U.S.S.R. A Soviet press dispatch quoted in “Die Alpen” gives a review of mountaineering in 1953 in the U.S.S.R. The sport seems to have become very popular; they claim to have 17,000 mountain climbers, many of whom participated in climbs from the 26 climbing camps in the Caucasus and the Pamirs and made mass ascents of Elbrus, Kazbek, and other peaks, on which fifty to a hundred people reached the summits. They also mention ascents of the volcanos of Kamchatka and of 20,000-foot peaks in the Pamirs but give no names. They claim one thousand climbs in the Tien Shan, including first ascents of the “Peak of the Centenary of the (Russian) Geographical Society” (21,000 feet), Mt. Grebechok (20,350 feet), and Peak Baiankol (19,030 feet). In the Altai they climbed the highest summit, Belukha (15,157 feet). They also state that they climbed 23,311-foot Peak Korgenevski. Another dispatch says that on August 17, 1954, they climbed Pik Revoljuzii (23,096 feet), one of the mountains above the Fed- schenko Glacier, which was reconnoitered by a Russo - German expedition in 1938 and called “Dreispitz” by them. The Russians state that there is absolutely no truth in the story reported tentatively in the 1954 American Alpine Journal about a Russian attempt on Mt. Everest. When Sir John Hunt was in Moscow recently to give a lecture, he received the Order of Mountaineer —1st Class.