ODESA, MARCH, 9th, 2010, CONTEXT-PRICHERNOMORIE – Three Odesa citizens are to participate in the expedition Ukraine-Makalu 2010 which will take place in april-may this year, Context-Prichernomorie correspondent reports.

Deputy Director of the Mountaineering Club Odesa Denis Ryaboshenko informed our correspondent about it today 9 March in a telephone conversation.

According to Mr Ryaboshenko the staff of the team has been approved and is composed of: the captain Yuriy Kruglov (Sevastopol), Sergiy Bublik (Sumy), Maksym Perevalov (Odesa), Sergiy Pugachev (Horlivka), Volodymyr Klebanskyi (Odesa), Anatolii Klyiko (Kharkiv), Oleksandr Zakolodnyi (Kharkiv), Pavel Kirichek (Kyiv), Dmitry Venslavovsky (Vinnytsia), Igor Storozhenko (Donetsk).

The expedition is to be headed by Mstislav Gorbenko, Director of Mountaineering Club Odesa.

INFORMATION: Makalu is the fifth highest mountain in the world and is located 22 km (14 mi) east of Mount Everest, on the border between Nepal and China. One of the eight-thousanders, Makalu is an isolated peak whose shape is a four-sided pyramid. Makalu has two notable subsidiary peaks. Kangchungtse, or Makalu II, 7,678 m (25,190 ft), lies about 3 km (2 mi) north-northwest of the main summit. The first attempt on Makalu was made by an American team led by William Siri in the spring of 1954. Makalu was first climbed on May 15, 1955 by Lionel Terray and Jean Couzy of a French expedition led by Jean Franco.