Broke his ribs, fell into gorges, but outlived British Queen: the journey of a 100-year-old mountaineer

"He outlived his friends and even the British Queen"

Ivan Kashyn was born in Kyiv on January 18, 1924.

"Here, have a seat," Ivan Kashyn slowly gets up from his old chair and offers me his seat.

Inflatable balloons adorn his "throne" above. The decor was arranged in honor of the centenary.

We visited the man with his friend and fellow climber, Viktor Matsko.

Since the coronavirus took his wife's life, Ivan Kashyn has been living alone. The couple had no children, so from time to time his niece visits the centenarian climber to bring him food and help with the household.

Among the things in the room, I notice a book about climbers, including a story about Ivan Kashyn, a master of sports in mountaineering.

"I have lived modestly all my life, outlived my friends, even Queen Elizabeth of Britain. She lived in luxury, but she lived less than me. And what was my life like? A childhood of hunger, poverty, what did I eat?" he asks rhetorically and immediately answers: "Potato peels, bread crumbs.”

At the mention of the Queen, a small smile appears on his face. In general, Ivan Andriyovych loves to smile. It seems that all the wrinkles on his face portray some kind of joy and love of life.

A handful of gold was exchanged for bread and fish

In 1932, 8-year-old Ivan witnessed the Holodomor. He recalls exhausted peasants knocking on their windows and asking for at least a crumb of bread. The Kashyn family shared the last of it.

"In those difficult Stalinist times, there was no bread on sale. Everything was given out on cards in 400-gram batches, only to those who worked. What was 400 grams per family? There were four children and two parents. We got a piece each, not even 100 grams per person.

My mother didn't take anything, she gave us everything, so she quickly swelled up with hunger and died in 1938. I remember that my parents collected all the gold: crosses, and rings and handed them over to the pawnshop of the time. We got a little bit of bread and fish. We ate it in a few days and that was it," he recalls.

In 1941, Ivan Kashyn graduated from high school. When World War II came to Ukraine, he went to dig trenches. Soon, he was captured by German soldiers, forced into a railroad car, and sent to Germany for forced labor.

"No one abused us there. I worked at a confectionery factory. We unloaded sugar beets, and when there were a few beets left, we took them and boiled them. That was bliss. It was so delicious!"

I can't imagine it, but the look in my hero's eyes convinces me that it was true. After the war ended, Ivan Kashyn boarded the train again, this time in the opposite direction.

He says that he noticed in time that the Soviet authorities treated the Ostarbeiters badly. He was not being taken to his hometown capital, but to Siberia. When Ivan realized this, he jumped out of the train in Fastiv and then walked home.

Upon his return, he kept this fact quiet for fear of reprisals. For the same reason, he could not enter leading universities, including the Polytechnic Institute. He was denied admission because he was allegedly an "enemy of the people."

After several years of wandering, he finally entered the Kyiv Institute of Physical Education. At the same time, he always dreamed of mountains.

"Mountains are something special," Ivan Kashyn says dreamily, and his eyes become so tranquil, as if after a long prayer. "You go to the top, and it's so quiet there that you're afraid to move. It feels as if the Lord himself is watching you."

Handstand atop a 7000er

"My first encounter with the mountains was in 1947. I was a gymnastics and acrobatics student at the Institute of Physical Education. I trained with Volodymyr Monoharov (who later became president of the mountaineering federation), and with him I got to the Caucasus.

The Ukrainian school of mountaineering instructors is located in the Adil-Su Gorge. They had no sports equipment or clothing: instead of backpacks, they wore ordinary bags with straps, sweatshirts, and work boots. But I fell in love with the mountains for life, they are amazing."

There were many peaks in Ivan Kashyn's life, but he can't remember them all. Most often, he recalls climbing Abu Ali ibn Sina ​​(Avicenna) peak. It is a peak in the Pamir mountain system on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, 7,134 meters high.

"In my youth, this mountain was called Lenin Peak. There was also a mountain called Stalin Peak, but young people were not very willing to climb Stalin," says Ivan Andriyovych. "I went to Lenin Peak with Volodymyr Monoharov. There were 38 people climbing, all from Ukraine.

We carefully acclimatized to the conditions of the highlands, because at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters, oxygen deprivation is very strong. Every step is difficult, and we are constantly short of breath. This is a dangerous mountain. Shortly after we climbed it, a women's team, which included the strongest climbers in the Soviet Union, died on its slopes."

In order to get their bodies used to oxygen deprivation, Ivan Kashyn and his team would climb to a certain height, spend the night there, and then come down to rest. He is convinced that mountains should never be conquered, but rather accepted.

"With each ascent, we climbed higher and higher. Then we reached the top. The whole team climbed up, and I did a handstand there. He did the same handstand on Lenin Peak in 1962. For me, it was easy, because I was trained in acrobatics and gymnastics," the climber adds.

On adventures in the mountains

In 1961, Ivan received a medal as a champion of the Soviet Union, despite having six broken ribs. The entire Ukrainian team of six people won the gold medal.

"In the Caucasus, in the Bezengi Wall mountainous region (the mountainous region of Kabardino-Balkaria, the central, highest part of the Caucasus Mountains), there are five peaks next to each other, each over 5,000 meters high. It is very difficult to climb them. My friend Volodymyr Monoharov suggested that we climb them all in one go, without going down to rest.

And so we just had to cross the bridge – a block of ice. Almost the entire team successfully crossed it. But as soon as I stepped on the bridge, it collapsed. I tumbled down and was saved by my backpack. The crevasse was cone-shaped (tapering downward), so I didn't fall to the bottom and I was stuck at a depth of 18-20 meters.

I got a lot of abrasions and scratches. I heard the guys shouting: ‘Vanya, are you alive?’. A colleague from Donbas came down to get me, but I found the strength to climb the mountain on my own with a rope.

Somehow I hobbled to the base camp. The guys called me into the tent. There were two weeks left before the start of the storm of the five peaks, so I recovered and went with the team. I didn't know back then that I had six broken ribs."

Mount Ushba, one of the peaks of the Greater Caucasus in the Svaneti region of Georgia, stuck in the climber's heart the most. He says that this mountain is the most neat among them all.

Ivan Andriyovych dreamed of climbing Mount Everest, but the climber did not have enough money to fulfill this desire. But he had enough adventures without it.

"I remember on one of the peaks of the Caucasus we found a note and a can of condensed milk. We opened the condensed milk, and it was very tasty, even though it had been sitting there for 10 years. There was also a case when we made bookmarks with food on a traverse in the Caucasus in the Bezengi Mountains – we gathered all the food and threw stones on top, creating a so-called pyramid. When we returned for food, we saw only wrappers scattered around because mountain birds had eaten everything. We had to go back. Next time we made stronger pyramids."

The secret of longevity

Ivan Kashyn has always wanted to be among young people. He worked at the mountain camp of the Globus tourist club of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, was the head of the rescue service, and worked at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute until he was 95.

"They paid me peanuts, but it was important for me to be among young people, I felt young and full of energy."

Even at the age of 90, he decided to run with students at the stadium when they were passing their tests. While jogging, he suddenly tore his heel off and later got into an accident and injured his leg. However, looking into Ivan Andriyovych's calm eyes, I conclude that adversity has never broken his spirit.

"I can't do without exercise. I wake up and do arm exercises first thing," he demonstrates, raising his arms up and spreading them to the sides. "I used to exercise outside on the playground, and every day, I did dumbbell exercises. I liked to swim in the river. So I was always doing something.

I also eat everything in moderation, I don't overeat. I like apples and fruits. I did not abuse alcohol, and did not smoke. That's probably why, even at the age of 100, I can still admire the arrival of spring. Of course, I would like to see peace in Ukraine and for young people, like us in our time, to go hiking instead of going to war."

Author: Lesia Rodina