Second stage of Siberia-Himalayas rafting project

The second Tomsk - the Himalayas 2002 expedition, which is part of a project called Siberia - the Himalayas: Rafting Down the Everest 2001-2004, starts off from Tomsk on Monday.

The first man to have embarked to the subtropics on a Novosibirsk-Tashkent-Delhi-Katmandu flight was the manager of the project, President of the regional Rafting Association and Master of Sports Tourism Yevgeny Kovalevsky. He was met in Nepal by a group of local kayakers, all ready to raft down from the Himalayan peaks. Viktor Pipyakin, a paraplaner, will join the travelers in early January to perform a flight program.

According to a source in the Department of Youth Affairs, Sports and Tourism of the Tomsk Mayor's Office, members of the expedition have set the following goals: rafting down the rivers Sun Kosi and Rosi Khola in Central Nepal /exploring on a catamaran/, down the river Tamur, Eastern Nepal; an attempt to raft down the river Lower Arun, which originates from the northern slopes of the Everest; and ethnographic research in high-mountain villages in the neighbourhood of Dankuta, Eastern Nepal.

The group will also attempt a paraplane flight in the mountain range of the peak of Kanchenjunga, explore the possibilities for extremal sports, and conduct culturological research in the valley of Katmandu, in the towns of Lalitpur and Bhaktapur.