Thursday, August 14, 2008

Vypustek Cave

Today I would like to give some information about Cave Vypustek in Moravian Karst. I have visited this cave recently for the first time. Vypustek Cave is the fifth cave that is open to the public. The others are Balcarka Cave, Katerinska Cave, Punkevni Cave and Sloupsko-sosuvska Cave.
Vypuste Cave is known already from the 17th century, when the quack doctors were coming into the cave. They were looking for the bones of prehistoric animals here. The count Hugo Frantisek of Salm (full name Hugo František Salm-Reifferscheidt-Raitz) visited the cave at the beginning of the 19th century. He belongs to the prominent Moravian figures of this time and he became the most outstanding member of Rajec’s lineage of Salm-Reifferscheidt-Raitz. Nobody before or after him overshadowed him. He was modern and skilful industrialist, scientist, art lover, collector, sponsor and last but not least philanthropist. He was also first of all by the founding of The Moravian Museum in Brno in 1817. Later in the 19th century, Dr. Jindrich Wankel, Dr. Karel Absolon or Dr. Martin Kriz explored the cave.
In the 20´s of the 20th century the cave has been affected by the exploitation of the phosphate clays as the rests of the prehistoric beasts. Since 1938, the Czechoslovak army has got the munitions magazine, but the German army (Wehrmacht) established here the factory for production of the aviation engines during The Second World War. After that, the speleologists again explored the cave, but the Czechoslovak army built here secret base at 60’s of 20th century and it stayed here till 2001, when the base was declassified. Since 2008, the antinuclear shelter and part of the cave labyrinth is open to public.
Since I served here as the soldier of compulsory military service, I was very interested in. The whole area is changed now. Only main building is maintained. Here are several pics.


Main Building



Shelter Enter



Water Recycling



2 Diesel Engines



The Cave

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