Petersburg resident Sergei Pavlovich Lukyanov is deeply convinced that human capabilities are endless. “If you want to achieve something, the main thing is not to be afraid and not to panic,” he says. Thanks to this attitude, as well as the skill and sports training of the athlete, the dream of his childhood was fulfilled - to go on a trip around the world: alone, light and on foot.
Question to Sergei Lukyanov: "What did the round-the-world trip give you?" Answer: “I guess I've become kinder to people. I used to try too, but it was different. I feel that I have changed inside: much has become easier, there are no more excessive obstacles - everything in the world is possible. You just need to know it, and want it very much. Many, seeing me on the road, were surprised that I was living my life like this. That you can not be a super-duper athlete, but just take it, prepare and go your own way."
"On my own two feet" the athlete covered the distance of 23300 km. Exactly one year later, having covered 13,787 km, I reached Singapore. Traveled 4 continents and visited 21 countries, having spent less than 2 years on foot.
Important ingredients for success
In order for the dream to come true, you should not wait for manna from heaven or hope for a chance. You just need to translate the dream into the status of a plan and make every effort to implement this plan. A real assessment of your strengths and capabilities helps to translate your plans into reality. It is important to correctly place accents when analyzing the main components of success: morale (own desire + support of loved ones), material base (physical capabilities + necessary equipment), financial support (sponsorship + personal funds).
The authors and organizers of the project "Sergei Lukyanov - Walking Around the World" were not embarrassed by any of the accompanying factors: the venerable age of the traveler, the lack of sponsors, the skeptical attitude of outsiders. The lone walker went to the “circumnavigation”, having enlisted the support of his entourage - family and friends, friends, trainer and colleagues from the sports walking club WALKERU 24 SPb and the Dynamo running society. “I’ll go, I’ll walk around the Earth…”, Sergei Pavlovich told his wife about his planned trip easily and with humor.
On the one hand, he had been preparing for this all his life: he had been professionally engaged in long walking and marathon running for more than 50 years, and therefore relied on his training and endurance. On the other hand, I practically did not prepare: I did not do special vaccinations, I did not insure my life, I did not learn foreign languages. It took about a year to prepare the equipment and determine the route (choosing the direction of travel, detailed study of individual sections of the path).
And who needs it?
“If someone in St. Petersburg deserves the definition of“free wanderer”, then it is undoubtedly Sergei Lukyanov,” says his friend, honored trainer of Russia in race walking, co-author and coordinator of the project of walking “around the world” MB Sokolovsky. During his 50-year sports career, Luca (that is the name of his colleagues) has excelled in various types of athletics, participated in more than 1400 competitions in long-distance walking and marathon running. In the history of Soviet and Russian pedestrian sports, he is inscribed as a pioneer of daily, three-day and ultra-long walking.
Surprising himself and others, he literally works wonders, improving personal results every year. The athlete's asset is the standard for the master of sports of the USSR in walking 50 km, completed back in 1980; passage in 6 days from St. Petersburg to Moscow; hiking in Finland (700 km in 10 days) and Europe (2500 km in 50 days). Among the conquered super-long distances - 1300 km in 16 days around Lake Ladoga, 1400 km in 21 days around the Sea of Azov. In 2009, in 12 days, unaccompanied, overcame a distance of 800 km and bypassed the Sea of Marmara. The year 2011 was marked by a two-week "walk" at a sports pace of 1000 km across the island of Sicily. The result of the European campaign 2014 - 3000 km in 57 days 2 hours 30 minutes. Palych set his personal record, what is the name of the athlete, in 1989, having covered 207 kilometers without stopping. With such a portfolio, the road around the globe does not seem insurmountable.
Lukyanov is a walker. Absorbing hundreds and thousands of kilometers of space in the shortest possible time is Sergey's favorite pastime, on which he spends most of his life energy. To make it clear how passionate and passionate this person is, suffice it to say that even while traveling the world he managed to participate in race walking competitions - in Singapore and Argentina. Primary for him is the very process of walking towards the result. And the circumstances associated with the surrounding world, its beauty and history are secondary.
Before that, no one had succeeded in making such a voyage. People went to "around the world" in a tourist mode, spending 10-11 years on it (walked 5-10 km, rested, went further). What Lukyanov is doing is already sport: moving at a speed of 7 km / h, passing an average of 50 km every day. According to the standards of sports walking, this is quite a lot. To the everyday question “why do you need this?” You will hear from Sergey: “I want to prove that you can walk and overtake runners at a long distance. I hope that looking at me it will become clear to many that walking is a universal and most affordable means of health-improving physical exercise."
The extremeness of the "around the world"
The start of the foot voyage was taken by Sergei Lukyanov in his hometown of St. Petersburg on April 1, 2015, at the midday shot of the Naryshkin Bastion's cannon. On February 4, 2017, having spent a total of 676 days (22 months) on the road, he completed the route here, on Palace Square, crossing the symbolic finish line. On the way, the marathon runner met his 60th anniversary literally "on the go". And upon returning home, a surprise awaited him - a meeting with a one-year-old granddaughter, who was born when he reached only the middle of the route. Grandpa had a foreign gift in a backpack for the baby - a groovy talking turtle from Belarus.
The task that the athlete faced was accomplished: to go around the planet alone, on foot, without using transport. The originally planned route of 32 thousand km, running through 25 countries, has been reduced due to visa problems. Twice had to break the rule of walking. In order to overcome the non-land sections of the route, air flights were made over the ocean: from Singapore to Chile, and from Brazil to Europe. It is worth saying that the biggest temptation for Palych on the way was the offers of compassionate counterparts to give him a lift. He invariably answered with a refusal, as he was "for the purity of the experiment."
As for communicating with people, the lone wanderer spoke very little. And it's not just the language barrier. Lukyanov's lexicon contained two words (yes and no), and prepared tablets with information that he was a Russian traveler. Sergei Pavlovich was quite deliberately not talkative. In an interview with Paper, he said: “Silence has its own peculiarity. Speaking languages, you get one experience from traveling, and not knowing them, I got another. You realize a lot when you are alone. This is inner knowledge. Once a day - contact (sms to St. Petersburg, they say, is alive and well).
There are no terms for passing the sections of the route, standards for speed, the main thing is the route and its successful passage. I walked in any weather, seven days a week, for 10-14 hours a day without stopping. I spent the night, as a rule, in abandoned houses, less often in campsites, inexpensive hotels or with hospitable people. Moving at a speed of about 7 km / h, he mastered from 40 to 60 km every day. Sometimes I had to walk without rest for 16 hours, during this time I covered a distance of 70-80 kilometers. During the trip, the runner worn out 10 pairs of sneakers, worn out more than 100 pairs of socks, and a special all-weather jacket fell into disrepair.
Once Sergei had a chance to interrupt walking for 50 days. Two months on the road endured pain, and when it became unbearable, he sought medical help. In a hospital in the city of Mariinsk (Kemerovo region), doctors removed two inguinal hernias and performed postoperative rehabilitation of a walking adherent. The athlete did not leave the super long distance. Having put on a bandage, calmly and confidently continued to move forward along the intended path.
During the trip, Lukyanov lost 14 kilos. The reason for this was not only extreme physical activity, but also difficult weather conditions. Often I had to spend the night in the open air, at bus stops or lawns. Instead of a rug under the sleeping bag, I put a silver coating that protects the windshield of the car from direct sunlight - it is lighter and costs a penny everywhere. The total weight of the backpack with things was from 12 to 18 kg.
As for food, it was compact and nutritious, but by no means the same as, for example, astronauts (balanced and energy-intensive, in tubes or tablets). The usual diet of a long-distance pedestrian consisted of dried meat and high-quality cheese (100 g per day), rolls, smoked sausage, and sometimes olives. There are also snickers and bum-packs of instant chocolate. In order to avoid the body's reaction to unconventional food, Sergei dared to try local cuisine in few places. The drinking problem was solved in an original way. The traveler quenched his thirst and washed down his food with Coca-Cola. It is common knowledge that water varies greatly from area to area and can cause digestive upset or disease. The use of bottled water does not guarantee the absence of malfunctions in the body: the composition of different manufacturers is different. "And Cola - it is in Africa Cola", - the marathon runner smiles. I bought sweet soda in packs at gas stations (it's cheaper this way). The stock, made at the rate of 1 can of 0.33 liters for every 5 km of the journey, made up most of the contents of the backpack. Almost half of the budget was spent on the tonic drink.
Finance "sing romances"
Initially, the voyage "And I walk, I walk on the Earth" was conceived as a non-commercial project. The athlete went around the world in the absence of sponsors, without any personal savings. The financial support of the project included Sergei Pavlovich's pension of 8,000 rubles, which his wife sent him in two tranches a month, plus a credit card with a limit of 300,000 issued in one of the St. Petersburg banks loyal to pensioners. The amount the traveler had at his disposal was very modest - 500 rubles a day.
The funds required for the purchase of air tickets for the flight across the ocean, as well as for the purchase of worn-out equipment, were collected using the Internet “by the whole world”. Lukyanov's son Daniel created a blog on the VKontakte social network, where he published reports on his father's route. Here he threw a cry to collect the missing funds.
In total, Sergei Pavlovich's expenses for the realization of his childhood dream amounted to 700 thousand rubles. Upon returning home, Lukyanov discovered that he owed the bank and friends about 300 thousand rubles. The press does not have information on how the popularizer of foot crossings to ultra-long distances, former race walking coach, and now retired S. P. Lukyanov. It is clear that the construction of a house on a summer cottage had to be postponed for an unknown period, which was scheduled to be carried out upon returning from an extreme trip. Until now, he has not been able to formulate his impressions of a walk around the world: funds are needed to publish the book. Apparently, the plans for the next walking "around the world" remained forever in the plans. According to the most conservative estimates, the budget for the development of another, still untouched route (through America and Australia) is 2 million rubles.
What is the "bottom line"
The stormy and wordy media coverage of the details of the lone walker's voyage around the planet in 2017 "faded away" as quickly as it had begun two years earlier. On the Internet, it is almost impossible to glean information about how the future fate of the Russian Forest Gump developed.
It is reliably known that out of 35 marathon runners who took part in the 10-day Sri Chinmoy race in New York, Lukyanov finished 13th. At these competitions, which ended on 2018-27-04, on the birthday of the Russian veteran walker, he made himself a gift: he set a Petersburg record, having covered 514.4 miles (827 km 846 m) in 10 days. In August 2018, at the Russian Cup in running for 24 hours (on the highway), Sergey showed the 6th result in the CLB Match, according to the final protocol of the competition, he took 17th place and set a personal daily record of 144313 m.
So he calmed down, took up household chores: with his wife Nina Alekseevna, they creatively celebrated the silver wedding, are raising grandchildren, equipping a new country house. And for health reasons, the 63-year-old walker would have to lower his sports degree. But no - "we only dream of peace!" In September 2018, Lukyanov - in the French town of Roubaix on a super-extreme 28-hour race walk. True, in the competitions, which are considered the most prestigious in this discipline, the veteran of Russian walking has already played as a mentor for the Russian participants, marathon runners from Togliatti Igor and Olga Agishevs.
Sergey Pavlovich Lukyanov, who started athletics at the age of 10, completed his sports career in 2019. Despite this, the St. Petersburg pensioner is full of energy, cheerful and optimistic. He is sure that you can walk fast enough at any age, when all other means of physical education are already inaccessible. At the same time, the heart rate, which for an ordinary person should not exceed 120 beats per minute, can be easily monitored using a heart rate monitor. And the degree of load should be regulated by the duration of the walk. The main thing is to move on foot to health! But you can also around the world …
