(eerie music)
- This is unbelievable.
This chamber's just the size of my body.
Look at these crystals.
The walls are just pure crystal.
Hidden under these green farmers' fields
is a twisted labyrinth of crystals.
Pechera Optymistychna, the Optimistic Cave,
is the longest in Europe and Asia.
And the longest gypsum cave in the entire world.
It's known as a maze cave, a twisting, branching labyrinth,
filled with clay and crystals.
What attracted me to this place?
Well, definitely the crystals, but also, the website.
"Do you want to see the real cave?
Not to ride it by train, but really make it there?
Crawl, of course, we offer you to get dirty
and dive 90 feet under the surface,
in order to explore the biggest
and most mysterious gypsum labyrinth in the world.
I inquired about their Tough Guys package.
Extreme tour, for the strong and tough.
The longest and most difficult routes.
So, I bring the most adventurous girl I know.
- Do I pass the test?
- [Eva] (laughs) Yes.
- [Mike] We dress up like some strange version
of the Mario Brothers. And we head out.
It's the first time my pants have been taped to my shoes
(Eva laughs)
I feel like a toddler.
Really though, could there be a door creepier than that?
(people chattering)
- [Eva] Oh my god.
Lights are on.
(people chattering)
- [Man] Door?
- [Eva] This feels like the door to hell.
(Mike laughing)
(eerie music)
Go.
Our goal, crawl 5 hours underground
to reach the biggest crystals in the cave.
(laughing) Wow, look at this.
This is really cool.
- Look, there's a little bat!
I think this is the first of many bats we'll see today.
- He's right there.
We've only been in the cave for a minute,
but it's already quite the crazy experience.
Look at this, look how narrow this is, guys.
(peaceful music)
This is wild, this chamber's just the size
of my body.
And we're only just started (laughing).
We've only just begun.
(peaceful music)
(background chatter)
Viktor joins us.
He grew up playing in these caves
and he's an amateur speleologist.
- We can go right,
it's not way for tourists,
but I can show you this way.
- [Eva] Okay.
- And you can see more.
- [Mike] My pick is easiest.
- [Eva] (whispering) Yeah, we're gonna go that way.
(Mike laughs)
- It's a giant Minotaur, right?
- Yeah.
- Who built this, who made it?
- Our speleologist.
- [Mike] Your speleologist made it.
- Well, your speleologist...
- But now it's architecture education.
(Mike laughs)
- [Mike] Well, they did a fantastic job, it's amazing.
It's like the guardian of the cave.
Also, there's a goldfish.
- [Eva] Ah.
- [Mike] Oh yeah, there's another one,
oh no, it's not a goldfish, look it's like an angler,
a demon angler fish.
(laughs) See that?
I've never been in a cave like this.
Look, I mean, these aren't crystals,
but it is crystal, look at this.
It's like this brown,
it looks almost like giant brown sugar crystals
or something, right?
- And in time of early Greece,
it was the most expensive stone.
- Wow. Amazing.
- [Mike] And so, what do you call the crystal?
A gypsum crystal?
- Yeah.
- [Mike] So, why is it called the optimistic cave anyway?
Well, decades ago, there was another very famous cave
called the Priest's Grotto.
Where some Jewish Europeans hid for refuge,
during World War 2.
The cave was enormous, but there was a local Ukrainian man
who thought here was a bigger cave nearby.
There must be a bigger system.
He was optimistic.
His friends, his family, and everyone else he knew was not.
They were pessimistic, they said it was impossible.
However, he did find a bigger cave.
Sometimes it pays to be optimistic.
And that's where the name came from.
(inspirational music)
The speleologist would spend weeks
and months at a time down here, mapping the caves.
When you're surrounded by darkness and clay
with no phone reception or power,
it's hard not to become a sculptor.
And with all that time, you get pretty good.
This is it, here.
- [Viktor] Of course.
- [Mike] it's a little creepy my friend.
- [Viktor] No.
- It's not creepy?
- No, not all all.
- [Eva] A little bit.
- Little bit creepy, right?
- Yeah!
- [Mike] (laughs) It looks like death.
(inspirational music)
- [Eva] Say it again?
- [Mike] Say it again, say it again.
Now that the camera's on.
- Oxygen in our cave is like love.
- Oxygen in the cave is like love, why?
- He makes our life longer.
- (laughs) That's right, it does, right?
- [Eva] Yeah.
- Ah, romantic. This is like a little date for us.
- [Eva] (laughs) Yes! Unconventional.
- And someone else's complete nightmare,
I think, to be in a cave like this.
And, after two hours of trekking in the cave,
we made it to the first base camp,
because there's 250 kilometers,
or 400 kilometers of underground tunnels, here.
If you're gonna do an actual exploration,
or if you're a speleologist, spellologist (laughs).
It takes days and days to do the expedition.
So, they live here.
Welcome to the master suite.
This is where some lucky soul would sleep.
Not us, today.
But this is like a piece of, it's a garbage bag, basically,
on some clay.
And you have your own table
and that goes back into infinity,
but hey, you're surrounded in crystals.
And that's luxury, right?
Eva's trying it out for us.
How is it?
- It's extremely hard and cold
and I don't think I will enjoy sleeping here,
but I will try it once.
Maybe, next time?
- [Mike] We can just turn our lights off and leave you.
- [Eva] I can just stay here, I guess.
- [Mike] All right, maybe we'll turn off this light...
- [Eva] No, no, no...
- [Mike] and we'll just.
- [Eva] No, no, no, no.
- [Mike] How deep underground are we right now?
- [Viktor] For about 200 meters.
(Eva gasps)
- That's crazy!
- [Mike] 200 meters!
And there's a bathroom that you have, right?
- [Viktor] Yeah.
- [Mike] Can we see it?
- (laughs) No!
(Eva laughs)
- [Mike] Why? Is it messy?
- [Viktor] Mud.
- [Mike] So, I told Viktor I had to use the bathroom.
It was about what I expected (laughs).
We leave the camp and we come across a tarp
that collects drinking water
for the scientists who live here.
(peaceful music)
Okay, let's find those big crystals.
Viktor, tell me again, what the most dangerous part
of the cave is, being in the cave.
- [Viktor] In our cave, the most dangerous thing,
is our fear.
- [Mike] Your fear?
Why is fear one of the most dangerous things?
- [Viktor] Because your fears,
can became materialistic.
You can say for yourself, I will die,
and you will hit your head
on a wall.
- [Mike] Wise words, whether you're underground
or underwater, flying a plane, or exploring a cave,
it's panic that kills you.
Letting fear consume you, acting irrationally.
And down here, if you panic, you could easily get lost.
(peaceful music)
(Viktor speaks indistinctly)
I didn't know what we signed up for,
but this is much more intense than I thought.
- [Eva] Viktor was just saying this is nothing.
- This is nothing?
Popping off to the side for one quick second.
If you wanna know exactly where this place is,
I have a map where I've pinned all of my locations.
If you saw a video on Fearless and Far,
no matter what it was, the pin is on the map
and you can get it for free.
There's a link in the description,
put in your email and it gets sent
directly to your inbox.
Now, let's continue with the show.
(Mike laughs)
In the beginning, there was a few,
but now this is incredible.
Layers and layers of these brown crystals.
And how old are these, do you think.
- For about 10 millions.
- 10 million years old?
- Yeah.
- They're more like, they're much smaller,
like little teeth, see?
So this is black gypsum.
It's amazing that one thing
can be so many different kinds of colors, shapes,
forms, all the same, all gypsum.
(peaceful music)
The deeper we get in this cave, the bigger the crystals get.
This is turning into something
like out of a fantasy movie.
(peaceful music)
Oh, we're getting deep now.
Look at these crystals.
- [Viktor] You can go now.
- [Eva] What?
- (laughs) This is crazy.
Whew, I have never seen anything like this.
Look how big that crystal is.
(laughing) Can you see on the camera?
- [Eva] Yeah.
(eerie music)
- [Mike] It's so slippery.
Whew!
Oh wow, look at these crystals.
This is unbelievable (laughs).
- What we're about to see
is not normally allowed for tourists.
It's actually a forbidden zone for tourists.
(eerie music)
- [Mike] Look, look, look, look, look at the walls.
The walls are just pure crystal.
And the ceiling, too, up here.
Look at this.
- [Eva] Look at the floor.
- [Mike] look at this (laughs). Completely surrounded.
Every room we go in, I'm like, wow, we've made it.
And then we're like, oh there's still more,
there's still bigger crystals.
Oh, my God (laughing). Look at...
- [Viktor] These crystals are big ones here abouts.
And you first who have did this.
- [Eva] Wow.
- First tourist.
- [Mike] First tourist to see these.
- [Viktor] Ah, we found these the first in summer...
- Some of these crystals are even bigger than my bicep.
They're like probably this big around.
I have to be really careful,
because they're so fragile,
but this is something that is just so spectacular,
I can't even believe nature makes things like this.
I don't even really know why or how.
That's why we have experts with us.
But it's an incredible thing.
(inspirational music)
Okay, okay.
It's amazing.
Well, the adventure is not over for us.
We still gotta get outta this cave.
But it is over for you.
If you haven't subscribed yet, why not?
There's epic videos here every week.
Also, subscribe to this girl, Eva Zu Beck
And if you haven't check out my map yet
of all of the locations I've been to,
like this one, it's for free.
The link is there, also in the description.
Chase your fears, guys.
And I'll catch you next week on Fearless and Far.
(calm music)