A group of tourists participating in the "Multi-Day Route" category, led by mentor Artyom Ryabukhin (Moscow Region), crosses a suspension bridge near Mount Pisanitsa across the Serga River (left). Photo: Vladimir Neskoromny/RGS press service
The final of the Russian Geographical Society’s «Best Hiking Mentor» competition in the «Multi-Day Trip» category was held in Oleni Ruchi Nature Park in Sverdlovsk Region from July 9 to 10. Despite heavy rains that shortened the route, three teams led by experienced teachers successfully overcame the hiking trials and practiced key survival skills in extreme conditions.
In the «Multi-Day Trip» category, classic hikes along well-known and new routes took place. Initially, two overnight stays were planned, but due to heavy rains, the program was reduced to one. In total, three teams participated in this category. Each group included a finalist, an expert, and six tourists — students of Moscow school No. 709.
First team: finalist Ksenia Galchenko (Moscow); expert Igor Lev, geography teacher and headmaster of Gymnasium No. 446 in St. Petersburg. Second team: finalist Artyom Ryabukhin (Moscow Region), expert Anastasia Ronzhina, geography teacher of the highest qualification category, teacher of additional education and winner of the All-Russian competition «Hikes of the First: More than a Journey» (Nizhny Tagil). Third team: finalist Anastasia Novitskaya (Novosibirsk Region), expert Egor Volkov, physical education teacher at school No. 709 (Moscow).
Each group walked about 15 km per day. The finalist-mentors introduced the children to the hiking discipline that underlies any successful trip. They taught the students the distribution of roles in the group, tent assembly techniques, and hygiene rules. They also explained to the children the order of movement in the chain, the rules of wading, and the basics of navigating the terrain. The mentors separately emphasized why it is extremely dangerous to approach sinkholes, and reminded of the need to always take garbage with you. In addition, the children were taught how to use meteorological instruments, in particular, an anemometer.
Furthermore, the mentors introduced the children to the history of Oleni Ruchi Nature Park. The children examined the remains of a steam car near the Mitkin Lakes, former mines, and also visited a large karst sinkhole and the cave «Camp Site of an Ancient Man» with cultural strata up to 14,000 years old. The participants also saw the Pisanitsa rock with ancient drawings of moose and hunters made several thousand years ago by Finno-Ugric tribes. The students were also shown a 300-year-old pine tree, which was left as a seed tree at a time when local forests were actively cut down by charcoal burners for the production of charcoal.
Since there is practically no cell signal in these places, Artyom Ryabukhin demonstrated how to communicate using a walkie-talkie and a special mobile application that encodes text into Morse code sounds. This program can be used as a full-fledged messenger. Using this technique, at midnight, the group managed to perform a real miracle — to contact an amateur radio operator from Moscow Region at a distance of about 1,600 km.