Everest 2003 North Side Expedition
Russian Adventure Team Dispatch 13

4/21/03: News from Russian Adventure Team Everest expedition from Moscow under the leadership of Alexander Abramov. Alexander Abramov reports: "April, 20. This night witnessed 10cm of fresh snow. Today is Palm Sunday. May be that's why Chinese Central Television visited our BC at 12:00. They were trying to find out whether we knew anything at all about the Everest jubilee. And one of them was trying to prompt us from behind their cameras showing figure 50 to us. We failed to understand their prompts, as figure 50 meant nothing at all to us, so they went to another expedition camp. Today we made an attempt to send Moskalyov, Soifer and Litinsky to Zhangmu for treatment. But the Chinese asked $1050 for this 350km drive to Zhangmu. So we decided to wait till tomorrow.

Today there was spread a rumor over BC that two Russians had fallen into crevasse. There was a state of alarm in our camp as Larin and Pashkov were still high on the mountain. But in the evening they both returned safe and sound after spending a night at 7000m. And there really was a climber who had fallen into crevasse 6 meters deep - it was a member from Estonian expedition. But he managed to get down on his own. So everything is OK. It is very windy outside, it isn't snowing, but it's cold. The other members of our team may also fall ill soon. Good-bye."

Dispatches