Читать книгу Unbelievable Adventures of Krasnoyarsk mountain climbers. 2021 - Igor Azaryev - Страница 7

After the next International Championship among veterans in mountaineering and climbing, which, as always, is held by Yuri Mashkov in Sudak in 2019, we gathered at Nikolai Zakharov’s cottage in Novy Svet, Crimea to rest and relax after the intense competition.

Let me introduce our interlocutors.

To my left sits our gracious host, Nikolai Zakharov, a famous mountaineer and climber. He is a Master of Sports in mountaineering, International Master of Sports in mountaineering, multiple USSR champion in mountaineering. He was everywhere: in the Sayan Mountains, Altai, Tien Shan, Pamir, Phan, the Caucasus, Everest, on all the continents, and even in Antarctica there is his first ascent of the wall of difficulty category 6A.

Listen, Nikolai, have you been to the Moon, are there mountains there too?

– I have not been to the moon yet.

– And you would like to visit?

– You ask, it’s my dream, there I would weigh only 13 kg, and my backpack is less than 3 kg. Not to climb, but to enjoy. Maybe this dream of mine will come true someday.

To my right sits Valery Balezin. He is the only world-class Master of Sports in mountaineering and rock climbing, he has participated in and won all major competitions in mountaineering and rock climbing.

– Listen, Valera, have you ever taken part in «Sports Lotto»?

– No, I did not.

– It’s not the USSR championship, you need luck there.

And to my right sits Raikhan Galiakbarov – master of sports in rock climbing, multiple champion of the USSR and Russia. He plays the role of a novice in our company, trying to extract stories about their adventures from the veterans.

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Valery Balezin, Igor Azaryev, Raihan Galiakbarov

And to the right of Zakharov sits Igor Azaryev. He is a candidate master of sports in mountaineering and climbing, a multiple champion of Ukraine.

Since we are on vacation, we allow ourselves to relax with a bottle of genuine Crimean wine.

Since I consumed the drink with everyone else, some details and gaps in my memory are forgotten, so please excuse me somehow.

Raikhan: – You are such experienced and knowledgeable climbers, tell us about your adventures in the mountains.

Azaryev: – Nothing special happened to us, we went to the routes, it rained and other troubles, but nothing special. Except, there was one case – once I flew in the mountains on an eagle.

Raikhan: – A real eagle?

– Well, what else could it be, a real big eagle.

– Wow, that’s interesting, tell me about it.

Flying the Eagle

So, there was such a case: we went to the Yagnob wall on the route of the 6th category of complexity.

Zakharov: – But without any lies.

– And why, you may ask, I took this magic drink on my chest, so only the truth.

– Well, come on, tell me.

– So we came to the wall of Yagnob.

Raikhan: – And where is this wall?

– In the Fann Mountains in the Pamirs.

– And there are all kinds of dushmans and terrorists there.

Zakharov: – But at that time it was safe everywhere in Pamir. And what route did you take, the Efimov one?

– Yes, were you there?

– We were there in 1982, and when were you there?

– Two years earlier.

Our team was rather weak, the route was purely rocky, and among the climbers I was the only one at first, the rest were from the category of stompers, but the group had been going together for a long time and worked well with the rope. Then the team was strengthened by Alexander Verba, a strong climber, and weakened by the head of the field camp rescue team. The last time he went on a route of the third category was about three years ago. And he wanted to climb the sixth and that was it.

Well, the route we went without problems, and before the top of the mountain this happened. There before the top was a smooth wall of about 40m. The wall is smooth, almost without hooks, but with a slight slope, so it was possible to pass on it in special rock sneakers. I climbed it, and Verba insured me.

– Wait a minute, wait a minute, I passed it too, but it did not end very well for me…