Odintsov writes:
“Such disagreements legitimately exist between people of different age and mentality, born on different continents. It would be strange if those disagreements didn’t exist at all. Yet there exists a category of people with a firm knowledge of how one is supposed to live. For them, personal happiness isn’t enough; they need to make others happy. To them, it’s absolutely necessary that everyone around them live life by their patterns. If such a zealot is given no power, he is merely amusing and is quite harmless. But God forbid that he is given the means to try out his recipe on others. The Russians are personally familiar with such experiments.”
“The one bad thing,” Odintsov adds, “is that such discussions lead to disunion among people practicing this wonderful sport. Climbers, including their elite, have little association with each other as it is. To the Atlantic Ocean that separates us, do we have to add a swamp of discussion on who’s better?”