These
shots are made during our trips through Pamir
and Tyan-Shan ( Tadzikistan, Kirgyzstan, Uzbekistan). In
Russia this sport is called "mountain tourism", which, actually,
is a mixture of many-
days-hiking
and alpinism with heavy rucksacks. If this happens within a
competition, ceveral groups
from different parts of country participate and the overall difficulty
depends on the rank of the
competition. At the highest rank the travels must be really extreme
ones in order to have a chance to win. Usually an
extreme travel takes 30-40 days. The rout is chosen in such a way that
at least a part of the way was never visited by other people before
this
team. The documental
photography
of the rout is the must. The team, in our cases
consisting of 6, rarely, 8 men,
did not have any support from anywhere during
the travel and
did not have any radio or
other connection with the rest of the world. This requires absolute
reliability of each member of the team in any action or rout.
It is middle of summer,
but water does not exist
here in a liquid phase,
it is too high. The air is too thin
to hold helicopters.
That is why no mistake is allowed.