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Courtesy Nasuh Mahruki
Nasuh Mahruki reaches for a survivor of the Gujarat earthquake in India.
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Turkish rescuer's message: Do it for loveBy Chris Barge, Camera Staff Writer
November 7, 2004 Here's my beef with international mountaineering in general: It's selfish.
Sure, there's a blind climber who helps blind Tibetans learn to
climb. And Sir Edmund Hillary runs a foundation to help the Sherpas of
Nepal.
And don't get me wrong. There are others. All very admirable.
But more often than not, the world's top mountaineers spend a
lot of money climbing mountains with no higher purpose in mind. That's
why we should all stop and listen to Nasuh Mahruki, a Turkish man of
international adventure, who stood atop the Seven Summits and decided
that wasn't enough. Mahruki, 36, will give a seminar on Tuesday in Boulder. Lord
knows he's got enough slides in his briefcase to fill several hours
talking about summiting Everest and the tallest peaks on every other
continent. He has paraglided off of one of Turkey's highest mountains,
scuba dived in caves, and motorcycled across Turkey, Iran, Pakistan,
India, Nepal and Sikkim. But he has done many things more impressive than that.
The enormous 1999 earthquake in his home city of Istanbul rocked
him into his higher calling. Heartened that rescue teams, equipment and
aid flowed in from 68 other countries in the aftermath of the disaster,
Mahruki founded a voluntary search-and-rescue society, called AKUT
Arama Kurtarma Dernei. Now 400 members strong, the society has responded to
earthquakes in Greece, Taiwan, India and Iran, and has helped flood
victims in Mozambique. "I love people, I love this world, I love my country and other
countries," he said. "I believe we coexist together. I believe we are
not individuals struggling by ourselves in this world." Mahruki traveled last month to Colorado at the request of
Leadville's Lake County Search and Rescue. He spoke with that group
about his international search-and-rescue perspective and
mountaineering leadership challenges. He said his talk in Boulder will
focus on whatever the people who show up want him to talk about. Murat Akbacak, president of the Turkish Student Association at
the University of Colorado, arranged Mahruki's visit to Boulder.
Akbacak estimates that 50 Turkish people live in Boulder and 500 live
in Colorado. 
WHAT •"From Seven Continents: Mountain Climbing and Search & Rescue," with Nasuh Mahruki
WHEN •4 p.m. Tuesday
WHERE •Benson Earth Sciences Building, Room 185, University of Colorado campus
COST •Free
INFO • (720) 934-1752 Cigdem Oral, a research associate in CU's chemical engineering department, said she plans to go on Tuesday for inspiration.
"I don't think everybody does this kind of thing, right?" she said. "He's a really famous rescuer."
Mahruki seems demure when he talks about his own globe-trotting
exploits. In the end, he said, his mission comes down to one thing. "If another country, another nation, another living body is
suffering from some problem, we feel that if it is within our limits we
want to help them," he said. "It's just, I can say, love." Contact Get Out! Editor Chris Barge at (303) 473-1389 or bargec@dailycamera.com. | 
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