The last trace of the Russian climber Natalia Nagovitsyna is a video recorded by a drone at 7,150 meters, where she is estimated to be stranded and unable to move.
The camera focuses on a tiny orange-colored tent surrounded by snow and shaken by the wind, sheltered by a huge rock. The drone approaches, and from the tent's entrance, an arm is seen waving up and down as a sign of life.
This was recorded on August 19, seven days after Natalia fell and broke her leg while descending from Peak Pobeda (7,439 meters), the highest summit in Kyrgyzstan, located in the Tien Shan mountain range. The last successful rescue from Pobeda was in 1955, as the base camp chief warned of the challenge of bringing Nagovitsyna down.
The Kirgizstan Ministry of Emergency Situations definitively closed the door to any miracle last Wednesday when it decided to suspend the search and officially declare the climber as "missing", as it was impossible to determine if she had succumbed to her injuries, lack of food, and temperatures as low as -30 degrees.
The day before, a thermal camera drone was flown to her location. If signs of life had been detected, an Airbus H145 helicopter was planned to be dispatched, the same type that landed on the summit of Aconcagua in 2019 at 6,962 meters, about 200 meters below Nagovitsyna's position.
The previous attempt to evacuate her by air on August 17 ended with the Russian Defense Ministry Mi-8 helicopter crashing at 4,600 meters in an emergency landing due to bad weather and turbulence. The rescuers had to be rescued themselves as several suffered fractures.
Over these two weeks of agony, the video of Nagovitsyna waving her hand has circulated widely, along with excerpts from the documentary Stay with Khan Tengri. Tragedy in the Mountain (2022), which recounts the dramatic expedition that Natalia and her husband, Sergey Nagovitsyn, undertook in 2021 to Khan Tengri, a neighboring peak of Pobeda.
The couple successfully reached the summit, but shortly after, Sergey began to have difficulty speaking and standing. "I'm not going to leave my husband. He is completely defenseless," she replied when the team waiting below advised her to save herself, start descending, and that help would be sent to him later.
"I wasn't afraid to die. I was afraid of being disabled, of suffering frostbite, of losing my arms and legs," she revealed in the documentary as her greatest fear at that moment.
Sergey was still alive when, the next day, rescuers managed to reach the 6,800 meters where he was. They began the descent but had to leave the injured man behind and continue in search of more help. It is believed that, due to the stroke he was experiencing, in a delirium, he untied himself from the rope they had secured him with. His body was never found. The following year, Natalia made the ascent again and left a tribute plaque to her husband at the summit.
Khan Tengri is the fourth of the five peaks Natalia needed to conquer to achieve the Snow Leopard, an accolade given to those who reach the five highest peaks of the former Soviet Union. She was missing Peak Pobeda, which she summited on August 12. During the descent, she fell and collided with a ridge, fracturing her leg.
Russian climber Roman Mokrinsky, one of the climbers with her on the expedition, provided first aid and descended a few meters to find other companions. The following day - August 13 - Italian Luca Sinigiglia and German Gunther Siegmund brought her a sleeping bag, food, and a gas cylinder to help her endure while they sought more assistance.
The weather was unforgiving during the descent. Luca's hands froze first, and then, like Natalia's husband, he began to feel disoriented. He suffered a cerebral edema and tragically passed away on August 15. His body, like almost all those who have not managed to descend from Pobeda, remains on the mountain at around 6,800 meters.
"In the video I received, it is clear that seven days after losing contact, she actively waves her hand, full of strength. I am convinced that my mother is still alive," pleaded 27-year-old Mikhail, Natalia's son, that her rescue not be interrupted on August 26.