Abyss Pandiralo

The Pandiralo abyss is a geomorphological form formed at the site of surface water inflow in the source part of Svrljiški Timok into the underground, near the village of Periš.

The Pandiralo abyss is located in the village of Periš, a few hundred meters from the main road that has long led to Stara Planina, at the junction of the Nišava and Timok valleys, and the border of two large mountain systems, Stara Planina and Svrljiške planine.

The area in which the village of Periš is located has long been not only a border area in geographical but also in administrative terms. The border between the Roman provinces used to pass through it, then the border of the Turkish Sandzak, and between 1837 and 1877 the border between the Principality of Serbia and the Ottoman Empire. Even today, there is an administrative border here, but now there are three administrative districts of the Republic of Serbia - Pirot, Nisava and Zajecar.

The abyss is located, about 52 km from Pirot, about 25 km, from Bela Palanka and 15 km from the center of Svrljig, to which it gravitates and administratively belongs.

In the village there is a significant crossroads for this area, from which the road leading to Kalna and Babin Zub separates through the village of Jalovik Izvor in Knjaževac, as the shortest connection and tourist destination that leads from the town of Niš to Stara planina.

With the action of fluvial and karst erosion in the area of ​​Svrljig region, after Oligocene tectonic movements, followed by harvesting, subsidence and dragging, the destruction of the limestone layer where it was the thinnest begins and a water-resistant layer is discovered, on which a hydrographic network of short tributaries of Svrljig Lake is formed. After the disappearance of the Neogene lake, a large number of these tributaries are transformed into sinkholes, among which the most important is the Svrljig Timok, and at the same time the fluvio-denudation phase begins at the bottom of the valley.

The river Turija (Kozjanska river), which is considered the source branch or component of Svrljiški Timok, in its source part is formed by several streams that flow side by side - below Babina Glava, just below the abandoned part, about 1 km long and 250 m wide. valleys. After a flow of about 1,000 meters, the river Turija, whose basin is separated from the Svrljig valley by a low limestone beam Pandiralo, at its foot, at a height of 470 m, it enters the abyss Pandiralo, near the Svrljig village Periš, and not far from there, the river disappears. . As during the heavy rains the karst canals of the spring-abyss cave in Pandiral cannot receive the high waters of Turija, a periodic lake is formed upstream which lasts for a maximum of ten days (mostly in autumn and spring, but also after heavy rains in summer).

This large dark opening in the Pandiralo rock beam, which is in the shape of an underground room, with limestone walls, continues into the karst channels of the Vadivode cave, [a] about 80 m long, with an opening 1.3 m high and 3.5 m wide. in the length of 660 meters and the Caves, and end in a narrow gap. [5] From them, on the other side of the village of Periš, the river Turija emerges from the cave and is re-formed, at a place called Periška vrela, at the top of a short gorge-canyon valley, at 440 meters above sea level, around which.

Downstream from the village of Periš, after Turija receives the water of the Okoliška and Manojlićka rivers, it continues as Svrljiški Timok. The height difference between the Pandiralo abyss and the Periška springs is about 30 meters.

The Pandiralo abyss is located in the village of Periš, a few hundred meters from the main road that has long led to Stara Planina, at the junction of the Nišava and Timok valleys, and the border of two large mountain systems, Stara Planina and Svrljiške planine.