VSEVOLOD BAZHENOV (1909-1986)
Belukha Mountain (4,506 m - 14,783 ft)
Kazakhstan - Russia border
In Spring in Altai Mountains, 1979, oil on canvas, Private collection
The mountain
Belukha Mountain (4,506 m - 14,783 ft), Russian: Белуха, lit "whitey",located in the Katun Mountains, is the highest peak of the Altai Mountains in Russia. It is part of the World Heritage Site entitled Golden Mountains of Altai. Belukha is a three-peaked mountain massif that rises along the border of Russia and Kazakhstan, just a few tens of miles north of the point where this border meets with the border of China. There are several small glaciers on the mountain, including Belukha Glacier. Of the two peaks, the eastern peak (4,506 m - 14,784 ft.) is higher than the western peak (4,440 m - 14,567 ft.). Belukha was first climbed in 1914 by the Tronov brothers. Most ascents of the eastern peak follow the same southern route as that taken in the first ascent. Though the Altai is lower in elevation than other Asian mountain groups, it is very remote, and much time and planning are required for its approach. A team of scientists, traveled to this remote glacier in the summer of 2001 to assess the feasibility of studying the glacier and extracting ice cores at the site. A Swiss-Russian team also worked on the glacier in 2001. Research was carried out from 2001 to 2003; glaciological observations were made, and both shallow cores and cores to bedrock were extracted and analyzed (Olivier and others, 2003; Fujita and others, 2004). Based on tritium analysis to date, the deeper cores may contain as much as 3–5,000 years of climatic and environmental records.
Since 2008, one is required to apply for a special border zone permit in order to be allowed into the area (if travelling independently without using an agency). Foreigners should apply for the permit to regional FSB border guard office two months before the planned date.
The painter
Vsevolod Andreevich Bazhenov (Russian: Все́волод Андре́евич Баже́нов) was a Soviet, Russian painter who lived and worked in Leningrad. He was a member of the Leningrad branch of Union of Artists of Russian Federation, and regarded as one of the representatives of the Leningrad school of painting, most famous for his landscape paintings.
In 1962 Bazhenov embarked on a working voyage aboard the ship "Eugene Nikishin", sailing from Leningrad to Vladivostok and around Europe and Asia with stops in ports of Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore and Vietnam. During the course of the voyage, which took him through eleven seas and oceans, and lasted more than three months, Bazhenov created nearly two hundred sketches, paintings and drawings. His nature sketches and direct impressions of the voyage led to larger works, finished later in his Leningrad art studio.
After his return in 1963, about 120 works from this series of sketches and paintings were first exhibited in Leningrad, and following that, in other cities. Among them are the works "Arabian Coast", "Boats at the Sea", "In the Singapore Strait", "Denmark on the horizon", "In the Ha Long Bay", "Dolphins play", "Suez Canal", and others.
His personal exhibitions were in Leningrad (1963, 1982), and Saint Petersburg (1994, 2009). His paintings are in the Russian State Museum, in art museums and private collections in Russia, Japan, France, England, in the U.S., China, and throughout the world.
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2016 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
