Maksut Zhumayev. Mountain Guide
Maksut Zhumayev is one of Kazakhstan’s most decorated mountaineers. He has climbed fourteen of the highest peaks in the world, is the captain of the Kazakhstan national climbing team and a charismatic coach, champion and motivator.
He is also a much-loved husband, father and brother and trusted friend. Open, easy-going and sincere, Maskut is a role model for many people. But he doesn’t like to call himself a teacher or mentor. He prefers the term mountain guide, the person who accompanies others up the most challenging ascents, helping them to achieve their cherished dreams by overcoming their fears and personal limitations.
THE MOUNTAINS
“For me the mountains are a different universe and another life. Of course, my other favourite universe is my family, but my work keeps intruding on this life and bringing in the wilder elements of untamed nature and the mountains.
“Some people view the mountains as a dangerous environment that is hostile to humans, even deadly. At the same time, mountains give us an astonishing and abundant sense of being alive and able to breath freely.
“Mountains will expose all your weaknesses, but they also teach you to overcome your fears. This is a feature of the mountains for which I am forever grateful. The mountains are my Samurai path, where I have experienced the hardest trials of my life. You get to choose how difficult these challenges are, as they become more complicated with each new mountain. The climber Valeriy Khrishchatyi said in his book We Dissolve in the Elements that a human who rises above himself merges with the mountains, becoming one with them and sharing their strength, wisdom and power. He describes mountains as an element like water or air. Mountains have height, depth and mystery. We try to understand this mystery by dissolving in this element.
ASCENTS
“Every year mountains open new aspects of themselves to me. Now they have helped me understand what I have achieved in the past. I still haven’t managed to solve all their mysteries, those are inexhaustible. I have realised that climbing is not merely a sporting achievement, it is so much more. Real climbers aren’t driven by a desire for awards and accolades, they love the mountains just because they exist. Because they give us so much joy and beauty, and because they make us stronger and help us grow in stature.
“When I first looked at the mountains I didn’t think of ascending them, they looked supernatural to me. I was a person from the distant lowlands of the Caspian and the vast Uralsk steppe. The mountains scared me with their inaccessibility. I never dreamed about conquering them to earn fame and fortune, I just fell in love with them and they accepted my first sincere and childlike delight.
WHAT ENERGISES YOU?
“My family and children are the source of my strength. Those with close family ties who find themselves in the mountains are the ones with the most strength, they are literally cemented by love to the mountains. To me the secret of family happiness is going through every difficulty that life throws at you, no matter how challenging, with the beloved other person. When we do this we begin to understand each other, though we are far apart, without the need for words. For me this bond can be compared to the sense of unity we have with the mountains.
“My children energise me the most. Their happy gaze, their growth, the way they learn about the world with wideopen eyes, all this motivates me and makes me happy.
“I recently experienced a very personal form of prayer. I was standing on the peak of a mountain, and it was the kind of prayer that makes your legs shake and you fall to your knees in the snow with tears running down your face that you can’t stop. At the same time the sound of a beautiful azan (in Islam a call to prayer) was coming from my phone, but I would like to stress that this moment had nothing to do with religion. The sounds resonated with my inner being and created an out-of-body experience, a beating of my spiritual wings, free and unrestrained. This filled me with energy.
LIFE IN ALL ITS MANIFESTATIONS
“I was fundamentally changed after my second ascent of Everest, in 2018. I felt as though I had lost my soul and found it again. In a trance-like state I realised that my soul had changed, had been renewed and returned to me. I wore new clothes, with a new smile and a new thirst for life.
“I am so grateful that it was my destiny to go through all these experiences. Now, in my maturity, I find it easier to understand life. I no longer ask heaven to grant me tranquillity because I realise that the higher the waves on the horizon, the higher are our ascents, and they are followed by descents. Every time I become calmer, as you do after going through a time of trial, as you value life more than ever when you see the joy and grief and loss that lies behind you. We cannot mature if we always live in our comfort zone. The most critical, difficult, even fatal moments tend to be the most pivotal.
It is through them that we learn to appreciate and enjoy life.
“I very much desire that my children, and the children of those I come in contact with, understand that tomorrow is up to them. They are destined to find new ways of doing things and to correct the mistakes of previous generations. This scares, exhilarates and inspires me at the same time.”