HSE Tourist Rally: Students Learn to Survive in the Wild

The 22nd Annual Open Tourist Rally, organized by the HSE’s Extreme Sports Club, has taken place outside Moscow. Nearly 200 Russian and international students from the HSE and other Moscow universities took part.

Challenges that had to be completed included, among other things, lighting a fire with only one match – or without matches and lighter fluid at all – and finding food in the autumn forest. Many Russian students coped well with the first task, but foreigners were more successful than their Russian counterparts were when it came to gathering mushrooms. For example, Samuel Delpeuch and Manon Coyne, Parisian exchange students at the HSE, collected two large bags in three hours.

‘My grandmother came to France from Russia, so to some extent, I too am a local,’ explained Samuel, who was more agile than many of the others in chopping wood for the main campfire. ‘My parents took me on hikes starting when I was five years old, so I have long grasped how to kindle a fire and which firewood to choose,’ he said.

Participants played paintball and other team sports, and then sang and danced around the main fire.

The Extreme Sports club has been organizing tours, expeditions and various sports events for students, alumni and staff of the HSE for 15 years. Club events are open to everybody. More information on the club’s activities (in Russian) can be found on its VK page, and photos from its events have been published on the club’s website.

Kirill Matyupatenko, specially for the HSE news service

Author’s photograph.