Verena: So Nikolay, how are you today?

Nikolay: Great! Every day is better than yesterday.

Verena: Perfect. Today we are talking about Korua Shapes. Does that bring back memories for you?

Nikolay: Cold fingers.

Verena: Cold fingers?

Nikolay: Freezing fingers. But it was super fun.

Verena: What is special about Korua from your point of view?

Nikolay: Korua is actually a well-established snowboard brand. They've gotten away from mainstream, park and other stuff and back to traditional carving and freeriding.

Verena: Their shapes are also pretty fancy.

Nikolay: The shapes are different from other snowboard brands. For me personally, Korua has the best snowboards on earth. The way they feel and frankly speaking - I have big feet too, I'm a big boy. I only ride big boards and Korua's are perfect for me.

Verena: Korua not only manufactures snowboards, but also splitboards. How did they come up with the idea of the Splitboard Weekend?

Nikolay: Since the Korua guys are out in nature a lot anyways, they decided to create an events series around it. Ischgl was a good location to start with, because there you can go up super high by cable car. Otherwise, you would have to hike up the first part, which would be about 1500 meters in altitude. For people who don't have much endurance, that's tough.

Verena: Then there were about 1000 meters of altitude left until the summit, right?

Nikolay: Indeed. Piz Buin was the name of the mountain we conquered. It was definitely very beautiful up there. We slept on a hut near the Swiss border. In other words, switch off your Internet. Very important.

Verena: Why?

Nikolay: Otherwise your mobile phone provider will surprise you with a nice bill by the end of the month. (laughs)

Verena: Tell me more about the tour itself.

Nikolay: First, we made our way to the hut. Therefore, we left the skiing area and moved towards the Swiss border. We had two mountain guides in our team, who gave us avalanche training. At the hut we had super tasty dinner too and also breakfast. The next two days were spent exploring the surrounding mountains - basically day trips. Those who were very sporty even did two tours in one day.

Verena: Back to the cold fingers. How bad was it?

Nikolay: Ouch, one day it was -17 degrees plus wind. Back then I had an older Sony with me and six small batteries. One was inside the camera and the others I carried in the inner breast pocket of my ski jacket the whole time. The camera was not the problem, but the batteries.

Verena: They did not like the cold?

Nikolay: They didn't die, but they were always empty within 15 minutes. I mean, they weren't empty, they were just cold. The battery wasn't running because of the cold. Think of old iPhones. When it's cold, they always turn off immediately. Funnily enough, you could reuse the batteries for 15 minutes at a time if you warmed them up with your body heat. So, I had to change the batteries every 15 minutes, which was quite exhausting. (laughs) Nevermind - it was definitely worth it.

Verena: The photos are incredibly beautiful. How were they finally used?

Nikolay: There were so many pictures. You can't even imagine. The editing took me forever. Korua originally wanted to use the pictures to promote their next Splitboard Weekend. Unfortunately, the event had to be postponed because of Corona. In fact, we were in Ischgl right at the time when Corona hit the place. Luckily, we were far away from the touristy places. We didn't get in contact with anyone infected.

Verena: What do the participants say about the pictures?

Nikolay: The participants got the pictures a week later. Everyone was super happy. Many of them printed them out and hung them on their walls.

Verena: So the resonance was good!

Nikolay: Definitely. And now we are just waiting for the next Splitboard Weekend. Hopefully soon.