The exhibition space of the Museum of the History of the Resort City of Sochi opens with the “Nature” hall, which presents information about the territory, flora, and fauna of the City of Sochi region. Among the exhibits in this hall, a special place is occupied by minerals, ancient fossils, and stalactites.

The stalactites were donated to the Museum by a forester of the Sochi experimental forestry in 1953. Similar mineral formations can be found in the caves of the City of Sochi, including the longest one in the Sochi Black Sea region — the Vorontsovskaya Cave. It is also one of the longest caves in Russia. It was formed as a result of karst processes that took place for millions of years since the time of the ancient Tethys Ocean. The Vorontsovskaya Cave is located in the Khosta River Valley. Its length is 11,720 meters, making it the sixth longest cave in Russia. Inside the cave, there are stalactites, stalagmites, and stalagnates.

Stalactites are calcite formations that hang from the ceilings and upper walls of caves, formed through chemogenic processes involving dripping water. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and their chemical composition depends on the geology of the cave (usually limestone). The average growth rate of a stalactite is 0.10–0.13 millimeters per year. Stalagmites are dripstone mineral formations that grow in the form of columns from the cave floor, extending upward toward stalactites. Often, they merge with stalactites and form structures known as stalagnates. The longest stalactites of the Vorontsovskaya Cave reach five meters.

The Vorontsovskaya Cave has been bustling with life for hundreds of thousands of years. At various times, scientists have found ancient fossils, traces of prehistoric people’s camp, bones of cave bears, and various archaeological artifacts. Numerous finds from the late Paleolithic, late Neolithic, and Eneolithic periods were made in the entrance part of the cave. During the Byzantine era, traders stopped there on the way to transport goods from Asia to Constantinople. After the Sochi area was annexed to the Russian Empire, Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov had his estate there.