The Secret of Orsha's Underground: A Schoolboy Fell Underground and Unexpectedly Discovered a Labyrinth for Scientists
In the spring of 1926, a spontaneous ground collapse on the outskirts of Orsha nearly cost curious teenagers their lives, but it opened an entrance to a mysterious underground passage. Local residents hoped to find treasure there, but it turned out that the passages were not built for that purpose.
A student of the Orsha Workers' Faculty in a passage leading to underground tunnels. 1926. Photo: Nash Kray / Orsha Regional Lore Society / colorized with the help of a neural network
As reported in the distant year 1926 on the pages of "Nash Kray" magazine, the story of this discovery began on May 18. Students from one of Orsha's schools, accompanied by their teachers, went to the outskirts of the city and ran around a steep hill that rose above the Orekhovka stream on the left bank of the Dnieper.
Zmitser Dauhyala, in his article "Orsha Caves," noted that one of the boys jumped awkwardly, the ground suddenly collapsed beneath him, and he almost disappeared into a deep, dark abyss. When the commotion subsided, the teachers peered into the hole and saw a real underground corridor.
News of the strange "lyokhs" — underground passages — instantly reached the Orsha District Regional Lore Society, whose activists, along with students from the local rabfak (workers' faculty), conducted a preliminary inspection and immediately realized they were dealing with a man-made structure.
Employees of the Historical and Archaeological Commission of Inbelkult. Seated (from left to right): D. I. Dauhyala, M. V. Dounar-Zapolski, I. A. Serbau. Standing (from left to right): S. A. Dubinski, A. M. Panou, P. V. Kharlampovich, A. L. Anikhouski. 1926. Photo: BGAKFFD
On May 26, local historians appealed to Minsk for help. The Historical and Archaeological Commission of Inbelkult responded promptly, and already on June 2, a representative delegation arrived in Orsha, consisting of historian Zmitser Dauhyala, ethnographer Isaak Serbau, and experienced topographer Alyaksandr Anikhouski.
The scientists had to work in extremely dangerous conditions, as the caves were dug in soft sandy-clayey soil with a large admixture of river gravel. This layer was so unstable that it threatened to collapse at any moment.
Entrance to the caves. On the left side, an oak doorframe that survived until the excavations. The earth above had crumbled and blocked the entrance, leaving only a hole (lyokh) into which one could slide — from there, the head of an Orsha Workers' Faculty student is visible. 1926. Photo: Nash Kray / Orsha Regional Lore Society
Researcher Alyaksandra Vaitovich, in her article dedicated to the biography of Alyaksandr Anikhouski, emphasizes the important role of this specialist in documenting the monument. It was he who undertook the complex technical part and drew up a detailed plan of the underground passages.
The document recorded an intricate system of three main corridors, where the main passage extended more than five meters deep into the hill, being about two meters high and about a meter wide. Two other corridors branched off from it, the longest of which exceeded eight meters.
The architecture of these earthen "lyokhs" was impressive in its thoughtfulness, as the unknown builders made the walls with a correct vertical incline, and gave the vaults a semicircular or acute-angled shape for durability.
Along the corridors, scientists discovered significant depressions-niches, as well as small cavities, the tops of which were densely covered with soot from oil lamps or candles.
Plan of the caves near Orsha, drawn up by A. L. Anikhouski in 1926. Photo: Nash Kray
Popular consciousness always tends to adorn any hole in the ground with myths about hidden treasures, and the local residents here also sincerely believed in the existence of countless treasures under the hill. It even reached comical levels, which Zmitser Dauhyala mentioned with hidden irony in his publication.
A certain citizen Aklopik claimed that he had gone very far through the passages but found nothing valuable, and so, out of disappointment, began to use part of the collapsed corridor for storing potatoes in winter.
The reality discovered by archaeologists turned out to be far from the legends; the excavations yielded neither gold nor ancient weapons. The only artifacts found beneath layers of collapsed sand were a small fragment of a rusty iron knife and a tin box (small box — **NN**). This tin box most likely served as the primitive oil lamp that illuminated the darkness of the underground.
Monastic Trace
To unravel the mystery of the caves' origin, historian Dauhyala turned to archival documents. The author notes in his work that the answer was found in the general land survey plan of the Orsha area from 1783. This document, compiled almost two and a half centuries ago, clearly fixed the ownership of the land.
Renaissance Holy Spirit Church on the territory of Kuteinsky Monastery in Orsha and a log bell tower in the style of churches of northern Russia. Photo: 1prof.by
The document indicated that the tract belonged to Abbot Kiryl of Kuteinsky Monastery and his brethren. The Kuteinsky Epiphany Male Monastery, founded in 1636 and famous for its excellent printing house, was located just a few kilometers from the hill.
Scientists concluded that the caves were classic monastic sketes. Probably, as early as the 17th century, one of the brethren, seeking complete seclusion from worldly vanity, dug these cells for himself in the steep bank above the Dnieper.
The caves under Orsha, dug in unstable sandy soil, were doomed to destruction by time itself. However, this monastic skete is far from the only such object in our land. As researchers Lyudmila Duchits and Iryna Klimkovich note in their work "Sacred Geography of Belarus," there are indeed no large natural caves in Belarus, but the tradition of creating artificial underground passages goes back to ancient times.
The authors draw the reader's attention to the fact that as early as the mid-19th century, Adam Kirkor explored a cave with limestone columns near the village of Rechki in the Vileika region, which local residents called Haradok or Zamak (Town or Castle). Ethnographer Pavel Shpilevsky mentioned in his works the Tatarka cave near Mazyr, where the Perekop Tatars allegedly met their end, and later Gomel archaeologists even discovered an entire complex of twelve cult underground structures of early Christians on the Sozh river bank.
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