Elvira Nasonova

Elvira Timofeevna Nasanova (born on July 19, 1941, Vozdvizhanka, Primorsky Krai) is a Soviet, Ukrainian, and Russian mountaineer, and the only woman in the world to have been awarded the title "Snow Leopard" for three times.

She is a medalist in the USSR Alpine Championships and a multiple-time champion of Ukraine. She was a participant and later a coach of the Soviet women's alpine team and took part in numerous training camps. She has lived in Alushta, Crimea, for many years, where she led the Alushta rescue team and chaired the Alushta Everest Alpine Club. In the 1960s, she was a pioneer of industrial climbing in the USSR and participated in high-altitude work during the construction of the At-Bashi and Toktogul hydroelectric power stations. Since the 1990s, she has managed a commercial group of industrial climbers that has performed various high-altitude tasks in Crimea, including work on the domes of St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Simferopol, the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky in Yalta, and the Alushta Hotel. She is a geophysicist by education and has authored several publications in alpine periodicals. She was married with mountaineer Anatoly Balinsky (1934–1984).

Biography

Elvira Nasonova was born on July 19, 1941, in the village of Vozdvizhanka, Ussuriysk District, Primorsky Krai. Since 1955, she has lived permanently in Alushta, although she was often away on extended expeditions. She graduated from the Kiev Geological Exploration College in 1962, specializing in geophysics. She worked in geological exploration at the "Kyrgyzneft" company. She began mountaineering in 1960 and had an active sports career for nearly 45 years.

Holding the title of a top-level coach, she worked in alpine camps such as "Dugoba" and "Ala-Archa," and served as a rescue coach in the "Vysotnik" Alpine Club (Lenin Peak) and the "Tian Shan" Alpine Club, participating in numerous rescue operations. She established the first alpine and climbing section in Alushta, where she was the permanent coach. She also founded the Everest Alpine Club, where she serves as the chairperson. Nasonova is an active promoter of mountaineering and climbing.

Work in the control and rescue service

Nasonova has a specialization as a mountain rescuer. From 1976 to 1985, she headed the Alushta Control and Rescue Squad (CRS) and personally participated in rescue operations for those in distress in the Crimean Mountains more than 30 times. The specific tasks of the KSO in Crimea, unlike those in high mountains, involve rescuing unprepared tourists from vertical cliffs, extracting victims from caves, and extinguishing forest fires on hard-to-reach slopes. Before Nasonova, there were no recorded cases of women holding such a position in Soviet mountaineering practice.

In 1995, her friend, Bulgarian climber Iordanka Dimitrova, perished on Kanchenjunga. Her body was at an altitude of 7,000 meters. The only options for recovering the body were to fund a special expedition or attempt the recovery personally. In 1996, Nasonova attempted to parachute from the shoulder of Everest using a paraglider. The attempt was unsuccessful; a gust of wind threw Nasonova and her instructor, V. Bozhukov, against a rock, causing the parachute to collapse and both pilots to fall 50 meters onto a glacier. Nasonova sustained severe injuries and waited on the glacier for three days, as transport without a helicopter was impossible. Later, in Moscow, she underwent a series of complex surgeries. Iordanka Dimitrova's body was eventually found by Italian climbers.