The staircase is a pure metaphor for upward movement. The first steps, the first stairs upward, are especially important, as they often determine the course of one’s life.
On June 1, 2025, in Almaty, on the staircase of the Medeu mudflow protection dam, a poetic children’s record was set for the first time: 842 steps, at an altitude of 1,733 meters above sea level, with a linguistic palette that included Kazakh, Russian, French, English, Spanish, and Chinese.
Participants were Rodion Alipenko (7 years old), Kazakhstan, Kuanish Ozangaygiye (15 years old), Kazakhstan, Eva Koroleva Garsen (6 years old), France, and Esteban Korolev Garsen (8 years old), France, Against the backdrop of the snowy peaks of the Zailiysky Alatau, the children recited poetry — clearly, freely, and with inspiration.
Organizers: The World Organization of Writers (WOW) and the Assembly of the Peoples of the World. The record was officially documented by Anvar Almukhametov, a representative of the World Record Book.
The World Record Book, co-founded by the World Organization of Writers “WOW”, in cooperation with the Guinness Book of Records, has secured a unique place in the global record community.
It has established a new humanistic and humanitarian niche — with the voice of culture, linguistic diversity, and literary expression. That is its uniqueness. That is its relevance.
I ascended with the children in the role of an independent expert from the newspaper “Arguments and Facts Kazakhstan.”
Dozens of tourists were witnesses.
For many, it was the first time they heard poetry echo at a mountain height in six languages.
The children owned the word — confidently, without stage fear, and with their own poetic intonation.
Poetic reading at an altitude of 1,733 meters, achieved by the children, is symbolic: a new generation is climbing upward for records, hand in hand, with the words from the WOW Writers’ Organization Memorandum: We Are the Children of One Planet!
Photo by the author.
