No Fun Training & Very Hard Routesetting with Pavel Dobrinskiy

Ice Ice Beta

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

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 at @majorbobkov.

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📸 Cover photo courtesy of Pavel

Credits:

• Intro music by Hannah Noelle Enomoto (thanks, sis!).
• This episode was edited by Andrew Salomone of salomonesound.com.
• And of course, a big thanks to our sponsors, Aniiu Gloves and Furnace Industries!

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🗣️ Leave us a review!:

You can also help us out by subscribing to the podcast and leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice. Reviews are helpful for new listeners that come across the show, and a good rating means Spotify, Apple, and other platforms are more likely to recommend it to others.