it's these manmade cade's which are a significant part of russian history atop the underground. adesa a city in the south of ukraine from assorted republic. at the weekend local dave has set out on an underground expedition. the most comfortable way to get around the depths of the underground maze because by car. these manmade caves are the world's longest more than two and a half thousand kilometers of what it will show you what does it translate to the road or to the left normally i go from that side but if you make your choice this is a short because but over there the scenery is more beautiful ok or go to the right . locals call these pits catacombs stone for

construction used to be mine kid the first excavation began some two hundred years ago. the pits stretching over some one and a half thousand kilometers have already been mapped each year research is chart a new need is covered caves that are schools of kilometers in length. and leg the scottish no longer there is no. hold the title of the alongside the other end of the arch. i'm going to meet his then. we're twenty ok thanks. the indefinite catechumens were home to ponce's and bases during world war two members of the underground expedition hope to find one of them as the scientists who study caves known especially ologists found another passage did they map out the newly found. but they can't go any further the pits a flooded they can only continue with the help of diving equipment. good water is

used to muddy river can't see anything else where is the clear deep water is a bid for the room. the pits all look alike on the water and you can lose your way in one time. they have to tread very carefully to avoid kicking up the line sediment it's next to impossible to find a way back through the muddy water. alexander has been able to determine the pits direction and height. of. libya's unfreezing. who went out that bit of passage to. we'll have to look for an alternative route now that will discover another bleach bottle of the adesa catacombs. vladivostok the main russian military

naval base in russia's far east some eight thousand kilometers from a desolate russian engineers built the fortress here at the beginning of the twentieth century time it was the biggest and most modern naval military construction in the world. the sutherland of all stoked defense frontline was located at muskie island the only way to get there was by ferry it was the military alone which knew about the existence and location. of many underground hideouts for many theaters today the island is open for visitors and members from the blood of a stock digger club author to tally dimitri and alexi carrying out scientific expeditions on weekends they explore military architecture monuments from different eras the island has them all including fortifications built by the military

engineers of the song as well the soviet underground hideouts. if you keep to the maps directions and don't lose your way you'll find those installations the problem is that there hayden's someway and beyond the woods it would take more than one attempt to find them on. the ferry to the village of god knows you're on the island of russkie reaches its destination in forty minutes the diggers came here to take a look at a unique fortification the vanishing of battery which for a long time had been a classified facility it was a key element involved of defenses for the purpose of these guns was to protect the city from sea and land assaults their range of fire was thirty five kilometers they were never actually used for military purposes and the last salvo for training was fired in one thousand nine hundred two now the fort is a museum. these guns were cast in the steel works in one thousand nine hundred thirteen. almost sixteen meters long and weigh about fifty tons.

principle if you really want to. complex of underground structures three stories deep lies underneath the tower. was the last commander of the battery now retired he's the museum curator and is only too willing to show guests the underground storage of shells and powder. if you buy me this is the third under ground floor located underneath of the tower it's sixteen meters deep the room was used to store shelves and here the shelves. each shell weighs nearly five hundred kilos a mechanical winch operated by two soldiers was needed to lift them. the soldiers did their job like clockwork. between shots it took them less than two minutes to

reload the cannon and fire. it push it all a shell has been loaded the platform goes to the next rock show you how it's done. shells of various types are rotating racks which of them is loaded depends on the orders of the commanding officer would be thought out. if you turn around and now you can see a rack containing armor piercing shell it's. bloody bostock's first caves were dug in the late nineteenth century russian military engineers built the world's most powerful fortifications in blood of all stock after the defeat of the russian naval base at port author in one thousand and five during the war with japan. special care was taken to protect personnel from shells the votes were reinforced with form into thick concrete underground passages were also built between the caves. the fortifications cost seventy three tons of gold which equated at the time to

approximately two hundred million dollars. to refer to the cations and landed on the saying every fortification has its unique layout depending on a particular district. the fortifications have been built of the highest points. the garrison of such fortifications could defend independently each holding out for two months of the most vulnerable parts of the fortification where the enemy could dig underneath the buildings dug what are known as count a mine galleries these are the deepest underground vaults of the fortress. we. would see it in these. listening to what was happening on the other if they heard someone digging underneath a ford these were extended that way everything would collapse because of the explosion rendering this part of the fortress impenetrable to the enemy. the.

ground in all directions the exact opposite of the straight to. the soft. allowed to extract anywhere. connected to the old ones creating a complicated network of underground passages. was found in this because of the cancer. it still works well it can be used. kirk you can see how it cuts through limestone you can see how that is. until the one nine hundred seventy s. stone was extracted manually with the help of special some walls but the process became simpler after a monkey mind that invented a special stem cutting machine. the average depth of the adesa catacombs is twenty five meters but a million years ago it was actually the seabed the remains of shellfish slowly built under extreme pressure to form

a solid but light calculus rock layer after layer but just as they did business there on new forests around the desa suit to become be used as building material breaks gone be made in the absence of coal and that the soupy built into limestone and underground mining it as soon as it does was founded you constructions in the city required more limestone. stone was used for almost all of the buildings in odessa residential houses and theatres shops and restaurants and even churches. today the vladivostok fortress is abuzz with activity each day scolds tear up the quiet for number seven is passages. going to have taken a fancy to a central park to come from vacation. to school children will

miss last until to perfect their skills by clearing the curtains they've set up. if we know that our grandfathers and grandmothers built the forts but a big part of our history and. we really come here to skate. as a rule we skate here when it's just rainy or saw it. but most of the time the faults of the vladivostok fortress a quiet. in the peaceful environment of the central russian penza region monk seeking silence dug out a small cave in a hillside close to the citizen river. that was in one thousand one. later of the monks turned the cave into russia's largest underground church. in soviet times the structure was almost destroyed and buried but in two thousand and five excavations began.

later a senior priest restored the church and now services. fifty people can be present at a service in the temple at the same time because that is why the temples considered the biggest underground temple in russia. the temples history is full of mysteries. according to the legend the cave was the beginning of several underground passages which lead far beyond the monastery territory. the passages have not been found and excavation is still ongoing research as think that church items may have been hidden underground from the bolsheviks. excavators have already dug up and restored an underground cell when a hermit monk used to live. now we are coming to

a special place in our monastery. the old men will have to sit at this spot he would spend all his time in prayer he would spend ten years here. this is the window he was handed food through from the male monastery on the ground the entrance would be sealed up he would talk only to god and spend ten years here praying. tatiana and dennis geophysicists they hope that special equipment will help them locate underground voids to support the rumors which claim the existence of the secret passages.

the adesa catacombs the world's largest manmade underground structure people extracting building stone here for over two centuries often found natural underground cavities filled with clay work was immediately halted in such places because of fears they could collapse local bakers take special care when examining such dangerous sections of the catacombs. the remains of prehistoric animals can be

found in the case of a desk. more than they. claim preserves bones very well. but we still have to look for in the. red brown clay is a wonderful preserving agent for such bones. typical cross here. at the. knees of fossilized bones. will give them to the museum of paleontology. with the. addresses museum of paleontology is one of the best known museums across the former soviet union nearly one third of its exhibits feature objects found in the catacombs scientists discovered that thousands of years ago the area of what is now a death was inhabited by desert animals such as hyenas and camels there's also a unique exhibit two perfectly intact ostrich eggs they date back to the third

century b.c. but the museum boasts even more valuable finds. very interesting elaboration of the bearings but they ways interesting question is. this little how has been the subject of debate how did it come about was it the result of mechanical treatment someone doubt whether this could have been done by ancient people this is highly unlikely there were no humans of any kind of three to five million years the guy. play helps the paleontologists make discoveries but it makes life much more difficult for geologists looking for an underground passage in the monastery in the pens a region the clay is so thick that it prevents their instruments from examining cavities hidden below. so the geophysicists turned to equipment used for vertical electrical sanding. it

can pinpoint underground voids a depth of up to fifteen metres. up already. let's begin. as soon as you're ready just every know. to turn your nearly go electric shock. what was the voltage about eight hundred volts i would have thought. scientists gauge the electrical conductivity twice they carry out one test where they think a tunnel might be located the other is where they don't expect to find any tunnels this is to help make the results more accurate the tests reveal the. cavities around the monastery. the new shows and tony the churchwarden the outcome of the tests and suggests that excavation work should continue. however have their own version of the underground ministries layout. according to the book

. the monastery points east words when we accidently turned the book upside down the underground monastery revealed an image of the holy mother of. the two entrances look like her legs. the baby's head. is the head of our lady the church and burial are her shoulders and streaming robes. whether it's a coincidence or providence. is that there is nothing accidental. these manmade caves attract artists as well as scientists. is a professional photographer and journalist some years ago she often to people on guided tours of the caves of the. us it was then that she came up with the idea of an art project to draw public attention to the neglected.

after two years preparations she began taking pictures of you can read figures wearing long clothes and standing against the background of flips and underground galleries of the naval fleet. as a result you get something incompatible. current realities with those grandiose trust is covered with stupid inscriptions like so in south has been here on the other you have these created so you get contrasting images and the spiritual as opposed to basic human passion. is now intend to draw attention to another underground object that up until now only special service officers knew about.

the facility consists of several long tunnels and is a former reserve command point for the region's leaders. the facility was declassified in the year two thousand and is now completely abandoned. bigger enthusiastic intent to start a cold war museum in these tunnels and they've already got the first exhibit. with . this scary figure it is the will to do is call it boreal it's me and the guys from the deer club who made it as a sort of sawmill of what a long gone age was like joe montana has it suits. you symbolizes the cold war years a constant readiness for war. very little is known about the facility to this day. that's why. all the equipment and documents they find in the abandoned. ribbon with some text on

it still work so we'll have to draw it out to find out what it. is riven is a very important they can help restore portions of the facilities history. names addresses and other figures with a lot to decipher. we've never been past this. let's go. the official blueprints of the facility is still classified so the diggers have to study each room themselves. some dangerous containing electric power lines but that doesn't stop the research is curiosity and they proceed carefully. and there are two rooms there connected by a passage a wooden staircase leading up it's very old. the bunker was built during

the second world war in one thousand nine hundred two it was intended for use by the primordial regions administration and had all the resources needed to support people over two months. this was obviously the communications room allowing the inhabitants to receive fresh information make decisions and inform people about their decisions this is over territory would be controlled fortunately there was never a real war in these parts so the object was not needed. by contrast severe fighting used to rage in the adesa caves explorers are still finding parties and bases down their. world war two resistance fighters operating here for to get german and roumanian troops a group of diggers has found the can base of one of the partisan units black dust is all that's left of the straw that used to come one of the bands. here

is something big there's a lot of something. i found. when the partisans were asleep sometimes coins are rolled out of their pockets but. one thousand twenty two. says here once again. the diggers take every object they find to the small museum the cartridges and small coins will be added to the collection. these are the weapons. they represent the types of armaments you would usually find underground. the germans were aware of the location of the camps but they never ventured into the depths of the stone mines the only exit to the surface was three kilometers from the partisans base camp. to the camp were blocked up undermined sharpshooters

carefully protected the main entrance. normally these barricades were manned by two fighters they were on duty for two hours at a time and it was pitch black here an untrained man found it very difficult to sit here under such conditions very often the partisans saw the light when somebody approached the barricades from the entrances and they targeted it is just not the barricades are going to be unassailable and you. have never seen real life fighting but today there frequented by members of a reenactment group response team imitate russian marines. is that. do you read me. the wrong players submachine guns and pistols are exact replicas of real weapons the only difference is that small plastic balls are used instead of

live ammunition. was designed for military operations in the first place second grandfather served here. as a military spirit and the atmosphere of this place for you. even the people working here won't serve with me in the same division of the marines. so we've got a lot in common i'm no good. in this exercise. his soldiers to defend the barracks in a fall away which is seen by. breaks out in the fields on the. russian engineers built before christmas one hundred years ago still be defended against weapons with simply says. focus is going to defend this firing from this niche know full well that the circle

in because the corridor is exposed to gunfire. protected by thick concrete. even a flight of stairs stops attackers in their tracks so if someone appears from next to defend the first sees his feet. even if you crawl and all of the first film you'll see is the defenders gurnard. several assault attempts have ended in failure the blood of a stock fortress has proved once again that it cannot be conquered. people have a special fascination with manmade caves the footsteps and flashlights of new explorers and pound to disturb the quiet darkness of the underground labyrinths for years to come but those who've experienced the excitement of the trailblazers are almost bound to return to this some world again and again.

kids on the front two israeli soldiers may face up to three years in prison for using a nine year old palestinian boy as a human shield during the gaza war almost two years ago. israeli military authorities say using civilians for cover bands a claim ridiculed by civil rights campaigners who allege it's a regular army tactic. iraq's prime minister is under pressure following the massive leak of secret american files revealing torture and a massive billion deaths in a country that critics ask if he's fit to be in power even while nouri al maliki says that the release of the files which he says are to be investigated threatens the balance of power in the country. talking trash ecologists in moscow warned the city may soon find itself suffocating under its own rubbish unless the proper strategy to deal with its garbage is found environmental

inspectors say hopelessness is the biggest fine for littering is only around two hundred dollars an. hour debate show cross talk is up next. as midterm elections loom in america peter lavelle and here's a good look at the state of democracy in the u.s. and whether it's been bought out by big money. player and a sister. pledged to. explain below to me welcome to cross talk time you talk about democracy for sale is a form of plutocratic capitalism threatening to replace democratic capitalism in the us and further afield and as tens of millions of dollars are spent on campaigns how does this help the stranded middle class working class and the poor. play.