The History of UAYCEF

The History of UAYCEF

In 1991 my friend Ed Sira, a former NSS Board of Governors member and current Northern New Jersey Grotto Emeritus, visited Ukraine, along with four other NSS members. While there, he met Valerie Rogoznikov, the chief vertical instructor for the Ukrainian Speleological Assc. Ed and Valerie soon became good friends. So, when Valerie visited New York City in 1993 it was only natural that he contacted his friend Ed. Eventually Ed put Valerie in touch with me and some other members of the MET Grotto, the local grotto covering Brooklyn's Brighton Beach section, which was where Valerie was living at the time.

Just as in Ed’s case, Valerie and I soon became the best of friends. Then, when he left to return to Kiev he invited me to visit Ukraine and go caving with him. Several months later I took him up on his offer and spent three glorious weeks in Ukraine. My trip was such a success that when my fellow grotto members saw my slides and heard of my exploits, they asked me if I could possibly arrange a similar trip for them. The result has been annual trips ever since, with plans currently underway for another trip this coming summer.

Something that stands out in my mind whenever I recall my trips are the kids; the dedication these youngsters have to caving is something to be admired. For example, one night a week in Kiev, large numbers of youngsters, some as young as twelve, attend three to four hour lectures on caving techniques and practices. Then, on Sundays, they all attend four to five hour-long practical vertical sessions.

In addition, to the kids, the adult cavers also stand out in my memories because of the tremendous hospitality that they showed to my friends and I during our trips. It was following the 1995 trip that I raised the suggestion to both Ed and Valerie of forming a student exchange organization for the benefit of youngsters in both the U.S. and Ukraine; not only to foster the exchange of caving related information, and stimulate greater involvement of youngsters in caving, but also as a way to say “Thanks” to our Ukrainian hosts. With all in full agreement, the three of us founded UAYCEF.

One night in the summer of 1996 I drove to New York City’s JFK airport and picked up two 16 year old Ukrainian boys with quite possibly two of the biggest smiles I have ever seen, with the possible exception of those on their faces one hour later when they sampled their first American hot dogs on the boardwalk of Brooklyn’s Coney Island; their dream had come true, they were in America. Their names are Filippovskiy Daniel Grigoryevich and Brikaylo Yuriy Igorevich; we call them "Dan" and “Yuriy” for short. Both NSS members were the guests of the UAYCEF until August 27, 1996, when they returned to Ukraine. During their stay here, they visited caves in the states of New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee. In addition, they also toured Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, and many other places; all of which lead to them gaining a deep appreciation and understanding of Americans as a whole.

They descended into Fantastic Pit, and climbed the torch of the Statue of Liberty. They saw Arlington Cemetery, and stood at the graveside of Floyd Collins. They wandered down the passages of Mammoth, and up the stairs of the US Capitol. They even listened to the music of the Grand Ole Opry, and the "sounds of silence" of a wooded field in upstate New York, known as Woodstock. Perhaps most importantly though, during their 2648 mile junket through 14 states, they continuously met warm caring people who treated them as family by opening up both their hearts and homes; they experienced “Americana.”

True to UAYCEF's mission as a vehicle for education, Dan and Yuriy acted as both teachers and students. In one instance, they introduced American cavers to Ukrainian caving techniques by rigging West Virginia’s multilevel Mott Hole as a series of rebelays, and then descending with bobbins which could be threaded any one of three different ways depending on the rope weight below it. Then, as students, they experienced dropping Fantastic Pit’s 586 feet using standard SMC six bar racks; followed by a tandem climb out. They even got to experience how northeast cavers must work for their passage, i.e. crawling and digging through water and mud all for the sake of finding a place big enough to turn around to get back to an area where you can inhale and put your helmet back on.

It was no easy task to bring a Ukrainian youngster over, and to bring two was nearly impossible; but we did it. Then in 1997 young Day Gillespie of Virginia accompanied me to Ukraine where he caved for three weeks with Dan and Yuriy. Davy's trip was subsequently followed by the American visits of Ukrainian youngsters Andrie Lukyanchuck in 1998, and Boudarenko Vladimir Nikolaevich in 1999. Then in August of 2000 UAYCEF subsidized the trip of Connecticut youngster Dave Oakes to Ukraine. Most recently, UAYCEF sponsored the six week US tour of Tetyana "Tanya" Yermakova of the Speleo Cub Podolia in Ternopil, Ukraine.

As in the case of Dan and Yuriy, Andrie has also contributed to the knowledge base of the American caving community, by such activities as demonstrating and teaching Eastern European Rebelay and rescue techniques, as well as the lost art of Ukrainian steel cable climbing and rappelling, at various conferences and/or meetings, to include the 98 NSS Convention, OTR and several NRO events. He has also assisted in the design and promotion of a new single rope knot system ("The Knotted Frog", ref. Nylon Hwy. Vol. No. 44) and the Quick Shunt Release System, a long-drop safety system unveiled at the 1999 Convention. In fact he has even saved an elderly woman from drowning in submerged car (Ref. Herald-Tribune, 06/30/99, Sarasota, Florida).

UAYCEF's exchange students have "made their mark" not just on those caving communities within the US and the FSU, but of the entire World as well. In January of 2001 a new Deep Cave World record was achieved in the Western Caucasus of the Former Soviet Republic of Georgia. This accomplishment was the culmination of years of exploration by Dan, Yuriy and others, many of whom were trained by Valerie Rogozhnikov, UAYCEF's Co-Founder and vice-president. In fact, it was Valerie who lead some of the first expeditions of Georgia's Arabika System in the early 80's, and trained some of those leading expeditions there today.

The youngsters referenced above are the future of caving, both here and abroad. Each is a valuable tool in the area of international cave conservation and preservation. As a result of the vast distances involved, combined with the current geopolitical atmosphere and economic situation in several FSU countries, certain destructive in-cave practices will not be eliminated anytime soon, solely through such conventional mechanisms as the installation of gates, and/or enactment of new laws. Education on the other hand can have an effect. This is where UAYCEF's exchange students can play an important role. They have greater access to not only the caves involved, but also those who control what goes on in these caves, than we do some five to six thousand miles away.

Over the course of the last several years UAYCEF, which supports itself as a non-for-profit organization by running of annual trips to Ukraine in conjunction with donations, has gained recognition as an NSS project and has expanded its operation to include: annual trips to the Mid-Western US (Utah, Arizona, New Mexico area), the US's Tennessee/Alabama/Georgia area (known as "TAG"), Puerto Rico and Mexico; Quarterly trips to West Virginia; and monthly trips throughout the Northeastern US. Currently UAYCEF is working on establishing trips to England,Cuba, Brazil and Rumania.

Over the course of the last nine years UAYCEF, with help from a number of grottos and conservancies, has assisted three separate groups of British cavers in setting up their trips throughout the TAG/WV/VA/KY area of the US. With ever increasing participation by British cavers in UAYCEF's annual Ukraine trips, UAYCEF expects to host even more groups visiting from England in the future. In addition to trips, UAYCEF also runs weekend vertical workshops, to include the NSS's new Basic Vertical Orientation Course, conducts introductory courses in caving, and has taken on a number survey projects in West Virginia and Mexico. And, in Octocber of 2003 UAYCEF, in conjunction with the TPSA, not only re-enforced the existing entrance gate at Ozernaya cave, the tenth longest cave in the world, but also installed an additional gate in it’s efforts to protect some of nature’s treasures. Thus, UAYCEF has also been active in the area of cave protection and preservation.

UAYCEF's most recent project has been one of spearheading the initiative of the Ternopil-Podolsky Speleological Assc. (the historical caretaker of the World's "Giant Gypsums" - some of the longest caves ever discovered) in opening up the Western Ukraine to the rest of the world through the creation of an International Members Division. To date UAYCEF has enrolled close to one hundred new members for its sister organization, and will soon be applying for NSS Foreign Grotto status on behalf of the TPSA, which now includes a great many UAYCEF members among its rolls.

UAYCEF recently unveiled its premiere newsletter edition. Starting as a semi-annual publication at first, it is anticipated that the UAYCEF Envoy will eventually become a quarterly, or even monthly newsletter, covering a wide range of caver related topics, focusing on the ever increasing bond between American and other cavers around the world.