OLEKSII HORB has climbed a 5,000-meter peak in Kyrgyzstan and dreamed of snowboarding in Vancouver. He traded office stability for adventure and uncertainty.
About Himself and His Passions: “I am naturally stubborn, because I’ve never been the type to sit still, and that trait has played a big role in achieving my goals. I try to be honest because it’s just easier to live that way.
I like to think of myself as sociable, but more as a response to others. Meaning, I don’t usually create a social scene around me, but I do feel comfortable in the company of others.
I’ve lived two lives—one as an office worker and one filled with very active leisure time. I am a construction engineer by education. It’s a great profession, and I enjoyed studying it. Right after the graduation, I worked in Poltava, Kharkiv, and Kyiv, achieving career success. Our firm participated in all the coolest projects in Kyiv—buildings, bridges. But I’ve always had this ‘itch’ that wouldn’t let me sit still.
When my work turned into a routine of going to the office in the morning and returning home at night, I started to realize that even my vacations weren’t enough for me to unwind. I kept feeling the pull to the mountains or to the water.
My boss even joked, ‘Oleksii, does your mother know where you’re wandering off to? Just make sure you come back from vacation.'”
About Hiking and Adventures: “When I realized that my hobby was overtaking my job, I knew something needed to be changed. So, I moved to Ivano-Frankivsk, rented an apartment there within half a day, and my stuff lived there while I hung out in the Carpathians, leading people on hikes in the mountains.
Later, I joined a tourist company in Ternopil, which became my little island of stability. At first, I worked as a rafting guide, taking people down the wild Black Cheremosh River. Afterward, I started managing a camp, and later on, I became the camp director.
In tourism, things rarely go exactly according to the plan. The weather can change everything. Once, we went to Tenerife for a three-day hike through volcanic deserts. We arrived on a Sunday and couldn’t find gas for our camping stoves. And, as you know, nothing is open in Europe on Sundays. Our hike without gas was doomed—adventures had begun. We even used to have this superstition: until you reach the official starting point of an adventure, you can’t say, ‘the adventure has started,’ otherwise everything is going to go wrong.
I was deeply and seriously involved in tourism for a long time. But then the full-scale war began. Now, tourism is something just for me and my wife. Before the war, my wife worked as a manager at the same company I did. When people started to get used to the war in mid-2022 and tourism resumed, she became very frustrated when men of conscription age would call her and, while I was fighting at the front, they would ask if there were any roadblocks on the way to their vacation spot. She lasted in that role until March 2024. And when I came home from the hospital after my injury, she allowed herself to quit.
I have no intention of leading hikes for people who are tired of the war and just chose to live their best life.”
About the War: “I’ll be honest, I missed the events of 2014 because I was focused on my work and my own life. But in 2022, I realized that I would either lose everything or do something to protect it. In the early days, I transported humanitarian aid from Romania. But eventually, I got tired of waiting for the military enlistment office to decide whether I was fit for service or classified as an internally displaced person (since I was living in Ternopil but was registered in Kherson). So, I bought my own gear (thanks to my experience in tourism) and, in the summer, enrolled in the Right Sector training center.
In the army, just like in mountaineering, democracy doesn’t exist. If you want to survive, you have to listen to the guide and work as a team. In mountaineering, if you can’t make it to the destination on time, you’re in serious trouble, which can cost you a limb or even your life. So, in the army, I understood: if you want to live, you have to follow orders.”
After the Combat: “In Luhansk, I sustained a mine-explosion injury to my thigh, and they had a piece of bone inserted. For a long time, I stayed at home, only leaving for rehabilitation. Eventually, I began to get involved in veteran movements. When I saw at the national selection event that only three people came from my native Kherson region (and we know that these people most likely don’t live there anymore), and only two came from Ternopil — it felt like the Bermuda Triangle. Veterans in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk are active, but in Ternopil, veterans seem to disappear after they are discharged.
I became frustrated that there were no veteran centers in Ternopil, and there was no accessible information on opportunities for veterans. When you stay in your own bubble for too long, you start to feel like you don’t want to do anything. A friend suggested taking part in the national competition for the Invictus Games, but I kept finding excuses. My drive seemed to have disappeared after the injury, painful rehabilitation, and dealing with the paperwork routine. At that time, all I wanted was for my unit to pay out the money they owed me and for the recruitment office to stop bothering me.”
About Sports: “I spent three days digesting the information about the Invictus Games, and eventually, I decided I had nothing to lose. I could just hang out and try something new. It was the first time in a year that I traveled by train alone.
It turned out that there were activities I used to be passionate about before my injury, like wakeboarding and snowboarding. Interestingly, sitting wakeboarding prepares you for sit-skiing, and wakeboarding while standing gets you ready for snowboarding. Archery was also a new discovery for me.
‘Invictus’ reignited my spark and gave me the strength to ‘push the cause’—telling other wounded soldiers about these opportunities and pestering the people responsible for providing services to veterans.”
About Dreams and Motivation: “I don’t really have dreams, I have desires. I used to dream of going to Canada to snowboard—it has the best spots for that. Now, there are certain challenges given the path I’ve taken to get there, but I’ll still go someday.
What demotivates me is injustice and the feeling that what you’re doing is pointless. On the other hand, what motivates me is seeing people in the pool without arms or legs pushing themselves, swimming hard.”
Translated by Green Forest English School