The famous climber shared his professional secrets and talked about his experiences in the mountains
Sergey Kovalev was born in 1966 in the town of Kirovskoe, Donetsk region. For 25 years he has been professionally engaged in mountaineering. International Master of Sports, 15-time champion of Ukraine, multiple world champion and prize-winner of championships in Russia and the CIS. He was awarded the Order of Courage, II and III Degrees and the Medal of Merit. He is married, the son is a student, the daughter went to the first grade this year.
The top cannot be defeated
- Why did you choose mountaineering? Did you want extreme?
- In the 70s, the choice of entertainment was not very rich, but I was involved in many sports, for example, chess and martial arts. Somehow between two workouts, so as not to sit around, I decided to go to the climbers. The first trip to the mountains, blue sky, romance - I was 15 years old, and as a teenager people are impressionable.
- So it's all about romance?
- Not only. There, the struggle does not take place with the mountains, but with its own shortcomings and limitations. It is impossible to defeat the summit, but you can defeat yourself. This is an attempt to look beyond the impossible, to expand the framework. Mountaineering provides this opportunity in natural and beautiful conditions. The climber does not go to the mountains for food, I regard this activity as a means of dynamic meditation. What is meditation? Engaging in meaningless activities with utmost concentration. Mountaineering is an absolutely pointless business in which concentration is vital. For me, this is a spiritual activity, I feel comfortable in the mountains, more secure than in the city.
- That is, in the mountains a person becomes better?
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- Even Christianity has not changed a person much for two millennia. I don’t think it’s better or worse, but in these conditions, your inherent qualities are revealed, which previously had nowhere to reveal themselves.
- The mountains really bring people together, as they say?
- Any business brings people together, and even more so relatively dangerous when you trust another with your life. But in the real world this is not always the case, I know people who were together in the mountains, saved their lives, and then let each other down in business. These are different dimensions, not everything is so simple.
- This year there have been several tragic deaths in the mountains. Are these mistakes of amateurs or accidents?
- There tourists died, and then ours, athletes. I don't track tourists especially, but according to ours I can say: very experienced and competent people. One was 73 years old, the other under 50. Oleg Babin, I know him for 25 years, an absolute authority in mountaineering, a pedant in everything that concerns safety. I cannot call their death anything other than a fatal coincidence. They died on the easy route; under the Soviet Union, thousands of newcomers came there every year. We have not had accidents for more than 10 years, but here it is … But you need to understand that if the danger to life disappears, then this game will lose its appeal. There must be something real, not virtual, and this is life and death. A person sitting at a computer will only earn hemorrhoids by playing horror stories.
- An elderly climber dying in the mountains, how is this perceived? How is the death of an actor on stage?
- It's great. I know a lot of people who did not live to 70 and drag out a miserable existence, and then die in their beds. Personally, I would not like to live and die like that. But here it is different: Oleg Babin could still work productively, do a lot of good and kind. He was talented, truly intelligent. His death is a great loss for us, irreplaceable.
Yeti have not met
“Are there places in the mountains that are notorious, disastrous?
- There is, for example, the eight-thousander Manaslu, not a single person has ever gone to this mountain twice. There is a very aggressive energy, the only mountain, when climbing which I was not sure that I would descend. Even 10 years ago, the number of those who ascended there was less than the number of deaths. And this despite the fact that from a technical point of view, the ascent is not difficult. Mountains are an energetically special place, rifts between three worlds: space, earth and what is inside the earth. In places of faults, of course, all mysticism is formed, from Bigfoot to paranormal phenomena.
- Have you encountered these phenomena? UFOs, for example?
- Flying objects there non-stop. Luminous points, like a satellite or brighter, constantly and arbitrarily changing their trajectory. In the mountains, this is a common phenomenon, they appear, as a rule, at night. And you can't blame hallucinations - several people are simultaneously watching. But the Yeti was never seen. True, while climbing Everest, someone stole chocolate and sausage from the tent, leaving a clump of wool and strange footprints. Interestingly, the locals never keep talking about the yeti, and close the shutters and doors at night, although theft is basically impossible there.
In Antarctica there will be a peak of Donbass
- They talk about the incredible sensations that you experience on the peaks of eight-thousanders, but, judging by the photo, you get upstairs exhausted, wrung out like a lemon.
- The climb to the eight-thousander itself lasts from three to five days, excluding the acclimatization period, which takes about a month. Closer to the top, appetite disappears, oxygen starvation begins. At this time, I can not eat at all for several days. But at the very top, you really have strong feelings. Someone hugs, someone prays, someone mentally sends greetings to family and friends.
- Can't you call from there?
- You can, I have a satellite phone. But during the last ascent of Everest, I left him in a tent before the final dash to the top. I did it so as not to jinx it.
- What are people doing at the top? Probably, there are some traditions or even rituals?
- Soviet climbers introduced the tradition of leaving capsules with notes, we also left. And there is especially no time for the ceremony: they are usually there for about an hour, it is not recommended to spend the night. This is the stratosphere, any disease passes at a hurricane rate. From a cold to pneumonia one and a half to two hours, the same from a headache to cerebral edema. Therefore, in case of any ailment immediately downward, there are no options. Experienced climbers most often just die, not die in the mountains, because they overestimate their capabilities.
- This year the coal of Donbass hit the top of the world, and what are you planning in the future?
- There are many mountains in the world that have not yet been stepped by a human foot. According to tradition, the one who first conquered the summit gives it its name. In December next year, we are planning to climb a four-thousander in Antarctica, which we will call the peak of Donbass. Another mountain in the Tien Shan will be named in the same way - the peak of the Miners of Ukraine.
