The investigation detained the senior guide of the Elbrus guide Denis Alimov, who organized the ascent of Elbrus on 23 September. It caused the death of five of its participants. Before that, he wrote a confession. The climber hopes that the court will limit himself to house arrest.
According to the Investigation Department of the TFR in Kabardino-Balkaria, on September 23, 2021, a group of 19 people climbed Mount Elbrus. “During the descent, due to strong wind and snowfall, the group asked for help from rescuers. Five participants in the ascent died, according to preliminary data, hypothermia was the cause of their death, ”the message says. The organizer of the ascent, Denis Alimov, who flew to Kabardino-Balkaria after an emergency, was interrogated as part of a criminal case on the provision of services that did not meet the requirements of the safety, life and health of the consumer, which inadvertently resulted in the death of two or more persons (part 3 of Art.238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ).
“During the interrogation with the investigator, the organizer of the ascent wrote a confession and gave detailed confessions,” the ICR reported, specifying that the investigator made a decision “to detain the suspect” and filed a petition with the court to choose a preventive measure.
The tour organizer (the senior guide of the travel agency that organized the ascent, Denis Alimov) managed to comment on the Internet media “Kurier Berdsk Wednesday”. He said that he was in custody: “I was detained today in Nalchik. As for the other guys: two are still in the hospital, and two are at home. They have not been presented with anything yet. Tomorrow there will be a court, they will decide what measure of restraint to give me: either house arrest, or in a pre-trial detention center. “
According to the site “Kartoteka.ru”, Mr. Alimov is the director and founder of the company “Adventure Time”, which is registered in the city of Kudrovo, Leningrad region. It provides tour guides and guides for tourists. He is also one of the founders of the St. Petersburg Rowers Association. The Elbrus guide company was created as a division of Adventure Time in Pyatigorsk in 2015 and was mainly involved in organizing mountain hikes and group climbs to Elbrus.
Recall, on September 23, a group of 23 people began to climb Elbrus at around 10 am. True, four of the group abandoned the ascent at the first stage and returned to the hotel. The weather a few days before the ascent began to deteriorate sharply, heavy rains began on the plain, and above the 2 thousand meters mark, snow fell in the mountains.
As subscribers wrote on the Elbrus guide page, the group, which was going to climb Elbrus from the northern side on the same day, refused to climb due to an unfavorable forecast.
However, the group from the southern side of Elbrus still set out on the route. Almost two dozen tourists, many of whom had their first ascent, were taken to the mountain by only four guides. On the last section of the ascent before the summit, one of the tourists got sick. It was decided to lower it to the saddle. The guide Igor Dankov led the girl down. However, already on the descent, she lost consciousness and never regained consciousness. The guide tried to contact the rescuers by radio, but, according to him, the connection in the saddle area is always bad, and the rescuers did not receive a signal. For several hours he waited for the main group to descend.
By 15 o’clock, it became clear that the girl had already died, and the group, apparently, got lost in the fog.
Igor Dankov decided to independently get to the snowcat, which was on the slope, from where the group began the ascent. As a result, the rescuers received a distress signal only at about 17 o’clock in the afternoon on 23 September. At this time, the group, divided by the guides into “fast” and “slow”, finally got lost in the fog and got into a strong blizzard with a temperature of -20 degrees.
Rescuers, who had to climb to a height of more than 5 thousand meters in a blizzard with a wind of up to 70 m / sec, were able to get 14 people out of the mountain by five in the morning on September 24. Two participants in the ascent, who were able to descend to the Gora-Bashi station, died after the descent. The bodies of three dead climbers were lowered from the mountain, despite the ongoing snowstorm, on Sunday 26 September. In the Instagram account of the Elbrus VPSO EMERCOM of Russia, it was reported that the bodies are transported to the Azau meadow for transfer to the TFR employees.
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