Akhshtyrskaya Cave, Archaeological cave in Adlersky District, Russia

Akhshtyrskaya Cave opens on the right side of the Akhshtyrskaya gorge, 120 m above the Mzymta River. A 20 m corridor leads into two halls 10 m high and 8 m wide; beyond them a clay rise ends in two narrow dead-end passages. Two platforms outside the entrance are linked by a 12 m corridor.

Édouard-Alfred Martel and guide Gabriel Revinko reached the cave in September 1903. Sergei Zamyatin found the first prehistoric human remains in 1936; M. Z. Panichkina and E. A. Vekilova dug from 1961 to 1965, and work resumed in 1999–2008. The deposits, about 5 m thick, run from the Middle Paleolithic to the Early Middle Ages, the deepest sequence known in Sochi's caves.

The cave takes its name from the village of Akhshtyr, and its alternative name, Big Kazachebrodskaya, from Kazachy Brod, the home village of guide Gabriel Revinko. Excavations have yielded more than 6,000 bones, 92% of them cave bear, alongside deer, bison, goat, wolf and fox. A child's burial with comb-pit pearl pottery was also found here.

Wear shoes with good grip as stairs and surfaces can be slippery, especially after humid weather or rain. Bring a light jacket since temperatures inside stay noticeably cooler than outside conditions.

Deposits show a gap of about 20,000 years when humans did not occupy the cave. This absence suggests that living conditions or human behavior in the region changed dramatically during that period.