Yevgeny Beletsky
Yevgeny Beletsky was a Soviet mountaineer, Honored Master of Sports of the USSR, Honored Coach of the USSR, bronze medalist of the USSR mountaineering championship, highly skilled turner and sculptor, author of books and articles on mountaineering, geography and engineering, full member of the USSR Geographical Society.
During the Pamir expedition in 1937, he participated in the third successful ascent of Lenin Peak in history, as well as the second ascent of the highest peak in the USSR —-Stalin Peak, becoming the first mountaineer to conquer two "seven-thousanders" in one season. Before the war he made a number of difficult ascents in the Caucasus.
During the Great Patriotic War, he took part in battles in the Caucasus. In February 1943, he was part of a group of mountaineers who raised the Soviet flag and removed the banners with Nazi symbols from the highest point in Europe — the western peak of Mount Elbrus.
After the war, he made a number of first ascents in the Pamirs. In 1956, he led an expedition of Soviet and Chinese mountaineers that climbed Mount Muztagh Ata in the Chinese part of the Pamirs. In 1958 he was appointed one of the leaders of the Soviet part of the joint Soviet-Chinese Himalayan expedition to Jomolungma, which was to be realized in 1959, but the participation of Soviet mountaineers in this expedition was cancelled due to the aggravation of the political situation in Tibet.
A mountain peak in the Trans-Alay Range, as well as one of the tributaries of the Korzhenevsky Glacier in the Pamirs were named in honor of Evgeny Beletsky.
Biography
Early years
Eugene Beletsky was born in 1908 in Siedlec, his father was a Russian language teacher, Andrian Georgievich Beletsky, and Maria Vasilievna Beletska. Eugene had two brothers and two sisters. After the outbreak of World War I, Andrian Georgievich was transferred with his gymnasium to Vladimir, and Maria Vasilievna with four children moved to Romny, and after a while — to Hadiach.In 1919 the whole family moved to Dmitrovka, Chernihiv Governorate — the native village of Andrian Georgievich. In their house lived many relatives, both on the father's and mother's side. The times were hard — there was a famine in Ukraine, there were typhus epidemics. Nevertheless, everyone in the Beletsky house lived in friendship, supported each other. They organized a house orchestra and even a theater. Since childhood, Eugene could speak not only Russian, Ukrainian and Polish, but also French and German.
At the age of 13, working as a watchman in the summer, Eugene managed to earn some money, which he gave to his mother in the family budget. There, in Dmitrovka, he joined the Komsomol and became one of the first komsomol members in the village.
Before the war
In 1925, a year after graduating from a seven-year school in Dmitrovka, Evgeny Beletsky went to work in Leningrad, where he entered to the Professional technical school "Krasny Putilovets" factory. In 1929 Beletsky became a member of the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks, and in 1930 he was appointed editor of the factory newspaper "Krasny Putilovets", whose circulation at that time reached 23,000 copies.Beletsky began mountaineering in the early 1930s. In 1931, he and his friends took part in a mountaineering expedition through the Twiber Pass in the Caucasus, which connects Svaneti and Kabardino-Balkaria. Since 1932, he was involved in the mountain section of the under the leadership of Boris Delaunay, travelling to the Central and Western Caucasus. In 1932 in Dombay Beletsky made an ascent of Mount Ertsog, and in August 1933 together with a more experienced mountaineer Victor Mitnikov made the first ascent to the summit of Tyutyun-Bashi in the Central Caucasus, but on the descent Mitnikov fell from the ridge and died. In 1934, Evgeny Beletsky was an instructor of the 2nd Red Army Alpiniade and climbed the eastern summit of Mount Elbrus. In 1935, he climbed Elbrus in winter and was also an instructor of the mass summer ascent of Elbrus. In the same season he made a technically difficult ascent of Northern Ushba.
In 1936, together with Ivan Fedorov, Evgeny Beletsky made the first ascent of Dzerzhinsky Peak in the Pamir Mountains, near Lenin Peak. In the same year, Beletsky was part of a group of mountaineers who explored the Fortambek Glacier area to study possible routes to climb Stalin Peak, the highest peak in the USSR. In addition to Beletsky, the group included P. N. Alhambrov, Nikolai Gusak, Danil Gushchin, Alexander Dzhaparidze, and Ivan Fedorov.
In 1937, Evgeny Beletsky was in the Pamirs as part of a large expedition dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution. First, he participated in the third successful ascent of Lenin Peak in history. The leader of the group was Lev Barkhash, and its members, besides Beletsky, were Stanislav Ganetsky, V. Martynov, Grigory Rozentsveig,, B. Iskin, and P. Alhambrov. Beletsky then joined a group of climbers who made the second ever ascent of Stalin Peak. The group was led by Oleg Aristov and included Nikolai Gusak, Viktor Kirkorov, and Ivan Fedorkov in addition to Beletsky. At an altitude of about 7450 m, Oleg Aristov slipped and fell off the ridge and died after flying about 700 m. The rest of the group, unable to descend to his body, reached the summit. As a result of these two ascents, Beletsky became the first mountaineer to climb two "seven-thousanders" in one season.
In 1938, Beletsky was in charge of the Central School of Mountaineering Instructors, located in the in the Caucasus. In the same year, he was the leader of a group of mountaineers who made a record achievement for that time — a traverse of the Bezengi Wall from east to west. This traverse took 18 days in harsh weather conditions, significantly exceeding the maximum limit of 10 days that they had notified the local rescue service before setting out on the route. On the twelfth day, the group members were seen by a pilot from a search plane, but a rescue team of climbers at the base of the wall was still on their feet. Despite the fact that the group completed this record crossing independently, its leader Beletsky was reprimanded by the mountaineering authorities, disqualified, and stripped of the title of Master of Sports of the USSR.
In 1939, Eugene Beletsky was arrested in connection with the "N. V. Krylenko case" and spent three months in pretrial detention in the NKVD isolation center. After the arrest of N. I. Yezhov, Beletsky was released. In early 1940, together with a group of volunteer skiers, he took part in the Winter War, was awarded the medal "For Courage".
Shortly thereafter, Beletsky received a letter from the Presidium of the Central Section of Mountaineering with information about his "rehabilitation": his case related to the traverse of the Bezenghi Wall was reviewed and he was reinstated to the titles of Master of Sports of the USSR and Senior Mountaineering Instructor. In the summer of 1940 he returned to the Caucasus, where he headed the Central School of Mountaineering Instructors of the All-Union Central Committee of the Soviet Union. After that, with a group of mountaineers, he successfully traversed both peaks of Ushba. Including Beletsky, the group consisted of 12 people — it was a record for such mass climbing. When Evgeny Beletsky returned to Leningrad, he learned that his older brother Yuri, who was also involved in mountaineering, had died in Dombay while climbing Mount Belalakaya.
During the war
Evgeny Beletsky planned to spend the summer season of 1941 in the Central Caucasus, in the area of the Bezenghi Wall, where he and a group of mountaineers planned to climb Dykh-Tau and Shkhara. But these plans were interrupted by the military commissariat, which sent Beletsky to the, to the village of Terskol. A number of other leading mountaineers of the country were also sent there. The reason for this was the order of the General Staff of the Red Army to teach the basics of mountaineering to a group of young officers, for which a one-and-a-half month course was organized, which began on June 15. However, a week later, on June 22, the Great Patriotic War began, and the head of the course, Major General Alexei Tarasov decided to send the cadets to their military units, and instructors — at the disposal of military committees at the place of their assignment.Beletsky and other mountaineers from Leningrad reported to the local military draft office upon their return to Leningrad. There they were enlisted in the 1st Mountain Rifle Brigade, which was to go to the Kola Peninsula. While they were waiting for their departure, a car from the Kirov factory came to pick up Beletsky. The chauffeur presented a stamped piece of paper, which stated that "Turner Beletsky has been booked to fulfill a special task of the command of the Leningrad Military District", which meant that he had to return to the factory. After some time, Beletsky again tried to go to the front, this time in a special ski detachment of the Baltic Fleet, but he was returned to the factory, which by then had switched to the production of tanks, so that experienced workers were urgently needed.
In November 1941, some of the equipment from the Kirov plant was transferred to Chelyabinsk, and Beletsky arrived there by plane with other specialists. There they set up the production of KV tanks, working 10-16 hours a day, sometimes all day. Beletsky was elected a partorg of the tool shop, and he often slept at the factory in the room of the party office.
In 1942, when the Nazi troops reached the Caucasus passes, the Supreme Command Headquarters outlined a number of measures for the defense of the line of the Main Caucasian Range, which included, in particular, the involvement of experienced mountaineering instructors. Being on factory business in Moscow, Beletsky remembered himself, and after a while in Chelyabinsk came a directive "E. A. Beletsky urgently. A. Beletsky urgently sent to the disposal of the NKVD troops". Thus, from 1942 Beletsky began his service in the. He was then sent to the Caucasus, to Tbilisi, where he participated in the training of mountain rifle detachments, and also worked as a teacher at the School of Military Mountaineering and Skiing of the Transcaucasian Front.
In February 1943, Evgeny Beletsky was part of a group of mountaineers led by Nikolai Gusak who removed Nazi standards from the highest point in Europe, the western peak of Mount Elbrus, and planted the Soviet flag there. The group of masters of mountaineering, which included Alexander Sidorenko, Gabriel Khergiani, Beknu Khergiani and Evgeny Smirnov, set out on February 13 from the "", located at an altitude of 4130 m on the south-eastern slope of Elbrus, and reached the western peak the same day. On the summit, the climbers found the remains of Nazi standards, which they removed and replaced with a Soviet flag, leaving a note about the successful ascent and the fulfillment of the task. On February 17, another group of climbers led by Alexander Gusev removed Nazi flags from the eastern summit of Elbrus. Based on the results of this operation, the political commissar of the group, Evgeny Beletsky was awarded the Order of the Red Star. He was appointed chief mountain training instructor of the 402nd Rifle Division.
In June 1944, some of the instructor climbers were sent to the 2nd Ukrainian Front. In Bălți, where the front headquarters was located, Beletsky met his old mountaineering friends Yakov Arkin, Alexander Sidorenko, Yuri Gubanov and Yevgeny Kolokolnikov. After that, as part of the 235th Guards Rifle Regiment, Beletsky fought in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria, participated in the liberation of Budapest, Vienna and Prague. He commanded an anti-tank company, had the rank of senior lieutenant. After the victory over Germany, Beletsky was transferred to the Far East, where the war with Japan continued.