Li thuanian climbing team makes Mount Ararat history
Sep 27, 2006
>From wire reports

VILNIUS – A group of Lithuanians, led by world traveller Seda
Bukauskiene, have become the first foreigners to climb the northern
route of Turkey’s Mount Ararat. Vytautas Bukauskas told the Baltic
News Service that he and his compatriots were the first non Turks to
summit the 5,165 meter mountain. The Lithuanian group climbed Mount
Ararat, the tallest peak in Turkey, in late August.

The first permits to climb the mountain from its northern side were
distributed in 2005 to Lithuanian and Spanish groups. Unfortunately,
neither of the teams managed to reach the top due to unfavorable
weather conditions.

The northern side of Ararat has been inaccessible to climbers since
after World War I, when the Soviet government closed the
mountain. When the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991, the mountain remained
closed on account of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey.

Turkish authorities still refuse permits to climb Mount Ararat from
the eastern side, as well as its adjacent 3,925-meter peak, `Small
Ararat,’ since possible minefields remain at the base of both routes.