there. They adopted an approach to cave search and exploration which included thorough investigations in a defined area and systematic testing of cave limits, through digging in boulder chokes and enlarging squeezes which had previously obstructed exploration. The Ortobalagan Valley had been selected as a primary focus for the Ukrainian efforts. This approach, followed in subsequent years by other caving clubs which joined exploration activity in different parts of Arabika, resulted in the discovery of many deep caves including five caves deeper than 1,000 m. In the Ortobalagan Valley, the Ukrainian cavers made breakthroughs in Kuybyshevskaya Cave at −160 m and pushed it to by 1986 through a series of massive boulder chokes. They broke through an impassable squeeze at −120 m in Genrikhova Bezdna Cave and eventually connected it to Kuybyshevskaya at −956 m in 1987. The resultant system has been named the Arabikskaya System. From 1982 onwards, the Kyiv cavers started systematically working in Krubera Cave, located less than 200 metres from the Kuybyshevskaya entrance, hoping to connect with the Arabikskaya System and increase its total depth by 60 m. Exploration progressed slowly because critically tight meanders between the pits required enormous amounts of work to widen them to a passable size. The cave was pushed to −340 m during 1982–1987. Two "windows" in a vertical shaft at depths of 220–250 m were documented on the cave map but remained unexplored. During this time the cave received its second, alternative name (Crows') Cave, owing to the number of crows nesting in the entrance shaft. 1990s–early 2000s The political and ethnic conflict in Abkhazia during 1992–94 resulted in instability and border problems which continued over subsequent years. This suspended speleological explorations in Arabika. Some stabilization of the situation in 1998 has since enabled a renewal of exploration effort to take place in the region. In 1999, the expedition of the Ukrainian Speleological Associations (Ukr. S.A.) led by Jurij Kasjan (also spelled Yuriy Kasyan) made a major breakthrough in Krubera Cave by discovering and exploring two branches behind the windows at a depth of 220–250 m. These branches stretched in two different directions. The "Main Branch" was explored to −740 m and the "Nekuybyshevskaya Branch" to −500 m. In 2000, the Main Branch was quickly pushed by the multi-stage expedition of the Ukr. S.A. in August to −1,200 m and in September to −1,410 m. In January 2001, the Ukr.S.A.