Željnske jame
virtual excursion
The Željnske Caves are one of the most intriguing and at the same time most fragile karst phenomena of the Kočevje region. Beneath the slopes of the Kočevski Rog, a horizontal cave system stretches for roughly 1,600 meters, carrying the waters of the Rudniški potok. The stream flows underground toward Podturn, where it reappears in the Radeščica, a tributary of the Krka River. Here, water does not follow the logic of the surface but its own hidden pathways—through fissures, passages, and collapse chambers carved over millennia.
The caves lie surprisingly close to the surface. Their ceilings are only two to five meters thick, which has caused numerous collapses over the centuries. These collapses divided what was once a single cave system into three separate groups of passages. Despite this fragmentation, the Željnske Caves still swallow the waters of nearby streams and channel them underground toward the Krka. The passages are predominantly erosional in origin, shaped by the force of flowing water that polished the limestone, widened corridors, and created chambers. Speleothems appear only in isolated places; the most beautiful was once the Kapelica near Jama pri Koritu, now sadly inaccessible beneath a thick layer of coal dust.
A distinctive feature of the Željnske Caves, well known to anyone familiar with the harsh winters of Kočevsko, are the ice stalactites. In cold winters, the entrance sections transform into shimmering halls of ice—tall frozen columns, delicate curtains, and translucent formations created by slow dripping water that freezes layer by layer. These ephemeral sculptures give the caves a unique, almost magical winter character.
The best‑known and most accessible part of the system is Ciganska jama. In its entrance section, the thin ceiling collapsed several times, creating a series of natural windows that give the cave a dramatic and almost fairy‑tale appearance. The cave was named after the Roma—historically referred to as “Cigani”—who used it as shelter or as a stable for their horses. Yet human presence in the Željnske Caves reaches far deeper into the past.
The caves are an important archaeological site, with evidence of continuous use from the Iron Age back to the Paleolithic. Nearly 20,000 years ago, Ice Age hunters established a temporary hunting station here. Excavations carried out between 1963 and 1976 uncovered charcoal remains, animal bones, and a rich collection of stone tools: scrapers, blades, burins, and bone awls. These artifacts are fragments of lives lived in a time of dramatic climatic shifts, when people sought refuge in the warmth of the underground and survived by following the migrations of animals across the forests of what is now Kočevsko.
In earlier times, the entire Željnske cave system was passable and formed a branching tunnel connecting Ciganska jama with Jama pri Koritu. Today, passage is impossible. The Rudniški potok has deposited large amounts of coal dust into the caves, turning into thick, viscous mud that blocks the passages. This sediment has severely damaged the cave ecosystem. The once rich subterranean fauna has nearly vanished, including the olm, which now appears only when high waters wash it out of the underground.
Human impact has left its scars as well. The caves’ easy accessibility attracted countless visitors who illuminated the passages with torches, blackening the speleothems with soot, breaking stalactites, carving inscriptions into the walls, or using the caves as dumping grounds. These traces remain visible, reminders of how vulnerable the underground world truly is.
Despite this, the Željnske Caves remain an essential part of Slovenia’s natural heritage. They are listed among the country’s most important natural features and have been declared a natural monument of local significance by the Municipality of Kočevje. Their value lies not only in geology or archaeology but also in the story they tell—a story of water carving its way through stone, of humans seeking shelter in darkness, of nature that is both delicate and unyielding, and of a landscape that retains its quiet, mysterious beauty despite the wounds it carries.
Within this story, the documentation of the caves has played an important role. The first comprehensive visual record of the Željnske Caves was made in 2000, at a time when some passages were still accessible. Later winter visits revealed another face of the caves—the icy, fragile, almost ethereal one. When ice stalactites formed in the entrance sections, the cave needed to be illuminated gently, carefully, almost reverently. Small candles were placed to create a soft ambient glow among the frozen formations, and the delicate work of lighting was carried out with the help of my older daughter, Neža, whose steady hands and quiet patience made it possible to capture the fleeting beauty of the winter cave.
The Željnske Caves are thus a place where nature, history, water, ice, and human presence converge. A place where time slows down, where the underground reveals itself in all its fragility and grandeur, and where one becomes aware of how important it is to preserve what nature has shaped over thousands of years.