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 hundred thousand kilometers long look at you will show me the way to the right or to the left normally i go from that side but if you make your choice this is a short cut 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. pits stretching over some one and a half thousand kilometers have already been mapped each year research is chock newly discovered caves the schools of kilometers in length. a leg.

scottish no longer various. hold the twenty five of the other end. how many metres there. were twenty. six. the adesa catechumens were home to partisan bases during world war two members of the underground expedition hope to find one of them the scientists who study caves. just found another passage they map out the newly found commodore. but they can't go any further the pits a flooded they can only continue with the help of diving equipment. the water is too muddy we can't see anything where is the clear deep water just a bit further on us. 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. the fields i'm freezing. khushboo member out that bit of passage to. we'll have to look for an alternative route now that we'll discover another bleach bottle of the adesa catacombs. vladivostok the main mission military naval base in russia's far east some eight thousand kilometers from address a russian engineers built the fortress here at the beginning of the twentieth century than time it was the biggest and most modern naval military construction in the world.

the southerland of a stoke 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 years today the island is open for visitors and members from england of a stoke digger club author to tally dimitri and alexi carrying out scientific expeditions on the weekends they explore military architecture monuments from different eras the island has them all including fortifications built by the military engineers of the sols as well the soviet underground hideouts is that you if you keep to the mouse directions and don't lose your way chances are you'll find those installations the problem is that they hate to some way and beyond the woods it would take more than one attempt to find them and. the ferry to the village of god knows. on the island of russkie reaches its destination in forty minutes the

diggers came here to take a look at a unique fortification definition of battery which for a long time had been a classified facility it was a key element in blood defenses 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. steel works in one thousand nine hundred thirteen. sixteen metres 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. this is the third under ground floor located underneath 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. it push it all a shell has been loaded the platform goes to the next rack i'll show you how it's done. shows of various types are rotating racks which of them is loaded depends on the orders of the commanding officer it will be thought out. if you turn around now

you can see a rack containing armor piercing shells. first caves 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 arthur in one thousand and five during the war with japan. special care was taken to protect personnel from shells the votes were reinforced with for me to think 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 of 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 counter mine galleries these are the deepest underground vaults of the fortress. soldiers would sit in these. listening to what was happening on the other if they heard someone digging underneath the force these were extended that way everything would collapse because of the explosion rendering this part of the fortress impenetrable to the enemy. the adesa catechumens scattered underground in all directions and the exact opposite of the straight cemented tunnels of vladivostok the soft calcareous rock allowed the a decimal and as to extract stone anyway new mines were often connected to the old ones creating a complicated network of underground passages with the but there's not

a soul was found in this because of the cancer cures. it still works well it can be used. dark you can see how it cuts through limestone you can see how it is. until the one nine hundred seventy s. stone was extracted manually with the help of special souls but the process became simpler after a local miner 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 sea bed the remains of shellfish slowly built under extreme pressure to form a solid but light calculus rock layer after layer 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 that soupy built into limestone and began mining it as soon as it does was founded and you constructions in the city are required more limestone.

stone business for almost all of the buildings in the residential houses theaters shops and restaurants and even churches. today the blood of all stock fortress is abuzz with activity each day scolds tara the quiet for number seven passages. going to take a fancy to the central park to come from vacation. to school children will miss last until to perfect their skills by clearing the curtains they said. if we know that our grandfathers and grandmothers built the forts part of that 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 panzer region monk seeking silence dug out a small cave in a hillside close to the 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 service is a. crime you are fifty people can be present at a service in the temple at the same time because that is why the temple is 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 homemade monk used to live. it just now we are coming to a special place in our monastery. the old men would 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. 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. hungry for the full story we've got it first hand the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. to the. to civilians contain explosive. bacteria. to seal

slugs. magic planes in the sky and seeds of hope to protect our hearts we can provide such accuracy to many forms modern technology update here. we've got the future covered the 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 a. clay preserves bones very well with their. skin but with.

red brown clay is a wonderful preserving agent for such bones. here. course of the. knees of fossilized burns. we'll give them to the museum of paleontology. 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. are with the very interesting elaboration of the buying. a 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 sounding. it can pinpoint underground voids the depths of up to fifteen meters. up already. let's begin. as soon as you're ready just let me 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 accidentally 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 ropes we don't know 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. 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. you have current realities with those grandiose discovered with stupid inscriptions like so in sao has been here on the other you have these creatures. 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 digger enthusiastic intent to start a cold war museum in these tunnels and they've already got the first exhibit. this scary figure it is the will to do. me and the guys from the digger club who made it as a sort of sawmill of water long on a it 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 to find out what it. is riven is a very important begin to restore of the facilities history. names addresses and

other figures we've got 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. somewhat dangerous containing worn out 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 a 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. obviously the communications are allowing the inhabitants to receive fresh information make decisions and inform people about their decisions this is over territory would be controls 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 there. world war two resistance fighters operating here for german and roumanian troops a group of diggers has found the can base of one of the potters and 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. sleep sometimes coins rolled out of their

pockets. one hundred 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 minds 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 and untrained men 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 it had to be unassailable and you. have never seen real life fighting but today there frequented by members of a re-enactment group response team imitating russian marines. is that. do you read me. the role 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. given the people working here once served with me in the same division of the marines. so we've got a lot in common. in this exercise. his soldiers to defend the barracks in a final way possible which is by. fighting breaks out in the fields on the. russian engineers go for a small one hundred years ago still be defended against weapons with simply. well this is going to defend this firing from this nice little full well at the circle in because the corridor is exposed to gunfire. protected by thick concrete. even

a flight of stairs stops attackers in that tracks. if someone appears from that the defendant first sees his feet to say even if you crawl in all the first thing 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 a 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.

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well why news out of moscow this is welcome to the program immigrants in germany are accused of failing to integrate into society choosing their religious convictions over the laws of their adopted country although the government says it's making moves to bring foreign born citizens into the mainstream the country's leader says that multiculturalism has failed sort of reports on an issue splitting the country. and really. learn the language of guts and accept. each and have a place to the message to immigrants in germany integration tough talk from the german chancellor controversial speech recently branded multiculturalism the face. of the fight it to take on an extremely sensitive issue. which is also called gaza strip because.