In reply to edek_w:
Well I had rather assumed that things had improved somewhat, clearly not. Elf and Safety does not rate highly in the Wild, Wild East, as anyone who has flown into an airport considered too dangerous by Aeroflot will assure you.
I recall a couple of other dangerous incidents, one of which happened to someone else, one to me. Quite recently I was at a lecture about the Caucasus from both sides, i.e. from Russia and from Georgia. Due to very high levels of tension between the 2, the borders, even in the high mountains in Winter, are very actively guarded. The Western party went up into a high frontier valley for a high camp, not noticing at first that there was a Russian border post directly overlooking their campsite, with 8 Russian border guards fully tooled up with AK 47s, grenades and suchlike. The guards fairly soon noticed the foreigners, unsurprising as they were in full view and as the evening drew in, they headed for the British tents on mass. The Brits assumed that they were going to be arrested or possibly shot, but actually the situation was far more dangerous than that, and the guards were each equipped with a much more frightening weapon.
They were cold and bored, having spent all Winter at 3200m in the snow, so each was carrying a full bottle of vodka to drink with the guests, and a gruesome lifestory to recount. At first, the British visitors were reproached vociferously for trying to sip the vodka shots, rather than gulp them down. Afterwards .... well they don't remember what happened afterwards.
When we got back down to the roadhead in the Tien Shan, the Russians and Kazakhs held an end of season party. Up to then, I had thought that all these tales of Russian drinking were vicious slander, as we had seen no sign of it. But on that night, they made up for previous restraint in spades. They had setup a dance floor with very loud Western pop music and fairly odd Russian imitations of it being played continuously. We were repeatedly asked to dance by rather formidable Russian ladies - well I say asked, refusal was not remotely countenanced and we were more or less physically thrown onto the dance floor.
Having got us there, they seemed to rather loose interest, it was wallflowers that seemed to offend them rather than any real desire to see visitors actually "dancing". So I was able to escape to the next room, where the helicopter pilots were to be found, drinking freely and deeply . On the ground, at least, they seemed to be safer than the tender arms of the maidens in the other room, so I stayed there. This was shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so one of the pilots proceeded to interrogate me about why should he not be allowed to work in the North Sea, on the oil platforms, assuming that this would pay him in gold bricks. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the safety standards on MTB 8 helicopters would probably not have passed muster in 19th century British coalmines.
One member of our party, Julie's then boyfriend, now husband was being violently ill, at both ends and with truly bad stomach cramps, so she desperately implored me to help him. It gives you an idea of how frantic the party with the Russians was that it was actually a relief to have to deal with a vomiting, shitting, possibly dying climbing partner rather than hope to survive a full-on Russian party.
