DENIS URUBKO: STORY OF A BRAVE MOUNTAINEER WHO CAME FROM THE EAST.

The incredible story of a young Russian alpinist who wanted to be an actor and to climb mountains. An extraordinary tale that started at the foot of Caucasus and continued in the Sakhalin Island, in Vladivostok and in Kazakhstan. Going through the summits of Everest, Lhotse and the 7000-meter-high mountains of Pamir and Tien Shan.

The mountain has always inspired the idea of freedom. Man climbs to the heights, in the silence of nature, often alone with his thoughts. The mind is concentrated on the action of the body, but the situation favors the free flowing of the thoughts. The ideas come out spontaneous, fast and without control. Once on the top, the alpinist feels lighter, in harmony with himself. Mountaineering, for the ones who practice it, has often a therapeutical function: it is as if it unleashed an introspective analysis that helps to feel better. How many times we felt like starting a solo climb, accompanied only by our imagination, because we wished to look inside ourselves, to listen to what comes out of the depth of our being.
While climbing, you often have the impression that you are reasoning in a fluid and spontaneous manner. The eyes see wonderful things that the frenzy of the daily life forces to neglect. Up there our body functions better than usual, the senses amplify, the veil that separates us from reality tears and the world seems different. And for a few hours you feel free, in the most complete sense of the word; you “discover” that the world is also made of imagination and dreams. Imagination is a flame that burns in the soul of every human being. Who knows how it burns in the eyes of a Russian child, enchanted by nature and mountains…
I thought a lot about these words, after having chatted with Denis Urubko, the protagonist of this interview. And I have tried to enter into the thoughts of a young man following the instinct that leads him towards the heights, through a path that seems incredible, so precarious and uncertain. Because the story of Denis, a 28-year-old Russian, is really a dream becoming true. A tale brought from the eastern wind, light and scented with innocence.
We first met during the meeting on the ice falls of L’Argentiere la Bessée, in January. Urubko had just arrived from a hallucinating trip, he hadn’t slept for two days but he looked as lively as a ferret. He had come to Europe to buy mountaineering equipment for the military sport team and had taken advantage of the trip to meet his friend Simone Moro, who was going to drag him along for a month of full immersion in modern alpinism: ice climbing, public relations, interviews, climbing, mixed climbing and mountain running. Denis, in those days, seemed happy. He was living a new experience and he was attentive not to miss anything of what was around him.

Denis, I don’t know where to start this chat. The first question will seem trite, but I would like to reconstruct your story in full. For which reason did you approach the mountains?
My father is a topographer with a love for the mountains and for hunting. He has taken me with him since I was a little child. I remember that during a hike we reached the top of a mountain, for the first time I saw the world from above.

Was it the first sign of your passion for the mountains?
I would say yes. After that experience I joined a local club that organized hikes and excursions in our area. I was 13 years old. It didn’t last long: in 1987 my family moved to the Sakhalin Island, 8000 kilometers away from the Caucasian region where we lived. Health reasons: I suffered from allergic asthma.

And there, very near to Japan, what happened?
We lived in Juzno Sakhalinsk, in the south of the island. Luckily there was a nice mountain area not far away and therefore I was able to cultivate my passion nonetheless.

And did you stay there for long?
In 1990 I finished school and moved to Vladivostok. I wanted to enroll in the Academy of Dramatic Arts and become an actor. I stayed there for two years and it was an important period. For several reasons: for the first time in my life I was alone and far from my family. I depended in all and for all on myself. Further, I was following choices that my instinct had imposed to me: the love for acting and for the mountains.

Do you mean that you continued to think about the mountains also in Vladivostok?
There I read my first mountain books. In particular, I remember two of them: one had been written by some Russian alpinists who had climbed Mount Everest, the other one was of Reinhold Messner, and told about his solo ascent of Nanga Parbat. I was very impressed by those readings, and I started to wonder about which were my true aspirations. Very soon I realized that my choices were hardly compatible, because both of them required total devotion, with little space for any other thing. At the beginning I tried to concentrate on the Academy. To support myself I was obliged to have two jobs: municipal dustman in the morning and cloakroom attendant in the evening, in the theater.

And the mountain?
I devoted every free minute to it. I started to go to the local mountaineering club and I got through the various technical levels requested by the association. Luckily during the summer I didn’t have any school obligations and, compatibly with my financial possibilities, I could spend a lot of time in the mountains. My first trips to Pamir date back to that period. There, between an ascent and the next one, I worked as deputy alpine guide for the tourists who visited the region.

Which kind of recollection do you have of those early experiences?
Wonderful ones. On the other side, those were “true” mountains. And further, that has been the period of the first solo ascents, of the speed ascents. Also if during my activity I had to respect strictly the official climbing schedule.

And has it been in that period that you have made your definitive choices?
My first recollection of “absolute freedom”, outside and inside my soul, dates back to that season. I had never experienced a feeling like that, and it was something that let me feel well, as I had never been before.

And the following of the story?
In the summer 1992, while I was working as a guide for a group of Western alpinists, I met in Os, Kirgizistan, the Kazakhstan military sport team that was training in that area. It was an informal meeting among people who shared the same passion. On the next day one of the athletes introduced me to their chief, Ervand Iljinskij, who asked me to join them, also if he couldn’t enlist me because I was Russian. So I went back to the Sakhalin Island, to the house of my parents. I worked four months to put aside a little money and then I left to Alma Ata, in Kazakhstan, running after the unwritten promise made by a soldier.

A courageous choice for sure.
On January 3, 1993, I arrived in Alma Ata and felt that a new chapter began in my life. I was in a new environment, with very little luggage, a lot of hopes and little money. In that town I knew only one person, Ervand Iljinskij, and that was also the year in which I had to begin my military call up. Essentially, for the Russian I was almost a deserter, and in Kazakhstan I couldn’t enlist in the army, because I was foreign. I must admit that I spent some difficult moments…

It isn’t hard to imagine.
At the beginning Iljinskij put me up in his house. Later I moved in a small abandoned cabin-hut, on the mountains above the town. At the weekends someone came up to bring me some food. The story went on in this way for about a month, until the wife of Iljinskij introduced me to the theatrical Company of the town, where I was hired as an actor. It was the beginning of the summer 1993. The salary barely allowed me to survive, I didn’t have a stable domicile and often I slept on the park benches. But every morning I tried to wash up a little and I went acting.

But then something has changed…
In July Iljinskij proposed me to join the military group for an expedition to Tien Shan. In that summer I climbed the Marble Wall (6400 m) and two times the Khan Tengri (7010 m). I remember that I reached the summit of Marble on my birthday. Back from Tien Shan, three more months of tribulation and then, with some tricks, I managed to get the sojourn permit. In December, at last, I enlisted in the army. Since that moment I started to do what I had dreamed of for all my life: I trained to go to the mountains, I had a house, a salary and an organization that took care of the problems of my daily life. I could finally concentrate on what really interested me.

It was the end of a nightmare…
Without doubt. And later there has been another turning point. In 1999 I met Simone Moro. He had come to Pamir and Tien Shan for the “Snow Leopard”, a recognition for the alpinists who climb the five 7000-meters-high peaks of the region. Simone had asked the sport group of the army the collaboration of two support alpinists. Two guys who would have accompanied him during his undertaking. The choice fell on me and Andrej Molotov, a friend of mine.

And we already know how the story ended.
The expedition lasted about two months. We traveled by any kind of means: on foot, by truck, by helicopter. We reached the different base camps, some of them really wild, and climbed the five summits: Pik Lenin (7134), Korzhenevskaya (7105 m), Kommunizm (7495 m), Khan Tengry (7010 m) and Pobeda (7439 m). It has been an incredible experience. For two months I have been free to make whatever I wanted: it was the first time I spent such a long period in the mountains without a chief to have to report to. And then, between Simone and me, a brotherly friendship was born. Since that moment Simone has allowed me to get to know the world and has always helped me without asking anything in return.

In your opinion is friendship determining in order to build a successful team?
Fundamental. Thanks to Simone I have had the possibility to discover the last frontiers of mountaineering. With him I have experienced the pleasure of the ultra-light expeditions, the importance of the physical shape and of being on good terms with the members of the team. After all, true friendship is the most important thing in the world, and in the situations at the limit it gives you strength and let you go on.

And your life as military alpinist?
Thanks to the results obtained in ’95 I have been promoted non-commissioned officer.

When did you make your first experience in Himalaya?
In 2000, when I tried the traverse Everest-Lhotse with Simone. In that period I didn’t even have a passport: although I was soldier in Kazakhstan, I didn’t have the Kazakhstan nationality. I got the passport only four days before leaving for the expedition… Then I had to fix other not minor problems. I lacked equipment and money. Luckily Simone and a Russian friend helped me.

 

Did you suffer a lot from high altitude?
Well, we were in great shape and also very fast. Then, at the South Col, the weather got worse. We spent five days and nights inside the tent, in the middle of the storm. When finally the good weather returned the stay in high elevation had sorely tried us. We have reached the summit with the remaining energy and then we have descended. A pity, because we had climbed to that point with only two camps, instead of four.

Anyway you can say that you have succeeded in climbing Everest without additional oxygen…
It has been the realization of a dream, the imagination of a child who had abandoned the home mountains to go to the sea. In Kazakhstan they welcomed me like a hero. The following year, as recognition, they donated me an apartment. Wonderful: I could have never afforded a house. Try to calculate: that apartment is 7000 $ worth, and I earn 90 $ a month. If I think that seven years ago I slept on the benches of Alma Ata…

A nice change of life for sure…
Everest has made me freer, inside and outside. Free outside because, for the first time in my life, I have been able to plan my climbs independently, although I continued to train with the companions of the military sport group. Free inside, because I felt that I had repaid the trust of the people who had believed in me. My biggest satisfaction though has been to give hospitality to my mother for a whole month. I was able to demonstrate her that despite my “strange” aspirations, I had reached some results in life.

And after Everest?
After a few months I participated in a speed climbing competition on Khan Tengri, I won the 1500 $ prize money and enlisted in the group of the ten best athletes of the year in Kazakhstan. In February 2000, with Simone Moro, I made the winter ascent of Marble Wall, the 6000-meter-high peak that is the furthest one in the north of all Central Asia: eight days from Alma Ata to the top. After a few more months, always with Simone, I went back to Himalaya. On May 23 I reached the top of Lhotse. And shortly after having come back home, I started again to Pakistan, with the national Kazakhstan expedition.

Which was the goal?
Karakoram. On August 13 I was on the top of Hidden Peak and a week after on the one of Gasherbrum II, this time with a speed ascent: 7 and half hours from advanced base camp (5800m) to the top (8035), and four hours for the descent.

Which kind of equipment have you used during these ascents?
The equipment that Simone left me the year before, except for the high altitude shell, that a Polish climber donated me at the base camp of Everest in 2000.

And before meeting Moro?
I used cheaper equipment, bought from some Western alpinists or the homemade one, handcrafted. The ropes came from nautical equipment, the pitons had been forged by us or occasionally found in the mountains. But today it isn’t like this anymore.

That means?
Thanks to the obtained results, the Kazakhstan army has granted the founds to buy the mountaineering equipment necessary for our projects. In these days I am in Europe exactly with the purpose to buy material for the national team. Now we are in the ideal conditions to train with tranquility.

Which importance has had rock climbing, in your evolution as an alpinist?
A big one, but not fundamental. In my area there aren’t crags like you intend them. The few low elevation walls are climbed mainly with top rope, and speed climbing is still very popular. But in Kazakhstan the potential for climbing is huge: it is enough to have equipment and good will.
Oscar Durbiano

(BOX)
Who is Denis Urubko
Born in Nevinnomissk, in Russia, on July 29, 1973, Denis Urubko lives today in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan. He is non-commissioned officer in the sport group of the Kazakhstan Army, actor and cameraman. He has been awarded the “Snow Leopard” prize, received by the climbers who succeeded on the five “7000 meters” peaks of the ex-USSR, during a period shorter than 42 days. He climbed, always without artificial oxygen, seven 8000-meter-high peaks: Everest (8.850 m), Kangchenjunga (8.586 m), Lhotse (8.516 m), Gasherbrum I (8.068 m), Gasherbrum II (8.035 m), Shisha Pangma (8.013 m) and, recently, Nanga Parbat (8.125 m). Uic Alpinism champion in Kazakhstan and Kirgizistan, has been the best Kazakhstan climber in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001. Captain of the national Kazakhstan mountaineering team, has been champion of speed climbing on Amangeldy Peak (3999 m) in the years 1997, 1998, 1999. In his curriculum vitae, beside 39 top quality ascents (Uic ranking), are included ten 7000-meter and six 6000-meter high peaks, and 34 important solo ascents.