Heroes of the Depth 2025 – the mastermind behind the largest Russian swimming series X-WATERS – Alexander Bazanov

14 Nov 2024

Alexander Bazanov is a man who has done the impossible. He changed everything for himself and for thousands of other people — he and his team of like-minded people created a large-scale water community, whose members enjoy diving into the water (including very, very cold water) in the most incredible corners of our country and abroad.

Nothing, as they say, foreshadowed it: as a child, Alexander, to put it mildly, did not like the sea and bodies of water. And he did not swim, rather, he knew how to stay afloat. And everything would have gone on as usual, if one day, ordinary entrepreneur Alexander Bazanov had not decided to "escape from stress” in the literal sense. This decision, a couple of years later, led Alexander to the half marathon "Autumn Thunder”, where even then "ice and water” appeared in his life in the form of rain and snow in his face and icy puddles under his feet. Then there was a marathon, an irreversible transformation and… swimming (yes, we are already getting to the essence of the post and the nomination).

Believe it or not, Alexander started learning to swim from a book! "Total Immersion" by Terry Laughlin and John Delves was a revelation for our hero. "It turned out that swimming is not a mortal battle, trash and hell, but pleasure, relaxation and meditation" - this is how Alexander talks about this experience. However, not everyone can learn to swim well from a book, so Alexander decided to strengthen his position as a swimmer at the training of Terry Laughlin, the creator of the Total Immersion training system. And he strengthened it so much that a year later Bazanov completed training as a TI trainer and became the second person in Russia (after Vadim Grudev) to officially teach this method.

Three years later, Alexander realized that there was an ocean ahead, literally and figuratively, and he could not swim across it alone. The time had come to assemble a dream team - a team whose core remains together to this day. This is how X-WATERS came into being. In 2016, in Alexander's hometown of Nizhny Novgorod, the team organized the first swim, which from the second year of its existence became and still remains the largest annual start in Russia.

Today, Alexander Bazanov is the leader of the largest international swimming series born in Russia - X-WATERS. More than 120 starts in 30 cities and 10 countries around the world. 23 starts in 2024. More than 15,000 participants. Ministers, IT specialists, entrepreneurs, fans of a healthy lifestyle and meaningful travel climb into the water as equals within the X-WATERS swims. Participants swim across lakes Seliger, Imandra and Turgoyak, climb into the harsh waters of Siberian rivers, swim through the very center of St. Petersburg, conquer the Eastern Bosphorus, and in 2025 they plan to cross Teriberka Bay in the first Arctic swim X-WATERS (slots for participation were already taken in June 2024!).

For the scale (X-WATERS are the absolute leaders in the Russian Federation, they account for more than half of all registrations for open water starts in the country), for the unshakable belief in themselves, for the difficult, but such an interesting path to their calling (X-WATERS is not just a hobby for Alexander, it is the life's work for him and the team), for the talent to inspire and unite and, of course, for the love of water (yes, Alexander now loves the sea!) we will thank Alexander Bazanov on the stage of the Moscow Dive Show 2025 and present him with our "underwater Oscar", thereby testifying to the fact that although the X-WATERS team and the swim participants are under water less often than other members of our community (and then, rather against their will), they are undoubtedly real water people whom we admire and whom we are always happy to see at the dive show.

Find out more about X-WATERS swims https://x-waters.com/

The show "Heroes of the Depth" will take place on Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 17:00 on the stage of the Gostiny Dvor in Moscow. Any guest of the Moscow Dive Show 2025 can become a spectator of the show, just buy an entrance ticket to the exhibition.

You can buy a ticket to the exhibition from November 15, 2024 on the website https://www.diveshow.ru/show/bilety/

All the details on the website, follow the updates - diveshow.ru

Get yor ticket

Book your booth

Team and contact info

Герои глубины 2025 – вдохновитель крупнейшей российской плавательной серии X-WATERS — Александр Базанов — номинация «Горизонталь глубины»