[lxng]

The highest peak of Europe, Mount Elbrus, is relatively easy to climb, nevertheless it took me two years and two attempts to get to the top. Unpredictable, fast changing weather can easily ruin your plans. Also the way Elbrus is traditionally ascended implies a rather short acclimatization period (it's another story why it is so, but it is what it is), and so you assault the summit being weakened from the very beginning. The latter was the reason for my failure during the first attempt in 2017​.​ Our group was only 60 vertical meters away from the summit when one of my teammates suddenly felt badly and couldn't go further. We might have let him sit and wait for us at a rock while we would finish the ascent and then return for him, however I think we made the right decision to descend immediately so as not to endanger anyone. Only one year later, my brother and I made the second attempt and finally reached the summit​ - despite the hurricane wind, which almost made our second attempt unsuccessful as well (but we succeeded)​. That was the eastern summit of Elbrus, not the slightly higher western one. Why did we choose the eastern one? We had a good reason for it, and actually that very reason made me not regret the first unsuccessful attempt. And that was because I was working on a documentary film about the first in history ascent of Elbrus, which happened almost 200 years ago. That is, spending twice more time on Elbrus slopes helped me better study the route of the first ascensionist and more reliably map the records of their diaries to reality. And so, these two expeditions which my brother and I made, resulted in a documentary film on Youtube, which shows both our own ascend and tells the story of the first ever ascent of the eastern summit of Elbrus that took place in 1829. The film was initially made in Russian, however, as some of my friends who don't speak Russian were very interested in this story, I translated it into English - as best I could, not being a native English speaker. ​So, let me present to you the international version of the film: Mount Elbrus. Mysteries of the First Ascent