Courage, a Young Sailor, Mountaineer Sergey Sokolov, and Navy Day

Courage, a young sailor, mountaineer Sergey Sokolov, and Navy Day. And mountains A clever man won’t go uphill (as mountaineer Sergey Sokolov liked to say) If Moscow is the heart of the Motherland, then Zlatoust is its bladder. In joking like this, the people of the Southern Urals are not bending the truth in the slightest. It rains often. Local weather lore helps you prepare: If the sun sets into a cloud, it means rain. If the sun sets into a crimson haze, expect rain. If the sun sets at all, that means rain. I grew up in Zlatoust, fell in love with the mountains, and got used to life in the rain. For the past 10 years, at the end of July, we have travelled to Zlatoust from wherever we happen to be in Russia, to hike in Taganay National Park. Regardless of the weather or the age of our children. Dad The traditional hike up Kruglitsa, Taganay’s highest point, is dedicated to Sergey Sokolov, a Snow Leopard and an extraordinary high-altitude mountaineer, the first climber from Chelyabinsk Region to summit Everest. Mountaineer Sergey Sokolov was my father. He remained in the snows of K2 (8,611 m), the world’s second-highest mountain, in 2004. A memorial plaque has been installed on Kruglitsa. We go there with Dad’s friends on the anniversary of his death. It falls almost on Navy Day—the holiday my father regarded as his professional one. In Soviet times, he supervised the installation on submarines of combat missiles manufactured by our plant. For those two days, I return to the world of mountain ascents, forest hikes, cross-country ski races, and Alptrass competitions. I breathe in unison with his world, where there was no room for vulgarity, boredom, or aimless existence. Where not a single day passed without training the body and the spirit. All that remains to me from that life is memory and... this hike. Only two or three times in 10 years have we hiked Taganay in dry weather, without rain. This year’s hike was the most — porridge-like and muddy — torrential on the ascent — heroic for Lada. She bravely climbed 9 km up a rocky trail to our overnight stop. Rugged terrain, pouring rain, and a quagmire of mud. Young Sailor “How old are you?” “Four!” “Wow! Well done—you’re a real hero!”—we heard these words more and more often the farther we got from the entrance to the National Park. Lada, bashful, stuck out her tongue like a little shovel and caught the rivulets of rain running down her face. We weren’t sure she could do it. But our daughter never once asked to be carried. And now we were almost there. Soon we’d be dry. An overnight stay at the Gremuchy Klyuch shelter means songs accompanied by guitar and conversations late into the night. . Mount Kruglitsa The next morning, we set off with light packs for Kruglitsa through the Valley of Fairy Tales, with its white sand, bizarre rocks, and fairy-tale dwarf firs. Kruglitsa’s summit hides in a cloud that always disperses at exactly 2 p.m.—the very time when people who went mountaineering or skiing with my father unexpectedly appear from behind the rocks. They come even from other cities to climb to the memorial plaque, where mountaineer Sergey Sokolov awaits them. A hike on Taganay means springs, meadows of St John’s wort, boulder fields, and Otkliknoy Ridge—a natural monument of Russia. A hike on Taganay means 22 kilometres on foot on the second day. This time we emerged from the forest late—Lada walked part of the way herself. And at half past ten, under the moon in the depths of the forest, I even got a little scared... of wolves, for example. I mean, what if they come out onto the trail at night... Quite possible, really, considering how dense the forest is and the complete absence of human-made noise. A hike on Taganay is a journey back to my childhood, when my father, the great mountaineer Sergey Sokolov , was still alive, and I walked beside him, and it seemed it would always be that way.