Lost in caves, spelunking with Ukrainian pilgrims

Above, top to bottom: Candles are lit as pilgrims plunge into the dark abyss of Stradch's caves on October 4th, 2008; an UCU student gets me lost as wander the caverns by candlelight, suddenly stumbling upon wide rooms filled with simple shrines to the Virgin Mary, icons and statues of Christ; a group of pilgrims pray over a little girl, bottom left, as she lays on a stone in the main chamber of Stradch; a few Ukrainian guys are blinded and scared by my strobe trap I left for them, notice the expressions; we put out the lights before tromping out into the rain.

I photographed a pilgrimage for the university on Saturday, October 4th. I didn't mind the walk through muddy fields, the rain or the villagers who always asked me, the only person on the pilgrimage who didn't speak Ukrainian, where we were going. No, I didn't mind any of that, especially when we got inside the caves. 

Some 800 years, the Mongol Tartars invaded Ukraine and pillaged the countryside. Along the way, they slaughtered a lot of people, and the villagers of Stradch, a small town outside L'viv, fled to a cave to seek shelter. They were stopped by a vision of the Virgin Mary that appeared from the wall(now immortalized by a sculpture) to warn them of the wall in the cave(and thus, the lack of an escape route). The monks of Stradch, according to the seminarians I was with, approached the mongols and offered their lives in exchange for the villagers'. The mongols ignored them and killed everyone anyway, but the monks' actions are nonetheless considered heroic. 

I wandered those same caves by candlelight on Saturday afternoon. Few things get me as excited as photographic opportunities. I was able to photograph(shakily, and underexposed without a tripod) inside the caves with the help of my Nikon D300's incredible ISO capabilities. For those of you that don't speak camera, let's just say that my camera is awesome. I was able to take at least a few good frames with almost no light and no tripod and decent results, which I find incredible. 

I began tossing my strobe around the caves and triggering it remotely, as can be seen in the 4th from top photo. These guys were a little ticked, but I don't think they figured out what it was. Cell phones, candles and camera flash provided enough light to find our way, but we quickly got lost. The shallow, potholed cave floors were hard to navigate in the dark, and I didn't understand the directions that were being given to me in Ukrainian. When we got out, it was pouring rain and we had to stand in it for closing prayer. Still, it was a BLAST.