It is difficult enough to write and summarize a year of war. A year of pain and courage. But there is a lot to tell. The Couloir's activities are divided into several areas, so I will talk about each of them separately. Quite a lot has already been described in previous posts, so I will give some links to materials rather than bloat this article.
The first days of the war were total chaos. In the chaos and confusion were we. But we had to use the resources of the club. So I created a chat room in Telegram, which quickly gained about 1000 participants, and which was supervised by our consultants.
We created a database of contacts willing to help and tried to close people's requests for housing, transfers, or other issues. Made the chaos more orderly. Already the chat room was closed, it had lost relevance.
We had a fairly large rental fund, which we gave away for next to nothing - about a hundred mats, sleeping bags, backpacks and dozens of tents. All the clubs we knew did so, because the need for camping equipment was bottomless.
Using a certain amount of my media and credibility, I created a volunteer initiative called KuluarHelp.
We used all of the club's available resources, with no thought for the future, because there might not have been one. All the money the team leaders had after successful programs and the cache we had was used to buy everything: armor, helmets, teepees, radios, turnstiles and other stuff from abroad (mostly Poland or the USA) and to bring it into Ukraine. Sometimes they did not really count and did not record the expenses. Then we tried to put everything in order, it turned out that 33,473 dollars were spent (approximately, because some purchases were rounded up), which in UAH, at the then exchange rate of 32, amounted to 1,071,136 UAH. A large part of the amount was subscriptions from participants who asked to use them to help the defense forces.
At first we helped everyone who had requests. Later I decided to focus primarily on helping those whom I knew personally or whom my friends recommended. And only to those who were really fighting on the front line (or had to go there). At first it was Kuluar teamleaders, Azov's Kraken unit, and some other familiar units. Now the focus has shifted to helping the 93 "Kholodnyi Yar" OMBR (Soledar, Bakhmut), medics, and, of course, combat team leaders.
Now it is impossible to calculate the exact amount of help within the KuluarHelp, but it is already more than 7.3 million hryvnias. We publish all important reports in the category "Kindness. Support. Charity" category, and more often - on my Facebook: Taras Pozdnii.
At the moment we have the next big collection under the name "K2" - we are collecting one million for walkie-talkies for the 93d OMBR "Kholodnyi Yar", we are raffling the flag with a signature of Valery Zaluzhny, valuable tourist prizes, we are drawing "congratulations" on mines. In general we try to be creative to close the collection and help the guys, who bravely keep Bakhmut! So join us!
In July, we started organizing rehabilitation hikes for families with IDP children. Participation in the hikes is free of charge, and we used partly the money from the Kuluar Foundation and partly donations from patrons to finance the hikes. Reports on these programs are published on the website.
In total, we managed to organize 64 participants (children with parents) in 6 groups. The stories of the participants move us to tears, and we are very happy that we can do a little good for them.
The last group in 2022 was held on 13.09, then it got colder in the mountains and we decided to postpone such hikes until the summer. After all, people come here without proper equipment and are not prepared for the cold mountains.
Thanks to Alexander Dmitriev, we have a beautiful sensual video from one of the groups.
It's morally difficult to advertise hikes, to write something not about war, and to do business.
But
First of all, the mountains are such a necessary reset, it is an energy battery to gain strength to be active and help again.
Secondly, the war is a long-term war and the economic component plays a very important role. In order to donate and help, it is elementary to have something to live on and something to donate. More than ten employees and two dozen team leaders, even in wartime, have to feed their families.
That is why since June we started to carry out camping trips. These were both hikes in the Carpathian Mountains and hikes abroad. Of course, in much smaller numbers than we would have liked. But the paradoxical situation was that we didn't have many participants, and even fewer team leaders who could drive abroad.
Since July we have contributed 291,018 UAH from Kuluar activities, including:
Perhaps 1,071,136 UAH from before the war and 291,018 for 2022 are the main numbers for the business this year, how much money was able to transfer to help. At the same time, so that the company can continue to work.
From the first days of the war, a lot of teamleaders went to defend their home with weapons in their hands: Valentin Bondarenko, Dmitry Gulyaev, Andrey Nenchenko, Nikolay Sakovich, Yaroslav Ogorilko, Andrey Grinik, Alexander Galitsky, Volodymyr Vasylyshyn, Andrey Nenko, Andrey Yarema, Leonid Verestun, Alexander Pavlov, Nikita Kosov, Andrey Dubok, Dmitry Sandul, Sergey Novikov.
Others actively engaged in volunteer work: Evgeniya Nechitaylova, Anya Misishin, Nikita Balabanov, Oleg Sava, Kira Rodkina (not a team leader, but close by), Vika Batorshina (participant).
Unquestionable pride of the club and boundless gratitude to you.
Unfortunately, we did not do without losses. There are not words to express it. At the end of May we lost contact with Andrey Grinik near Bakhmut/Pokrovskiy. We learned a month later that he had been dead. This is a great pain for the whole team and unbearable for friends and relatives.
Andrew, rest in peace and if there are mountains in that world, may they be welcoming to you. Thank you for giving the dearest of all. We remember.
No year of our lives has brought so much pain and loss. But there is room for gratitude in it, too. Especially in it.
I want to thank the Kuluar team who worked diligently to organize the hikes when I spent most of my time volunteering. You are a solid foundation and there is a significant contribution from each of you in the results of KuluarHelp.
Thank you to all the participants who entrust their vacation to us. This allows both the company and the volunteer initiative to function.
A special thank you to those participants who fight, actively volunteer and donate regularly. There are hundreds of you and together we are the power!
Our gratitude to all the defense forces of Ukraine is boundless!
In 2023 we will have Everest, Carpathians and, hopefully, the victory.
We must believe, act and live. Dreams must be realized now. As shown by 2022, there may not be a better time.
Find a balance between your own life and help for Ukraine.
Glory to Ukraine, glory to the defenders!
p.s. I recommend everyone to subscribe to our Telegram channel and add to the chat - all the news appears there quickly.
