Anatoli Boukreev

Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreïev (Russian: Анато́лий Никола́евич Букре́ев), born January 16, 1958 in Korkino and died December 25, 1997 in Annapurna, was a Kazakh mountaineer and mountain guide.

Having climbed ten of the fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters on the planet, including seven without artificial oxygen supply, he is considered one of the greatest high-altitude mountaineers of his time. He became famous for his role in the 1996 tragedy on Everest. Boukreïev was born in January 1958 in Korkino, in the Russian Urals. After finishing high school, he entered the University of Chelyabinsk where he majored in physics and graduated in science in 1979. In 1989, he had his first big success in the Himalayas when he was part of a Soviet mountaineering expedition climbing Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. Bukreïev spent a large part of his life in Kazakhstan, from which he obtained citizenship after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In May 1996, Bukreïev was employed by the company Mountain Madness to guide a commercial expedition led by Scott Fischer and which was to bring eight people to the summit of Everest. During the descent, the team is surprised by a violent snowstorm. Journalist Jon Krakauer, who was part of another team present on Everest during the tragedy (Adventure Consultants founded by Rob Hall), reports that Bukreïev had climbed to the top without artificial oxygen supply. According to Krakauer, this attitude prevented him from fully playing his role as a guide to the maximum of his abilities, a criticism echoed by some of his fellow guides. He was also criticized for descending too quickly from the summit.