The death of the Dyatlov group: the most muddy case in the history of the USSR. Attack by escaped prisoners. Footprints in the snow

Over the years, interest in this event has not weakened. Evidence of this is the American-Russian film "The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass", released in February 2013. It’s just not worth taking the directors’ fantasies at face value. It is better to arm yourself with historical facts.

The campaign of nine tourists led by Igor Dyatlov was dedicated to the XXI Congress of the CPSU. The group faced a difficult task. The total length of the distance that the expedition members had to overcome on skis was almost 350 km. The path of the group lay through the forests and mountains of the Northern Urals. The final part of the trip was to be climbing the Otorten and Oiko-Chakur mountains.

The group initially consisted of ten people: Igor Dyatlov, Yuri Doroshenko, Nikolai Thibault-Brignoles, Yuri Krivonischenko, Zinaida Kolmogorova, Semyon Zolotarev, Alexander Kolevatov, Rustem Slobodin, Lyudmila Dubinina and Yuri Yudin. The latter, by the way, is the only survivor of the entire company. Yudin was saved by the disease. He simply could not take part in the campaign because of an attack of sciatica that began in him.

The leader of the group was Igor Alekseevich Dyatlov, a 5th year student at the Ural Polytechnic Institute. In general, the composition of the expedition participants could be called youth (five students, three graduates and one tourist inspector - the oldest of all). But this did not speak of their inexperience at all. The Dyatlov group was a close-knit and well-trained team. Almost all members of the expedition had gone through fire, water and copper pipes before: they fought against the elements more than once, overcame the hardships and hardships of camp life.

The group set off on a hike on January 23, 1959, when its members left Sverdlovsk by train for Serov, from where they went to Ivdel. The next destination was the village of the 41st quarter - the place of life of loggers. After spending the night, the group moved to the village of the Second Northern Mine. Here it is worth mentioning one important point. Completely abandoned by the end of the 1950s, the village of the Second Northern Mine was part of the Stalinist camp system. In this part of the Urals, they were everywhere. At the time of the group's arrival in the village, there was not a single stranger on its territory, except ... their fellow traveler, the cabman Velikiavichus, with the help of which the group arrived at their destination. Lithuanian Velikiavichus was sentenced to camps in 1949 and released in 1956. It must be assumed that Velikiavichus was not the only inmate of IvdelLAG (that was the name of the system of the Ural camps). A large number of former prisoners lived in those places.

According to the official version of events, the expedition said goodbye to Velikiavichus on January 28, when he took Yury Yudin, who fell ill, back to the village of the 41st quarter. It was then that the tourists were seen alive for the last time.

From this moment begins the period of the group's journey. The first time the tourists moved without complications, according to the plan. The path of the group lay along the Lozva River and along its tributary Auspiya. They went skiing. On the evening of February 1, the group decided to set up camp for the night on the eastern slope of Mount Kholatchakhl. Interestingly, from the language of one of the indigenous peoples of the region - the Mansi, Kholatchakhl literally translates as "mountain of the dead." True, in accordance with the grammar of the Mansi, the name of the mountain would be more correct to translate as "a mountain on which nothing grows." But we will return to the question of the possible involvement of the Mansi in the death of the group.

According to the plans of the participants, on February 12 it was supposed to reach the village of Vizzhay, which served as the final point of the trip. On the same day, the group planned to send a telegram to the institute's sports club about the successful completion of the task. But neither on the 12th nor on the following days did the group arrive in the village.

According to the classification of hiking trips, the hike of the Dyatlov group belongs to the highest category of difficulty. In total, by that time, there were three categories of complexity in mountain tourism.

Very soon the loss of the expedition caused concern. Three groups of volunteer rescuers went in search of tourists - students and employees of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. In tourism, everyone was grated rolls.
The camp of the missing was discovered on 26 February. The tent was covered with snow, but there was no serious damage to it. There were no people in the tent. Down the slope of the hill from her were traces of nine people.

Soon, two bodies belonging to Yury Krivonischenko and Yury Doroshenko were found at a distance of one and a half kilometers from the tent. They had neither shoes nor outerwear. Burn marks were visible on the feet and palms. Here you could see the remains of a fire. Nearby was a large cedar with recently broken branches.

Then three more bodies were found. The bodies of Rustem Slobodin, Zina Kolmogorova and the head of the group, Igor Dyatlov, were found at different distances between the fire and the tent. The bodies of the rest of the expedition members were found two months later. Lyudmila Dubinina, Nikolai Thibault-Brignolles, Alexander Kolevatov and Alexander Zolotarev were found in one of the forest ravines. Their bodies were buried under many meters of snow. They were dressed noticeably warmer than the rest.

Tortured bodies

At first, investigators suggested that the tourists were attacked. But no signs of a struggle were found at the scene. Soon, only one thing became obvious - something made people jump out of the tent in a panic at night into the bitter cold. At the same time, they did not even have time to put on warm clothes and shoes. The tracks of the group members diverged and converged again, as if something was forcing them to run down the mountainside, as far as possible from their place of parking. Investigators found cuts on the tent, but they were made from the inside by one of the expedition members. The guys wanted to leave the tent as soon as possible and tried to cut it with everything that fell into their hands.

According to the autopsy results, most of the expedition members died as a result of hypothermia. Most of all, the investigators were interested in the injury of Rustem Slobodin. A crack 6 cm long and 0.5 cm wide was found in his skull. Such an injury could only be the result of an incredibly large blow. It is unlikely that a person could get it by simply falling and hitting his head on the snow. And here's the mystery - the cause of Slobodin's death was hypothermia. The rest of the expedition members died as a result of severe injuries. Experts found numerous bruises and fractures on their bodies, and Dubinina had no tongue at all. Those who happened to see the corpses of the participants in the campaign noted their unnatural orange-brown tint. The bodies and belongings of tourists were checked for radiation. But its level was not much higher than the average for the region.

The case was quickly covered up. Even in our time, despite the removal of the secrecy stamp, not everyone can freely get acquainted with the materials. In the documents of the investigation themselves, a well-disguised uncertainty shows through. Everyone who was engaged in their own investigation, did not leave the feeling that the authorities wanted to hush up the incident as soon as possible.

As mentioned above, the first version of the death of the group was an attack by strangers. Local residents, belonging to the small Mansi people, were suspected of the crime. There was an opinion that Mount Holatchakhl was a sacred place for them. This allegedly became the reason for the murder of tourists. But, as it turned out, the mountain did not have a cult significance among the Mansi at all. Another similar reason is the attack of IvdelLAG prisoners. And some claimed that they liquidated the group because the guys witnessed the testing of some secret weapon. Among the versions of the death of the expedition, there are frankly delusional ones. For example, this: the group was destroyed by foreign intelligence services, and the participants in the campaign themselves were KGB officers. All these theories have one weak component. After studying all the details of what happened, the experts were unequivocal in their assessment - except for the group itself, that fateful night, there was no one else on the mountainside. In the snow, the investigators managed to find only traces of nine people - members of the expedition.

Mansi is the indigenous population of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. They are one of the smallest peoples of Russia. Today, about 12 thousand representatives of this nationality live in our country. Mansi have their own language, but most of them consider Russian as their native language.

Of course, the cause of the tragedy could be a quarrel between the participants in the campaign themselves. We know that Igor Dyatlov had a certain sympathy for Zina Kolmogorova. The sympathy was mutual. But at one time Zina was courted by another participant in the campaign - Yuri Doroshenko. For some reason, their relationship didn't work out. Could this be the cause of the conflict? Theoretically, yes. But people who knew the guys claimed that the relationship between the leader of the group and Kolmogorova was purely platonic. And after an unsuccessful attempt to start a romance, the relationship between Yuri and Zina could be called friendly. In general, experienced climbers and skiers consider the version of the conflict as one of the least likely. In the mountains, everyday problems and love vicissitudes fade into the background.

Among the various theories of the death of the group, fantastic versions occupy not the last place. Oddly enough, they have a certain basis. According to one of the investigators, Lev Ivanov, in February and March 1959, some “flying spheres” were noticed in the area where the group died. Witnesses say that these objects emitted an incredibly strong glow. Something similar is described by the members of the rescue expedition. According to them, in addition to bright light, the phenomenon was accompanied by a sound effect similar to explosions or thunder.

Another mysterious circumstance testifies in favor of this version. Among the photographs taken by a member of the campaign, Yuri Krivonischenko, there is one frame that shows a cluster of lights of unknown origin. Perhaps it was the 33rd frame of Krivonischenko that captured the mysterious lights in the sky. However, with the same success, this "paranormal phenomenon" could turn out to be an ordinary film defect or a slightly less mysterious ball lightning.

One often hears a version about the death of the group as a result of testing some secret weapon. Allegedly, this can explain the unnatural skin color of the dead, as well as their terrible injuries. Even if this version is true - we will hardly ever be able to find out. After the tragedy, the military stated that no tests were carried out in the area where the tourists died.

There is another theory regarding the origin of the photo frame, supposedly capturing the mysterious lights in the sky. The 33rd photo frame could have been taken by the investigator pressing the shutter of the camera before removing the film from it. The fact is that the Zorki model camera of the 50s of the last century did not have the option to determine the position of the shutter. Thus, wanting to check the latter, the investigator could click on it himself.

It is necessary to consider one of the most popular options for the development of events. As you know, the main danger in the mountains is an avalanche. But this seemingly most reasonable version leads to a dead end. In fact, Mount Holatchakhl can hardly be called a mountain in the usual sense of the word. Her slopes are very gentle. Therefore, the likelihood of an avalanche is extremely small. And as a result of an avalanche, the tent and equipment of tourists would have received much more serious damage. Ski poles, stuck next to the tent even before the tragedy, remained standing in the same place. Strange avalanche, isn't it? And one moment. According to safety precautions, in the event of an avalanche, you need to go sideways from the parking lot. The group, for some reason, went down the slope. Due to the experience of the expedition, it is unlikely that all of its participants could make the same and so obvious mistake.

Our version

Of all the available theories, the most plausible, in our opinion, is the version that is often mentioned by experienced climbers and skiers. During the installation of the tent, tourists could cut the snow, which subsequently rolled down on them. The layer of snow that “ran over” the tent did not lead to its complete collapse, but sowed panic among the expedition members. Fearing to be buried under a pile of snow, the tourists ran out of the tent and tried to find shelter outside it. Do not forget that on that fateful night the air temperature dropped to -30°C. Perhaps a strong wind was blowing. Restoring the picture of the tragedy, experienced specialists believe that the guys went down in an organized manner. But then the first misfortune happened. Apparently, during the descent, Rustem Slobodin fell and hit his head on a stone. The rest did not have time to notice this, since it was at night, and the weather did not allow them to see beyond the outstretched hand. Probably Slobodin lost consciousness. After consciousness returned to him, he was unable to navigate in space and, after unsuccessful attempts to find his comrades, froze.

After the disappearance of Slobodin, the group broke up. When Zina Kolmogorova discovered his absence, she went in search of him. Her body was found 600 meters from the place where the tourists then lit a fire. Her death was also due to hypothermia. For some reason, Zolotarev, Dubinina and Thibaut-Brignoles left the group. Apparently, they tried to reach the forest as quickly as possible and find shelter there. The guys could not notice the steep cliff and fall from a great height. It is likely that this was the cause of severe injuries that led to death. When the injured members of the campaign were still alive, the remaining members of the expedition came to their aid. But they failed to drag the seriously wounded comrades to the fire. The seriously injured people were doomed. Together with them, Alexander Kolevatov, who came to the rescue, also froze.

At the same time, Igor Dyatlov went back to the tent to take warm clothes. But he was very tired or simply lost his way, as a result of which he died of cold, before reaching the tent for about a kilometer. Rescuers found the bodies of Yury Doroshenko and Yury Krivonischenko near the fire. They also froze. Wanting to keep warm and not fall asleep, Doroshenko and Krivonischenko probably brought their hands and feet to the fire. This can explain the numerous burns found on them. Dubinina's lack of language can be justified in another way. After death, the soft tissues of the body often become food for all kinds of living creatures.

For a comment on our version, we turned to the famous mountaineer and skier, a man with the title of "Snow Leopard", Nikolai Mishchenko. “The story of the death of the Dyatlovites is not unique,” ​​says Nikolai Akimovich. – When someone asks me about that unfortunate incident, another tragedy immediately comes to mind that happened in the Pamirs – one of the highest peaks of the USSR. In 1974, the entire female expedition led by Elvira Shataeva, the wife of the famous Soviet climber Vladimir Shataev, perished on Lenin Peak. As in the case of the Dyatlov group, when Shataeva's expedition was discovered, there were no signs that the group had been covered by an avalanche or some other disaster had occurred. And yet, all members of the expedition died. In an unforeseen situation, they were unable to orient themselves in time. The participants of the campaign went in different directions, lost sight of each other and died. Why did it happen? I think it's a psychological issue. In mountainous conditions, a person is not always able to adequately assess the situation and make the right decisions. The death of the Dyatlov group is another vivid example of this. It is quite obvious to me that when something unforeseen happened (the version about the collapse of the snow is quite plausible), the young people, being in a state of stress, panicked and made a number of mistakes that they would never have made in their normal state. The experience of the group members turned out to be powerless in such a situation. People were driven by fear. I want to tell you about one more very important detail. From my many years of experience, I know that when hiking in the mountains, there must be a leader in the group. We need a person to whom the rest of the expedition members would obey implicitly. I'm not sure that Igor Dyatlov was just such a leader. After all, it must be remembered that at the time of the tragedy he was still a very young man. Most likely, when a force majeure situation occurred, some participants in the campaign decided to act independently. As a result, as in the case of Shataeva’s expedition, they dispersed in different directions, got lost and froze.”

The highest title in Soviet mountaineering is "Snow Leopard". It is worn by climbers who have visited the tops of the highest mountains located on the territory of the USSR. The official name of the token is: "Conqueror of the highest mountains of the USSR."

Thus, the picture of the incident begins to acquire more expressive shades. But what is the root cause of the horror that gripped the participants of the campaign? In this situation, we can only apply the principle of "Occam's razor". Most likely, the group left the tent under the influence of reasons that are quite natural in nature. And there were hardly any anomalies here. However, we will probably never know the truth about this tragedy.

Our expert: Nikolai Mishchenko, a well-known mountaineer and skier with the title of "Snow Leopard".

: lomov_andrey wrote - It is also interesting to read about the Dyatlov Pass. The topic is dark and I even wondered if you could find something that was previously unknown, it’s reluctant to wait a month, so if you can ask me a question: The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass.

Having looked at how many of these versions, I decided so, let's collect here very briefly the maximum number of them. Where possible, references will lead to their more extended interpretation. And you are required in the comments (if you read this on infoglaz.rf) or by voting at the end of the post (if you read this on LiveJournal) to choose the most likely version in your opinion. In the meantime, I will briefly tell you what happened at the pass:

January 23, 1959 the group went on a ski trip in the north of the Sverdlovsk region. The group was headed by an experienced tourist Igor Dyatlov. The group went to the starting point of the route in full force, but Yuri Yudin was forced to return due to pain in his leg. On February 1, 1959, the group stopped for the night on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (Kholat-Syakhl, translated from Mansi - "Mountain of the Dead") or peak "1079" (although on later maps its height is given as 1096.7 m.), not far from the nameless pass (later called the Dyatlov Pass).

On February 12, the group was supposed to reach the end point of the route - the village of Vizhay and send a telegram to the institute's sports club. There is a lot of testimonies from participants in search operations and tourists from the UPI that, with Yu. Yudin gone off the route, the group postponed the deadline to February 15. The telegram was not sent either on the 12th or the 15th of February.

An advanced search party was sent to Ivdel on 20 February to organize searches from the air. Search and rescue operations began on February 22, sending several search teams, formed from students and employees of the UPI, who had tourist and mountaineering experience. The young Sverdlovsk journalist Yu.E. also participated in the search. Yarovoy, who later published a story about these events. On February 26, a search group led by B. Slobtsov found an empty tent with a wall cut from the inside, facing down the slope. Equipment was left in the tent, as well as shoes and outerwear of some tourists.

This was seen by the Dyatlovites' tent during investigative actions.

On February 27, the day after the discovery of the tent, all forces were drawn into the search area, and a search headquarters was formed. Evgeny Polikarpovich Maslennikov, master of sports of the USSR in tourism, was appointed the head of the search, and Colonel Georgy Semyonovich Ortyukov, teacher of the military department of the UPI, was appointed chief of staff. On the same day, one and a half kilometers from the tent and 280 m down the slope, next to the traces of a fire, the bodies of Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko were found. They were stripped down to their underwear. 300 meters from them, up the slope and in the direction of the tent, lay the body of Igor Dyatlov. 180 meters from him, up the slope, they found the corpse of Rustem Slobodin, and 150 meters from Slobodin, even higher, - Zina Kolmogorova. There were no signs of violence on the corpses, all people died from hypothermia. Slobodin had a traumatic brain injury, which could be accompanied by repeated loss of consciousness and contributed to freezing.

The search took place in several stages from February to May. On May 4, 75 meters from the fire, under a four-meter layer of snow, in the bed of a stream that had already begun to melt, the bodies of Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Zolotarev, Nikolai Thibault-Brignolles and Alexander Kolevatov were found. Three had serious injuries: Dubinina and Zolotarev had rib fractures, Thibault-Brignolle had a severe head injury. Kolevatov did not have any serious injuries, except for damage to his head caused by an avalanche probe, with which they searched for bodies. Thus, the search work ended with the discovery of the bodies of all participants in the campaign.

It was found that the death of all members of the group occurred on the night of February 1-2. Despite the efforts of the search engines, a complete picture of the incident has not been established. It remains unclear what really happened to the group that night, why they left the tent, how they acted further, under what circumstances four tourists were injured and how it happened that no one survived.

official investigation

The official investigation was opened by the prosecutor of the Ivdelsky district Tempalov on the fact of the discovery of the found corpses on February 28, 1959, was conducted for two months, then it was extended for another month and was closed on May 28, 1959. , apparently, faced some dangerous circumstances in which no signs of a crime are seen, and could not successfully resist them, as a result of which she died. The investigation, first of all, studied the circumstances of the case regarding the possibility of other people being in the area of ​​the death of the group at the time of the events. Versions of a deliberate attack on the group were checked (by the Mansi, runaway prisoners or anyone else). The task of fully elucidating the circumstances of the death of the group, apparently, was not set at all, since from the point of view of the goals of the investigation (making a decision on the existence of a crime), this was not of decisive importance.

Based on the results of the investigation, organizational conclusions were made regarding a number of leaders of tourism in the UPI, since their actions were seen as insufficient attention to the organization and security of amateur (the term "sports" was not yet used at that time) tourism.

The full case file has never been published. To a limited extent, they were available to Anatoly Gushchin, a journalist from Regional Newspaper of Yekaterinburg, who quoted some of them in his documentary story The Price of State Secrets for 9 Lives. According to Gushchin, a young specialist Korotaev V. I. of the Ivdel prosecutor's office was appointed the first investigator. He began to develop a version of the murder of tourists and was removed from the case, as the management demanded that the event be presented as an accident. L.I. Ivanov, a forensic prosecutor of the Sverdlovsk Regional Prosecutor's Office, was appointed investigator. The materials of the investigation by V.I. Korotaev are absent from the archival criminal case, which consists of one volume, an album and a package labeled “Top Secret”. According to Yu. E. Yudin, who was familiarized with the case, it contains technical correspondence from the prosecutor's office of the Sverdlovsk region and the prosecutor's office of the RSFSR, which got acquainted with the case in the manner of prosecutor's supervision.

According to some commentators, the investigation did not study the facts fully enough to unequivocally classify the incident as a crime or an accident. In particular, the belonging of some of the found items and the reasons for their appearance in the area of ​​​​the death of the group were not established (sheaths, soldier's windings and other items of unknown origin were found). Later it turned out that the ebonite sheath found near the cedar was suitable for the knife of A. Kolevatov (a number of sources mention the second sheath near the tent). It has not been determined with what tool the trunks of the flooring found near the stream were cut down or cut off; to apply these fractures and whether it was of artificial origin. The source of the radioactivity of some items of clothing is vaguely identified. It remains unclear whether a biochemical examination of the blood and bioassays of the bodies of tourists was carried out, which (according to Gushchin) were selected and packed by Korotaev in Ivdel. There are no decisions in the case on recognizing the relatives of the dead tourists as victims, and therefore their legal representatives cannot exercise their rights to participate in a new investigation of the criminal case, if there are legal grounds for such.

In 1990, L.I. Ivanov, who was conducting the investigation, published an article “The Secret of Fireballs” in the newspaper “Kostanayskaya Pravda”, in which he stated that the case was closed at the request of the authorities, and the real cause of the death of the group was hidden: “... Everyone was told that the tourists were in an extreme situation and froze to death… …But that was not true. The true causes of death were hidden from the people, and only a few knew these reasons: the former first secretary of the regional committee A.P. Kirilenko, the second secretary of the regional committee A.F. Eshtokin, the prosecutor of the region N.I. Klimov and the author of these lines, who were investigating the case ... ". In the same article, L.I. Ivanov suggested that a UFO could be the cause of the death of tourists. Some researchers suggest that the mystical bias that prevailed in the press of the 90s, and references to such artifacts, indicate the impossibility of the investigation to clearly and in detail explain the causes of the tragedy due to the imperfection of knowledge, both on the part of the investigators and in the scientific community of that time.

There are more than twenty versions of why the Dyatlov group died, from everyday to fantastic

And now the versions:

1. Quarrel between tourists
This version was not taken as serious by any of the tourists who had experience close to the experience of the Dyatlov group, not to mention the greater one, which the vast majority of tourists have above the 1st category according to the modern classification. Due to the specifics of training in tourism as a sport, potential conflicts are eliminated already at the stage of preliminary training. The Dyatlov group was similar and well prepared by the standards of that time, so the conflict that led to the emergency development of events was excluded under any circumstances. It is possible to assume the development of events by analogy with what could happen in a group of young difficult-to-educate adolescents only from the position of an average person who has no idea about the traditions and specifics of sports tourism. Especially characteristic of the youth environment of the 1950s.

3. Avalanche.
The version suggests that an avalanche descended on the tent, the tent fell under a load of snow, the tourists cut the wall during the evacuation from it, after which it became impossible to stay in the tent until morning. Their further actions due to the onset of hypothermia were not quite adequate, which ultimately led to death. It was also suggested that the serious injuries received by some of the tourists were caused by the avalanche.

4. Influence of infrasound.
Infrasound can occur when an air object is flying low above the ground, as well as as a result of resonance in natural cavities or other natural objects under the action of wind, or when it flows around solid objects, due to the occurrence of aeroelastic oscillations. Under the influence of infrasound, tourists experienced an attack of uncontrollable fear, which explains the flight.
Some expeditions visiting the area have noted an unusual condition that may be due to the effects of infrasound. In the Mansi legends there are also references to oddities, which can also be interpreted in a similar way.

5. Ball lightning.
As a variant of a natural phenomenon that frightened tourists and thus initiated further events, ball lightning is no better or worse than any other assumption, but this version also suffers from a lack of direct evidence. As well as the absence of any statistics on the occurrence of BL in winter in the Northern latitudes.

6. Attack by escaped prisoners.
The investigation requested nearby ITUs and received an answer that no prisoners escaped during the period of interest. In winter, shoots in the Northern Urals are problematic due to the severity of natural conditions and the inability to move outside permanent roads. In addition, this version is opposed by the fact that all things, money, valuables, food and alcohol remained intact.

7. Death at the hands of Mansi

“Kholat-Syakhyl, a mountain (1079 m) on the watershed ridge between the upper reaches of the Lozva and its tributary, the Auspiya, 15 km southeast of Otorten. Mansi "Kholat" - "the dead", that is, Kholat-Syahyl - the mountain of the dead. There is a legend that nine Mansi once died on this peak. Sometimes it is added that this happened during the Flood. According to another version, during the flood, hot water flooded everything around, except for a place on the top of the mountain, sufficient for a person to lie down. But Mansi, who found refuge here, died. Hence the name of the mountain ... "
However, despite this, neither Mount Otorten nor Kholat-Syakhyl are sacred to the Mansi.

Or a conflict with hunters:

The first suspects were local Mansi hunters. According to investigators, they quarreled with the tourists and attacked them. Some were seriously injured, others managed to escape and then died from hypothermia. Several Mansi were arrested, but they categorically denied their guilt. It is not known how their fate would have developed (the law enforcement agencies of those years were perfect in the art of gaining recognition), but the examination established that the cuts on the tourists' tent were made not from the outside, but from the inside. It was not the attackers who "burst" into the tent, but the tourists themselves tried to get out of it. In addition, no extraneous traces were found around the tent, supplies remained intact (and they were of considerable value to the Mansi). Therefore, the hunters had to be released.

8. Tests of secret weapons - one of the most popular versions.
It has been suggested that the hikers were hit by some kind of weapon being tested, the impact of which provoked the flight, and possibly directly contributed to the deaths. As damaging factors, such as vapors of rocket fuel components, a sodium cloud from a specially equipped rocket, and a blast wave were named, the action of which explains injuries. As confirmation, the excessive radioactivity of the clothes of some tourists recorded by the investigation is given.

Or, for example, testing a nuclear weapon:

Having dealt with the enemy's intrigues, let's consider the version of a secret nuclear test in the area where the Dyatlov group is located (this is how they try to explain the traces of radiation on the clothes of the dead). Alas, from October 1958 to September 1961, the USSR did not carry out any nuclear explosions, observing the Soviet-American agreement on a moratorium on such tests. Both we and the Americans carefully monitored the observance of "nuclear silence". In addition, with an atomic explosion, traces of radiation would have been on all members of the group, but the examination recorded radioactivity only on the clothes of three tourists. Some “experts” explain the unnatural orange-red color of the skin and clothes of the deceased by the fall of the Soviet ballistic missile R-7 in the area of ​​​​the Dyatlov group’s parking lot: supposedly it scared the tourists, and fuel vapors, being on clothes and skin, caused such a strange reaction. But rocket fuel does not “color” a person, but instantly kills. Tourists would have died near their tent. In addition, as the investigation established, no rocket launches were carried out from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the period from January 25 to February 5, 1959.

9. UFO.
The version is purely speculative, it relies on observations made at other times of some luminous objects, but there is no evidence of a group meeting with such an object.

10. Bigfoot.
The version about the appearance of a “snowman” (relic hominoid) near the tent, at first glance, explains both the stampede of tourists and the nature of the injuries - according to Mikhail Trakhtengerts, a member of the board of the Russian association of cryptozoologists, “as if someone had already hugged them very tightly ". Traces, the edges of which by the time the search began would already be indistinct, could simply be mistaken for blowing or protruding stones sprinkled with snow. In addition, the search team was primarily looking for traces of people, and such atypical prints could simply be ignored.

11. Dwarfs from the mainland Arctida, Descendants of the ancient Aryans, and so on in the same vein.
The version is that the group stumbled upon some artifacts belonging to representatives of some legendary peoples, sects, carefully hiding from people, or met with them themselves and was destroyed to keep the secret. No unambiguously interpreted confirmation of this version (as well as evidence of the existence of these peoples or sects) is given.

12. Zolotarev's special service past (Yefim Saturday's version).

He was forced to move from place to place, hiding from those who had reason to take revenge on him (former colleagues or victims of SMERSH). Zolotarev could not turn to the authorities for help, because he had a "secret", which he did not want to share. This "secret" was the goal of Zolotarev's pursuers. Semyon moved farther and farther until he ended up in the Urals.

13. Version of Galka about the crash of a military transport aircraft
In a nutshell, the fuel carrier aircraft made an emergency release of cargo, presumably methanol (or itself collapsed in the air). The methanol caused sliding, unusually moving landslides, then possibly an avalanche.

14. This is the work of the KGB.

Many facts of hiding, evidence, correcting information and ignoring certain facts.

15. Military poachers

It is our military who have long been the most unpunished of all possible poachers. Try to catch up with a combat helicopter on a motorcycle or an ordinary motor boat. At the same time, often, shooting is carried out at everything “that moves”, and military personnel sometimes do not think about the problem of collecting their hunting trophies at all.

16. Crime, gold.

In the village of 2nd Severny (the last settlement), still with Yudin, who left the group, they visited a warehouse of geological samples. We took some stones with us. Yudin took some (or all?) of it with him in his backpack. From Kolmogorova's diary: “I took several samples. I saw this breed for the first time after drilling. There is a lot of chalcopyrite and pyrite here.” Several sources note that among the “locals” during the search and investigation there were rumors: “The guys’ backpacks were stuffed with gold.” In principle, some samples outwardly could resemble gold. And they could be radioactive to one degree or another. Maybe they were looking for these stones (even if they were taken by tourists by mistake?)

17. Political, anti-party and anti-Soviet overtones

ill-fated "magic power of a piece of paper", which gave official status to the Dyatlov group of tourists, with all the ensuing consequences, can be compared with a plane ticket doomed to inevitable death with all its passengers.
If the Dyatlovites had set off as ordinary wild tourists along with the Blinovites, then both episodes involving the police could seriously affect the behavior of Yura Krivonischenko, and in the village. Vizhay there would be no special need to stop, and if you had to spend the night there, then you would spend the night “in the same club where we were 2 years ago”. They would not have had to communicate with the leadership of the colony, thereby worsening their living conditions in the village. Vizhay. The Dyatlovites would not have had to advertise in the village of Vizhay the purpose of their campaign, timed to coincide with the beginning of the XXI Congress of the CPSU ...

18. The mysterious death of the members of the Dyatlov group was associated with airborne electric discharge explosions of fragments of a small comet.

Quite quickly identified about a dozen witnesses who said that on the day of the murder of students, a balloon flew by. Witnesses: Mansi Anyamov, Sanbindalov, Kurikov - not only described him, but also drew him (these drawings were later removed from the file). All these materials were soon demanded by Moscow...

19. A slightly modified version of a thunderstorm, based on the fact that it is lightning discharges that are a direct consequence of the death of the group, and not temperature or a snowstorm.

20 Zeki fled, and they had to be either caught or destroyed.

Catch in the winter in forest thickets? It makes no sense. Destroy - than.
No, not cruise missiles, of course, and not vacuum bombs. Used gases. Most likely a nerve agent.

Or like this:

One of the versions of conspiracy theorists: the Dyatlov group was liquidated by the special unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which pursued the escaped prisoners (I must say, there really were a lot of “zones” in the northern Urals). At night, the special forces collided with tourists in the forest, mistook them for "convicts" and killed them. At the same time, for some reason, the mysterious special forces did not use either cold or firearms: there were no stab or bullet wounds on the body of the dead. In addition, it is known that in the 50s. escaped prisoners at night in the wilderness of the forest were usually not pursued - too much risk. They passed orientations to the authorities in the nearest settlements and waited: you won’t last long in the forest without supplies, willy-nilly, the fugitives had to go to “civilization”. And most importantly! Investigators asked for information about the escapes of "convicts" from the surrounding "zones". It turned out that in late January - early February there were no shoots. Therefore, there was no one to catch the special forces on Kholat-Syahyl.

21. "Controlled delivery"

And here is the most “exotic” version: it turns out that the Dyatlov group was liquidated by ... foreign agents! Why? To disrupt the KGB operation: after all, the student hike was just a cover for the “controlled delivery” of radioactive clothing to enemy agents. The explanations for this amazing theory are not without wit. It is known that investigators found traces of a radioactive substance on the clothes of three dead tourists. Conspiracy theorists linked this fact with the biography of one of the dead - Georgy Krivonischenko. He worked in the closed city of atomic scientists Ozersk (Chelyabinsk-40), where plutonium was produced for atomic bombs. Samples of radioactive clothing provided invaluable information for foreign intelligence. Krivonischenko, who worked for the KGB, was supposed to meet with enemy agents at the Kholat-Syakhyl mountain and hand over radioactive “material” to them. But Krivonischenko "pierced" on something, and then the enemy agents, covering their tracks, destroyed the entire Dyatlov group. The killers acted subtly: threatening with weapons, but not using it (they didn’t want to leave traces), they drove the young people out of the tent into the cold without shoes, to certain death. For a while, the saboteurs waited, then followed in the footsteps of the group and brutally finished off those who did not freeze. Thriller, and more! And now - let's think. How could the KGB officers plan a "controlled delivery" in a remote area that they did not control? Where could they neither observe the operation nor secure their agent? Absurd. And where did the spies come from among the Ural forests, where was their base? Only the invisible man will not "light up" in small surrounding villages: their inhabitants know each other by sight and immediately pay attention to strangers. And why did the adversaries, who conceived a cunning staging of the death of tourists from hypothermia, suddenly seem to be distraught and began torturing their victims - breaking ribs, tearing out their tongues, eyes? And how did these invisible maniacs manage to get away from the persecution of the ubiquitous KGB? The conspiracy theorists do not have answers to all these questions.

Rakitin's version

22. Meteorite

The forensic medical examination, examining the nature of the injuries inflicted on the members of the group, came to the conclusion that they "very similar to the injury that occurred during an air blast wave." Examining the area, the investigators found traces of fire on some trees. It seemed as if some unknown force selectively affected both the dead people and the trees. In the late 1920s scientists were able to assess the consequences of the impact of such a natural phenomenon. It was in the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell. According to the memoirs of the participants of that expedition, badly burned trees in the epicenter of the explosion could be next to the survivors. Scientists could not logically explain such a strange "selectivity" of the flame. The investigators in the case of the "Dyatlovites" could not find out all the details either: on May 28, 1959, a command came from "above" - ​​to close the case, classify all materials and hand them over to the special archive. The final conclusion of the investigation turned out to be very vague: "It should be considered that the cause of the death of tourists was an elemental force, which people were not able to overcome."

23. Methyl alcohol poisoning.
There were 2 flasks of ethyl alcohol in the group, which were found unopened. No other alcohol-containing objects or traces of them were found.

24. Meeting with a bear.
According to the recollections of people who knew Dyatlov, he had experience of meeting wild animals on a campaign and knew how to act in such situations, so it is unlikely that such an attack would lead to the flight of the group. In addition, there were no traces of a large predator in the area, no traces of its attack on the bodies of already frozen tourists. This version is also contradicted by the fact that several members of the group, judging by the position of the bodies, tried to return to the abandoned tent - no one would do this in the dark, when it is impossible to make sure that the beast had already left.

What other versions did I miss?

Which version do you think is more likely?

4 (3.5 % )

5 (4.4 % )

17 (14.9 % )

6 (5.3 % )

The death of a tourist group, consisting mainly of students and graduates of the Ural Polytechnic University (later the name "Dyatlov group" was assigned to it), is certainly one of the most amazing tragedies of the 20th century. There were nine of them, they died in a deserted region of the Northern Urals in February 1959. The case, initiated in the wake of a mysterious death, was declassified (but only partially) in 1989. Some materials from it are withdrawn and not made public to this day. Many circumstances of the death of nine tourists are still inexplicable...

Chronology of events before death

So, on January 23, 1959, the tourist group set out from Sverdlovsk on a ski trip. The group was headed by a tourist with extensive experience Igor Dyatlov. The campaign had the third category of difficulty (according to the classification of the fifties) and was dedicated to the twenty-first congress of the CPSU. Within its framework, the participants of the campaign pledged to ski at least three hundred kilometers in the northern part of the Sverdlovsk region and climb the peaks of Oika-Chakur and Otorten.

Here is a list of members of this tour group:

1. Igor Dyatlov, 5th year student of the Faculty of Radio Engineering;
2. Rustem Slobodin, engineer of Sverdlovsk NIIKHIMMASH;
3. Yuriy Doroshenko, 4th year student of the Faculty of Radio Engineering;
4. Georgy Krivonischenko, a graduate of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, an engineer at the Mayak Production Association;
5. Zinaida Kolmogorova is a 5th year student of the Faculty of Radio Engineering;
6. Nicholas Thibaut-Brignolles, graduate of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, engineer;
7. Lyudmila Dubinina, 4th year student of the Faculty of Civil Engineering;
8. Semyon Zolotarev, a graduate of the Institute of Physical Education of the Byelorussian SSR, an instructor at a camp site;
9. Alexander Kolevatov, 4th year student of the Faculty of Physics and Technology;
10. Yuri Yudin, 4th year student of the Faculty of Engineering and Economics.

There is no mistake, there were originally ten tourists. They went by train from Sverdlovsk to Serov on 23 January. Then we got to Ivdel, then by bus to the village of Vizhay.

On the evening of January 26, in Vizhay, they boarded a passing truck to the village of the 41st quarter. On the morning of January 27, having uncovered their skis, the group continued the route, one might say, lightly. The fact is that the head of the logging site asked the local grandfather-coachman with a horse to help the Dyatlovites, and they got the opportunity to load their heavy luggage into the sled.

So the group got to the 2nd Northern mine, which was once part of Ivdellag. Here the Dyatlovites stopped for the night in one of the more or less intact huts. On the morning of January 28, one of the group members, Yuri Yudin, had an inflammation of the sciatic nerve, a pain in his leg, and he realized that he would not be able to continue the campaign. It was decided that the group would continue the route without him. Yudin, saying goodbye to everyone and giving his comrades his food and some warm clothes, returned back to the village. So there are nine left.

Yuri Yudin fell ill and left the route. Unlike his comrades, he lived to a ripe old age (he died in 2013)

It is also known that when parting, Dyatlov asked Yudin to tell everyone in the tourist club that the group could return two or three days later (just the weather, the state of snow did not contribute to rapid progress along the route). In general, it was originally planned that the group would return to Vizhay by February 12th. From there, Dyatlov was going to send a telegram stating that the campaign was completed.

But on February 12, the group did not appear at the final point of the route. No one got in touch in the following days.

By the way, it was Yudin who was the first to identify the personal belongings of his comrades, he also identified the bodies of Dyatlov and Slobodin. But he still almost did not take an active part in the further, decades-long investigation of the tragedy.

What happened after the group left the second Northern mine is known only from the surviving diaries and photographs of the participants in the campaign. On February 1, 1959, the group spent the night on the slope of Mount Holatchakhl (translated from Mansi, this translates as “dead mountain” or “mountain of the dead”), not far from the then nameless pass. Among the materials found later and developed already during the investigation, there is a photo of how they set up a tent on a mountainside, the indicated time is about 17:00.

On the night of February 1-2 (although there are those who believe that the tourists actually died later, in the period from February 2 to February 4, but we will stick to the more popular chronology), something terrible happened on the slope of Mount Holatchakhl - none of the nine tourists survived that night.

Discovery of the Dyatlovites' tent

On February 22, 1959, search and rescue operations were launched, a search party was sent along the route to these deserted places.

On February 26, a tent covered with snow was found on the slope of Kholatchakhl. The rear triangular wall of the tent was cut from the inside.

After the tent was dug up, many things of the guys were found there. At the entrance lay a homemade stove, buckets, a little further - a few cameras. Backpacks, documents and geographical maps, diaries of participants in the campaign, a bank with banknotes were also found here. Food, several pairs of shoes lay closer to the opposite side. Other interesting finds include an ice ax found inside the tent and a flashlight found outside, on the slope of the tent. There were no people in the tent.

Traces around the tent indicated that the entire Dyatlov group left the tent, and most likely through the cuts, and not through the main entrance. People ran out into the bitter cold (it was about -30 degrees) without shoes and poorly dressed. They ran about twenty meters away from the tent. Then the Dyatlovites, in a dense row, in a kind of line, moved down the slope. Moreover, they did not run away, but retreated with the most ordinary step. The search engines noticed protruding hills of snow - this is what human footprints look like when there is a big snowstorm on the ground. After about half a kilometer down the slope, traces were lost ...

corpse detection

The next day, February 27, on the descent towards the Lozva River, about 1500 meters from the tent and 280 meters down the slope, they found the first dead - Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko. Both were only in their underwear. At the same time, it turned out that Doroshenko's foot and hair near the temple were burned, and Krivonischenko had a burn of his left lower leg and left foot. Near the corpses there was a fire pit.

Later, about 300 meters away, Igor Dyatlov was found dead. He was slightly covered with snow, lying on his back, hugging a birch trunk with his hand. Dyatlov was wearing ski pants, a sweater, a fur sleeveless jacket, and a cowboy shirt. On the left and right legs - different socks, on one - woolen, on the second - cotton. The body of Zinaida Kolmogorova was found 330 meters from the head of the group. The girl was also in warm clothes, but completely barefoot.

In March, Rustem Slobodin's body was found under a layer of snow 180 meters from Kolmogorovaya. He was dressed warmly enough, while on his right leg was a felt boot, worn over four pairs of socks (the second felt boot remained in the tent). A characteristic feature of the last three found tourists was the shade of the skin: according to the search engines - red-orange, in the documents of the forensic medical examination - crimson.

Other members of the group were found only in May, when the snow began to melt. Some small finds led the searchers to the hollow of the stream. By means of probes, here, under the snow, they groped and dug out a floor of fifteen trees, but there were no people on it. They were found even lower, directly by the stream.

At the same time, some of the bodies that were here had terrible injuries, apparently received during their lifetime. Dubinina and Zolotarev had fractures of twelve ribs. Later, the examination determined that these injuries can only be obtained from a powerful blow, similar to a fall from a considerable height. Dubinina and Zolotarev also had no eyeballs - they were squeezed out or removed. On top of that, Dubinina was missing her tongue and part of her lip when she was discovered. And Thibaut-Brignolles had a fractured and, as it were, pressed into the inside of the temporal bone.

Many of the dead participants had watches on their hands, and, interestingly, they showed different times. And one more oddity: during the examination, it was found that some items of clothing (sweater, trousers) emit radioactive radiation.

The whole picture of the tragedy was replete with oddities in the behavior of the Dyatlovites. It is not clear why they did not run away from the tent, but moved away from it with a normal step. It is not clear why they needed to kindle a fire precisely at a high cedar in an open area and why it was necessary to break branches to a height of up to five meters. How could they have received such terrible injuries? Why didn’t those who reached the stream and made sunbeds there survive, because even in the cold it was possible to “hold out” there until dawn? And the key question: what made the group leave the tent in such a hurry with practically no clothes, no shoes and no special equipment?

The funeral of the band members in Sverdlovsk took place from March to May. And on May 28, the investigator closed the case. It was written in the resolution that some irresistible elemental force became the cause of the death of the Dyatlovites - a very vague formula.

The main and most probable versions

Among the numerous versions of the death of the Dyatlovites, several main ones can be distinguished. Among them, the descent of the "snow board", the attack of prisoners who escaped from the colony, death at the hands of the Mansi, the destruction of the group by the military or special services. Some talk about a quarrel between tourists or voice versions about the impact of a powerful weapon, which was allegedly tested in the USSR at that time. Finally, there is a very specific (and conspiratorial) version of the "controlled delivery" - that allegedly in the mountains of the Northern Urals, the Dyatlovites met with spies of another country. Each of these versions deserves a separate discussion.

Mansi murder

Initially, the local population of the Northern Urals, the Mansi, was suspected of the murder. More specifically, they suspected Mansi Anyamov, Kurikov, Sanbindalov and their relatives. But none of them wanted to admit anything. Rather, they themselves were frightened. Some Mansi said that they saw mysterious "fireballs" near the place of death of tourists. They not only described this phenomenon, but also sketched it. In the future, these sketches from the case disappeared somewhere.

Ultimately, Mansi's suspicion was removed. The criminal case says that the Mansi, who live about a hundred kilometers from this place, are friendly to Russians - they provide tourists with accommodation, help them, and so on. And in general, Mount Kholatchakhl is not a sacred place for the Mansi, on the contrary, representatives of this nationality have always tried to bypass this peak. The slope where the group died, in winter, according to the Mansi, is not very suitable for reindeer herding and hunting.

A quarrel between tourists, an attack by prisoners or poachers

There is a version that the cause of the tragedy could be a domestic quarrel or a drunken fight between the participants of the campaign because of the girls. This fight allegedly led to brutal violence and subsequent tragedy. Experienced tourists reject this assumption. In particular, Vitaly Volovich, an expert on survival in extreme situations, spoke out against the version of internecine conflict.

As for the possibility of a conflict with runaway prisoners, this version also has flaws. It is not clear, for example, why the prisoners did not take money and valuables (in particular, cameras). In addition, the investigator of the Ivdel prosecutor's office in those years, Vladimir Korotaev, says that there were no escapes during the period when the Dyatlovites died.

It is also suggested that the Dyatlovites met with officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (apparently, employees of Ivdellag), who were engaged in poaching. People in uniform out of hooligan motives, according to some, attacked tourists, which led to their death from cold and injuries. The very fact of the attack was allegedly subsequently hidden.

Critics of this version emphasize that the surroundings of Mount Holatchakhl are of little use for hunting in winter and therefore not very attractive for poachers. In addition, the possibility of a complete concealment of a clash between employees of various special services with tourists in the context of a large-scale investigation that has begun is called into question.

Avalanche version

This is one of the most developed versions. It was put forward in 1991 by Moses Axelrod, a participant in the search. Later, she was supported by the masters of sports (MS) in tourism Evgeny Buyanov and Boris Slobtsov.

The meaning of the version is that an avalanche (“snow board”) descended on the tent. She crushed it with a significant load of snow, which caused the urgent evacuation of tourists without warm clothes and equipment, after which they died from the cold. It was also suggested that the serious injuries received by some tourists are the consequences of an avalanche.

Buyanov points out that the scene is referred to as "areas with avalanches from recrystallized snow." Based on the opinions of certain experts and citing relevant examples, the researcher writes that a relatively modest (no more than ten tons), but extremely dangerous collapse of compacted snow - the so-called "snow board" - could descend on the Dyatlov group's tent. The injuries of some tourists in Buyanov's version are explained by squeezing between the high-density snow mass and the hard bottom of the tent.

Opponents of this hypothesis point out that traces of the notorious "snow board" were not found, although there were experienced climbers among the participants in the search. The "avalanche" origin of the severe injuries of three people is also rejected - after all, for some reason, there are no traces of the impact of an avalanche on other members of the group and on fragile objects in the tent.

Finally, the retreat of the Dyatlovites from the avalanche danger zone down, and not across the slope, is considered a gross mistake, experienced tourists could hardly have made such a mistake.

"Controlled Delivery"

The conspiracy version of Alexei Rakitin enjoys considerable popularity. According to this version, several members of the Dyatlov group were secret agents of the KGB. At the meeting, they were supposed to pass disinformation related to domestic nuclear technologies, as well as a radioactive sweater, to foreign (American) agents disguised as another tourist group. But foreign spies at the meeting accidentally gave themselves away, after which they decided to destroy all members of the Dyatlov group.

In the past, Soviet intelligence officer Mikhail Lyubimov reacted to this version with skepticism. He noted that Western intelligence in the distant fifties really showed interest in the secrets of the industrial enterprises of the Urals and carried out spies. But why transfer a radioactive sweater in such a deserted and remote area is absolutely not clear.

In addition, traces of radiation can be fully explained by the famous accident at the Mayak plant in 1957. One of the Dyatlovites, Georgy Krivonischenko, participated in the liquidation of this accident.

Versions about the impact of some tested weapon

Some researchers believe that the Dyatlov group fell victim to some kind of weapon being tested, for example, a rocket of a fundamentally new format. This allegedly provoked a hasty flight from the tent or even directly contributed to the deaths. As damaging factors, rocket fuel components, a fallen off rocket stage, a sodium cloud, the impact of a volumetric explosion, etc. are called.

Anatoly Gushchin, a journalist from Yekaterinburg, suggested that the group was the victim of a neutron bomb test, after which, in order to preserve state secrets, the death of tourists in natural conditions was staged.

Some researchers also voiced a version about the influence of a certain psychotronic weapon on the psyche of tourists, as a result of which they temporarily lost their minds and began to cripple each other. Here you should know that there is such a thing as infrasound - these are sound waves below the frequency perceived by the human ear. Exposure to infrasound could well lead to panic, all kinds of visions, and to the fact that the Dyatlovites began to take extremely rash actions.

The key disadvantage of all such versions is that it makes no sense to test new weapons outside the special ranges. Only at the training grounds can one evaluate the effectiveness of a weapon, its pros and cons. In addition, the Soviet Union in those years supported a moratorium on nuclear testing, and Western partners would certainly have recorded a violation of this moratorium.

According to Yevgeny Buyanov, an accidental hit in the vicinity of Mount Kholatchakhl is in principle impossible. All types of missiles of the corresponding period either do not fit in terms of range (taking into account the likely launch sites), or were not launched on the days when the tragedy occurred.

Paranormal versions

This includes versions that use factors to explain the death of the Dyatlovites, the existence of which is still in principle denied by scientists: fireballs, the arrival of aliens, curses and damage, an attack by a yeti (snowman), a meeting with some underground dwarfs, etc.

Memorial plaque in memory of the Dyatlovites

Ultimately, everyone can stick to whatever version they want, because there is still no exact answer to how it all happened and why the Dyatlovites died. But there is a memory of this incident. The pass, located near the place of death of tourists, is now called the Dyatlov Pass. And on a stone ledge near this pass, in 1963, a memorial plaque was installed with photographs of nine young and courageous tourists.

Subsequently, another memorial plaque was installed here in 1989. And in the middle of 2012, several plates with publications about the Dyatlovites in the Yekaterinburg edition of the Ural Pathfinder were additionally recorded at this place.

Documentary "Dyatlov Pass: The End of History"

More than half a century ago, a mysterious and tragic event took place in the mountains of the Northern Urals. At the beginning of February 1959 for an unknown reason nine tourists died.

After this tragedy, three deputy chairmen of the KGB lost their posts at once, which was an unprecedented event in the history of the most powerful intelligence service in the world.

A FEAT ON A SCHEDULE

Ski trip to one of the peaks of the Poyasovyi Kamen ridge of the Subpolar Urals, Mount Otorten, was conceived by members of the tourism section of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. S. M. Kirov in the autumn of 1958. The route belonged to the highest category of difficulty.

The group had to overcome more than 350 km in severe winter conditions in 16 days and climb the Otorten and Oiko-Chakur mountains. The campaign was timed to coincide with the XXI Congress of the CPSU and was supported by the leadership of the Ural Polytechnic University.

The initial composition of the group consisted of twelve people, but in the end, on January 23, 1959, ten people set off from the Sverdlovsk railway station: Igor Dyatlov, Zina Kolmogorova, Rustem Slobodin, Yuri Doroshenko, Georgy (Yuri) Krivonischenko, Nikolay Thibault-Brignolles, Lyudmila Dubinina, Semyon (Alexander) Zolotarev, Alexander Kolevatov and Yuri Yudin. It must be said that the group was only nominally considered a student group, since four of them were no longer students by that time, and some had nothing to do with UPI at all.

The composition of the group was diverse. The youngest was 20-year-old Dubinina. The instructor of the Kourovskaya camp site Zolotarev, who joined at the last moment, turned 37. The head of the group, Dyatlov, was 23. Despite his youth, Igor Dyatlov was already a very experienced tourist and had more than one route of varying difficulty behind him. And the rest were far from newcomers. In addition, they already had experience of joint campaigns and all of them, with the exception of Zolotarev, knew each other well and were a solid, friendly and proven team of like-minded people.

Each person was on the account, and it was all the more insulting to lose one of the participants in the very first days of the campaign. Due to aggravated sciatica, already after the first transition from the settlement of the 41st quarter to the non-residential settlement, the 2nd Northern mine was forced to leave the route of Yu. Yudin. A sharp pain did not allow him to move at the planned speed, even without a backpack.

The loss of one of the experienced male hikers forced the group leader to reconsider the schedule and postpone the date of the group's arrival back to Sverdlovsk in case of a successful completion of the trip from February 10 to February 12. However, no one doubted this outcome. And no one could have foreseen that this unfortunate absurdity would save Yuri Yudin's life - the only one of the whole group.

Based on diary entries, it is only possible to partially restore the picture of what happened: on the evening of February 1, 1959, a group led by Dyatlov set up a camp near Mount Otorten in order to climb to its summit the next morning. However, subsequent events did not allow the group to fulfill the intended ...

Neither on February 12 nor later did the group get in touch. Some delay did not particularly alarm the leadership of the institute. Relatives were the first to sound the alarm. At their request, a search and rescue operation was organized, which began only on February 22. Everyone took part in the search for the missing people: from students and tourists to army units and special services.

Moreover, all further events took place under the close control of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the KGB. The level of what happened is evidenced by the fact that to investigate the tragedy near Mount Kholat-Syakhyl, a state commission was created, which included: Major General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs M.N. Shishkarev, Deputy Chairman of the Sverdlovsk Regional Executive Committee V.A. F. T. Yermash, prosecutor of Sverdlovsk N. I. Klinov and Major General of Aviation M. I. Gorlachenko.

Pay attention to the last figure in this list. It would seem, what is a military pilot to do here? Nevertheless, some data allow us to assert that the Major General of the Air Force was not included in the commission by chance. The case was under the personal control of the 1st Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU A.P. Kirilenko.

TERRIBLE FINDINGS

The official investigation on the question of the causes of the tragedy on the night of February 1 to 2 could not give an answer. Or didn't want to. The criminal case was closed on May 28, 1959. In a document compiled by an employee of the Ivdel procurator L. Ivanov, it was said: "... it should be considered that the cause of their death was an elemental force, which people were not able to overcome."

Nevertheless, enthusiasts continued the search. Today, there are several dozen versions of the reasons for the death of the Dyatlov group. Among them:

Unfavorable weather conditions;

Quarrel between tourists;

Death at the hands of the local population;

Attack by escaped prisoners;

Clash with special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs;

Paranormal phenomena (mysticism and UFOs);

Technogenic catastrophe (version by G. Tsygankova);

Avalanche (version by E. V. Buyanov);

Special operation of the KGB during the Cold War (A. I. Rakitin's version).

I must say that the investigations conducted by volunteers are respected, and some of them answer, if not all, then many questions.

On February 27, one and a half kilometers from a tent found half-buried and frozen in snow, set up on the slope of Mount Kholat-Syakhyl, the bodies of Yury Doroshenko and Yury Krivonischenko were found. Almost immediately, three hundred meters above, the body of Igor Dyatlov was found. Then, under a thin layer of dense snow, the body of Zina Kolmogorova was found, and on March 5, the body of Rustem Slobodin was found.

The next two months of searching yielded no results. And only after the warming, on May 4, they found the rest. The bodies were at the foot of the mountain under a layer of snow 2.5 m thick in the channel of a stream that had already begun to melt. First, the body of Lyudmila Dubinina was found, and the rest were found a little downstream: Alexander Kolevatov and Semyon Zolotarev lay at the edge of the stream in an embrace “chest to back”, Nikolai Thibault-Brignolles was downstream, in the water.

The first assumption was that the tourists were caught in severe bad weather. With a hurricane gust of wind, part of the group was blown down the mountainside, the rest immediately rushed to their aid. As a result, people were swept up the slope by a hurricane, and as a result, everyone froze. However, later the investigation abandoned this version, since subsequent findings did not fit into it.

There could be no question of psychological incompatibility. Who would go on such a difficult and dangerous route with untested or conflicting people? This should be known at least then in order to understand: all members of the group trusted each other, each of them deserved the right to be among the lucky ones, and everyone stood up for each other with a mountain. Thus, the version about the death of all members of the group as a result of a quarrel also did not stand up to criticism.

A careful examination of the camp revealed several signs pointing to a crime. At the same time, it cannot be said that it was like a robbery, as if the group was faced with some criminal elements. A rather large amount of money, as well as watches, cameras and even alcohol remained untouched. Only one camera disappeared, along with a refilled film. But at the same time, the tent was torn and beyond repair. The examination showed that it was disabled from the inside.

But by whom and for what purpose? However, valuables left behind and a damaged tent indicate that the criminal version is untenable. It is unlikely that fugitive criminals would have left themselves without a roof over their heads, when at night the thermometer could drop to the 50-degree mark.

It has been suggested that the group was mistakenly destroyed by a special unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which confused tourists with criminals who had escaped from places of detention. But knowledgeable people say: in this case, small arms would definitely be used, and it would not have happened without gunshot wounds. And they were not on the bodies.

The idea was put forward that tourists went to the sacred slope of the prayer mountain and were killed by representatives of the local population (Mansi). However, as it turned out, there is no prayer mountain in these places, and all the witnesses described the indigenous population as calm and tourist-friendly people. As a result, the suspicion with Mansi was removed.

People who are prone to mysticism and sincerely believe in the other world, argue with fervor: everything happened because the group violated the boundaries of a sacred place guarded by spirits. Like, it’s not for nothing that they say: this zone is forbidden for a person, and the name of Mount Otorten (the Mansi call it Lunt-Khusap-Syahyl), where the group was going to move in the morning, is translated “Do not go there.”

However, A. Rakitin, who devoted several years to research, claims: in fact, "Lunt-Khusap" means "Goose's Nest", and it is connected with the lake of the same name Lunt-Khusap-Tur at the foot of the mountain. Fans of the other world insisted: the tourists recklessly set up their last camp on the slope of Mount Kholat-Syakhyl, which means “Mountain of the Dead” in the Mansi language. Confirmation is that even Mansi hunters do not enter these places.

Tourists were killed by something unknown and terrible. In particular, the nephew of Igor Dyatlov later testified: all the dead had gray hair. However, the lack of people in this area is also explained in a very prosaic way: these regions are too scarce in game, and there is simply nothing for hunters to do here. Yes, and the terrible name of the Mountain of the Dead, with a more accurate translation, turns into "Dead Mountain".

V. A. Varsanofyeva, a geologist, doctor of sciences, who worked for a long time at the Institute of Geology of the Komi Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, argued that the gloomy name was given to the mountain only because there was nothing on its slopes, not even vegetation - only scree and stones covered with lichen . Thus, the mystical version looks untenable.

Adding to the mysteries was the fact that all the bodies were found far from the camp, while most of the people found themselves on this extremely frosty night (up to -30°C) half-dressed and without headgear, six were barefoot, on their feet were only socks. Some were not dressed in their clothes, two were only in their underwear. The version of E. Buyanov was seriously considered, who claimed that an unexpected avalanche had occurred, and it was this event that forced people to leave the camp in a hurry, half-dressed.

However, according to other experts, with a slope of only 15 degrees, the formation of an avalanche is unlikely. Although this does not rule out snow shifts, and with sufficient density, there is a possibility of serious compression injuries found on the bodies found. However, the skis stuck in the snow remained in a vertical position, which worked against this version.

Everyone agreed on one thing: some extraordinary circumstances forced the tourists in extreme haste to leave the sleeping bags and the tent for the sake of saving lives. But what hostile force made them do it? What could be stronger than the fear of death from the cold? The motives of the behavior of hardened and psychologically mature people at the moment when their fate was being decided have not yet been identified.

Unanswered questions multiplied. Some frozen bodies were in the position of defenders. But from whom or from what? It did not add clarity, and the fact that some of the bodies were found large burnt areas and traces of serious injuries, both intravital and post-mortem. Strong indentation of the sternum, numerous fractures of the ribs and other bones of the body were noted, which could be obtained as a result of compression, the powerful impact of external forces.

Yu. Krivonischenko and L. Dubinina had damaged eyeballs, S. Zolotarev had them completely absent, and the girl also had no tongue. A. Kolevatov has a broken nose, deformed neck and damaged temporal bone. Tourists received all these injuries during their lifetime, as evidenced by hemorrhages in nearby organs. All the clothes had a strange purple tint, and experts found traces of gray foam in Y. Doroshenko's mouth.

It should be noted that serious contradictions were revealed already at the very initial stage. Some experts claim that the holes in the tents were made by the tourists themselves for the fastest possible evacuation due to a sudden danger. Others insist that the tent was deliberately damaged by some hostile force in order to exclude the possibility of its use in the future, which, under the conditions of the Northern Ural frosts, which reached critical levels, would be guaranteed to lead to the death of people.

And both of these statements are in direct contradiction with the statements of the third: the tent frozen in the snow was originally intact and damaged already during the clumsily conducted search operation. At the same time, they refer to the conclusions of the investigator of the prosecutor's office, V.I. Tempalov, who, in his most detailed description of the scene of the incident, did not say a word about its damage.

ON GUARD OF THE HOMELAND, BUT NOT PERSON

The most popular version is associated with weapons testing, in particular with the launch of missiles. They talked about the components of rocket fuel, the impact of the blast wave, explaining the compression injuries. In confirmation, the excessive radioactivity of the clothes of tourists recorded by the investigation is given.

But this version looks strange. Weapon tests are usually carried out at special test sites with the appropriate infrastructure capable of recording the damaging effect. In addition, not a single document on the tests carried out in that area has been published since then. On the contrary, data have become available that refute this version.

At that time, there were no rockets in the USSR capable of flying from the launch site (Tyura-Tam, later Baikonur) to the site of the tragedy, and spacecraft carrier rockets were oriented to the northeast and, in principle, could not fly over the Northern Urals. And in the period from January 2 to February 17, 1959, there were no launches from Tyura-Tama.

Sea-based missiles, which were tested at that time in the Barents Sea area, had a flight range of no more than 150 km, while from the place of death to the coast was more than 600 km. Air defense missiles, adopted at that time, could fly at a distance of no more than 50 km, and the nearest launcher was deployed only a year later. However, we will return to air defense.

OIL FOR BLOOD

It is impossible not to take into account another serious version. She claims that the reason for the death of tourists is a man-made disaster caused by a tragic combination of circumstances. In part, this version echoes the version of the above-mentioned E. Buyanov about the avalanche.

The whole country was preparing for the opening of the XXI Congress of the CPSU. At that time, it was customary to report on new labor achievements. The discovery of a new oil and gas field and, most importantly, a timely report about it promised considerable privileges to all those involved.

But there was little time left. To carry out urgent reconnaissance work on the order of the government, the USSR Ministry of Geology and Subsoil Protection and the Ministry of Aviation, methanol was delivered by the world's largest An-8T aircraft, which was specially converted to transport dangerous goods.

Methanol is extremely toxic and, when exposed to humans, causes respiratory paralysis, swelling of the brain and lungs, and vascular collapse. In addition, the optic nerve and the retina of the eyeball are affected. An emergency situation that arose in flight forced the crew commander to get rid of the cargo and, loitering, merge it in hard-to-reach and deserted places. Unfortunately, the group's route passed in the An-8T flight area, and the tourists were exposed to a poisonous substance intended for completely different purposes.

Methanol has the ability to dissolve snow and ice, turning them into a fluid mass. It is used in gas and oil fields to prevent blockage of oil wells, underground gas storages and main gas pipelines by crystalline hydrates resembling ice. In addition, for geophysical work in special cases, the method of radioactive tracers was used. There is reason to believe that the An-8T was carrying radioactive methanol.

A large amount of the substance that settled on the snow cover in the highlands contributed to the liquefaction of huge masses of snow. And this is what provoked the formation of a heavy ice-snow landslide on a slope with a steepness of only 12-15 degrees. According to the version, it was precisely such a mass of liquefied snow that covered the tent with tourists on that February night. And it is the sprayed methanol that is the cause of the purple tint of the clothes.

Given the traces of radioactive contamination and the nature of the injuries, this version seems much more realistic than the UFO version. Although she does not answer the question why only part of the clothes of the dead
was radioactive. True, the author of the version explains this as follows: clothes soaked in a poisonous radioactive substance were removed from the corpses in order to hide the cause of the death of the group. And yet there were questions that this version could not answer.

KGB VS CIA

From a certain moment, testimonies about strange fireballs observed in the area where tourists died began to appear in the criminal case. They were repeatedly seen by residents of the Northern Urals, including search engines. According to eyewitnesses, a fireball larger than two lunar diameters grew in the sky. Then the ball faded, blurred across the sky and went out.

It is on the basis of this evidence that the supporters of the "Martian" version insist that the tragedy is connected with UFOs. But that was later, but for now, a decision is being made to conduct a radiological examination of the clothes of the dead. The results showed that there were traces of radioactive substances on the clothes of two participants in the campaign. In addition, it turned out that G. Krivoni-shchenko and R. Slobodin were the bearers of state secrets and worked at the secret enterprise Mailbox 10, which develops atomic weapons.

Things began to take a completely unexpected turn. The reason for the creation of the state commission with such a high status became clear. Subsequently, it turned out that a specialist in radioactive contamination, A. Kikoin, took part in the examination of the scene of the incident as a team leader, and even with unique equipment.

The international situation of that time should also be remembered: in the conditions of the escalating Cold War, the USSR hastily forged a nuclear shield. At the same time, the conclusions of the official investigation become more understandable, because everything that was connected with state secrets was carefully hushed up. Still would! After all, nothing that can carry radioactive traces of top-secret production should not leave the restricted area.

Because isotopic traces carry comprehensive information about what and how reactors produce. In those days, for foreign intelligence, there was nothing more valuable than this data. Especially since we are talking about the late 1950s, when the nuclear potential of the USSR for Western intelligence was a secret behind seven seals. All this gave a completely unexpected direction for researchers.

Among the dead was another difficult figure: Semyon (Alexander) Zolotarev. He introduced himself as Alexander when meeting the rest of the group. A. Rakitin in his study claims: Zolotarev was a KGB agent and carried out an absolutely secret mission with Krivonischenko and Slobodin. His goal was to control the transfer of clothes with traces of radioactive substances to a group of American agents.

Based on their analysis, it was possible to establish what exactly was produced at the secret factory. The whole operation was developed by specialists from the Lubyanka and pursued one goal: disinformation of the main enemy. The campaign itself was only a cover for an operation of national importance, and the students were used in the dark.

Apparently, during the meeting of agents and couriers, something went wrong as planned by the special services, and the entire Dyatlov group was destroyed. Their death was staged in such a way that the tragedy looked as natural as possible. That is why everything was done without the use of firearms and even edged weapons.

It was not difficult for the elite fighters. According to the position of some of the bodies and the nature of the injuries, it can be assumed that the dead had to deal with masters of hand-to-hand combat, and burn marks indicate that the presence of signs of life in the victims was checked in this way.

But the question arises: how did foreign intelligence agents get into the deserted and hard-to-reach region of the Northern Urals? Unfortunately, there is a very simple answer to this: until the early 1960s, NATO planes flew into the territory of the USSR from the North Pole almost without hindrance, and throwing a group of paratroopers into deserted places was not particularly difficult.

It is no longer a secret that in the middle of the 20th century the USSR did not have an effective air defense system, and the presence of "strat jets" in NATO countries - RB-47 and U-2 aircraft capable of climbing to a height of more than 20 km - made it possible with high efficiency carry out the deployment of agents and aerial reconnaissance of virtually any area of ​​interest to them. The following facts testify to the impunity of the NATO Air Force: on April 29, 1954, a group of three reconnaissance aircraft made a daring raid along the route Novgorod - Smolensk - Kyiv.

On Victory Day - May 9, 1954 - an American RB-47 flew over Murmansk and Severomorsk. On May 1, 1955, reconnaissance aircraft appeared over Kyiv and Leningrad. May Day demonstrations of Soviet workers were photographed, who sincerely believed that "the Red Army was the strongest of all, and did not even suspect that spy planes were literally flying over their heads.

According to American aviation historians, in 1959 alone, the intelligence of the US Air Force and the CIA made more than 3 thousand flights! The situation looked absurd: the center was flooded with reports of foreign aircraft flying over the country, and domestic aviation experts declared that “this cannot be.” But this concerned not only the USSR. The technical superiority of the U-2 over the then existing air defense systems was so obvious that the CIA, with undisguised cynicism, used these aircraft around the world.

As it turned out, the fireballs had nothing to do with UFOs either. These are just huge flare bombs parachuted for lighting to photograph large areas and secret objects at night. Now the inclusion of the general of aviation in the composition of the commission becomes understandable.
However, another question arises: how could the CIA agents leave the scene? After all, without escape routes and evacuation, this operation lost all meaning.

And if the air defense forces were powerless, then you can’t say the same about the KGB. Blocking train stations, combing all possible places of appearance of strangers for the special services did not work. And to pass hundreds or even thousands of kilometers unnoticed in the winter in the conditions of the Subpolar Urals is beyond the power of anyone. And here a truly unique know-how comes to the fore.

HEAVEN HOOK

In the fall of 1958, the Americans, using parachutes, landed two scouts on the drifting Soviet polar station North Pole-5, which had been mothballed two years earlier. The Americans were interested in all the draft documentation related to meteorological observations in the Arctic and the means of communication used by Soviet polar explorers.

And here - attention! After completing the mission, the scouts were evacuated and taken on board the aircraft using a unique system developed by designer Robert Fulton and installed on the P2V-7 Neptune reconnaissance aircraft. This device was designed to pick up a person who is on the surface of the earth and deliver him on board an aircraft flying over him. The device was dubbed the "skyhook" and proved to be surprisingly simple, safe and effective to use.

The evacuee was dropped a container, which contained a warm overall with a special harness, a mini-aerostat and a balloon with compressed helium. All this was accompanied by a nylon cord about 150 m long. One end of the cord was attached to a mini balloon, and the other to a harness. Dressed in overalls and filling the balloon with helium, the passenger launched it into the sky. The evacuator aircraft, using a special device installed outside the fuselage, at a speed of about 220 km / h, cut a stretched nylon cord and, using a winch, lifted a person aboard the aircraft.

The first US Marine Corps Sergeant Levi Woods to be flown aboard an aircraft in this manner was. It happened on August 12, 1958. Subsequently, the "sky hook" was tested in various conditions of use: on the water, in the mountains, in a forest area. The reviews were the most positive. At least two such interceptors are known to have been based in Europe.

With a flight range of 7,000 km, the Neptunes could carry out an emergency evacuation of scouts from almost anywhere in the European part of the USSR. This version is indirectly indicated by the loss of a camera with refilled film. Perhaps he was taken as one of the evidence of the meeting of agents with couriers.

To date, many who are interested in this topic recognize that A. Rakitin's version looks the most realistic. However, opponents of such conspiracy theories retort: ​​this is impossible, since the authorities did not prevent a wide range of civilians from participating in the search operation, from whom in this case it was necessary to hide the true causes of the tragedy.

Perhaps, over time, new data will appear that reveal the mystery of the death of nine tourists on a February night in 1959. However, the number of those who know the true causes of the tragic events more than half a century ago is steadily approaching zero. Will we ever know the truth? Unknown. Do we have a right to this? Undoubtedly. This would be a worthy manifestation of respect for the memory of the dead. Along with the Dyatlov Pass already existing in the Northern Urals and marked on the maps.

Alexander GUNKOVSKY

Almost everyone has heard of the Dyatlov Pass. About the terrible tragedy that happened in the Northern Urals in 1959 with a group of tourists led by Igor Dyatlov, many films were made and even more articles were written.

There are many versions of the death of the Dyatlov group. They talk about unusual natural phenomena, secret tests, and even UFOs... Unfortunately, as often happens, most of those who made films and wrote these same newspaper articles have never seen either the investigation materials or the results of the examinations of this case. We will try not to prejudice to talk about the death of the group, based solely on the investigative materials.

Tent under the snow

On February 1, 1959, a group of skiers (mostly students from Sverdlovsk) began to climb the mountain, marked on their map under No. 1079. These were Dyatlov Igor (23 years old), Kolmogorova Zinaida (22 years old), Doroshenko Yuri (21 years old), Krivonischenko Yuriy (23 years old), Dubinina Lyudmila (20 years old), Kolevatov Alexander (24 years old), Slobodin Rustem (23 years old) , Thibaut-Brignolles Nikolay (23 years old), Zolotarev Alexander (37 years old).

On February 12, the group was supposed to arrive in the village of Vizhay and send a telegram to the sports club about the completion of the route. They have not come. A search operation was launched in the mountains. On February 26, an abandoned tent was found on the eastern slope of that same mountain. She was cut from the inside.

The Dyatlovites' tent was found by search engines Boris Slobtsov and Mikhail Sharavin, UPI students. Examining the eastern slope of the ridge through binoculars, Sharavin noticed a hillock in the snow that looked like a littered tent. When the searchers came closer, they saw that the entire tent was covered with snow, from under which only the entrance was visible. Above the surface, only skis stuck in the snow stuck out. The tent itself was covered with a hard layer of snow 20 cm thick. Footprints in the snow, going into the forest, indicated that the tourists had hastily left the lodging for the night, cutting the canvas of the awning. After the discovery of the tent, a search for tourists was also organized.

Undressed corpses

The frozen and crippled bodies of all nine members of the group were found within a radius of one and a half kilometers from the tent.

So, at the very border of the forest, near the remains of a bonfire, the corpses of Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko were found. The hands and feet of the guys were burned and cut. Moreover, both corpses were found in underwear without shoes. The children's clothes were cut off with a knife. Subsequently, these clothes were found on other members of the group. This indicated that both Yuris were practically the first to freeze ...

The examination found traces of leather and other tissues on the tree trunk. The guys climbed a tree to the last to break branches for a fire, while peeling their already frostbitten hands to the meat.

From the last strength

Soon, with the help of dogs, under a thin layer of snow, on the line from the tent to the cedar, they found the corpses of Igor Dyatlov and Zina Kolmogorova.

Igor Dyatlov was at a distance of about 300 meters from the cedar, and Zina Kolmogorova was about 750 meters from the tree. Igor Dyatlov's hand peeked out from under the snow. He froze in this position, as if he wanted to get up and go in search of his comrades again.

180 meters from the corpse of Dyatlov, towards the tent, they found the corpse of Rustem Slobodin. He was under a layer of snow on a slope: conditionally, between the corpse of Dyatlov and Kolmogorova. One of his legs was shod in felt boots. Rustem Slobodin was discovered by search engines in the classic “corpse bed”, which is observed in people frozen directly on the snow.

A later forensic medical examination found that Dyatlov, Doroshenko, Krivonischenko and Kolmogorova died from the effects of low temperature - no injuries were found on their bodies, with the exception of minor scratches and abrasions.

Rustem Slobodin's autopsy revealed a 6 cm long fracture of the skull, which he received during his lifetime. However, experts found that his death, like everyone else, came from hypothermia.

crippled bodies

On May 4, in the forest, 75 meters from the fire, under a four-meter layer of snow, the remaining corpses were found - Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Zolotarev, Nikolai Thibault-Brignolles and Alexander Kolevatov.

There were no injuries on the corpse of Alexander Kolevatov, death came from hypothermia.

Alexander Zolotarev had broken ribs on the right. Nicholas Thibault-Brignolles had an extensive hemorrhage in the right temporal muscle and a depressed skull fracture.

Lyudmila Dubinina was found to have a symmetrical fracture of several ribs; she died from a massive hemorrhage in the heart within 15-20 minutes after the injury. The corpse had no tongue. On the bodies found and next to them were trousers and sweaters of Yury Krivonischenko and Yury Doroshenko who remained by the fire. This clothing had even traces of cuts ...

The criminal case on the fact of the death of the Dyatlov group was terminated with the following wording: “Given the absence of external bodily injuries and signs of a struggle on the corpses, the presence of all the group’s values, and also taking into account the conclusion of the forensic medical examination on the causes of death of tourists, it should be considered that the cause the death of tourists was an elemental force, which the tourists were not able to overcome.

Over the following years, numerous attempts were made to understand what happened on the slope of that ill-fated mountain. A variety of versions were put forward - from quite plausible to unlikely, and even delusional. At the same time, the existing facts were often forgotten ...

The events of that tragic night when the Dyatlov group died are recreated solely on the basis of the materials of the investigation and subsequent criminal examinations. So those who are waiting for aliens, fantastic anomalies and secret tests can read no further. There will be only fatal mistakes, hopelessness and the life-sucking bitter cold of the Northern Urals...

Warnings and Errors

From the testimony of the forester of the Vizhaysky forestry, I.D. Rempel: “On January 25, 1959, a group of tourists turned to me, showed me their route and asked for advice. I told them that it was dangerous to walk along the Ural Range in winter, as there were large gorges into which one could fall, and strong winds raged there. To which they replied: "For us, this will be considered the first class of difficulty." Then I told them: “First you need to go through it ...”

From the materials of the criminal case: “... knowing about the difficult conditions of the relief of the 1079 height, where the ascent was supposed to be, Dyatlov, as the leader of the group, made a gross mistake, expressed in the fact that the group began the ascent only at 15.00.”

Literally an hour later it started to get dark. Twilight was approached by the beginning of a snowfall, which found the group on the mountainside. Before sunset, there was only time to set up a tent.

Those who went on winter hikes know that a cold night at minus twenty-five is a serious test. Moreover, it was their first stop for the night, when they decided not to heat the stove.

"At random"

Tourists set up the tent “in a corporate way”: stretch marks were pulled over ski poles. The Dyatlovites had a small tin stove with them, but it was not installed that day, as the roof of the tent sagged and a fire could start. There were no problems with the installation in the forest - guy wires are attached to trees, but there are no trees on the mountain. The central part of the tent could be additionally secured with braces on skis, but this was not done.

It would be reasonable to try to fix the center of the tent, not even in order to hang the stove, but in order to avoid sagging of the slopes of the tent under the mass of snow. But they didn't do that either. Already frozen.

What was the ridge on which the tourists ended up? Moving to the top, the Dyatlov group reached one of the main ridges of the Northern Urals - the so-called watershed. It is here that the largest snowfall occurs in winter and powerful winds blow.

In a snow sarcophagus

By nightfall, everyone got rid of their wet outerwear and took off their shoes. All except Thibaut-Brignolle and Zolotarev. These two remained dressed and shod. Zolotarev, apparently, as an experienced tourist and instructor, did not relax. And Thibaut-Brignolles was on duty.

As the sun set, the weather changed a lot. The wind picked up and the snow began to fall. Heavy snow stuck to the slopes, stuck around and practically cemented the tent dug into the snow, making a sarcophagus out of it. Due to the lack of a central stretch, under a thick layer of snow, the tent caved in. The awning was old, sewn in many places. The accident did not take long. Fragile slopes burst in several places, and under the weight of snow, the tent collapsed right on the tourists. It all happened quickly, in complete darkness. It became dangerous to be in the tent. Tourists were lying, covered with an awning, under a thick layer of snow. The cold, ragged tent did not warm, did not give warmth. It turned into a source of obvious danger - it threatened to become a common grave. Dyatlov and Krivonischenko, who were at the end of the tent, began to cut the slopes.

In hope of salvation

Outside, more trouble awaited the tourists. Having got out of the tent, the guys faced a snowfall of incredible strength and density, with a wind that knocked them down. The emergency required a quick decision. The squall literally swept people off their feet, the tent was littered, and digging snow with bare hands under an icy wind was suicide.

Dyatlov decided to seek salvation in the forest below. Warmed up as best they could. Somehow they distributed the things obtained from the tent. They didn’t get shoes, they couldn’t. Wind, snow and cold interfered. Rustem Slobodin managed to put on one boot.

The wind almost itself drove the Dyatlovites down. The boys tried to keep up. However, it is unlikely that in such an environment everyone was able to stay within sight. A terrible cold pierced tourists, it was difficult to breathe, to think - even more difficult. Most likely, the group broke up. Testimony of one of the searchers, Boris Slobtsov: "... the traces at first went in a heap, next to each other, and then diverged."

First victim

On the way to the forest, tourists had to overcome several stone ridges. At the third ridge, misfortune befell the most athletic. Confidently walking on the snow - with one foot bare and the other shod in felt boots - did not work out, especially through the icy stones of the kurumnik. The felt boots glided strongly on a smooth surface. Rustem Slobodin lost his balance and fell extremely unsuccessfully, while hitting his head hard on a stone. Most likely, the rest of the Dyatlovites, busy overcoming the ridge, did not pay attention to his backlog at first. They realized it later, a little later: they began to search, shout, call.

Waking up, Rustem Slobodin crawled some distance down before losing consciousness. The injury was very serious - a crack in the skull ... He died first, froze in an unconscious state.

Fall and injury

Having reached the forest, the Dyatlovites made a fire near a tall cedar, in the only place found in the dark, where there was little snow underfoot. However, a fire in the wind is not salvation. We had to find a place to hide. Dyatlov sent the most well-equipped members of the group - Zolotarev, Thibault-Brignolle and Lyuda Dubinina - to search for shelter. The three of them wandered to the border of the forest, bypassing the ravine, at the bottom of which a stream flows. In the dark, the guys did not notice how they came to a steep seven-meter cliff and ended up on a small snow ledge. Such "overhanging banks" near the tributaries of the Northern Urals rivers are a common occurrence. One has only to step on them in the darkness of the night, and tragedy is inevitable...

A fall from a seven-meter height onto a rocky bottom of a stream did not pass without a trace for all three, they all received multiple bodily injuries, later described by a forensic expert: Thibaut-Brignolles - a severe head injury, Zolotarev and Dubinina - chest injuries, multiple fractures of the ribs. The boys could no longer move.

Fight for life

Now it is difficult to establish whether Sasha Kolevatov went with them to the place of the fall, or he and Igor Dyatlov found the guys later in a helpless state. Be that as it may, he did not abandon his comrades, he helped to drag his friends up the stream, closer to the fire. Then Dyatlov, Kolevatov and Kolmogorova built a fir flooring in a natural recess. It was very hard work. Everything was done with practically frozen hands, without mittens, without shoes, without warm outerwear. Ideally, it was necessary to move the wounded to the cedar, to the fire. But it was impossible. Between the wounded and the cedar was a high steep ravine. The only thing that could help comrades Sasha Kolevatov, Igor Dyatlov and Zina Kolmogorova was to build a second fire and maintain it. The group split up again. Walking between the fire and the deck was difficult. They were separated by a high snow wall. From the cedar to the flooring was 70 endless meters.

Yura Doroshenko and Yura Krivonischenko remained to support the bonfire near the cedar.

Stress Sel e

It was not easy to build a fire on a blown hillock, near the border of the forest, where the cedar was located. Skinning to meat, the guys broke the only combustible material in winter - cedar paws. The fire was their salvation. However, the fire and the first signs of heat played a trick on Yuriy. They began to fall asleep. Anyone who goes on a winter hike knows that sleeping in the cold is death. The guys began to deliberately inflict injuries on themselves so that the pain would return consciousness, so as not to freeze into unconsciousness. Traces of these injuries will then be described by a forensic expert: burns, bites on the palms, scratches.

Alas, the guys lost in this battle ... In psychology, there is such a thing as Selye's stress. As soon as a freezing person feels the first signs of heat, he relaxes, and in extreme conditions this is deadly. Especially if there is no one to help. Both Yuris died before everyone else.

Clothes on corpses

The condition of the wounded on the floor deteriorated rapidly. It was difficult to determine who was still alive. Apparently, Dyatlov instructed Kolevatov to keep the fire at the deck, and he himself decided to reach the first fire. He found Doroshenko and Krivonischenko already frozen there. Apparently, believing that it was necessary to insulate the wounded, Dyatlov cut off part of their clothes. Alas, their comrades no longer came to their senses. Their death made a depressing impression on those who remained.

Last push

Now it is difficult to say who was the first to go again to look for the lagging behind Slobodin - Igor Dyatlov or Zinaida Kolmogorova. Be that as it may, they went in search of him, not wanting to get used to the idea that finding something in this situation is completely unrealistic ...

So they were found later - frozen on the slope: Slobodin, Kolmogorov and Dyatlov. Dyatlov froze in a strong-willed position, not curled up in the fetal position, in which people are usually found frozen. Until his last breath, he tried to go forward in search of comrades.

white silence

Perhaps, without waiting for Dyatlov, Kolevatov went to the first fire, but found there only an extinct fire and the dead bodies of Doroshenko and Krivonischenko. Probably, at that moment the guy realized that Dyatlov and Zina were also already dead ...

Kolevatov wandered back to the deck where his dead friends lay. He knew perfectly well that there was no longer any chance of survival. It is hard to imagine the extent of this man's desperation.

Subsequently, on May 4, search engines found four corpses eaten by mice at this place. Someone had no eyes, someone had a tongue, someone had eaten cheeks.

P.S.
Before leaving the tent, Dyatlov stuck his skis in the snow as a guide. He hoped to return, but led the group to their deaths. Everything was predetermined in advance: fatigue, an old rotten tent set up at random, lack of firewood and the harsh climate of the Northern Urals. Even now, tourists go to Otorten along the channels of the tributaries of the Lozva, and not along the dangerous Ural Range, where only wild cold reigns.

More versions :

1. A UFO in the area of ​​the Dyatlov Pass is waiting for researchers:

2. There could have been a big fight at the Dyatlov Pass:

3. The mystery of the Dyatlov Pass is solved: