On July 8, 2025, Yuri Mikhailovich Lishayev, nicknamed “Fantik” (born in 1955, Simferopol) passed away – Soviet, Ukrainian mountaineer, rock climber, speleologist, kayaker. Multiple champion and prize winner of the USSR and Ukraine in rock climbing – Master of Sports of the USSR (14.07.1978), champion of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. One of the pioneers of solo climbing in the USSR.
Yura became interested in rock climbing in the Crimean Mountains. At the age of 14, he won the USSR Junior Championship, and at the age of 23, he achieved the Master of Sports standard (14.07.78) and became the USSR Champion.
He made the most difficult solo ascents on the walls of the Caucasus (Ushba, Shchurovsky Peak, Shkhelda, Ailama, Kirpich Peak), Central Asia (Yagnob Wall) and Crimea (about 40 first ascents) along routes, mainly of the highest difficulty category, many of which have not been repeated by anyone to this day.
In 1990, Y. Lishayev was invited to visit the United States, where he made both solo and paired ascents. He climbed the highest point in Oregon, Mount Hood, alone.
On the southern rock wall of Mount Mshatka-Kaya, he laid out the “Lishayev Route” 5B, VI, A3, 270 m, and the “Red Dump” route 5B, VI, A3, 260 m.
The transition to free climbing led to a conflict with the officialdom – the leadership of the USSR Mountaineering Federation threatened to disqualify him. In response to discrimination in 1980, Lishayev destroyed his documents as a Master of Sports of the USSR, after which the leadership of the Mountaineering Federation no longer had any claims against him.
Yuri Lishayev has been injured several times. His fifth injury and the most severe (spinal cord injury) was sustained when he fell while paragliding while filming a movie for the “Cinema Travel Club” in 1993. After that, Yura underwent long-term treatment, received a Group 1 disability, and the doctors’ prognosis was lifelong mobility in a wheelchair. However, Yuri Lishayev not only got up, albeit on crutches, but returned to the mountains, and made his first ascent after the injury alone on Uarch-Kaya.
In recent years, due to pain in my legs, I became interested in kayaking, where I felt like a full-fledged person. On May 9, 2011, Lishayev set off on his kayak from the village of Geroyskoye and in 26 days alone swam more than 400 km to Sevastopol.
In 2012, Lishayev went solo in a kayak from the source of the Dnieper to its mouth, then to the Black Sea to the Crimean Peninsula, then went to the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait to the city of Genichesk, where he completed his journey, having covered more than 2,500 kilometers in 120 days.
My wind, come to me,
And with your gentle hand
Close my tired eyes,
I am a tree with fallen leaves…
But I know: spring will come,
And where will my leaves bloom?..
(c) Yuri Lishayev
Source: alp.org.ua