The Cave "Emil Rakovita" ("Cinderella")

Location: 280 km from Chisinau, the Cave "Emil Rakovita" ("Cinderella")

"Cinderella" ("Emil Rakovita") is a very perspective, karstic labyrinth cave located in the huge plaster mountain mass in the north of Moldova. This cave system is one of the longest in Europe. According to the mapping data, its length makes 92 kilometer.

The cave was found in 1959 after explosion in the plaster open-cast mine near the village Criva. After the underground emptiness were cleared from waters, they have been examined by the cave explorers. You can visit the showroom where each interested person can sculpt from the clay the different figures starting from the ridiculous muzzles and finishing with serious sculptures, etc. There, in the center there is Cinderella of human height. Cave explorers found here huge halls: "Hall of Cinderella", "Hall with columns", "Hall of Dacia", "Hundred-meter hall" and numerous galleries which make the real underground labyrinths where one can easily get lost and where it is very difficult to find the way out.

The cave has two wells as some galleries are constantly filled with underground waters, and they are connected between themselves on the various levels. Here they found about 20 underground lakes: "Blue lake", "Lake of dinosaurs", "Lake Nautilus", etc. the waters of which, according to the hydrochemical analyses, are rich with mineral salts which can have curative influence on the human body.

Another inexplicable feature of the cave of "E.Rakovita" is that all underground halls and galleries are plentifully covered with the layer of gentle clay of the most various colors: green, blue, red, black, white etc. In some underground galleries the cave explorers-fans made unusual clay figures which serve also as the original indexes of the directions to the halls which are the most interesting for visiting.

Cave visiting nowtime is forbidden

The Cave "Emil Rakovita" ("Cinderella")

Our Partners