Pavel Dobrinskiy was one of the most prolific route setters on the Ice Climbing World Cup circuit.
🧊 About the episode
Pavel Dobrinskiy is a leading figure within the drytooling community in Moscow and is one of the most prolific route setters on the Ice Climbing World Cup circuit 🌏.
Maybe you’ve heard about the Russian style of setting — its high-tension ⚡️ moves are calculated for maximum kinetic energy like Ivan Drago in route form #sterotypingmuch? Perhaps. Anywho, Pavel’s had something to do with that.
From his constant drive to create cutting-edge moves, which necessitated the development of new holds to make those possible, to his thoughtful and collaborative approach to planning routes, to his mentorship, Pavel has helped shape the comp routesetting many are familiar with today.
In this episode, with Pavel’s particular brand of humor in tow, we chat about:
- 🧊 The magic of Indian Creek
- 🧊 History of comp climbing in Russia
- 🧊 Russian-style training (rule number 1: never shake out)
- 🧊 The importance of speed in competitions
- 🧊 His routesetting philosophy, including a lot of “dos” and “do nots”
- 🧊 Opinions on some of the hardest routes in the world
“Actually, it's a big difference between Russian style and, uh, style of other people that in Russia — it's Pavel Shabalin's idea — just to reduce the time on the route. So you just need to climb like a normal structure in three minutes. Like, once we have a qualifying with three and a half minutes, you just need to do a lot of moves, just go, go, go.
So it's no fun. Yeah. It's fun when you finish, but it's really different. Yeah, so you just do hard moves, a lot of body tension, and no shake at all. It's rule number one, like you can shake in final, but before, just go. So it's not even, we don't have time for fun. It's no fun.”
🧊 Resources and links
Pavel is an an all-around climber, and has done everything from expeditions to places like Nepal, China, and Tajikistan to attempting to free “The Nose” to being the first person to flash “A Line Above the Sky” (D15).
He doesn’t post regularly, but you can follow him on Instagram:
📸 @majorbobkov.
🧊 Credits
📸 Cover photo courtesy of Pavel
Intro music by Hannah Noelle Enomoto (thanks, sis!). This episode was edited by Andrew Salomone of salomonesound.com.
🧊 Sponsors:
A huge thanks to Aniiu Gloves and Furnace Industries for supporting this show!
Aniiu Gloves: What do you get when you combine 30 years of ice climbing and product design chops? Well, if you’re into gloves you get Aniiu — a boutique climbing brand on a mission to produce the best ice climbing and drytooling gloves around. Doug, Jun, and the rest of the team spare no expense in the pursuit of durable, dextrous and waterproof. Best yet, they are made from recycled textiles — which saves waste from the landfill — and they are robustly built so they won’t end up there anytime soon. To learn more about your friend in the cold, head to aniiu.com. That is aniiu.com.
Furnace Industries: We get it, ice season never really ends… it just kinda blends between rock, plastic, and plywood until waterfalls freeze over again. No matter how you train in the off-season Furnace Industries keeps you going ‘til your next bout of screaming barfies. With their gym-safe DRY ICE Evolutions you can keep up your fitness indoors. And if you’re looking to challenge yourself on your homewall, they have the largest stock of drytooling holds in America. Check out their full lineup of ice and drytooling gear at furnace-Industries.com… where It’s Always Ice Season.
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