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Climbers For Peace |
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| History |
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The story of Climbers for Peace begins with a stock broker, a psychologist and a contractor.
The stock broker, Fred Ptucha, having survived the Vietnam War and not being personally in agreement with its inception or final result decided to pursue an activist lifestyle. After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 he wanted to work with veterans from various countries and from all walks of life. In 1990 he called upon approximately 50 American Vietnam War veterans and 200 Soviet Union Afghanistan War veterans and organized what would be commonly called Runners for Peace in conjunction with the Moscow International Peace Marathon. At the time this was a huge undertaking, as never before had people from former enemy nations, come together in the spirit of good will, peace and mutual understanding to undertake a serious and challenging project.
The psychologist, Bob Guglielmino, also surviving the Vietnam War, had similar feelings regarding it as Fred. In 1988 he got involved in Russia with Athletes United for Peace and traveled there a number of times. In 1994 he got interested in Veterans for Peace where he met Fred. They quickly realized the common bond between them and started to attend many various peace marches that were going on in California at that time. The contractor, Steve Knaze, on the other hand had not been in the Vietnam War but participated in many anti-war demonstrations and protect marches in Washington, DC and other east coast cities. He was loosely connected to the Youth International Party (Yippies) and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) which were a more revolutionary offshoot of the peace movements in America during the late 60’s and 70’s. Forever a Bohemian at heart he moved to California in 1981. After years of being in business and raising his children as a single parent, Steve had a “mid-life crisis” and took up mountain climbing at the age of 44 in 1995. He wanted to climb the highest mountains on all of the seven continents. Shortly after in 1996 he got acquainted with Fred though a mutual friend who happened to be both a stock broker and an alpinist. They hit it off immediately and found out that they were both born and raised in Pennsylvania, Fred with Ukrainian ancestry and Steve with Slovak. Fred mentioned his previous activities and his desire to pursue another peace project. With their common bond of Slavonic blood in place, Steve mentioned that the highest mountain in all of Europe was Mt. Elbrus in the Russian Caucasus region. Fred thought this idea wonderful and with this information and notion Climbers for Peace was born. The first steps to undertake this project were developed in their mutual living rooms at home. Being at a loss for where to start and how to organize the Ukrainian and Russian participants, Bob decided to try to email President Bill Clinton at the White House as a last resort. One would think that normally this type of email never gets read at its high level and is normally deleted, but somehow the forces were with them and this project was meant to be. Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kutchma and former Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin were contacted through the White House and the wheels of this project were set in motion. The Ukrainian Federation of Alpinism was contacted by their president and many of Ukraine’s premiere mountain climbers were called upon to participate in the project. On the Russian side there was a nominal contingent of mountain guides from the Mt. Elbrus region supporting us. Bob also contacted his close friend in Russia, Igor Djavrov, who was very instrumental in getting this project started. Without him all would have been very difficult. We were lucky enough to have with us a warm and lovely Russian woman, Marina Kopinec, who had lived in America, as our translator in addition to her brother both being from the Caucasus region. After a year and a half of planning in 1997 we took off from San Francisco for the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, an autonomous region within the Russian Federation. Initially upon meeting our foreign counterparts there was a language barrier that made communicating on a personal level difficult. But after many days of hiking excursions together a common bond developed. Within a few short days it was observed that there were many hugs between us and people from different nations and cultures could actually communicate and flourish together despite limited common language. It was a beautiful sight! We conquered Mt. Elbrus together and we fell in love with each other and furthermore we collectively decided we did not want to see our new friendships and adventures end then and there. The following year a Ukrainian contingent came to the USA to participate in Climbers for Peace II and the rest is history. What was to be a one time event still lives on to this day. |