The big question of winter: ski or snowboard?

Hi everyone, I’m Anufriev Andrey – a professional freeskier from St. Petersburg. I’ve been skiing since about 2008. I am a rider of the companies: GoPro, Gorilla Energy, JBL, boardshop “Traektoriya”. As part of a special project I will try to get up on a snowboard.

Why skis?

I’ve been rollerblading since I was a kid, but at one point I started thinking that I wanted to roll in the winter on a snowboard. Just as an alternative for the winter season, and snowboarding was at the peak of its popularity in those years, and everyone I knew who skied was already a snowboarder. Despite the fact that I was still a schoolboy at that time, I couldn’t ask my parents for such gifts and, putting off my new dream until the next season, I got a job in the summer to buy my first set for the winter. And it so happened that that summer a friend showed me a video of foreign skiers of the new school, the same guys in wide clothes, who glide on the rails and fly off the jumps, but on skis!

I was immediately hooked by the fact that this sport is much closer to rollerblading, and despite the fact that in Russia it was exotic, by winter I bought my first ski kit… From that moment on, everything spiraled, and this subject literally became the most interesting of my hobbies within a few years. Now, after so many years, I can say that that childhood hobby has become a professional activity and my whole life revolves around skiing.

You can watch Andrei’s video profile by clicking here.

Why board?

This year I want to take a broader look at the world and learn what started it all – snowboarding. Just as a hobby, if you want. In general, it doesn’t matter if you have one board or two under your feet, I think that all of us riders, as artists, shouldn’t limit ourselves to one instrument, because it’s great to be able to paint a picture not only in watercolor, but sometimes to do graphite for a change. At the beginning of this season I made a trip to a ski resort, taking only a snowboard with me for the first time, in order to learn how to ride it. Now I can say for sure that the beginning has been made, I am very much into this new topic and now I will sometimes enjoy alternating between skiing and boarding.

Snowboarding: it’s not that simple

Although I’m usually quick to pick up new sporting activities, snowboarding wasn’t so easy for me as I’ve never seriously skateboarded, wakeboarded or any other “board”. But I didn’t set any global goals for myself, I don’t need to prove anything, so in the future I just plan to keep enjoying something new, we’ll see what happens.

Blitz: busting myths

Myth #1 – skiing skills won’t help you get up on a snowboard.

Andrey Anufriev: “I think one thing complements the other, in any case it’s all coordination”.

Myth #2 – it’s easier to ski on a board.

“I think that on skis it is easier to achieve a controlled descent from the mountain at the initial level, but it’s hard to say unequivocally”.

Myth #3 – snowboarders are not well-liked in the skier’s hangout and vice versa.

“There are still remnants of this enemy culture, but worldwide it’s almost disappeared. For example, most of my friends are not skiers, and the opposite happens. It’s more like everyone hates classic ski racers.”

Follow Andrei’s new experiments on VKontakte/Instagram or Facebook.