BULGARIA

BULGARIA / БЪЛГАРИЯ.

First Bulgarian Mount Everest Ascent.
Mount Everest.
Stamp issued on 31.05.1984.
Face value: 5 Bulgarian stotinki.
Printing: Photogravure.
Print: 1,000,000 copies.
Size: 33 x 44 mm.

Catalogs
- Michel No. 3269.
- Scott No. 2981.
- StampWorld No. 3279.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 3150.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 2844.

Mount Everest (in Nepali, सगरमाथा [Sagarmāthā]; in Tibetan, ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ [Chomolungma]; in Chinese, 珠穆朗玛 [Zhūmùlǎngmǎ]), in the Himalayas, 8,848.86 m (29,031.7 ft) high above sea level, it is the highest mountain on the earth's surface. It is located on the border between Nepal (on its south face) and Tibel, in China (on its north face). After several attempts, the Nepalese Tenzing Norgay and the New Zelander Edmund Hillary were the first to officially reach the summit, via the southeast ridge, on May 29, 1953. The first ascent up the north ridge was made by the Chinese mountaineering team of Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo and Qu Yinhua on May 25, 1960. The name by which the mountain is universally known, adopted by the Royal Geographical Society in 1865, is that of the British George Everest, who had been General Surveyor of India.

The mountaineer Hristo Prodanov (Bulgarian: Христо Проданов), born in Karlovo on February 24, 1943, died on Mount Everest on April 22, 1984. A member of the first Bulgarian expedition to Mount Everest, he was also the first Bulgarian to reach the summit of the mountain on April 21, 1984, doing it via the most difficult way (the West Ridge) as well as alone and without oxygen. Climbing the summit at 18:15 local time, he had to descend overnight and got lost shortly after that. On the next afternoon, I have reported he had lost his gloves and soon would be unable to hold the radio button long enough to talk. His body of him was never found.