In the footsteps of Anatoli Boukreev, Maxut Zhumayev sets up the Kazakh Alpine Club

I met Anatoli Boukreev when I lived in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from 1996 to 1999. When in Kazakhstan, Anatoli lived in a small alpine village above the ski field of Shymbulak, at just below 3,000 metres, and not far from the peaks posted below.

Talgar Peak, 5017 m, is one of the northernmost peaks in the Tien Shan, the most northern "five-thousand metre" mountain in Asia. Anatoli Bookreev lived in a small alpine village below this range.

This village is a weekend haven for many working mountaineers who live in the foothills of the Tien Shan in Almaty, and every Friday night either walk the four hours to their alpine huts from Almaty or drive.

I fondly recall spending Christmas and New Years day (1996-97) with my good mates Sergy and Yuri,(right) their families and other Kazakh and Russian mountaineers in their club huts  consuming large amounts of Vodka, horse meat and intestines, the staple of Kazakhstan. Outside at least a metre of snow covered the ground offering superb skiing.

It was here I first met Anatoly Boukreev, and was impressed by this strong, quiet mountaineer.
Spending days with Kazakhstani mountaineers and their extended families in the alpine huts in the Tien Shans while blizzards rage outside, was a warm and close experience. It was amazing to find in your midst those who have scaled Everest, Kanchenjunga, Makalau, Dhalagauri, and to hear them speaking modestly of significant climbs in most ranges of the world. I was also impressed by their fanatical approach to fitness and love of speed climbing.

Around this time there were a lot of young fit mountaineers in their late teens and early 30s doing a lot of training in the area.. One of them was Maxut Zhumayev

Two years ago Maxut Zhumayev completed a remarkable achievement.

At age 36, he had climbed the last of all fourteen 8000 metre peaks without oxygen including K2 which he called the hardest of the lot.

“What is there for me after?” Zhumayev, a sergeant in the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan recalled thinking.

What he did was set himself a new goal. He would establish the Kazakh Alpine Club which he envisioned as being modelled along the lines of European alpine clubs.

Maxut Zhumayev with his son Isatay (Photo: courtesy Maxut Zhumayev)

The Kazakh Alpine Club is today just over three months old but that doesn’t deter Zhumayev from describing an ambitious vision to connect mountaineers in Kazakhstan, including older ones who climbed under the banner of the former Soviet Union.

“We would like to build some special mountain infrastructure including rest and camping places, and a network of huts like those in America and Europe,” said Zhumayev.

Over the next three to five years he wants to establish a guiding and mountaineering institute where young Kazakh mountaineers can be trained formally and conducting youth camps.

Other plans include drawing up climbing maps, collating information for climbers, building viewpoints for tourists, even building bridges to cross mountain streams.

“It’s my new Everest,” he said with a laugh about the work that lies ahead.

Lots of small cabins dot the landscape in a small village above Shymbulak where many Kazakh mountaineers do their training. It was here I met Anatoli Boukreev and Maxut Zhumayev. Photo: Bob McKerrow 

To help him along, Zhumayev has sought the help of the Austrian Alpine Association (Edelweiss section) which will provide him with advice on how to establish and grow the club. A memorandum of cooperation was signed in October and Zhumayev said he believes this memorandum will be helpful in the future as the Kazakh Alpine Club builds its infrastructure and organizational framework. ( Some of the information on Maxut  is from the recent UIAA newsletter)

Reflections from a Tapchan. Journey on the silk route

And there in front of me was something I had never seen on the silk route in over 30 years, a large *tapchan straddling a stream. Photo Bob McKerrow

We gain wisdom in three ways:
By reflection which is the noblest
By imitation which is the easiest
By experience which is the bitterest

After our journey to to Otrar and Turkestan we spent a pleasant night in Shymkent (Chimkent) and the next day looked around this strategic silk route town. Not much of the pre-Soviet period here.

I wanted to slow down on our return journey, and reflect a little. My mind was packed with information, my camera loaded with images and my note book with lots of words. I wanted to make some sense out of it all. I had now completed virtually every strand of the Silk Route through the Himalaya,.Pir Panjul, Daula Dar, Pamir, Tienshan, Karakoram and Hindu Kush, Kopet Dag mountains separating Turkmenistan from Iran.

Buddha found enlightenment under a tree, poets had moments of clarity sitting by streams, and many oriental writers got flashes of brilliance in Chai Khanas (tea houses) sitting on Tap Chans, the traditional four legged platform on which you sit on cushions and eat from a table placed on a Tapchan. My old friend from Kabul Steve Masty wrote a classic song “ Chai Khana on the Kandahar Road which has a wonderful line about ‘ how you kept your country ree' over thousands of year mainly by, accidentally or otherwise, disabling conquerors and invaders by food poisoning.

The Persian word Ab, water, has always fascinated me. When living in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India and other parts of Central Asia, it is a suffix to so many words.

Panjab ( Five Rivers) Fariab, Doab, Surjab Murgab etc. they generally are towns situated on rivers or lakeshores. Also the Kazakh word ‘su’ for water also helps ones vocabulary as rivers and towns such as Ak Su.

Back to the journey home. As we were coming down a hill side 45 minutes east of Shymkent, and just after Ak Su, I saw an idyllic spot that surely must have been a stop for travelers by horse, camel or whatever means they travelled in ancient times. There was a stream, trees and from the spot, you could see from where you had come and where you were going. And, hey presto ! There was a Chai Khana behind the trees.
We parked at the road side and walked down the stream to the Chai Khana. The name of the tea shop was written in Russian, and I could recognise the last two letters – ab.
Translated into English it was called Masab. Suin spoke to the waitress who said it meant water or stream by the undulations. It sounded OK to me as we had been travelling over an undulating road and had just dropped into a depression with a stream.

And there in front of me was something I have never seen on the silk route in over 30 years, a large tapchan straddling a stream.

This is the nirvana poets dream about.
.

The words from various writers came to mind:

We travel not for trafficking alone
By hotter winds are fiery hearts are fanned
For the lust of knowing what should not be known
We make the golden journey to Samarkand

Man (woman) is a wanderer from birth.

We are pilgrims master and we will always go
Across the last blue mountains barred with snow,
Across the angry and glimmering s

And Robert Service’s poems are stacked with the race that don’t fit in.

There’s a race of men who don’t fit in
A race that can’t stay still
As the break the hearts of kith and kin
As they roam the world at will

In Victor Frankl’s book about concentration camps, he talks about the excitement when they moved by train from one camp to another and how inmates looked through cracks to search of recognizable features that would give a clue for life or death tomorrow.

The Maori of New Zealand were incurable ‘Vikings of the Sunrise’
As they pushed from remote islands of Tahiti to almost Antarctica, and settling in New Zealand where they adapted to snow and ice as they crossed high mountain passes..

Over the last blue mountains barred with snow
Across the angry and glimmering sea

I am now back in Almaty with Naila and our two boys. Yesterday I dined with my extended Kazakh family. The faces were silk route faces. From the round Mongolian to the almost bluish eyes that are common amongst the Naiman tribe of Kazakhstan, who are Mongolian by descent. After all, they gave refuge to the wandering and persecuted Nestorian Christians who were drummed out of Eastern Europe for daring to be the first real offshoot of Christianity.

Sitting on the tapchan I found that this journey had helped me understand more fully who the Kazakh people were. The poetry of Abai had helped me greatly as did Tom Stacey in his introduction to the book, Silent Steppe by Mukhamed Shayakhmetov from which I have borrowed a little.

The Kazakhs are all Moslem faith, converted at various times since the 7th century but they are still have trappings of their shamanistic past and strands of Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Nestorian, comprising today what we call ‘tengrism’ a faith in the unity of creation with Man at its centre and in communion with it, and of Man as the inheritor of a potential gift of ecstatic enlightenment. All this is exercise was mystically exercised among the Kazakhs in the rituals of their immensely ancient nomadic and transhuman existence, based upon their horse and camel-borne economy of herding sheep and goats across the vast breadth of steppe, and subject to a climate of extreme conditions, especially in winter. With it came an oral tradition of song and saga and poetry, and a flowering in the written corpus of work of the Kazakh poet Abai.

I am now back in Almaty relaxing, reading and travelling by trolley buses and trams with my nephew Dimash
and son Ablai. This is a great city.

* The tapchan is a raised platform that is used in Central Asia for relaxing and reclining outdoors. It functions as a table, or as a bed, and often has a smaller table on it for serving food and tea. The tapchan can be made of wood or welded steel, and often has a thin mattress, cushion, or carpet on wood planks. You will find them in parks, restaurants, back yards, and at hotels. For more....

Working in Central Asia - Keeping people alive in the Pamire mountains 1996-1999

A friend and colleague asked me the other day, what was the most rewarding Red Cross assignment I have had in the last ten years ? It was Central Asia from 1996 to 1999. Here are some excerpts from the diary:

As I write a bevy of 4000 to 4500 metre peaks stud the horizon less than 10 km from my window (see photo above). Living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which nestles in the foothills of the northern Tien Shan mountains and working with people living in the Central Asia, has brought another distant dream true. Ever since I was a boy I was fascinated by the thought of Samarkand and travelling the ancient silk road which twists through the Celestial Mountains (Tien Shan)

After three years in Afghanistan (1993-1996) I moved in late 1996 to Central Asia to be in charge of major Red Cross programmes in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.


With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, one in twelve people have had to move in Central Asia because of dire economic difficulties or conflict. In Tajikistan one in five people have had to move due to the civil war. Therefore my work with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in the support of the national Red Cross societies in these five Central Asian countries, has been important in assisting isolated elderly and families who are facing starvation and other forms of acute deprivation.

My work takes me from the high Pamirs in the east of Central Asia to the extreme west where the Kara Kum desert in Turkmenistan meets the Kopet Dagh mountains on the Iranian border. I am rarely out of sight of soaring snow capped peaks.

In Gorno-Badakhshan many children show signs of stunted growth because of malnutrition, and are delighted to get even one pie a day.


Much of my travelling is done along the ancient silk road which travels through the heart of Central Asia, formerly linking China in the east to Europe in the west. Frequently I pass through the historic cities of Samarkand, Tashkent, Khojent, Khokand, Dushanbe, Termez, Merv, Ashgabat and cross the mighty Oxus River.

One of the most Herculean tasks has been during the past 3 months when have hauled 3200 metric tonnes of coal, 2,000 m2 of glass, 25 tonnes of roofing iron, 500 stoves, 600 flues and 2,000 sets of bed linen plus thousands of tonnes of food to remote hospitals scattered throughout the high Pamir mountains of Tajikistan.


Sunset of the high peaks of the Pamir mountains in Tajikistan



The coal is extracted from the Alai coal mines at 3,300 metres under the shadow of the 7,134 m Peak Lenin, to the schools, clinics and hospitals situated in the Pamirs where temperatures plunge as low as -40 oC during the long and bitterly cold winter. Last winter we distributed just over 5000 metric tonnes of coal, but now with having provided all the institutions with an improved type of stove, which burns less coal and produces greater heat, we have distributed slightly lesser amounts this year. Our office in Osh Kyrgyzstan is run by Jagan Chapagain from Nepal, who is the lynch-pin of the operation.

From the Alai mine, the coal is moved by truck (more than 600 truck loads this year) over the Kyrgyzstan pass, further up the Kyzl-Art or Red Clay Pass at 4,275 m then over the incredibly high White Horse Pass at 4,650 m and driven to the recipients, an average of 600 - 800 km away.

A lake in the Pamir mountains in Gorno Badakhshan



The Alai mine is situated at the cross roads of the old silk road. It is in a small valley leading to the larger Alai Valley, which connects Kashgar and the Sarafshan mountains of Tajikistan. Traders going through the nearby town of Saritash had a choice of taking the Pamir route up to Murgab and then down into Afghanistan or the more westerly Alai valley.


Zebunisso Karimova; all she wants is her family to be healthy. Her eyes fill with tears as she tells the Red Crescent that most of her furniture has been sold or traded to buy food.


The stoves were produced in the ancient Kyrgyz city of Osh, creating jobs for many unemployed engineers and metal workers. Osh celebrated its 3000 year anniversary late last decade.

In the remote areas of Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast ( GBAO) in the Pamirs, we have worked closely with the Red Crescent Society of Tajikistan financing the purchase of sheep, goats and yaks to enable these remote Red Cross branches to generate income which will in time, enable them to finance their programmes. Earlier this year I visited I visited the valley of Joshangoaz at about 3,500 metres where a Red Cross shepherd tends about 150 sheep and goats.

One of the coldest nights I spent in Tajikistan was in Murgab situated at 4000 m, where the temperature dropped to - 30 oC.
Our Red Cross workers; drivers, shepherds and field officers tell stories of hardship and danger of the past three winters of getting coal and food out to the people. Heavy snow falls blocking roads for weeks, frostbite while repairing vehicles, convoys getting scuttled by avalanches and being looted by modern day highway men is not uncommon.

The Tien Shan mountains lie mainly in Kyrgyzstan with northern parts stretching into Kazakhstan and a south-east finger poking into Uzbekistan. Approximately 750 km, or half of the Tien Shan lie in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Home to 60% of the world's dwindling population of the snow leopard ( Panthera uncia) there are estimated to be about 450 snow leopards dwelling here.

A young Kazakh girl.

In the foothills of Kyrgyzstan's Tienshan mountains, the International Federation of Red Cross supports the Kyrgyz Red Crescent to run a large relief programme providing food to isolated elderly people on a pension of approximately US $15 a month, and to institutions such as schools, orphanages and mentally handicapped homes.


I live on the outskirts of Almaty, Kazakhstan, at about 1000 m.

It is paradise for mountaineers and skiers for you can drive to 2600 m within 45 minutes and can climb a 4200 m peak in a day and for six months of the year, the Chimbulak ski field offers some of the best and cheapest skiing in the world.

But it the people that makes Almaty's local mountains unique. The relationship between mountain dwellers and mountains has long fascinated me and it has been great to make strong friends with Kazakhstani mountaineers and share their natural mountain life-style.

Looking across the foothills to Almaty in winter



These mountaineers live in the foothills of the Tien Shan and every Friday night either walk the four hours to their alpine huts from Almaty or drive. They spend every spare moment, every holiday in the mountains and from the age of three or four, the children ski like the wind and climb rock like a mountain goat. They have their songs, poems, climbing competitions and age old traditions of producing exquisite wood carvings.

Khan Tengri, the highest peak in Kazakhstan 7000 metres high


I fondly recall spending Christmas and New Years day (1996-97) with my good mates Sergy and Yuri, their families and other Kazakh and Russian mountaineers in their club huts consuming large amounts of Vodka, horse meat and intestines, the staple of Kazakhstan. Outside at least a metre of snow covered the ground offering superb skiing. It was here I first met Anatoly Boukreev the famous Kazakh climber who not only climbed Mt. Everest a few times, but made one of the most selfless rescues on Mt Everest in 1996.

I met the greatest of Kazakh mountaineers in 1997, Anatoli Boukreev

Spending days with Kazakhstani mountaineers and their extended families in the alpine huts in the Tien Shans while blizzards rage outside, it has been amazing to find those who have scaled Everest, Makalau, Dhalagauri and to hear them speaking modestly of significant climbs in most ranges of the world.

In 1997 the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has assisted 3 million elderly, orphans, handicapped people and multi-children families through a very difficult year. With one of the worst winters on record affecting Central Asia and heavy snow and severe gales lashing the region, we have stepped up our relief assistance to those without heating and inadequate clothing.

A view from the road into Gorno Badakshan in the Pamir mlountains. We had to cart coal over passes up to 4,600 metres in winter.

Bob McKerrow 1999

We travel not for trafficking alone

Off to the Silk Route again - The Golden Road to Turkestan
I have spent decades exploring parts of the Silk Route in India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and to a lesser extent, in Iran and Europe.

The one part I have not been to is Turkestan, in Kazakhstan. Next week I go via Arabia to Central Asia in a magnificent flying machine. I plan to drive from Almaty and stop at Suyab which figures on Hsuan Tsang's ( early Chinese explorer) map and also Shalder and Otrar. Otrar was where the famour Al-Farabi was born and is a an uninhabited city which is over 2000 years old.

I will keep you in touch with my travels. For the lust of knowing what should not be known