World Tourism Day is celebrated on 27 September. It is a good occasion to talk about VSU’s “Belaya Gora” club.
“Belaya Gora” is a university tourist club that unites students who lead an active lifestyle, travel, and explore unusual natural environments. The mountain hiking school has been enrolling students since September. It offers sports and camping trips as well as competitions.
Inessa Kachevskaya, head of the tourist club, shared some information about training, club meetings, and hiking trips.
“We train in forest areas, and it doesn’t matter if the weather is good or bad. We try to avoid indoor tourism, and we teach people who will join us on hiking trips to be able to deal with any kind of weather because all you need is to choose the right equipment”.
A camping trip to the Western Caucasus is planned for this semester, and open search and rescue competitions will be held in November in Voronezh region. When winter comes, students will have a chance to take part in “rope teams” organised by Voronezh Mountaineering Federation and in a climbing trip to another region that will be held during the winter holidays.
Three hiking trips categorized by level of difficulty (two mountaineering and one walking trip) will be organised during the academic year, as well as participation in the competitions held by the Voronezh Mountaineering Federation, search and rescue competitions in other regions and local mountaineering technique competitions, multi-day mountaineering trips to the Caucasus and Crimea, weekly trainings, meetings, and weekend trips. Each month the tourist club offers new interesting events.
“In October we are going on a sport walking tour to Adygea. This tour is the easiest and is organised specifically for new members. Then, during the winter holidays, we are planning a mountaineering trip to the Krasnodar region or Crimea in order to practice our rock climbing technique on a natural relief with a great height (it is suitable both for new and experienced members). In February and March we are going to hold a search and rescue competition organised by partner tourist clubs from other regions, so we will have a chance to learn something new, revise what we already know, and compare our performance with other teams. In May there will be a mountaineering trip of the first or second difficulty category, maybe near Arkhyz. This way we will prepare for a more complicated mountaineering trip in August. As for the short-distance trips, we are going to have weekend outings and training rock climbing trips in the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions. Tourism is an essential part of my life. And the tourist club helps to attract other people, so that we can develop and soar to new heights,” said Inessa Kachevskaya.
Text by: Ludmila ESINA, Arina VOLGINA
Photo by: Inessa KACHEVSKAYA
