Episode #41 - Yuri Kuznetzov

Laurent Frat: [00:00:00] Hello friends, you're listening to Exit Point, a podcast about the advancement of base jumping and an exploration of its culture. I'm Laurent Frat producer and cohost. If you'd like to support this independent production, you can visit our buy me a coffee link in the description and give us a review wherever you listen to podcasts in this episode.

Laurent Frat: I sit down with Yuri Kuznetsov. Yuri made his first skydive when he was 13 years old, made his first base jump in 1994 with skydiving gear, and has since made thousands of jumps. He's been active in urban, terminal, wingsuiting, slider down, you name it. To say that he's experienced is a massive understatement.

Laurent Frat: I'm looking forward to hearing some of his stories from back in the day. How his motivations around base have changed over the years and talk about how he's remained so resilient. So with that, let's get Yuri on the track.[00:01:00] 

Laurent Frat: You sent me a copy of your digital log book and, had the pleasure of, reading through it. And you started base jumping in 1994, according to your log. That makes you in the sport for 29 years. And, we generally figure that most people have a career that lasts about five years. And so that makes your career in base about six times longer than the average.

Laurent Frat: What do you think has made you successful? And, when I say successful, fun times time, right? Because success means you're having more fun. So tell me, is there anything that you can point to that's kept you in the game for so long? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: there's a lot [00:02:00] of luck involved in it and possibly a little bit of skill, but also, stopping and starting again a couple of times.

Yuri Kuznetsov: So I suppose that helped to, reignite it. When you come after a break, it's a whole new sport, things changed a lot, people changed quite a bit, there is a big turnover, like you said. yeah, that's probably one of the, pieces of the puzzle, but otherwise it's just always been, an interesting game for me.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And it shifted from, base jumping, as such, from urban stuff to the mountains. that became a slightly different sport altogether. yeah, all of that, all the changes, that keeps, the blood flowing. And people, people you, jump with, that keeps, half of the fun, at least. 

Laurent Frat: Speaking of people you're doing it with, starting back then in, in 94, I [00:03:00] figure, I like looking at your logbook.

Laurent Frat: You've, you did over a thousand base jumps before I even started, which is, that's busy. You're doing a lot of jumps. you may be one of the more active people, for that span of time. are there any other people that are still in the sport that, you remember from back in the day?

Yuri Kuznetsov: Back in the day, I was jumping a lot with Vertigo. So Marta comes to mind right away. She would be probably the most well known long timer. She's been jumping way longer than me and she's still active. So yeah, Vertigo crew was our go to place for American East Coast winters. Probably from about 95, 96. we've been jumping a lot together.

Laurent Frat: Oh, I saw some pictures of Annie Holloway as well in your log book. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: [00:04:00] yep. There's a, yeah, that came probably a couple years later, but yeah, we had some good creeps on the West coast as well. 

Laurent Frat: Yeah. Lots of, interesting and familiar faces in your book. It's, it's cool to check out. I recommend it to everybody.

Laurent Frat: how, how is your perception. because you say that one of the things that sort of helps you, be successful is, the way that you approach it or, the margins that you take and, being conservative, how would you say your perception of risk has changed over the years?

Yuri Kuznetsov: the change is quite easy to define, When you start, you look at things and you say, whoa, I can do it. You think this can actually work. After 10 years or a thousand jumps, you look at the same jump and you think, it actually may fail. [00:05:00] things could go wrong as opposed to, yeah, they could actually go right.

Yuri Kuznetsov: When you start, it's just that one jump you want to do, and most likely it will be fine. After a thousand jumps, you look back and think, I possibly want to make another thousand, so the chances I want to take are probably different now. So one percent chance of failure is just not good enough any longer.

Laurent Frat: You saw like quite a bit of carnage in your early jumps, like reading through the log, there's someone breaks an ankle, someone breaks a leg, there's a fatality on the load. I, hope that you're. Base jumping isn't quite as chaotic these days, and I would assume that's like the evolution of the sport in a way, while we do continue to have accidents and stuff, it's just, it's, it seemed like fairly abundant, just reading your log, would you say that's the case?

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, I suppose [00:06:00] the amount of carnage per jump was quite a bit higher back in the day. We still have heaps of carnage, but the number of jumps increased tenfold. at some point it became so much. One summer we, we made that infamous Cornish tape. I think we still, my yellow is JJ. We just had way too many accidents, incidents, death in Cornish over the span of probably two or three months in the summer.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And I think that could have been the year that JJ was thinking about, giving it up as well. But, yeah, it's definitely been riskier back, 10 or 15 years ago, not that wingsuits improved it a lot, but, I think number wise statistics are slightly better nowadays. 

Laurent Frat: Interesting. Yeah. Looking back at your log book again, I see that, you made your first jumps in a skydiving container.[00:07:00] 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yep. The, bridge day 94, that was four jumps, packed slider down in a bag and a skydiver, yeah, skydiving 

Laurent Frat: rig. With a sail slider, maybe? No, no, slider, slider down. Sorry. You said that, right? That's, that's wild. And, there's one of those jumps that it says in your log that it was the death jump, What, happened there?

Laurent Frat: What, made it the 

Yuri Kuznetsov: death jump? Oh, the, bridge day, 95, that was a freefall canopy collision. I was also quite infamous cause it went round and TV. Can't remember, which TV show it was, but they kept showing it in the States for probably 10 years thereafter. Will Forshey filmed it and it was really good footage.

Yuri Kuznetsov: So it just went on and on. on TV. I was pure stupidity. I think I did three jumps with a friend of mine, three two ways before that, and then showed up at [00:08:00] the exit and there was a two way going. So I just joined them for a three way, no planning, nothing surprised. yeah, it didn't work out as good as we thought it would, but yeah, everybody was alive and well, It just gave us really good footage. That's yeah. All right. 

Laurent Frat: that's a lot. A lot of people listening to this and including myself don't know all the juicy details. So please tell us from beginning to end, how did it, go? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: I was a two way, just about ready to go. I said, Hey, let's do the three way.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And I said, okay. I was slider up, the girl in front of me, she was slider down. I was supposed to be on the side and somehow we had a little gap, like quarter of a second between us. So I wasn't on the side. I ended up on the side and above her. And that was just enough for a canopy to fill the space.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And there was nothing I could do. I knew she was slider down. If I pitched, I would still hit. So I did turn 180, but I didn't move anywhere. I [00:09:00] didn't have any speed. And hit the canopy, did a full loop, came out, pitched, hit the water, and that was it. 

Laurent Frat: and then, so like the, river, like landing in the river with a parachute can be pretty gnarly.

Laurent Frat: I, for you... 

Yuri Kuznetsov: let's say it's bridge day, so the boat picks you up within five seconds. You're, on the beach. In less than a minute, then everybody was shaking, everybody was alive and well, but really shaken. And, all I could think of just get up back to the top and make another jump. So I was back up on top probably in the next 20 minutes, half an hour later, I have made another jump just to clear it off my mind.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And yeah, that was, I think, jump number five, that bridge day and quite a party. after that, obviously that was the heyday. 

Laurent Frat: What, You said earlier, and I don't remember if this was off air or not now, [00:10:00] but, that you had a couple of times where you quit, or that you took a break from the sport. what prompted those gaps in your jumping?

Yuri Kuznetsov: that came way later in the game. In the first gap, I basically just burned out. I had too much fun. I finally, after many, years, I quit my office job and I went. On, I think it was two years of travel and about a year into it, just travel, jump, travel, jump, enjoying it. I suddenly burned out. I've done too much, too many jumps, too much travel, and it just didn't excite me anymore.

Yuri Kuznetsov: So I didn't quit. I didn't stop. I just went on traveling, and then I realized, I think it's been a couple weeks since I jumped, and then you forget about it, and then, oh, it's been a couple of months, and it went on like that, and I didn't jump for two years. 

Laurent Frat: Did you find something that replaced it for you or [00:11:00] did you just, yeah, tell me a little bit about 

Yuri Kuznetsov: that.

Yuri Kuznetsov: at that time, I didn't think about it much at the beginning. And then I think right around that time, I started scuba diving and technical scuba, and that was quite interesting. That was quite exciting. So when I did think about some sport to replace a base. Scuba was an obvious choice, and for maybe a couple of years, I really got my highs out of technical scuba, deep air in particular, which is, it's, like blaze jumping on drugs with drugs built in, and you really have to do it right, the, the risks are probably higher than blaze jumping, and there are many ways to die, and most of them you don't sense, you don't feel, you just have to know about them, it's like radiation, so it was exciting, but again, a couple years into it, It faded off.

Yuri Kuznetsov: It could not replace [00:12:00] bass. It was good enough, but nah, it couldn't replace it. 

Laurent Frat: In the longterm, it just didn't deliver the way the bass does. I 

Yuri Kuznetsov: suppose so. Yeah. It's, just a different kind of high. when we base jump, you're on a peak for a minute and then you chill on your, endorphins. When you, do a technical dive, it lasts for an hour, a couple hours, and you have to be on top of it all this time.

Yuri Kuznetsov: So it's a different high. it's still very exciting, but it's just... Not the same game. And looking, jumping ahead, I did try to, look for other stuff to replace both with, nope. Couldn't find anything that would replace it as such. You could leave your life happily doing other stuff, but you cannot replace 

Laurent Frat: that specific high.

Laurent Frat: Yeah. So what I'm hearing from you is that your motivations for jumping really comes from like a [00:13:00] sense of pleasure or getting high. Is, that right? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: not really. That's what you think at the beginning, because it is a lot of fun. But there are so many aspects to it. There is fun of jumping. There are, there are friends you jump with.

Yuri Kuznetsov: There are mountains, or if you're on top of a building or an antenna, the views are amazing. You basically... Put yourself in a position where you don't belong. It's like being on another planet altogether, whether it's a building or a mountain or whatever it happens to be. Urban could be quite, quite visual.

Yuri Kuznetsov: but later on you realize it's not usually people try to describe it as you leave in a moment, you suddenly realize that's what. People call it Zen moment. You leave, your brain stops and you just leave. You don't have any thoughts. You live in that particular second, fraction of a second. And the trick is to stretch it to where you are living it all day long.

Yuri Kuznetsov: When you come to yoga, meditation and so on, that's [00:14:00] the idea. So a lot of people will say, yep, we'll base jump because we want to live in the moment. And we just can't do it outside of base yet. 

Laurent Frat: Do you have a lot of experience with yoga and meditation? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: I've done quite a bit of it, later in life. That was the second time I stopped jumping for three years.

Yuri Kuznetsov: That's when I was living, in Thailand on Koh Phangan. Very, happily, and doing free diving yoga. Pretty healthy lifestyle and it was good enough that I stopped jumping again. I didn't quit. It just happened that I stayed off it for a month and then for half a year and then it stretched into three years.

Laurent Frat: Yeah. Oftentimes I think that, how nice it could be just to be content, staying at home. going for walks and doing things that are simple. And there's oftentimes like this call for the mountains that, complicates [00:15:00] my life to a tremendous level. first like driving, getting all the gear together, hours of hiking, the training that it requires, it's very thorough endeavor.

Laurent Frat: And if I was able to sit on a cushion and feel the content, man, they sure would make life easier. But, I think both of us are of similar minds when, that, Sense of contentment that comes from our activity. It's, just, I haven't been able to reach that state yet.

Yuri Kuznetsov: something both based in yoga and meditation will teach us is nothing is permanent. Everything changes. So yeah, you're content and you could be content for a month or it could be a couple of years and suddenly it changes and you're not enjoying it anymore for some reason or another. [00:16:00] And that's exactly what happened.

Yuri Kuznetsov: I was quite happy on the Island and suddenly I wasn't that happy. We decided to move to Europe, and Europe is beautiful. And there you are. The mountains are right above you. You drive or you walk by and, It only takes a few months and you're up on top and, Yeah, you hike a couple of times and then you think, maybe I'll just do a jump.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And there you are, full on back in the sport. except it's a different sport. Now it's, we see it's in the mountain, Paralpinism, or any way you want to call it. It's quite different from the, good old school base. 

Laurent Frat: You we talked at the beginning, I asked you what were some of the secrets to success.

Laurent Frat: And, one of the commonalities that we find talking with, our guests is that, personal awareness is, a really important ingredient. being able to step outside of yourself and, make judgment calls about the actions that [00:17:00] you're taking. Do you think that you gained additional personal awareness through your practice of meditation and yoga?

Yuri Kuznetsov: absolutely. Just not as much as I would wish for, but it helps. same goes for base jumping. That gives you a pretty good boost, in awareness, risk management. even common sense, I suppose you need common sense to begin with, to, survive any, length of time and base, but it builds up as well.

Laurent Frat: So you, You come from a family of skydivers, right? So then you've, you were skydiving with your family in the Soviet union. Is that right? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: yes and no, I come from a skydiving family, but back when I was a kid, it was indeed a Soviet union and you could not just show up at the drop zone and jump.

Yuri Kuznetsov: So I've done my first skydive when I was 13, but it was a pirate [00:18:00] jump. just a reunion of all time jumpers. And the next jump I did was actually when, Soviet Union broke and suddenly a commercial drop zone was in place of the military airfield. So I showed up and I could just pay and get on the plane and jump.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And that was it. And I was 18, by that time. So my second job was 18 and it was. No longer a Soviet Union that was wild new Russia, you pay and you get whatever you want. So it just 

Laurent Frat: unrolled from there. The beauty of capitalism, right? Communism, no skydiving. Capitalism, you can pay and go jump. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: yes and no, but I suppose back in the day you could get on the team and you would get Free jumping and free everything.

Yuri Kuznetsov: But if you're not in the military or semi paramilitary team, then nah, you couldn't jump. So yeah, good and bad. 

Laurent Frat: I joke mostly. [00:19:00] so then that first jump was, did you jumping around? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, that was a big, big military, Round static line. And I was probably, I don't know, like 45 kilos took me a while to, to get done 

Laurent Frat: just taking you wherever the wind blew.

Laurent Frat: Yep. Yeah. Wow. And, so your mom and dad were both military jumpers then? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: not military sport jumpers. It's just, it just happened that. Sport was, paramilitary back then. Okay. So to be on the proper team, you were, technically, either a member of military or, paramilitary, whatever it was called back then.

Laurent Frat: And, again, going back to your log book, there was, a lot of building jumps, a lot of slick, a lot of, old school and slider down. and then you took a break [00:20:00] and, sorry. No, you had. And then did you have wingsuiting? Cause I see some pictures of you and a Skyflyer and, some of the old, like the first wingsuits ever made.

Laurent Frat: tell me a little bit about that era when wingsuiting first came into the scene. Let's 

Yuri Kuznetsov: see. It's probably been six years of pure base jumping because wingsuits didn't exist. And then in 99, the first suits appeared. We also, Patrick, obviously. And then friends of mine in Moscow actually made a very crude wingsuit prototype out of a ski jumper neoprene suit with wings attached to it.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And then, Birdman just appeared out of nowhere. So there was Yari and Robbie and the, Birdman classic. Came up and yeah, that was it. Summer of 99 in Chirag. [00:21:00] We all reconvened with those first suits. And once you try it, there is no way back. 

Laurent Frat: Did you make a skydive with a wingsuit first, or did you just send it off the cliff or what was that like?

Yuri Kuznetsov: Let me remember, I did make a few skydives, it wasn't many, but I probably made a dozen or so, maybe a dozen, maybe about 20 skydives, I think on Classic, right before I went to Chirag, and it just felt natural, it was Really easy for me. Just felt I don't know, like I already had a couple of hundred jumps and just flew.

Laurent Frat: And just like everyone else who said, Oh, okay, this is going to make it safer. Because it would make separation from the wall. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Exactly. In the first few years, we had this foolish idea that it will make jumping. So much safer because you will never ever hit the wall again. And yeah, it was a case for the first couple of years.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And then, [00:22:00] it all went downhill. 

Laurent Frat: Figuratively and literally. Yep. do you have any early hard lessons with wingsuits? do you remember any of oh shit, this is, I need to take this seriously. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: I think my close calls were mostly, jumping Sleek Way before wingsuits, and then the, wingsuiting, the first years of wingsuiting were actually quite safe.

Yuri Kuznetsov: It was actually getting you away from the object and opening quite high, and everything went all right. The, yeah, the close calls started to come in later on when everyone started to flying either close to terrain or, trying to, outfly something and pulling real low. there is a, theory behind it.

Yuri Kuznetsov: people try to, keep the same level of risk. [00:23:00] People try to find a constant, like comfortable level of risk. And then if equipment gets better, they just pull lower. They just come closer to the cliff. They try to, keep it as risky as they wanted to begin with. So you cannot give them a safe to and expect jumping to become much safer.

Yuri Kuznetsov: No, they will simply take thinner margins. 

Laurent Frat: That's the same with skills as well, isn't it? people are always on a constant quest for challenge. And, so if things become comfortable, then you just have to continue, Making those margins smaller. To get that same sort of hit. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah. You keep the risk constant.

Yuri Kuznetsov: That's a, motto 

Laurent Frat: as have you ever felt like in your approach, okay. even if I'm not satisfied, this is like where I keeping my practice[00:24:00] 

Yuri Kuznetsov: as in, stopping before I got 

Laurent Frat: hurt. Yeah. like sometimes like I find like myself doing that now lately where it's like. maybe the jump itself isn't like the primary motivation for the outing that day. And, like I'll land and it won't be like the most amazing jump ever. And I just have to have satisfaction with it being a humble jump or, not pushing my limits or, I'm a dad now and I have some responsibilities to stay alive.

Laurent Frat: And, I just. Feel like for me knowing that I'm not getting the most incredible jump in means that I'm staying within my margin a bit. do you ever have similar thoughts, feelings? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, probably most of the time I tend not to push it too far anyway. I try to, keep a [00:25:00] reasonably thick margin and a lot of the time.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Jump is not even the, the goal. I like to be in the mountains and it's just a quick way down. So I would guess probably a majority of my jumping is, it's just an excuse to go up. Either it's a mountain I love, or it's a new place that I want to see. And then, yeah, I hate hiking down. So I'll fly. 

Laurent Frat: Yeah. You must have bad knees like me.

Laurent Frat: you moved to Slovenia. And then, you saw the mountains in your backyard and you, only couldn't resist for a short period of time. And then you got back into base and I'm assuming now that, the wing suits were better, the gears better people are using lasers to measure exit points, we've got the fly site and other GPS units to, [00:26:00] to record and, mess with some data, what was it like coming back to the new base?

Yuri Kuznetsov: Huh, interesting. The first time I stopped for a couple of years, the game didn't change too much. I came right back into it and actually... I did some really nice flights, opened a bunch of new walls, and then, when it suddenly faded again, and I didn't jump for three years, and I came back to Europe, it was a different sport altogether.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Everything changed. The approach, the skills, the gear, and suddenly everyone is using flysides, lasers. You put a flight profile before you jump. Everything was a new game, so I had to learn from the scratch like a student. I thought originally, yeah, I'll just make a couple of jumps on my old, prodigy.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Just, once a year, air out. And sure enough, next [00:27:00] thing I know, I borrow a couple of, real suits from James at Brento. And then next thing I know, I just bought a suit again. And, once I was on a proper suit, now I have to learn the whole game again. What I've done five years ago doesn't really cut it any longer.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And that's where FlySides came up and all my friends. where, I was lucky to hang out with, proper professionals at the, at the time. They knew how to train and what to do to get back in the game very quickly. So there we go, FlySight headphones, SkyDerby bass line, here's your laser. And probably a year into it, I was reasonably current and two years into it.

Yuri Kuznetsov: I felt yep, I could open new stuff. I could be, an average jumper now. And that's after being in the [00:28:00] sport for 20 years. I felt like I'm just coming back up to speed, just to give you a perspective on how much things change in that short period of time. So I smile every time I see somebody who just came into the sport and two years into it.

Yuri Kuznetsov: They're trying to go full on. 

Laurent Frat: You said that the approach was different. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. How do you see the approach changing? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: it became much, much, more, technical. Which, again, it could have made things way safer. But all it does, it lets us, open harder. More technical exits with less of a margin.

Yuri Kuznetsov: So yeah, we could take a laser and a fly site to Brento and it would be the safer thing in the world. Instead, we're going to open a new cliff. That's got a, probably like an 80 meter rock drop with a 25 meter ledge. And then it goes to hell from there.[00:29:00] 

Laurent Frat: Are you, are you listening to feedback from the fly site? with headphones on 

Yuri Kuznetsov: your flights. yeah, that's been a great training tool. In fact, I keep it on all the jumps now cause it's a good feedback. It's a quicker than your brain can process visual, feedback. And to me personally, it doesn't annoy me at all.

Yuri Kuznetsov: some people don't like it, but, technically and for, training, it's a great tool. That's something every new jumper needs to use for a while. Then you can get rid of it if, yeah, if you don't need it anymore. But it's, just like having any, any of your, gauges in a plane. You don't really throw them away.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah. Once, once you get off student status, you don't throw, away your tools. they're still useful. Yeah. 

Laurent Frat: I had an interesting conversation with Michael Cooper the other day. the, designer of fly site and, he was talking about just that, [00:30:00] how quick the feedback is and, I can't remember how many milliseconds it is, but it's faster than your brain can process.

Laurent Frat: and. That even it's so fast that even like when trying to correct it, that you can create this pilot induced oscillation, just because of, things are happening faster than you can think. And then you're, reflexes to respond. anyhow, I, What do you, what are the audio, settings that you have giving you, what kind of feedback are you getting?

Laurent Frat: Is it all audio sounds like, or is it spoken word? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: the setup seems to be the same for all the competition jumpers, that I know it's, spoken forward speed, heavy, two seconds. That seems to be the, the best setup we've tried a million of different ways. And, the best feedback that actually is useful is forward speed 

Laurent Frat: spoken every [00:31:00] two seconds.

Laurent Frat: Yep. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: That seems to be empirically, the best. 

Laurent Frat: And then when you get that number. In your ears, let's say you're going for, cause I, I consider you as someone who's really pushing the limits for glide flights. Like you have, this hidden Slovenia or secret Slovenia video that you shared with me and man, you're like jumping off of these cliffs and it just goes forever crossing into other valleys and whatnot.

Laurent Frat: And, the glides are spectacular. I want to talk more about that in particular, but first, like when you're using that speed number to get maximum glide out of your suit, can you work through that process with me a little bit, just to understand better? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: if we speak about the technical side of it, it's, it's quite simple.

Yuri Kuznetsov: [00:32:00] Empirically. The aerodynamics, are a whole science, but for us, you just need to know your polar curve of the suit. You need to know your best glide speed, which for most of us will be, let's say, about 150k, as in kilometers, not miles. And if you keep it at that speed, that's it. You're gliding. You want more speed if you're closer to terrain.

Yuri Kuznetsov: You could use a little bit less if you're soaring in thermals, but yeah, that's yeah, that's a simple Empirical guide just keep your ideal speed and that's it Most of the time you will not be just flying a straight line. You'd be playing with terrain But if you have to get somewhere, yeah, you need to know how to, keep the suit on that, point in the polar curve and 

Laurent Frat: that's that interesting.

Laurent Frat: So I'm just assuming that [00:33:00] you were doing a wide variety of practice with your suit off of. Objects like Brento, for example, you were getting that feedback and then by studying the data that you had, you ascertained what your polar curve is and realize that, okay, or someone told you that about 150 kilometers per hour forward speed is your, is your ideal, ideal speed for glide.

Laurent Frat: Oh 

Yuri Kuznetsov: yeah. you notice it empirically. Obviously when you've got a hundred tracks, at which speed you're gliding best. And then, same tracks can be analyzed. and the polar curve that you build, I chose the same give or take a couple of case. So they all agree. 

Laurent Frat: So when you moved to Slovenia and there [00:34:00] was a lot of new cliffs for you to jump.

Laurent Frat: And you had this new skill of, and knowledge to use the laser range finder. you've now opened, a significant amount of cliffs. Can you walk us through a little bit about, staying with this technical side of things, what your workflow is as far as, finding a cliff, measuring, reading the maps maybe, and how do you, how does it work out for you?

Laurent Frat: Your opening process. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Oh, it's pretty standard. And there are plenty of people who open way more, new exits than I do. But the process is simple. You see something and you think, it could be jumpable. And you look at the topo. The first thing you do is, if there is a line, if there is a flight path, can you, reach a landing area, then you go and hopefully find the exit and you measure it with a laser.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And ideally, [00:35:00] you look at your, phone, laptop, if you're at home, if you, don't jump at the same day. There is your, laser cliff profile. There is a bunch of your tracks. You look at your worst tracks and see what kind of margin you get, and then, you make a call. If it looks reasonable, if the margin is okay.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yep, let's go open it, and if not, leave it till next season when we get best, better suits, hopefully, when our skill improves. to, tell the truth, the suits maxed out a few years ago, performance wise. We, if we get anything, it's really incremental, it's One or two percent of Glide in the last few years.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Exits don't improve much since, Rebel. it's really pilot skills that's improved in the last few years. So hopefully next season we'll get better and we can open it. A lot of exits are sitting unopened [00:36:00] because we think we're just, not good enough. Either for the start or for the, Glide for making the, landing area.

Yuri Kuznetsov: But if everything looks all right and the margin is okay, then yep. There we go. We just go 

Laurent Frat: and open. Do you keep your data on a spreadsheet? Do you use one of the apps? How do you compare, like when you're shooting laser and you get some numbers, how do you compare it to your personal? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: nobody is keeping it on a spreadsheet anymore.

Yuri Kuznetsov: There is either a Sky Derby or a Baseline, so it seems like people are split 50 50. In the States Baseline is a bit more popular and Sky Derby is more common in Europe. They have the same functionality. As far as analyzing the jump and your own tracks, the only difference is Sky Derby is open for everyone.

Yuri Kuznetsov: As far as you can see everyone's tracks. So it's good for competitions. It's good to compare. Baseline, you see your own tracks and that's about it. So it's great to analyze your own [00:37:00] flights. It's just harder to compare to other people. But for, purpose of opening a jump, they both function the same.

Yuri Kuznetsov: You've got your own, tracks, a hundred tracks, then you've got your cliff profile and if it fits. And that's that, there are other, other, technicalities as far as weather conditions, whether it's a South face or a North face, and that comes with experience, how much uplift updraft thermals you get on the South face.

Yuri Kuznetsov: As it happens to be in Slovenia, most exits, for some reason, are north or northwest, so you get no help, or you get some down draft, so you have to account for that, but, otherwise, yeah, it's your, laptop, there is your profile, and there is a cliff, and see if they match. 

Laurent Frat: Yeah, there's definitely, some exits that I like to wait for the afternoon or only do in the morning just because they get [00:38:00] some sun right on the face there.

Laurent Frat: It makes everything a lot more comfortable when everything's on the north face. That's less comfortable. Yep. so you did a lot of, Testing, to find what the best wingsuit is for you. you had a post on Facebook a while back, comparing all of your data from different suits and whatnot. And it was probably the most compare, most comprehensive comparison I've seen for the suits.

Laurent Frat: can you summarize a little bit about, Your process through that and, what you found out. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, I guess the background to that would be, I've always liked to, track him and before we came up. So the first season in, which was 96, we, went there and. Everyone was doing 10 seconds and suddenly you track and it's a 20 second delay.

Yuri Kuznetsov: It's a whole new jump and that was a lot of [00:39:00] fun. And it naturally continued into wingsuits. With the wingsuit, I always liked to fly far. I always like to get a glide, some flight out of it. it's not just a suit. For, bombing down and it's, at the beginning there was no choice. We had classics, then we had vampires, and suddenly Tony Suit comes up and people get Tony suits, and I see my friends getting those suits and flying circles around me.

Yuri Kuznetsov: I just had to try it. And I tried AP. And it was like a revolution. I couldn't believe that the suit could fly that well. It was really, it wasn't a step, it was a jump up. So I switched to it that same day. and I had a season or two and that was fun. And then I stopped. And then that's when I... Then I wasn't jumping for three years.

Yuri Kuznetsov: When I came back again, everything [00:40:00] changed. There was another generation, probably two generations of suits up, and I had to learn the whole game again. And I started with, Tony suits. I had the rebel for a couple of seasons. That was great. But then, Tony suits, disappeared, Tony retired, and that was it for it.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And there was really, no choice left. I took a squirrel for a try. And again, I was something to, you had to try to believe it. It was again, a revolution for, for me. 

Laurent Frat: In terms of performance or comfort or, tell me more. Yeah, 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, in terms of comfort, yes, but mostly in terms of performance, it just happened to coincide with the place I was in.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Coincidentally, my closest cliffs, like closest exits to my home, you [00:41:00] really have to glide. And the closest one, in fact, I opened it because you really have to have a suit that will make the landing area. So as far as I know, it's only been flown in Jedi tree and then in a glider. And the next closest, that's our regular, tracking jump.

Yuri Kuznetsov: It's a really nice wingsuit flight, if you can fly out. And again, it's been flown in, Jedis and in, CR Plus and gliders. And that's it. You really have to, come out. And it's a really interesting jump. You are flying by terrain all the time. So it's not a skydive, it's actually a very nice visual jump, but you have to make it out.

Laurent Frat: You, you worked with, sorry, I'm cutting you off. What, you started working with Squirrel, to develop the glider. Tell me a little bit about that process. [00:42:00] 

Yuri Kuznetsov: that was a project that came out of necessity. There was... A lot of flights, I really wanted to either open or keep jumping with slightly bigger margin to make them everyday jumps where I needed just that much more glide, and it needed a good start.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Basically, I wanted a Jedi 3 that improved a little bit. Jedi 3 was probably four or five years old by then, so it was well overdue for improvement. And it seems like at the time we had either... Competition suits which would glide real well, but they were really made for a skydive. They wouldn't exit Or we had Rebels that would exit instantly, but then you just didn't have that last bit of a glide.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And, Squirrel suddenly said, hey, if that's something you want, let's try. And that became a project. And I think by itself, it was a bit, raw. [00:43:00] It could have benefited from another year of development. But I think that gave a lot of insight that went into other lines of suits. So it probably improved Corvid a lot.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And, at the, moment, there is a good selection of suits you can have, basically anything you want. You can have a glidey suit, which would be CR you can have a racy suit, which would be CR, you can have Corvid, which is your everyday, suit, or Aura, which does it all, or Glider, which seems to be a very niche suit.

Yuri Kuznetsov: I don't think a lot of people would, like it as such. But it was a tool for a specific job, yeah, an early exit and a good glide. Get somewhere that, you wouldn't want that's for a 1 percent of exits where you just wouldn't want to jump it if you didn't have 

Laurent Frat: that suit. It is very niche. I'm, [00:44:00] curious why now, what would change your, selection between a CR plus and a glider?

Yuri Kuznetsov: at the moment, I would, I like CR plus way better just because it's a fun suit. And at the moment, I think 90 percent of my flights would be on CR plus. And then if I had to get a new suit now, I think I would just go with a standard Corvette too. For the tight exits and the regular jumps. So if it was me just buying suits, I would get Corvid plus, CR plus with base mods and that would cover my whole range.

Laurent Frat: Yeah. I flew the glider three or four times now. And, it was, I can't think of anything better than learning your polar curve to in, because if you're going too [00:45:00] slow, it's just. Incredibly exhausting on your arms, just holding the form of the suit. So you need a little bit of speed to work with.

Laurent Frat: And, the only thing I can think of, as a similar would be back as like when I played little league baseball, we would put like some weight on a baseball, and swing it around that suit, I think helps you do become a better pilot just because, you learn that. Lift drag ratio for your suit.

Laurent Frat: there's just no holding it if you're, going too slow with too head high a position. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, it was a specific tool for a specific job. It was not an easy suit to fly. It isn't easy. And consequently, 95 percent of the jumpers don't need it, don't want it. And when they try it, they don't like it.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And that's, yeah, that's why it never will be mainstream. I think it could have been. Better as a prototype that [00:46:00] experience would go into other lines of suits, but it was fun to try it as a separate product, And there is a lot of experience that came out of that project that improves everything else.

Laurent Frat: I would have liked to see the same suit with a little bit more internal pressure that helped make it less exhausting. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah. there will be something, I'm pretty sure down the line, might would be the, Yeah, they want to speak about it. Yeah. But there will be, something coming up, that will, take better parts of this project and, get rid of the worst ones.

Laurent Frat: So we talked a little bit about, the new suits, all the technology that came out and, how you started base jumping and what it was like in the early phases. you think now that there's just a. people have a more technical approach to the sport. Is there anything else that sort of stands [00:47:00] out to you as far as like perhaps the community, the way that information is shared, regulations, anything else that's much different?

Laurent Frat: Much more different now, than it was before 

Yuri Kuznetsov: something that stands out more than anything is probably the openness suddenly Information is shared base jumping used to be really secretive in America, obviously because it was mostly illegal But even in Europe the French jumpers always kept their sites Super secret their topo was a legend you really had to work hard to get your hands on it And it was like that when I quit the first time, and then when I come back, suddenly everything is open.

Yuri Kuznetsov: The Frenchies put their book online. To me it was a shock, I could not believe it, because I was still subscribing to the old [00:48:00] secret way of life. The exits have to be protected, you cannot show them to... The wider public, et cetera. So it took me a year or two to adjust. I was watching it in disbelief. No, this cannot be true.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Everything will get burned. And then a year passes. No, everything is fine. In fact, we've got twice as many exits open. Now, nothing burned. Everything is all right. And then a couple of years later, we've got 10 times the exits. Everything is perfect. And then the book went full on online. Now everyone can update it.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And a few years down the line, I totally switched my perception. I went full 180 on it. I saw the light information really needs to be shared. It actually works better that way. There are very specific exceptions. Maybe, I don't know, two or three or five percent of the, jumps, talking about mountains mostly, [00:49:00] that need to stay low key for, a specific reason, but the vast majority is online.

Yuri Kuznetsov: People share the lasers, the points, the hikes, everything, and it makes things safer. It's, just safer. It's more fun. And for anyone with half a brain, information makes a difference. It actually. Improves our safety record. 

Laurent Frat: Yeah, I agree with you on that. There's, I can only think of 1 jump in France where it's a little bit sensitive because the landing area is on private property and they don't want to have a bunch of jumpers come there.

Laurent Frat: So that 1 isn't really talked about much. But then, and then a couple in Switzerland where the farmers are really. Particular, where it just couldn't tolerate the number of jumpers that it might see, because of ease of access and whatnot. but otherwise, yeah, it just makes so much sense.

Laurent Frat: Like I remember, for a newer guy like [00:50:00] me, people would ask me about how to get to a jump, I would send them a pin or something and give them a direction or, just copy and paste and then translate from the French Topo. And now it's there's just. So much information online that, there's, it's taken all this mystery out of it and in a really positive way too, because you, for one, you get all the correct information, exactly where you're going.

Laurent Frat: There's no, rolling the dice on jumping off some cliff. That's not even appropriate. And, and then you also know what you're getting into, Before you start the hike or the approach or whatever it is. And I think that can create a bit of margin for people, right? if they know that the hike is going to be, six hours, it's only the fit people that are going to do that.

Laurent Frat: Hopefully that's interesting. I had a conversation with a Swiss guy, not a Swiss guy, not too long ago about how he had changed his, thought process on that as [00:51:00] well. And, yeah, it's, That is a huge mental shift in, in base jumping, I assume, since you have so much experience and you've been in a long way, people were happy to share with you, did you ever have to go and explore and find cliffs for yourself that you knew people had been to, 

Yuri Kuznetsov: plenty, yeah, I had to go all over it, at home, I had to basically rediscover the, the whole country, the whole Slovenia had to be reopened, again, because, not everyone, Subscribes to this new ways of, sharing sadly.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And, there is really no reason for it. one thing you learn when you are base jump is you cannot keep anything secret if something has been jumped once. It will be jumped twice. Anyone with a bit of motivation will come and jump. It's just every time you [00:52:00] open a cliff, there are certain risks involved in opening.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And we all know a number of, fatalities where people died looking for exits. they didn't do a jump. So there is no need to bring all that extra risk over and over again. You might as well share it if you've opened it. And once you share it. You will see nothing bad happens. People who want to come and jump something technical, they will do it regardless.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And those who don't have the skill or motivation, they will not. It's the same as in climbing, same as in scuba diving. You've got your sights, you've got your data, and then people decide.

Laurent Frat: Yeah, that's, seems appropriate. What do you think? Base jumping has brought to your personal life. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: I would guess, the first [00:53:00] step was, face your fears and then learn to enjoy. First step was to recognize you're scared. Second was to, deal with it. And third was to really start enjoying it. And then later in the game, it gives you the same that yoga or meditation gives to people.

Yuri Kuznetsov: You suddenly realize you are in that moment. You live in the moment and it's right there. And then you like it so much you, you want to stretch it. You want to, stretch it to your regular everyday life with, different levels of success, but at least you've seen it and you know what to aim for.

Laurent Frat: Oh, that's great. calm through fear. And then, maybe setting a baseline and happiness that you want to incorporate in the rest of your life. [00:54:00] Interesting. Yeah. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: And it, it just brings a lot of fun into this as well. Oh, man. Places that you've never, that you would never see without this sport. The, the people, are help, the fun.

Yuri Kuznetsov: You meet a really unique, really interesting, unusual people. And, yeah, all of it combined, it's fun. There is a bit of, good that comes out of it. personal development, maybe you can call it that. there is obviously a dark side of it. Just about anything in life has a dark side. yeah, we just deal with it.

Laurent Frat: What is your, journey through loss been like?

Yuri Kuznetsov: That's a difficult question. And I guess we had a little bit too much, To lose in this game, too many friends, [00:55:00] and if you compare it to anything else, it probably is best compared to, people who went through war. You lose so many close friends, it's not normal at all. At some point, I personally started to become a bit numb, and I guess everyone deals with it differently, but yeah, you notice the numbness.

Yuri Kuznetsov: When it happens for the 10th, for the 20th time, the brain just shuts the emotional part. Especially if you're directly involved, if you have to deal with it. You just do all the technical bits, whatever happens to be recovery or deal with, consequences. But yeah, emotions.

Yuri Kuznetsov: I don't think there is much to learn or teach anyone that comes out of it. It's just part of the [00:56:00] game. You have to deal with extreme emotions and... One way of your body or your mind dealing with it is by, trying to numb it down a bit. 

Laurent Frat: Yeah, I'm nodding in agreement. I think there's something to take away from it.

Laurent Frat: And the fact that, someone who's experienced as you, sharing your experience, can normalize that in a way. And, people that are listening to this may, like me, nod my head in agreement. Or learn about it for the first time. So I think it's, there's value in talking about it and this, shared experience, not to get all wishy washy on it, but, I feel like that numbness, Is deceiving because, at first you like you don't feel anything and you go along your, path, thinking everything's okay, but then it manifests in other ways, that, [00:57:00] it pops up in some frustration or, some anger or it just.

Laurent Frat: It rears its head in other parts of your life. And even if it doesn't feel, it feels normal or it feels like you're good at it. It shows up later on. Has that been your experience as well? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah. Emotions come up one way or another, but once you, once you see them, it's not a problem anymore. You just feel numb.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And then an hour later. You want to cry well, you just go and cry and that's that but again after you've been in the game for a while And you lost some friends jumping and some went the other way You notice people who died outside of base jumping probably didn't have it any better In fact a lot of the time it's been worse.

Yuri Kuznetsov: So maybe it's not the worst way to go and regardless, you don't have a [00:58:00] Choice as such, you jump because you have to. and when I stopped those couple of times, that was one of the lessons, I took out of you jump because you have to, as soon as you don't have to jump, you stop. You don't quit. It just quits.

Yuri Kuznetsov: You, you literally, you just realize, oh, it's been a year since I jumped and I feel okay. I feel fine. So if you can. Live your life and not jump. Yeah, by all means, please do. Because jumping is not good for you. It's not practical. There is no reason to do it. Unless you just have to. We all jump because we have to, whatever, specific details might be, but we all have to jump.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And as long as we have to, we jump as soon as we can stop. We stop. And, that's that. 

Laurent Frat: Do you keep that in mind regularly? do you check in with yourself? Hey, I'm want to [00:59:00] do this. I have to do this. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Absolutely. Yeah. That's, how you decide in the morning, you wake up and it's a lot of work to make a jump, especially in the mountains.

Yuri Kuznetsov: You have to drive, you have to hike a few hours. Sometimes you actually have to, find new exits. You don't know if you will find it, if you will have to hike down or if it's going to be nighttime and you will have to sleep somewhere, on a snowy mountain. So it's a lot of work and risk. And when you wake up at five in the morning, if you can find the motivation to go through all of it, yeah, you're going to jump.

Yuri Kuznetsov: But if you don't have to do that. You will just turn over and sleep again and that's it. You'll find yourself on the beach in the afternoon. 

Laurent Frat: Do you we talked a little bit about the dark side of it. do you still find a lot of beauty in [01:00:00] bass? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Absolutely. That's the, that's probably the only thing that gets me going.

Yuri Kuznetsov: The beauty of it, especially the beauty in the mountains. It's, it's exactly the same reason that slightly more normal people, if you can say that, go and climb big mountains. In fact, those guys are hardcore. They're way more hardcore than us. Majority of them, but the same reason people go and climb something, let's say anything above seven or 8, 000 meters.

Yuri Kuznetsov: That's way more hardcore than base jumping. Deadlier, riskier. People have the same reason, they just have to do it. Same as us. 

Laurent Frat: Yeah, there's something about high altitude alpinism that's, that kind of, people, I would say the wider public sort of shake their head at what we're doing, and then in the same...[01:01:00] 

Laurent Frat: Time will celebrate climbers. And, I don't know what it is exactly. Perhaps it's like the jumping off of something that people just cannot relate to, but, everything that comes down to base, and risk is, mostly, human induced, Choices that we make and in the high mountains, the mountains are making those choices for you.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, but the common theme there, beyond the fact that we have to go and do it, it's the beauty of it, the incredible beauty when you get up high, it just takes you, the beauty actually puts you in that moment, you don't actually have to jump off, you can just... Stand there and look around and your brain just stops.

Yuri Kuznetsov: It shuts. It shuts down. The beauty is that same zen moment and a lot, I think a lot of the people go [01:02:00] there for the beauty of it. And especially lately I see myself in the mountains just for the sake of being in the mountains. And the jump, the jump could be beautiful, but a lot of the time it's just means of getting down, really.

Yuri Kuznetsov: for me personally, it's a minor part of the game at this stage. maybe because I never got into proxy flying and really cutting trees with my fingernails. for me, being in the mountains is the biggest part of the fun. 

Laurent Frat: Would you consider yourself an independent thinker? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, that would apply to just about everybody's jumper.

Yuri Kuznetsov: I suppose with rare exceptions. 

Laurent Frat: Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure. I think that, with the, rise of social media, there's a lot of, [01:03:00] lines that people want to fly and they see that they learn about it on a video and then they copy it. And, if, that's how you get your pleasure, that's cool.

Laurent Frat: And I don't want to judge anybody's practice. It's just more that, there's a loss of maybe the artistic side of the, or the creative side of, forging your own line. And, I think you have that opportunity of being, where it is that you live and, flying from new exits of Oh, this is what feels good.

Laurent Frat: This is what I, this is the line that I want to draw on the sky right here. And for me, that's an element of creativity and wingsuiting that, that's a little bit different. And that's, I would say, more independent minded. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah, I personally always liked, new places. Whether it's travel, whether it's new exits, [01:04:00] new mountains, I stopped going to Lauterbrunnen long, long time ago. Just because, yeah, it's convenient, but there is nothing. New and it's nice to revisit maybe once in 10 years and there has been some new stuff open and yeah You can't possibly open one or two yourself, but then no, I don't think Going the same places or same jumps over and over again is a lot of fun for me Some people are different some people actually like A line that they can raise a hundred times and they get the kick out of improving that particular line.

Yuri Kuznetsov: And whatever gets you off, that's great. It's just, there are many ways to have fun and luckily there is endless world around. You can go and open new. Jobs, new flights, new countries. In fact, every day there is still [01:05:00] maybe three quarters of the world. That's completely unexplored. So yeah, we'll never run out of new places.

Yuri Kuznetsov: There is no worries here. 

Laurent Frat: There are certainly lots of new places to explore. What do you, what do you think, holds, base holds for you in your future? 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Oh, it's hard to say cause it changes. One thing you learn, whether it's jumping, whether you're doing yoga. nothing is permanent, everything keeps changing and I can see myself stopping again at some point and I can see restarting yet again.

Yuri Kuznetsov: nothing is fixed. It really goes with your mood swings or the way your life is taking shape. At the moment, I'm six months into my, ACL rehab, so I haven't jumped for half a year. And it definitely feels different from [01:06:00] when I was in the mountains every other day, but that will change soon again.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Hopefully in a couple of months, I'll be up on a cliff and the process starts again over and over. That's the beauty of life. It keeps changing. Nothing is permanent. It's just like jump, you go up, then you go down. If you just went up and stayed on the cliff, most likely you just freeze to death when winter came.

Laurent Frat: Yuri, this has been a pleasure. And like you say, nothing's permanent. And, this podcast is just the same. it's been a pleasure chatting with you. And, again, thank you for being on. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yeah. Likewise. It will be a pleasure to see you on the cliff, be it France, Slovenia, or elsewhere. It's going to be fun.

Yuri Kuznetsov: Let's make it 

Laurent Frat: happen. 

Yuri Kuznetsov: Yep. Let's do it.

Laurent Frat: We hope you [01:07:00] enjoyed this episode. If you have any thoughts about what you've just heard, please don't hesitate to hit us up. A big shout out to Mark Stockwell, our sound mixer and co producer. We love you, man. If you'd like to learn more about the podcast, please visit exitpointpodcast. com. See you on the next one.