Yevgeny Beletsky

Yevgeny Beletsky (15 [28] November 1908, Siedlce, Siedlce Governorate, Congress Poland, Russian Empire - 15 December 1979, Leningrad, USSR) was a Soviet mountaineer, Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1946), Honored Coach of the USSR (1961), bronze medalist of the USSR mountaineering championship (1955), highly skilled turner and sculptor, author of books and articles on mountaineering, geography and engineering, full member of the USSR Geographical Society.

During the Pamir expedition in 1937, he participated in the third successful ascent of Lenin Peak (7134 m) in history, as well as the second ascent of the highest peak in the USSR —-Stalin Peak (later — Communism Peak, and now — Ismoil Somoni Peak, 7495 m), becoming the first mountaineer to conquer two "seven-thousanders" in one season. Before the war he made a number of difficult ascents in the Caucasus.

During the Great Patriotic War, he took part in battles in the Caucasus. In February 1943, he was part of a group of mountaineers who raised the Soviet flag and removed the banners with Nazi symbols from the highest point in Europe — the western peak of Mount Elbrus.

After the war, he made a number of first ascents in the Pamirs. In 1956, he led an expedition of Soviet and Chinese mountaineers that climbed Mount Muztagh Ata (7546 m) in the Chinese part of the Pamirs. In 1958 he was appointed one of the leaders of the Soviet part of the joint Soviet-Chinese Himalayan expedition to Jomolungma (Everest), which was to be realized in 1959, but the participation of Soviet mountaineers in this expedition was cancelled due to the aggravation of the political situation in Tibet.

A mountain peak in the Trans-Alay Range (Beletsky Peak, 6071 m), as well as one of the tributaries of the Korzhenevsky Glacier in the Pamirs were named in honor of Evgeny Beletsky.