In 2021, Russian climber Natalia Nagovitsina stayed with her sick husband overnight on one of Kyrgyzstan’s highest mountains and later recounted the ordeal in which he died in a documentary titled “Stay with Khan Tengri: Tragedy on the Mountain.”
Now rescue workers and experienced climbers believe it is likely that Nagovitsina is dead after she became immobilized with a broken leg on the upper reaches of another mountain in Kyrgyzstan and efforts to bring her down in bad weather failed. Her story, and the deaths of others who scaled Pobeda Peak this year, have made for a grim high-altitude climbing season within the Central Asian country, which is celebrating its best-known climber, Eduard Kubatov, for recently reaching the summit of K2 in Pakistan without supplementary oxygen.
Various accounts have described Nagovitsina’s ordeal since she broke a leg on August 12 on Pobeda, Kyrygzstan’s highest mountain at 7,439 meters above sea level. It lies on the border between Kyrgyzstan and China and is also known by the Kyrgyz name Jengish Chokusu (Victory Peak).
Italian climber and friend Luca Sinigaglia helped to bring food, a tent and a sleeping bag to Nagovitsina several days later, but he then fell ill and died. Subsequently, on August 16, a Kyrgyz helicopter involved in rescue operations made a hard landing, injuring some on board. On August 19, a drone filmed movement at Nagovitsina’ sleeping bag on the ridge where she was stranded, but few climbing veterans believe she could have since survived extended exposure to the brutally cold conditions on the mountain.
“There is practically no chance” that Nagovitsina is alive after nearly two weeks on the mountain, wrote Anna Piunova, editor of Mountain.RU, a Russian website that covers climbing news.
Some climbers, including Bishkek-based Kadyr Saydilkan, bristled at any online commentators who suggested that Nagovitsina, who was in her late 40s, was to blame for the disaster, or didn’t deserve to be rescued, or shouldn’t have been on the mountain in the first place because she was a woman.
Nagovitsina, Saydilkan said on Facebook, “fought with death for ten days and survived as long as she could. She dreamed, set goals, lived freely, with love, and pursued her dream!!! And you?”