GENERAL INFORMATION

The Mountain Club of the Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Science (IAP RAS, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia) is a non-professional organization which unites climbers and mountain fans mainly from IAP RAS and some other institutions of Nizhny Novgorod.
The Club was organized in 1985 to realize a bright idea of climbing the Mt. Elbrus (5640 m), the top of the Caucasus, on the occasion of the 40-th Anniversary of the Victory in the Second World War. Two teams climbed the Mt. Elbrus that year, and their success was the start of the Club activity. The List of the Club tours since 1985 includes about 20 tours of different classes in various mountain regions of the former SU, the Caucasus, the Tien-Shan, the Alai, the Altai, and the Crimea included, and in the Alps.The members of the Club keep their activity both in the Club actions and in other expeditions. The Club pays attention to development of the mountaineering equipment as well, so its collection of climbing gears permits us to plan high-level actions in the future. Today, the Club is regarded to be one of the most authoritative clubs in Nizhny Novgorod.
An important outcome of the recent years is a promising experience of joint expeditions with foreign non-professional mountaineers. It seems to be high time to discuss an idea of international "mountaineering" collaboration of scientists and to think about International Mountain Club. Our previous experience stimulates us to develop this idea.
Many of the Club expeditions and sport actions were supported by the IAP Trade-union Committee. A remarkable point of the recent Club activities has proved to be friendly contacts with the mountaineers from the Premana-Esino Section, Club Alpino Italiano (Como, Italy). These contacts were started successfully with joint trekking and climbing in the Fan's Mountains (Gissar-Alai, Uzbekistan, 1992), and then were developed in the Altai (Siberia, Russia, 1993) and the Alps (Italy, 1994).
We would like to express our appreciations to company Alpha-KIT for a financial support of our activity in 1996. Alpha-KIT is official representative of IBM corporation in Nizhny Novgorod region.



Responsible person: Dr. Vladimir G. Zorin zorin@appl.sci-nnov.ru