The Abalakov Days Festival just finished last week in Krasnoyarsk. This is the first festival dedicated to the life and work of the outstanding climbers and explorers Abalakov brothers, whose childhood and youth were spent in Krasnoyarsk.

— The life of the Abalakov brothers was full of events, they were unique in every way: whether it was their passion for Stolby Nature Reserve, painting or photography, the desire for adventure. The Festival "Abalakov Days" will become a good city tradition, because we can we really should talk about Vitaly and Evgeny a lot more, – said director of the Victory Memorial Museum and the Festival's main organiser Tatyana Ivleva.

More than 30 events took place during the 10 days of the Festival. The exhibition "Traverse over the Abyss" featured more than 80 drawings and watercolors, sculptures from different years, photographs from the family archive, documents and personal belongings of Evgeny Abalakov.

The visitors of the Festival had the opportunity to become proud owners of collectible postcards with a seal created specifically for the first Abalakov Days. 50 postcards were sorted by philocartists and postcrossers. The illustrations for the limited edition were two works by Evgeny Abalakov titled "Sayans" and "Self-portrait with a red beard". Now postcards with the works of Evgeny Abalakov and the stamp of the first "Abalakov Days" can only be found in private collections.

The fragments of the digitized archive of Evgeny Abalakov which were presented to the guests of the Festival on the big screen in the Cinema House for the first time ever, have yet to be fully studied since the archive contains several hundred diapositive slides, more than 70 photographic films and countless photographs of the 1930s-1940s. Nikolay Zakharov, Chairman of the Mountaineering Federation of the Krasnoyarsk Region, the coach of the Regional mountaineering team and the holder of the unofficial but honorary title "Snow Leopard", spoke about the peaks captured on film, about the intricacies and difficulties of climbing the mountains. As for the title, it is given to climbers who have conquered all the mountain peaks with a height of 7000 meters above sea level in the territory of the former Soviet Union.

The Festival ended with a musical evening and the premiere of a biopic concert dedicated to Evgeny and Vitaly Abalakov. Under the accompaniment of the Krasnoyarsk Brass Band, the guests of the event were shown family photographs by Evgeny Abalakov.

The next festival will be dedicated to the anniversary of one of the main events in the life of Evgeny Abalakov - the 90th anniversary of his conquest of Stalin Peak, the highest point in the Soviet Union (now the peak is called Ismoil Somoni Peak).