Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan Mountaineering Federation has recently held a meeting of presidium, where participants mulled ways of promoting alpinism in the country, discussed the faced challenges and outlined plans for the future.

President of the Federation Mammad Abbasbeyli, addressing the event, listed goals of the Federation, among which are expansion of activity among young people, development of mountain tourism, and international cooperation on mountaineering.

He said that huge work has been done to upgrade and bring the Federation’s charter in accordance with the requirements of the legislation. Moreover, the Federation developed the rules over membership and completed work on its new website and logo.

Currently, the Federation is drafting a “Strategic Concept of mountaineering in Azerbaijan for 2016-2020”, which will be submitted after the presidium’s approval to the Youth and Sports Ministry.

The meeting also proposed an action plan for 2016, which was unanimously approved, as well as approved the new structure of the Federation. The federation elected two vice-presidents --Rasim Jafarov and Sirhan Mammadov.

Abbasbeyli further spoke about plans for developing mountaineering and mountain tourism in the Shahdag National Park, one of the most attractive tourist destinations of the country.

He also spoke about competitions. “We pin great hopes on Firuz Dadashov and Sirkhan Mammadov at the "Snow Leopard", a mountaineering award given to very experienced climbers. We hope that this season they will be able to conquer the mountain over 7,000 metres high and receive this honorary title,” he said.

Rasim Jafarov also pointed that the Federation’s main goals remain promotion of climbing among young people.

Azerbaijan, half of territory of which is occupied by the Great and Small Caucasus mountains, has good opportunities for the development one of the most exciting sports as alpinism.

The birth of mountaineering in Azerbaijan can be traced to the 1930s, when a large group of “Neftanik” climbers sports club went to a competition in Kabardino-Balkaria to conquer Elbrus.

Since 2010, Azerbaijani climbers have begun to actively and successfully perform at international festivals and championships in mountaineering, skyrunning, and rock climbing.

National climber Rufat Godjayev was included in the top 20 best athletes of the2015. He was the first in the Azerbaijani history who conquered three vertices over 7,000 meters within a month.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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