Sport

About rock climbing in Dubna. Seven years later

An article was published in the weekly "Dubna" (No. 9, of 9 March, 2017) about the history of rock climbing and mountaineering in our city. It was written following the meeting of the Public Council under JINR Directorate for cooperation with local government bodies of Dubna that was held in December, 2016. At the meeting, the representatives of the rock-climbing club raised the issue of the prospects for the development of this sport in the city. And quite unexpectedly, they found support from Institute's Directorate.

In Soviet times, there was a mountaineering section in the city that widely participated in the country's sports life. But in the 1990s, unfortunately, it stopped to exist. The mountaineering and rock-climbing club was revived in 2004 on the initiative of JINR youth. The club inherited a climbing wall at the Stadium "Nauka" that came from the times when rock climbing was just developing as a sport and the training equipment was the simplest homemade construction. In 2012, the club seriously rebuilt the training equipment. Today, the club's active members include 10 athletes with different categories and about 80 regularly training participants. The training equipment is used for classes of the Children's and Youth Tourism Centre and local competitions.

And yet, despite all the efforts of Dubna's climbers, the simulator at the Stadium "Nauka" does not meet modern ideas about sport climbing and the requirements for organizing training. It is located in a general-purpose hall that eliminates the possibility of creating permanent safety zones. It means there is a certain problem with system security. Because of it, the simulator is focused mainly on the "difficulty" climbing discipline. The gym itself at the Stadium "Nauka" is in great demand that does not allow for a methodically correct construction of the training process for climbers.

When studying the issue of building a commercial climbing wall in Dubna, the prose of life turned out to be stronger than good intentions: research has shown that in domestic economic realities, commercial climbing wall projects "survive" in cities with a population of 200-300 thousand or more. Therefore, in our beautiful but small city, such a project could only be implemented as a social one, provided that it was possible to find suitable premises. It was found at JINR: it was proposed to use the empty building of the former compressor room on the territory of the workshop on 19 Joliot-Curie Street for the new climbing wall. The building had not been used for a long time and required major repairs beforehand. JINR Director Academician Victor Matveyev and Head of the JINR Economic Support Department Alexander Brun supported the proposal to build a climbing wall and included the compressor room building in the plans for major repairs.

The project of repair and reconstruction of the building for the climbing wall was carried out by the company "Stroim skalodrom" - the creator of such iconic bouldering halls of Moscow as "Skalatoria", "Limestone" and "Bigwall" that for two decades defined the appearance of rock climbing in Moscow. Dubna rock climbing activists also participated in the creation of their project. Head of "Stroim skalodrom" Dmitry Inshakov showed miracles of endurance, but brought to completion the excessively protracted long-term construction.

The project was supervised by Alexander Vishnevsky from JINR and the building was renovated by the RBM. It turned out to be a non-trivial task, given that the building had been in disrepair for the past 25 years and was gradually deteriorating. Major repairs to the building and bringing it into line with modern standards (gable roof, new windows and doors, modern ventilation, water supply, heating systems, etc.) required much more money and effort than was initially expected. By 2020, this part of the project was completed and all that remained was the construction and installation of the climbing simulator itself in the finished building. But COVID and other circumstances beyond our control caused numerous delays in the implementation of the project that despite its importance for the social sphere of the city, could not be a priority for JINR in these difficult times. However, in 2023, despite all the difficulties, JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov and JINR Vice-Director Sergey Dmitriev were able to find financial opportunities and give organizational impetus to complete this project. In May of this year, all the main work was completed.

The interior of the climbing wall is designed taking into account the best world practices in this area and is not inferior in quality to the best domestic and world gyms. In the former compressor room, approximately 70 m2 is a bouldering area (the floor is covered with a thick absorbent mat). There is a "cave" with 4-meter "ceilings", extended overhangs and a huge "ship's bow" - a delight for experienced climbers. About 50 m² is a climbing area with top belay (the floor is covered with a thin shock-absorbing mat.

Here, the surfaces of the climbing wall are slightly overhanging and the rope belay takes into account the qualifications of visitors, this is an area mainly for beginners and children. This part of the room can also be used for gymnastics, yoga, choreography, where the "soft" floor is convenient. In addition to the changing room, shower and toilet, there are two rooms for equipping a warm-up area and in the future, athletic training.

The Dubna climbing wall project required much more time and effort than we had ever imagined. This is partly the fate of any real project, but let's not dwell on the sad stuff. It should be noted that Directors of JINR Victor Matveev, Grigory Trubnikov, Sergey Dmitriev that have systematically supported the project all these years, have made a very significant gift to the citizens of Dubna in the social sphere: not every large city has similar sports facilities. If you look at the "outskirts" of Moscow, comparable serious climbing walls can only be found in Vladimir, Ryazan, Tula and Kaluga. At the same time, the Dubna Climbing Club climbing wall is a non-profit project, largely supported by JINR. For this reason, potential contributions from participants to support the climbing wall are expected to be several times lower than typical modern commercial rates. The building of the climbing wall is located literally 100 meters from the FLNR checkpoint that makes it especially convenient for JINR employees to visit for sports (and not only rock climbing!). The issue of organizing children's and youth sections on the climbing wall is being resolved.

At present, the Dubna Climbing Club must equip the changing room and warm-up area on its own and resolve methodological and technical issues of organizing training. Therefore, the climbing wall is currently open in a "test" mode. It is expected that by autumn our new modern climbing wall will already invite athletes and those that simply want to try themselves in this exciting sport to training.

Leonid GRIGORENKO,
Chief Researcher of FLNR, Mountaineering Instructor