By Ekaterina Guz

The Great Chimgan is located 80 km from Tashkent and 30 km from the village of Charvak (on the bank of the Charvak Reservoir). This region is deemed to be a center of ecological and ethnographic tourism, recreation and mountain tours, and here it is estimated that up to half a million men come each year from Tashkent and its neighborhood, as well as from the CIS countries and abroad.

How to resolve the question of where to spend the May holidays...come to Chimgan!
  The annual May Alpiniad in Chimgan is invariably a big event for climbers from Uzbekistan and the CIS countries, offering as it does an opportunity to climb both familiar and untested routes, to be upgraded, to inspect the beginners, and for the beginners to get that 'alpinist' badge. Mental stimulation, cheerful company, night fires, and drunken songs to the guitar successfully combine with the professional ascent of the Great Chimgan (3,309m), and the Okhotnichiy peak (3,099m).
  The Great Chimgan (3,309m) has been known to climbers since the beginning of the last century, and continues to attract those fearless and insatiable madmen, the true mountain fans, alpinists. For many years the Great Chimgan was the first challenge for thousands of Uzbek mountain climbers, from among whom later emerged a number of USSR Masters of Sport, prizewinners and champions of the All Union competitions, and participants of international climbs. A great number of routes of varying degrees of complication (from 1B to 4B inclusively) offers a wide choice for climbing to those with different physical and alpinist training; tourists and beginners can take on the uncomplicated western ridge (1B), while there are plenty of more complicated routes for the more experienced alpinist.
 Some turn up who have only seen mountains in pictures or who view them simply as a excellent excuse for serious drinking. For them there is a three day exercise at the beginning (how to move along the rocky, snowy and grassy mountainsides), without which any attempt on the heights is forbidden. An experienced instructor is always on hand advising where better to put a foot, hand, ice-axe, tent, and so on. The peak is always there above you throwing out its playful challenge, “Come on, give it a try!”.
Gradually the unforgettable route leads on to the cherished target. Standing at a height of 3,309 m and looking down on the clouds below forming and reforming, you feel a part of this whole magnificent landscape, you wish you could jump into the cotton wool clouds and not descend from here. This is the place where you completely forget all those burning problems, lose the sensation of time and cut all ties! If you are climbing in a group, then the route to the top is the best way to understand the true nature of the other climbers. The relationship you had at the bottom becomes quite another at the top. Here all are equal, all work equally hard and get tired, all share your enthusiasm. If you reach the height in May, the wonderful half hour descending along the central corridor will erase all the difficulties of the six hour climb. An aqua park with its short slides is nothing compared with descending over the deep snow on your own fifth point with an ice-axe at the ready. For this alone it was worth the climb!   
Tired, wet, scratched, frozen, with blisters on all fingers, but proud, happy and self-satisfied you return to the camp. With every reminder of the great experience the happy smile never leaves your face. Then the initiation into the alpinists takes place. The participation and contemplation of this mystery hidden from urban eyes by the height of the Great Chimgan is always a happy and unforgettable time.
Experienced alpinists will enjoy the rocky threes and fours (according to the UIAA), which put their every muscle to the test as well as their determination.
At the foot of the mountain, just in case, a rescue team made up of the most experienced alpinists, the Masters of sport, is constantly on duty. If a group doesn't return at the fixed time professional help will be provided. 
The Chimgan is willful and unpredictable, surely the reason why it is held in such great respect. Here you come to see that “mountain sickness” is not just bad acclimatization (physical headaches, sickness and apathy); it is a disease of all mountains and snow fans who rush headlong to the mountains at the first opportunity, even when aware that incidents and dangers may be lurking. Their optimism is incorrigible. Once you have been here once you fall in love with the mountains for ever. You wish you could just throw a coin in a spring or a lake to somehow come back here at least once more...since they teach us how to be friends and have patience, how to value and respect, take care of each other and share, how to make sacrifices, win and lose, subdue and lead…