Russians – including Peter the Great, the eighteenth-century military commander Alexander Suvorov, the poet Alexander Pushkin, the painter Ilya Repin, and Ivan Pavlov of salivating dog fame – have been swimming in winter waters throughout history. Today, the sport is practiced in many countries, and there is even an International Winter Swimming Association. There are “Walrus Clubs” scattered across Russia (where practitioners of winter swimming are fondly compared to the animal – morzh in Russian). A precise count of winter swimmers – a category that includes everything from people breaststroking their way through frigid ocean waters to those who like to submerge themselves through holes in the ice – is hard to come by, since many practice this sport on their own, without involvement in any organization.
Medicine attributes low temperatures with many beneficial properties. Cold may be best known as an anti-inflammatory and pain “medicine.” Indeed, it is widely used in surgery.
Quickly immersing heart-attack victims in moderate cold reduces damage to the nervous system and increases the chance of preserving neurological function. As vital systems slow down, the brain is able to endure the reduced oxygen flow that comes with a heart attack. Cold is also useful in cases of stroke, increased intracranial pressure, myocardial infarction, septic shock, and after a liver transplant, since it reduces inflammation and preserves cells. It is also what helped Oleg Rezanov get back on his feet.
Rezanov learned of the curative powers of cold the hard way. After completing his military service, he returned to his native Tyumen, a city just east of the Ural Mountains. One morning he woke up horrified to find himself partially paralyzed. He was 22 years old. He spent the next half year on his back, barely able to move. Doctors later restored some mobility to his paralyzed leg, and he was able to hobble around at home, although every step took enormous effort. His doctors did not see any easy solutions: operating on the spine would offer at best a 50/50 chance of recovery. Rezanov turned down that option, but wasn’t ready to give up hope.
“I tried to get around as best I could,” he recalled. “My body did eventually begin to work better. Back then, there was a song on the radio: ‘Toughen yourself if you want to be healthy! Try to forget about doctors. Drench yourself with cold water if you want to be healthy!’ I decided that my condition was no excuse not to toughen myself – it couldn’t hurt.”
At the time, he was living in a house with its own well, and he began making his way over to the well every morning and dousing himself with cold water. After a few weeks, he said he began feeling better, and, after a year and a half, his infirmity had disappeared. Where medicine had proven powerless, his strength of spirit, faith in the possibility of recovery, and the curative powers of cold water had come to the rescue.
After his recovery, Rezanov stopped regularly dousing himself and only did so if he felt a cold coming on.
“When the body is immersed in cold, the blood heats up and bacteria die,” he explained. “When you return to warmth, it cools down again. This is how to avoid stagnation in the lymphatic system.”
In 2012, Rezanov met Andrei Sychyov, a Tyumen “walrus” who had set a world record by swimming 2.1 kilometers through icy water in 56 minutes. He felt he was also up to the task and began training for his own world record.
On February 7, 2014, by which time Rezanov had moved to Zelenogradsk, he swam 125.2 meters on his back through frigid waters in 2 minutes 11 seconds. He chose that particular distance for a reason: 1252 was the year of Zelenogradsk’s founding. Rezanov had fallen so in love with his adopted city that he decided to dedicate his record to it.
A month later, he established a second record after swimming an entire 1252 meters (about three quarters of a mile) on his back – again through icy water, of course. After a three-year break, he returned to ice swimming and set another record: after swimming for 12 minutes 52 seconds, he immediately ran 1252 meters through the snow, dressed only in his swimming trunks. He started to wonder just how far he could push himself.
He began reading up on the subject of ice swimming and learned of a Dutchman named Wim Hof who had earned himself the moniker “The Iceman.” The holder of many Guinness World Records, Hof was capable of calmly relaxing in ice baths and, in nothing but shoes and shorts, had climbed Everest and Kilimanjaro and run marathons in -20° Celsius (-4° Fahrenheit).
Researchers are still trying to understand how Hof is able to feel comfortable at such temperatures and consider him a unique phenomenon. For his part, Hof claims to have achieved this ability by training his body and mind. Rezanov studied the Dutchman’s method, which consists largely of breathing exercises designed to saturate the blood and organs with oxygen.
Around the same time, Rezanov learned about Tibetan monks who practice Tummo, or inner fire. It is believed that Buddhists who practice this skill are able to channel powerful internal energies to radiate warmth, even melting the snow around them. This power enables them to tolerate frigid weather without warm clothing.
All this led the “Conqueror of Cold,” as the local Zelenogradsk media has dubbed Rezanov, to a number of conclusions, including that, if he could achieve a certain type of breathing and bring his muscles and mind into a particular state, he could gain control over his inner energy.
When Rezanov undertook his eleventh world record, he was in top form. His goal was to melt ice using the heat of his own body, but 90 minutes into this exercise, no melting had yet occurred, even though he had mastered the necessary skills. He decided to just relax, and soon a miracle occurred: after forty minutes spent reciting Mikhail Lermontov’s poem “The Novice” (Mtsyri), the desired melting had been achieved. As the Guinness World Record book attests, on September 2, 2017, Oleg Rezanov changed the temperature of 500 liters of water from +3° Celsius to +12° Celsius (37° to 53° Fahrenheit) using nothing but the heat of his own body. This feat took 125 minutes and 2 seconds.
“I didn’t understand that what was happening represented a new level of ability that resides at the junction of all knowledge. I call it the superhuman level.”
Rezanov progressed from dousing himself in cold water and toughening himself to controlling his consciousness and energy. In May 2018, he began teaching a course titled “Superhuman,” designed to teach people from across Russia how to channel their energy and to find and transform their unconscious programming, thereby changing reality.
“Out of ignorance, I made a mistake,” Rezanov admitted. “I decided to teach group classes rather than individual lessons. As a result, none of the students reached a superhuman state. It wasn’t until later that I realized that this state is individual. It involves a transformation of the specific person that expands their abilities, and everyone has their own. Now I only work with one person at a time.”
The idea that thoughts can materialize has been increasingly talked about in recent times, although not everyone believes this is possible. Rezanov said he sees this disbelief as misguided. He is certain that people decide whether they will be healthy or sick, and that disease is nothing more than disruptions to the aura brought about by strong emotions. For example, people who don’t want to go to work might program their brain to give their body the command to get sick. Rezanov claimed he has not been sick for 26 years.
He believes that cancer and other fatal illnesses arise out of suicidal thoughts, but not everyone is ready to recognize this. He has worked with four clients with Stage 4 cancer to overcome this state by removing their inclination toward death. The results have been mixed, but, according to Rezanov, nobody has had their condition worsen.
Rezanov said that in 2018 he discovered new capabilities of the human body: submerging himself under water, he used his thoughts to stop his breathing. In the past, he had made attempts to extend the time he could remain under water. The first time, he managed to stop his breathing for 20 seconds by imagining that his body was still breathing.
This time, in addition to meditation, he used a technique whereby his muscles imitate the act of breathing. When he surfaced after a couple of minutes, his brain believed that his body was continuing to breathe, and he submerged himself again without taking a breath. The people observing this feat became alarmed and brought him back to the surface. After he started breathing again, he continued to behave as if nothing had happened, and indeed his blood pressure and pulse were normal: 120/80 and 68 respectively. All this, he said, confirmed his theory that a combination of breathing, meditation, and mind-to-muscle techniques can eliminate the human body’s limitations. In total, he had stayed underwater without breathing for six minutes.
The ability to hold his breath for extended periods helped Rezanov set his twelfth world record. In 2019, he parachuted out of a plane in Yakutia in only shorts and a helmet (and of course a parachute) from a height of 4,100 meters (13,450 feet). The air temperature was -23° Celsius at ground level and -30° in the air (-9° and -22° Fahrenheit, respectively). His descent lasted a minute.
At this point, Rezanov stopped trying to set records and switched to experiments pitting himself against the elements.
“Why? Was this another way of testing yourself?”
“No. I developed an interest in the question of immortality or long life, and began to research the subject. I spent time with people who had studied this question. Guided by my dreams, intuitions, and omens, I one day understood that I had to undergo four trials.”
The first – trial by earth – took place in Siberia on December 22, 2019, the longest night of the year. Rezanov was put in a coffin and buried in frozen earth, where he spent an entire night in a thermal suit.
In January 2020, Rezanov subjected himself to trial by fire in the Siberian city of Nefteyugansk. With the thermometer reading -20° Celsius, he immersed himself in a pool of highly-salinated water with a temperature of -10° Celsius (+14° Fahrenheit) and stayed there for seven minutes, playing a khomus (an instrument similar to a Jew’s harp traditionally used by shamans in Yakutia). This time, he wound up with thermal burns.
“By controlling my energy, I managed to avoid damaging my entire body and to ‘guide’ the burns toward my legs,” he recalled.
“And did you experience pain?”
“I certainly did! After the trial, I bandaged my feet, and later, when I tore off the bandages, I had those exact same feelings! I had to use wine as an anesthetic: I drank some before tearing off the next bandage.”
Soon afterward, Rezanov undertook a third trial: by water. This trial, a rather unusual Valentine’s Day tribute, was dedicated to his wife Irina and took place in an ice park in the Siberian city of Yakutsk. Surrounded by curious onlookers, he spent 12 minutes and 52 seconds (again marking the founding of his adopted Zelenogradsk) buried in an icy, heart-shaped bed of snow, deprived of air. The air temperature was -35° Celsius (-31° Fahrenheit).
“Actually, after my last trial, I decided to be extra careful to protect my feet,” Rezanov admitted.
Rezanov’s fourth trial could not be completed. On March 8, 2020, he submerged himself in liquid nitrogen vapors (-150° Celsius; -238° Fahrenheit) and had begun to recite a poem by Sergei Yesenin when he suddenly felt that his body had turned into ice.
“Something made me touch my stomach. When I did, I couldn’t believe what I was feeling. My hands were touching ice. I looked down and was dumbstruck. My abdomen was nothing but ice. I touched my back – it was the same. My body was divided in half by a band of ice across the entire lumbar region. The freezing had gone so deep that this area was existing separately from the body. I was gripped by fear. But it was a fear of incoherence rather than death. I was afraid that from then on I would exist in this ‘split’ body, and I halted the trial.”
Nevertheless, Rezanov said he does not consider his experiment a failure, since he not only survived, but was able to activate regeneration and fully restore his body – without the help of doctors. He rested for a few days, he said, and everything went back to normal.
One cannot help wondering how this impacted his wife, six children, and grandchildren.
“Even though they’re used to my way of life,” Rezanov said, “they worry. In one interview I said that the real endurance champion is my wife, not me, and that’s the truth.”
“Do you feel the cold?”
“Yes, I’m an ordinary person, and my closet is full of sweaters, warm pants, jackets, boots. Also, I’m not working with cold at the moment, and if you pit me against a true ‘walrus,’ he would probably win. I just don’t pay attention to it, something I taught myself through breathing exercises and mind control.”
There have been other, no less dangerous experiments. Rezanov tries to either record most of his feats on film or perform them before an audience. Nevertheless, he is often called either a fake or a nut. He doesn’t let this bother him and just keeps pursuing his goal.
This past spring, the Conqueror of Cold took on his most recent trial: a year without food or water, but he had to terminate it after fifty days, since he lacked the necessary informational support.
Meanwhile, Rezanov continues to share his knowledge and help people recover from various illnesses using cold, mind-to-muscle techniques, and working with the subconscious.
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