Adventure Club—Charity Rehabilitation Foundation

Adventure Club was established in 1989 by Dmitry Shparo, a well-known Russian outdoorsman who led the first ski expedition to the North Pole in 1979. The club organizes mountain expeditions and wheel chair competitions for the disabled as a method of rehabilitation. In 1996, Shparo led a team of disabled sportsmen from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Norway and Russia, all in wheel chairs, on an ascent of Mt. Kazbek (5,047 m.). In 1997, a team of disabled people, including deaf, blind and amputees, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa (5,875 m.). Wheel chair marathons organized by the club have included the following: Moscow to Kiev to Krivoy Rog, 1991; Vladivostok to St. Petersburg, 1992; St. Petersburg to Almaty, Kazakstan, 1994; and Semipalatinsk to Chelyabinsk to Chernobyl, 1996.

The club also hosts activities for youth. For several years it has organized youth trips to the festival Children of the Arctic, held in different countries each year. It has also arranged kayak expeditions for youth in the U.S. and Canada, and in 1997 led youth on a scientific trip to Chita oblast to observe a total solar eclipse. The club's Youth Geographical School has been arranging outdoor activities and lectures for youth for more than seven years.

Shparo, age 56 with a Ph.D. in mathematics, has participated in numerous other club expeditions. On March 21, 1998, he and his son Matvey became the first people to cross the Bering Strait on skis. In 1996-1997, Shparo sailed a yacht built by the Adventure Club around the world. He participated in a Russian-Danish expedition to the Commander Islands in 1991, where the team discovered the grave of Vitus Bering. Shparo was also part of a Soviet-American expedition of dog sleds across the Bering Strait and Alaska in 1989, and in 1988, he led a Soviet-Canadian ski expedition across the Arctic Ocean, from Russia to the North Pole to Canada.

Last updated:    February 1999

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