AMNIMAKEN
LINES · WAVES · WIND · MIND
Ski touring, surfing and practice meet here.
Different ways of exploring mountains, ocean and mind.
WHAT IS AMNIMAKEN
AMNIMAKEN is a personal project by Oleg Gritskevich, built around journeys through mountains, ocean, breath and mind
Some journeys are mainly about skiing, splitboarding or surfing. Others focus more on meditation and breath practice. Sometimes these directions naturally come together in the same journey.
THE STORY
In 1997, while waiting for a flight at John F. Kennedy Airport, I came across a book called Snowboarding to Nirvana. My English at the time was only good enough to understand the title (fortunately). But that was enough. It sounded almost like a plan.
Since then, that plan has taken me through snowboarding, mountain guiding, publishing, travels across the East, meditation and Tibetan practices, with quite a few unexpected turns along the way.
Today I still spend much of my life in the mountains, while surfing has opened up a new relationship with the ocean. Somewhere between moving over frozen and liquid water, meditation and breathing practices have become part of that same exploration.
WIND & MIND
In the Tibetan Tsa Lung tradition, wind is one of the fundamental energies. It moves through space and within us through the breath, closely connected with the movement of the mind.
Outside, wind transfers energy into the ocean, creating swells that may travel across half the world before a surfer joins their movement for a few seconds. In the mountains, wind moves snow, shapes terrain, opens some lines and makes others dangerous.
We cannot control the outer wind, but we can learn to move with it. Through breath and practice, we can also work with the inner wind and, through it, with the state of mind.
That relationship between outer and inner movement is what Wind & Mind means to me.
FOUR DIRECTIONS
LINES
Selected ski-touring and splitboarding journeys, from day tours to remote camps and expeditions. Small groups, interesting terrain and flexibility to follow the conditions. Mountains offer a powerful space for self-exploration, helping us step outside our usual sense of importance.
WAVES
Surfing and freediving offer another way of deep self-exploration, especially when enriched by meditation and breathing practices. In addition, controlling your mind can feel very similar to controlling your balance on a surfboard so you do not fall into the water. Freediving itself is deeply meditative.
WIND
Tsa Lung is a Tibetan practice using breath and movement to work with the channels, winds and mind, supporting clearer, more stable meditation. Its breathing methods may also support adaptation to lower oxygen availability, which can be relevant to freediving and high-altitude environments.
MIND
Meditation is the practice of awareness and our relationship to experience. It can stand alone or become part of daily life, movement and journeys through mountains and ocean. Despite its simplicity, it trains and regulates the mind, helping the brain work more efficiently. In computer terms, it is like updating the software and clearing the cache.
WHO THIS MAY SUIT
AMNIMAKEN is for people drawn to nature and self-exploration, who prefer small groups of like-minded people to mass tourism, and who value silence and remoteness.
You do not need previous meditation experience, and most ocean programs do not require previous surfing or freediving experience. Mountain programs have their own technical requirements, described on each program page.
MY ROLE
My role varies with the journey. In the mountains I may guide directly; where specialist instruction is required, such as surfing or freediving, I work with qualified professionals. My role is to integrate meditation and breathing practices as fully and naturally as possible into the activity itself.
UPCOMING JOURNEYS
Where I’m planning to go next
I organise only a limited number of group journeys each year. Some return to places I know well; others explore somewhere new.
WINTER 2026/27
19–23 Dec 2026, Gudauri, Georgia
CLOUD & BREATH
SPRING 2027
10–23 Apr 2027, Kyrgyzstan
SKI EXPEDITION
SUMMER 2027
2–6 Aug 2027, Sri Lanka
BREEZE & BREATH
SUMMER 2027
7–13 Aug 2027, Sri Lanka
SURF & BREATH
STILL WILD MOUNTAINS
Guidebooks, Ski Trip Design and Winter Expeditions
Still Wild Mountains is the part of my work dedicated to guidebooks, mountain research, route development and expedition design. It is where exploration becomes practical knowledge: books, routes, custom ski trips and expeditions.
GET IN TOUCH
A journey can begin with a simple message
You may want to join something already planned, or perhaps you have a place, route or idea of your own. Write to me directly and I will tell you whether I think I can be useful.