I want to tell a cool story about the trip to Ortsveri with PVD Club (https://pvd-club.com/). This story is about the worst guide and the worst organization that I have seen during all my trekking and climbing. (IP Ramanovich Oleg Anatolievich - legal entity PVD Club).
Initially, when I was looking for a tour for our company I considered a couple of private guides and PVD. After talking to all of them I decided to choose PVD, as I went with them earlier to Kazbegi in 2023 and everything was super. I agreed with Oleg on the tour dates 05.09 - 09.09. I made a prepayment and waited for the start date of the tour.
The first calls started when we just gathered in the chat room of the climb. It so happened that to us in the group as a guide added a man with whom I had previously communicated about the same ascent, but as a private. In the end he refused to go with us, which was not surprising, the service is identical - but payment will be as a hired guide from the company. That's when it all started.
Apparently, Oleg had no other guides for these dates. He decided to lead us up to the Meteostation (3600 meters) by himself and added an assault guide to the chat, as he had not gone to the target mountain yet this season. But apparently the dates of the assault guide did not coincide with those we agreed with Oleg, and he silently moved the start date from 05.09 to 06.09. Just renamed the group without explaining and discussing and said that we start 06.09.
But again BUT. Apparently the dates were still not matched with the guide, and Oleg came up with an amazing lie. It was his first in this ascent, but not the last. He came up with the idea to inflate the climbing program from 3 days +1 spare to 4 days +1 spare, referring to the weather. I don't know what kind of weather he was referring to a week and a half before the start of the tour, because in the mountains the forecast can change in a day, that's why the reserve day is prescribed.
At the same time it should be understood that the site indicated a very specific program for 3 days + 1 reserve day. After I drew attention to it and said that no time is planned for such tricks, he rolled back to the program of 3+1 days.
We were 7 tourists: me and my wife, two couples from Moscow (our friends flew in for climbing) and a stranger. A shuttle picked us up and took us to a gas station where we waited for Oleg for another 30 minutes. After we were delivered to the starting point near Gergeti monastery and moved along the route, using the most streamlined wording and references to the weather our trip became fixed in 4 days.
What a surprise for me was when we met a man on the ascent who was going down, introduced himself as our guide and said that in 3 days he would lead us to storm Ortsveri. At this point it was finally clear that we were being cheated with the dates.
On the first night I drew Oleg's attention to it - he mumbled something inaudible and left. The next day my friend brought it to Oleg's attention - Oleg said that there was bad weather. It should be understood that 4 people from the group had experience of high-mountain climbing and all four of them know how to use weather forecasts. We tried to argue with him, but he said "we'll see". The question was never raised again, Oleg made up activities for the idle day under different sauces.
Looking ahead, I will say that on the initial day of the assault the weather was sane for climbing. On this day people were climbing Kazbegi, as we rented gloves, but Oleg asked us for them for another group, because they were going to the assault and would return them on their return. The next day, when the assault guide came, the weather was already gone, there was an assault wind, as a consequence, the ascent of the group did not take place.
It was a lie, as a result of which I decided not to continue climbing with Oleg and PVD and to go down with my wife and two other members of the group. I can't imagine how it is possible to climb with a person who is obviously lying for the sake of making money on us. In my opinion it is life threatening.
Anyway that wasn't the only lie, more on that below.
Killer lease
From PVD we rented some of our climbing equipment. For my wife we rented single layer climbing boots and a membrane jacket. In a special table provided by Oleg, we noted the size of the foot, duplicated the size of the foot and the size of the foot in centimeters by message to the chat. Oleg said that we should take +1 size, so we did.