Ukraine’s most accomplished mountaineer carries fallen soldier’s dream to the top of Everest
He dreamed of standing on top of the world. Ukraine's most accomplished mountaineer Antonina Samoilova carried his photo to Mount Everest's summit.
Euromaidan Press’ Corrie Nieto sits down with record-breaking mountaineer Antonina Samoilova, who during her third ascension to Mount Everest fulfilled a fallen soldier’s lifelong dream: to stand on top of the world.
During her third ascent of Mount Everest, Ukrainian mountaineer Antonina Samoilova fulfilled a fallen soldier’s lifelong dream. At the summit, she held up a photograph of Alex Granik, who died defending Mariupol at 28, fulfilling his dream of standing on top of the world.
“I didn’t know him personally,” Samoilova explains. “When I was at base camp, I got a message from my friend who’s helping our army from Ukraine. He asked if I could take Alex’s photo to the summit – it was his dream.”
In a message he sent to his friend, Alex wrote:
“I have a dream of all my life. Everest. I thought about it: it must be friggin’ great to be as high as you can be. But now I understand that my Everest is here.”
After sharing the summit photo, Granik’s mother reached out on Instagram. When she saw the photo in the media, she thanked Samoilova, saying it brought her as much joy as possible, given her loss.
Samoilova’s journey to becoming one of Ukraine’s leading mountaineers began unexpectedly in 2018 with Mount Kilimanjaro. “Like the usual person in the city, I didn’t know what altitude does to your body,” she recalls. “I thought Kilimanjaro is in Africa, so it should be warm. Instead, it was -15°C on the summit. I hated it because it was so hard.”
That initial struggle transformed into passion through persistence. By late 2021, she was embarking on her most extraordinary expedition yet – to Antarctica. Flying by Boeing from Chile to a landing strip on ice, she ventured into what she calls “a very unusual place… zero life inside the continent.” There, she summited Mount Vinson, the continent’s highest peak, celebrating New Year’s in complete isolation. The experience proved transformative – while still in Antarctica, she booked two more major expeditions.
