A group of mountain climbers from Russia has found the belongings of a Soviet-era climber who got lost in Mount Elbrus during a terrible avalanche four decades ago.
The mountaineers found the belongings as they were setting up their tents at 12.467 feet (3,800 meters) altitude on Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe which rises to 18,510 feet (5,642 meters), Ihlas News Agency (IHA) reported Wednesday.
The terrible incident took place in 1978, and no traces of the mountaineers had been found until now.
Soviet officials had found nothing related to the climbers' whereabouts at the time and there has been no news or information about what happened to them, including how many people got lost in the area during the incident.
Surprised by what they found; the climbers immediately informed the Russian emergency situations ministry. Upon reaching the area, the ministry units and the climbers found a bag containing a helmet, a spoon, a passport, and 10 rubles banknotes during their search in the area.
The owner of the passport was identified as Andrey Fedorovich who was born in Krasnodar in 1959 and was living in Moscow at the time, an examination of the Soviet Union's population records revealed.
Although the officials could not reach the family of Fedorovich, they were able to locate a 157-year-old house he lived in, which was still in use by other owners.
Experts said that melting caused by global warming may have revealed the climber's belongings while it was announced that search will continue in the area to reach the bodies of the climbers and to make DNA examinations.
Elbrus is not technically a mountain but an inactive volcano located in the western Caucasus Mountain range, near the Georgian border in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay–Cherkessia region in Russia.
