first attempt to present some fragments of the history of the organized spele-ology and caving on the Balkan peninsula and of course, for the development of the Balkan Speleological Union! The publication in front of you is the result of the efforts of many cav-ers and speleologists. The compilation of the Almanac would have been impos-sible without the co-operation of the colleagues from Balkan countries – au-thors of the articles. I would like to express my gratitude to all of them.