Three years after Russia had occupied Crimea, the Ukrainian climber Jenya Kazbekova returned to her “favourite place in the world” and achieved a personal best route on its rocks. The crux of her challenge that day in 2017 lay not in scaling the peaceful, sun-drenched cliff, but far below. “I closed my eyes to what really bothered me – Russian guns, flags, currency,” she says. This summer, she aims to reach Paris and climb against the odds for Ukraine once more, after injury, illness and Covid-19 ended her Tokyo dream – and Putin’s full invasion became a living nightmare, forcing the rest of her family to flee to Britain.
Kazbekova’s connection to climbing and Crimea spans three generations. “It was as natural as walking – I don’t remember ever not climbing. It’s just part of me,” says the 27-year-old from Dnipro. On frequent family holidays to the Crimean peninsula, her father taught her how to fall safely, turning trepidation into joy: “It was a big lesson in working through fear.”
