No Russian bolts and climbing routes in Georgia

Georgian climbers are opposed to making climbing routes by Russian sportsmen in Georgia

Hey guys, project climbing.ge was created in 2017. Its main goal is to develop, grow awareness and community around the rock climbing. 

We are always for the new routes and sectors and welcome the initiative of the development. It’s important to mention that all the routes in Georgia are more or less of the same standard and follow the same pattern of the route setting, taking into account the genesis of the rocks and their specifications.

If you have a look at other climbing regions worldwide, you’ll see that each has unique technical specifications and criterias, which are taken into account by any route-setter even before visiting the region. Taking into account such details as route length, the distance between the bolts and many others are extremely important to ensure safe and pleasant climbs. This is why, as a rule, it’s strictly forbidden to set a route without local climbers or route setters not even in existing sectors, but also on new, undeveloped rocks as well.
It may happen that someone is already working or has a project to set on new rocks and foreigners' initiative may cause the conflict of interests.
This rule is respected by everyone in any part of the world where climbing is developed at any level.

The aim of the rule is not to prevent the development of the sport or limit its area to two or three rocks and regions, but rather to ensure that the development is well planned, strategic and is standardized in the region. 

Recently several Russian climbing teams have set bouldering and sport climbing routes in Kazbegi Municipality, where none of the Georgian Climbing teams or groups have been informed in advance.

We find it EXTREMELY disrespectful towards the people who strive to develop that sport, especially in Kazbegi municipality, where the route setting in 2 sectors was financed by the local municipality. Above mentioned actions may prevent further development of the region, which is due to the actions of Russian sportsmen already mentioned above. We find any Georgian sportsman can express their disappointment towards such actions and question their relevance.

We have a very limited number of route setters and the community is quite limited, so there is no difficulty in finding Georgian route setters and on the contrary we would be more than happy to have initiative and active people by our side and we’ll support them in every possible way.

For example, when in 2019 a group of Ukrainian and French climbers approached us wishing to set new routes in Batumi, we assisted them with their projects, consulted them on the rock quality and where is the most appropriate to set new routes. These climbing routes are available nowadays and anyone can climb them.
There are multiple routes in Chiatura, Arsha, Katskhi set by the foreigners, but agreed with us in advance.

Also, it’s important to mention that we do not cooperate with any Russian Sport Company, Club or Gym except S.K.Lucky, which is our partner from the day of establishing. We will not add any information about the routes created and not been checked by our team.

The nationality does not really matter for us, anyone coming and disrespecting the rules will get the same approach and response from our side. The point is that there are many Russian sports people coming in the recent years, disrespecting locals equally in Georgia and neighboring countries as well. For instance the similar actions in Armenia caused serious resistance between locals and aliases. 

We find it extremely important to react to arbitrary and unprofessional actions and highlight our position.

We ask Georgia climbing society to express their thoughts and feelings regarding the above mentioned actions and thrive to ensure that the development of the climbing goes in the right direction without neglecting the interests and ideas of the local people.