Bodies of climbers killed in Kabardino-Balkaria evacuated by helicopter

Rescuers reported on the evacuation of Artem Khokhlov and Elena Sitnikova, who died in the Elbrus region. This happened after a fundraiser was announced to remove the bodies by helicopter.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" reported, on August 20, climbers from Perm died while attempting to climb the summit of Via-tau.

Rescuers carried out an operation to evacuate the bodies of two climbers who died in the Adyl-su gorge in Kabardino-Balkaria. "Work on a steep slope in rockfall conditions lasted three days. Yesterday (August 21), the climbers' bodies were evacuated from the crevice of Mount Viatau to a height of 3,200 meters. Today, rescuers from the Russian Emergencies Ministry evacuated the climbers' bodies to the village of Verkhniy Baksan on a commercial helicopter, where they were handed over to the investigative task force," Interfax quotes the press service of the regional Emergencies Ministry as saying.

30 people took part in the search for the bodies of the deceased, including rescuers from the Elbrus High-Altitude Search and Rescue Squad of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, employees of the Border Directorate of the FSB of Russia for the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, and public figures, the department reported.

It should be noted that on August 21, a fundraising campaign for the use of a helicopter was announced in the Perm Mountaineering School group on the VKontakte social network. "The approval for payment for the helicopter and search and rescue operations has not been received, for this reason we are announcing a fundraiser in the amount of 900 thousand rubles to pay for the helicopter," the statement said.

The deceased climbers were residents of Perm - 35-year-old Elena Sitnikova and 27-year-old Artem Khokhlov, the 59.ru portal reports. Sitnikova worked at the multifunctional center of the Perm State Medical University. Mountaineering was her long-standing hobby. Khokhlov was an individual entrepreneur and was engaged in activities in the field of information technology. He took up mountaineering relatively recently.

Earlier, in July, the sentence of Anton Nikiforov and Ilya Chuikov, guides on the tragic ascent of Elbrus, during which five people died in 2021, was reduced. Although the victims' side insisted on tougher punishment, each of the two guides' terms in the penal colony were reduced by six months.

Elbrus is a two-peaked cone of an extinct volcano, the height of both peaks exceeds 5.6 kilometers. Elbrus attracts climbers and skiers from all over the world, as stated in the "Caucasian Knot" reference "Elbrus - the patriarch of the Caucasus Mountains".