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This
story is dedicated to the Tyuya-Ashuu avalanche station, where I
completed an internship in 1989 and, in 1991,
tested the Purga avalanche search device, developed and manufactured at
the aircraft repair plant in Serpukhov, under my supervision.
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begins way back in 1973. That distant year, I was a
third-year student at the Moscow Hydrometeorological College. In
November—or rather, on November 8th—I left Moscow for an internship in
Frunze, then the capital of the Kirghiz SSR. My college classmate,
Slava Grachkov, was traveling with me. We did our internship at the
Frunze Aerological Station, somewhere west of Frunze. |
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aerological station was located next to the Frunze hydrometeorological
station, where, according to the internship plan, we were also
scheduled to do our internship. The staff at the hydrometeorological
station was excellent. We celebrated holidays together, including Old
New Year, March 8th, and so on. At one of the parties, I met Farid, a
hydrologist from the hydrology department. |
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noticed this? It's very simple. More than 10 years had passed. I was
working as a teacher at the Moscow Hydrometeorological College and was
actively involved in mountain tourism. It so happened that, starting in
1985, I went hiking in the Kyrgyz Tien Shan Mountains almost every
year. Hiking was quite dangerous, especially above the snow line, where
avalanches were possible. And mountaineers, by nature—not all of
them—are quite adventurous. I had to
deal with some of them. |
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| One day,
we went to the pass over the Main Kyrgyz Range. And the pass isn't
particularly difficult. But we got a little lost. Our
leader, Borya Abramkin, also a graduate of the Moscow
Hydrometeorological College, went to reconnoiter with Oleg Kordyukov.
The rest of us sat in a circle, covering ourselves with plastic sheets
to protect ourselves from the wet snow. I dozed off in the terrible
weather, and suddenly I was flying off somewhere. And
everyone else was scattered across the slope. |
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what happened was, for some reason, a huge rock flew at us, hitting one
of our women in the side. We had to carry her down to the Salyk River
valley. Luckily, the impact was from the side, leaving practically a
hefty bruise, and we all scattered down the slope. A couple of days
later, we crossed this pass and headed to another. And just as Borya
Abramkin said, we'll be in the valley by evening. Aha! We will be! We
didn't reach the valley until two days later. |
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| On
the first evening, we set up a hanging bivy, as darkness caught us
halfway up the slope. Well, as always, we wandered into the wrong
place. Luckily, the weather was perfect! If it had snowed, we would
have been blown into this very valley. We tied ourselves to pitons
driven into the rock. We ate dinner and thought: tomorrow morning, as
soon as it got light, we'd continue the descent. Aha! Right. We woke
up. Beautiful weather. I went to make breakfast; I was the caretaker on
that trip. We got out the guitar. Anyway, instead of 5 a.m., we started
descending further at 11 a.m. Six hours later. |
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And
again we descended almost until dark, hanging ropes. We pitched tents
right on the glacier, away from the dangerous slope. We reached the
valley the next day in the evening. Overall, that expedition ended
successfully; everyone remained alive and well. But some doubts crept
into our minds.
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We
were lucky with the weather. What if there's snow and avalanches?
That
year was my second year as a teacher at the Hydrometeorological
College. After a year of work, I had gained experience and some free
time. I became interested in the problem of searching for people in
avalanches.
At
that time, avalanche tape and avalanche probes were mainly used. And
even these could pierce the body of a hiker buried in snow.
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literature search at the State Public Scientific and Technical Library,
then located on Kuznetsky Most in Moscow, yielded a wealth of
information about systems used in other countries, particularly Europe
and the United States. I began
communicating with some people (unfortunately, I don't remember their
names) who were involved in developing a radio beacon that operated on
a medium-wave frequency. To use it, you had to take a medium-wave radio
receiver with you on hikes. The idea arose to develop a circuit similar
to European models. It took almost a year to research and analyze
the information. |
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The
following summer arrived. I went hiking again in the mountains of the
Kyrgyz Range, in the Tien Shan. After a peaceful and uneventful hike, I
stayed in Kyrgyzstan for a few weeks, fortunately, I had two months of
vacation as a teacher. I devoted these few weeks to getting to know
Kyrgyzstan's avalanche stations. First, I visited the
Hydrometeorological Service, specifically the department responsible
for studying and combating avalanches. I arrived at the familiar
building and found the avalanche service. The head of the avalanche
service at the time was Farid Yar-Mukhametov, whom I had known since
1973, when I was on an internship in Frunze.
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I
explained the problem to him. I wanted to visit avalanche stations and
then do an internship at one of them before starting my work on
creating equipment to search for people in avalanches. He wrote letters
of recommendation to the heads of two avalanche stations on the
Frunze-Osh highway, for which I was very grateful. The next day, I set
off, without any GPS. My first stop was at the Tuya-Ashu station, where
I was received very warmly, for which I'm also grateful to the
station's head, Shchurkin, whose name, unfortunately, I don't remember.
The next day, he took me on a tour of the avalanche-prone slopes, which
were snowless at the time (it was August). I agreed with him that, if I
had the opportunity and if he didn't mind, I'd like to come here in the
winter, see the real situation, and generally understand what avalanche
services are all about.
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Then
I continued along the Frunze-Osh highway, toward the Osh Valley. There
was another avalanche station there. I hitched the entire ride, both
cars and trucks. No one charged me. The image of a wild mountaineer
(literally, with a big beard, sunburned from the high altitude) helped
me. Did the drivers really ask if the cops were searching my backpack?
An
understandable problem.
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I'd
entered my third year of teaching. My work had become much easier, and
I could now plan my studies, so that in February of this winter I could
set aside a month to visit an avalanche station in Kyrgyzstan. Our head
teacher, Lyudmila Ivanovna Egarmina, also helped me with this. She had
taught me electrical engineering long ago, when I was studying at
technical school, and I still remember her favorite expression, "Face
on table."
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February
arrived. I packed my backpack, grabbed my Beskid skis, a radio parts
kit, and a soldering iron, and headed to Domodedovo Airport. From
there, I flew to Frunze. In Frunze, I visited the hydrometeorological
service office, visited the avalanche watch, coordinated my trip with
the management, and then, via Belovodka, headed to the Tyuya-Ashuu
Pass. It's worth mentioning that the previous year, I'd met the first
head of the Tyuya-Ashuu avalanche station, Comrade Marecek. A very
interesting man. A mountaineer who had walked all over Kyrgyzstan, a
Czech who came in the 1920s to help build the USSR.
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Here's
the avalanche station. A trail leads up from the southern entrance to
the tunnel. I met the station staff and its director back in the
summer. So there were no communication issues.
I
was assigned to share a room with Sasha, an avalanche engineer. A milk
can of homebrew stood at the head of my bed. Sasha proudly said that no
matter where he worked, no matter what station, he always started a
moonshine still. An engineer! What do you expect? I'm writing these
memoirs almost 37 years later. Some of the events and faces seem to be
alive.
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Gradually,
I became immersed in the life of the station. Two or three times, I'd
go down to the village in the Susamyr Valley. A minibus ran along the
Frunze-Osh highway several times a week—a three-axle, all-terrain truck
with a large passenger cabin that could accommodate 30-40 people. I
usually went there to call home and say I was alive and well. Back
then, there was no satellite or mobile phone service. But the
connection from the village to Moscow was excellent.
The
program also included a visit to a bookstore. The selection at the time
was excellent —from
Bulgakov to Mrina Tsvetaeva, from Moscow publishers to local ones.
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After another visit, when
I bought a volume of Bulgakov there, which I still have, I sat down to
read for two days.
We have strayed from the
main topic of our story.
About
a day after my arrival at the station, the boss told me, "You're a
radio technician, we need to fix a radio." They brought me an "Estonia"
radiogram into my room. Radiograms like these, I realized, were
installed at all the
hydrometeorological stations in Kyrgyzstan.
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say it doesn't work. True, there was a radio operator named Misha at
the avalanche station. But all he could do was turn on the radio and
operate the key. Nothing else. So, I started to figure it out. It
turned out the fuse had blown. I resoldered it, turned it on, connected
the antenna. And then the Voice of America came out of the speakers.
The radio was tuned to that station. It's a common practice in Rus' to
listen to the BBC at night. And the audibility is excellent. High in
the mountains, 3,000 meters, and there's no interference. |
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mash was made with candies, I think lollipops, which were brought in in
the summer along with other food products, when there was no snow. The
moonshine still was usually started on bath day. I remember how
everyone went to the bathhouse and forgot about this miracle of
technology. We came back, and the moonshine was flowing across the
floor. As I said, the station was prone to avalanches. And so, having
sobered up a bit, Sasha said in the morning: I’ll go check the snow
measuring rods, take readings of the snow depth. I packed my backpack,
dressed warmly, and went. Evening
fell. I started to worry. I went up to the station manager. I said:
Nikolai, Sasha left this morning, and he’s still nowhere to be found.
Mountains! We have to look for him! He replied: don’t worry. He’ll be
back. The next day passed. No Sasha. Finally, on the third day, our
Engineer appeared in the doorway with a large sack on his back. And
into the kitchen. And the sack was full of fish. |
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turns out he'd just descended 400 meters from the station, to the
Frunze-Osh entrance, and started drinking with his electrician friends
who service the tunnel. Then they went fishing in
the river below. They celebrated again, and he returned to the station
in perfect health. That evening, radio operator Mishka-Kirghiz's wife
fried some fish, and of course, that was it. The most interesting part
happened the next day. Engineer Sasha started writing a report on the
snow survey. Since he'd never even seen these snow measuring rods, the
process of filling out the snow survey log went like this. He opened
the log, picked up a pencil, and paused to think. His words: "So, there
was more snow this year. So, we'll use last year's readings as a basis
and add 15-20
centimeters." I was truly
amazed at the man's intuition! What experience! |
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After
filling out the log, a radiogram was compiled and given to radio
operator Misha for transmission to the Kyrgyz Hydrometeorological
Center. From there, data collected from other avalanche stations in the
republic was combined and transmitted to Moscow, and from Moscow, to
the World Meteorological Organization. What's our forecast accuracy
rate there? 100%! I can't speak for other stations; I haven't been
there.
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| My
internship at the Tyuya-Ashuu avalanche station had ended. After
breakfast this morning, I packed my backpack, said goodbye to everyone,
and headed down to the tunnel entrance to catch a ride to Frunze. While
I waited, I went to some electrician friends' place to sit in the
warmth and have some tea. It's not hot at 3,000 meters in February in
the Tien Shan. The
ride wouldn't leave without me anyway, since almost all the cars stop
before entering the tunnel. About an hour and a half later, a ZIL truck
showed up. I approached the driver, asking if he'd take me to Frunze
anyway. He replied, "Of course." I went to get my backpack, climbed
in, and we entered the tunnel. |
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is the famous tunnel on the Frunze-Osh highway, through the Main Kyrgyz
Range. It's about 3 kilometers long. The blue sky appeared again. And
we began our descent into the valley. About 20 minutes later, something
started happening to the car. The
driver accelerated, but the car wouldn't accelerate. We pulled into the
emergency bay. We crawled under the car. And the scene was
indescribable. The driveshaft had fallen off the rear axle! We started
repairing it. Or rather, I started repairing it, since the driver was a
complete zero when it came to mechanics. Luckily, the driver had a bag
with a bunch of rusty bolts and nuts. He held the driveshaft while I
started tightening the bolts. I tightened one bolt. The rest wouldn't
go. We asked the driver of an oncoming car for a file. He gave it to us
and said he didn't have time to wait for us to fix it. I used the file
to file down the broken bolt and somehow managed to tighten it back.
The driveshaft is held on by two bolts instead of four, but it is still
possible to drive downhill. |
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And
for the rest of the journey, the driver kept talking about how lucky he
was to have picked me up before the tunnel. Of course, there was no
talk of paying for the ride. He took me to the outskirts of Frunze, now
Bishkek, and I took a bus into the city. I
had a flight the next day, and I spent the night at the Ala-Archa
alpine camp base, a well-known destination for tourists and climbers.
Before bed, I opened the door to my room, feeling a sense of
foreboding. But the Moscow climber kept closing it. And in the early
morning, there were small tremors. Small,
small, but unpleasant.
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