The death of the Dyatlov group: a mystery that does not have an unambiguous solution. At this very time. Strange phenomena. Transportation

: 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, with the dispatch of 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 the 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. In a limited volume, they were available to the journalist of the Regional Newspaper of Yekaterinburg, Anatoly Gushchin, who quoted some of them in his documentary story “The price of state secrets is 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 acquainted 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 prosecutorial 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 in the newspaper Kustanaiskaya Pravda, “The Mystery of Fireballs,” in which he stated that the case had been 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 collapsed 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 flow 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 tourists were hit by some kind of weapon being tested, the effects 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” (a 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 certain 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 the 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 the 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 the Dyatlov tourist group is one of the most mysterious and terrible incidents of the 20th century, which happened on the night of February 1-2, 1959 in the Northern Urals, when a group of tourists led by Igor Dyatlov died under unclear circumstances. Here and below are photos taken by the participants of the hike:

At the moment when, having set up a tent on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (translated from Mansi - “Mountain of the Dead”), the tourists were getting ready for bed, something happened that made them leave the shelter in a panic, starting down the slope. All were later found dead, presumably from the cold. Several people had severe internal injuries, as if they had fallen from a height or been hit by a car at speed (no significant skin damage was found).

The group consisted of skiers from the tourist club of the Ural Polytechnic Institute (UPI, Sverdlovsk): five students, three engineers graduates of the UPI and an instructor of the hostel, veteran Semyon Zolotarev. The group leader was a 5th year student of UPI, an experienced tourist Igor Dyatlov. The other members of the group were also not beginners in sports tourism, having experience in difficult hikes.

One of the participants in the campaign, Yuri Yudin, dropped out of the group due to sciatica when entering the active part of the route, due to which the only one from the whole group survived. He was the first to identify the personal belongings of the dead, and he also identified the bodies of Slobodin and Dyatlov. In the 1990s, he was deputy head of Solikamsk for economics and forecasting, chairman of the Polyus city tourist club. Lyudmila Dubinina says goodbye to Yudin. On the left, Igor Dyatlov with bamboo ski poles (there were no metal ones then).

The first days of the hike along the active part of the route passed without any serious incidents. Tourists advanced on skis along the Lozva River, and then along its tributary Auspiya. 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" (on later maps its height is given as 1096.7 m), not far from nameless pass (later called the Dyatlov Pass).

The first days of the hike along the active part of the route passed without any serious incidents. Tourists advanced on skis along the Lozva River, and then along its tributary Auspiya. On February 1, 1959, the group stopped for the night on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl or peak "1079" (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, send a telegram to the institute's sports club, and return to Sverdlovsk on February 15. The first to express concern was Yuri Blinov, the head of the UPI tourist group, which drove up with the Dyatlov group from Sverdlovsk to the village of Vizhay and left from there to the west - to the Prayer Stone ridge and Mount Isherim (1331). Also, Sasha Kolevatov's sister Rimma, Dubinina and Slobodin's parents began to worry about the fate of their relatives. The head of the UPI sports club, Lev Semenovich Gordo, and the department of physical education of the UPI, A. M. Vishnevsky, were waiting for the group to return for another day or two, since earlier there had been delays on the route for various reasons. On February 16-17, they contacted Vizhay, trying to establish whether the group was returning from the campaign. The answer was no.

Search and rescue operations began on February 22, a detachment was sent along the route. Around for hundreds of kilometers there is not a single settlement, completely deserted places. On February 26, a tent covered with snow was found on the slope of Mount Holatchakhl. The wall of the tent facing down the slope was cut. The tent was later dug up and examined. The entrance to the tent was opened, but the slope of the tent, facing the slope, was torn in several places. A fur coat stuck out in one of the holes. Moreover, as the examination showed, the tent was cut from the inside.

At the entrance inside the tent lay a stove, buckets, a little further cameras. In the far corner of the tent - a bag with maps and documents, Dyatlov's camera, Kolmogorova's diary, a bank of money. To the right of the entrance lay the products. To the right, next to the entrance, lay two pairs of boots. The remaining six pairs of shoes lay against the wall opposite. Backpacks are spread out at the bottom, they are wearing padded jackets and blankets. Part of the blankets are not spread out, warm clothes are on top of the blankets. An ice ax was found near the entrance, and a flashlight was thrown on the slope of the tent. The tent was completely empty, there were no people in it.

During the trip, the group members took pictures with several cameras, and also kept diaries. Neither photographs nor diaries, by the way, helped to establish the exact cause of the death of tourists.

Further, the search engines began to open a continuous series of terrible and cruel mysteries. Traces around the tent indicated that the entire Dyatlov group suddenly left the tent for some unknown reason, and presumably not through the exit, but through the cuts. Moreover, people ran out of the tent into the bitter cold without shoes and partially dressed. The group ran about 20 meters away from the entrance to the tent. Then the Dyatlovites in a tight group, almost a line, in socks through the snow and frost went down the slope. The tracks indicate that they walked side by side without losing sight of each other. Moreover, they did not run away, namely, with the usual step, they retreated down the slope.

After about 500 meters down the slope, the tracks were lost under a layer of snow. The next day, February 27, one and a half kilometers from the tent and 280 m down the slope, near the cedar, the bodies of Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko were found. At the same time, it was recorded: Doroshenko had a burnt foot and hair on his right temple, Krivonischenko had a burn on his left leg and a burn on his left foot. Near the corpses, a fire was found, which had sunk into the snow.

Rescuers were struck by the fact that both bodies were stripped down to their underwear. Doroshenko was lying on his stomach. Below him is a broken branch of a tree, on which, apparently, he fell. Krivonischenko was lying on his back. All sorts of small things were scattered around the bodies. There were numerous injuries on the hands (bruises and abrasions), the internal organs were full of blood, Krivonischenko was missing the tip of his nose.

On the cedar itself, at a height of up to 5 meters, branches were broken off (some of them lay around the bodies). Moreover, branches up to 5 cm thick, at a height, were first filed with a knife, and then broken off with force, as if hanging on them with their whole body. There were traces of blood on the bark.

Nearby, cuts with a knife with broken young firs and cuts on birch trees were found. Cut tops of firs and a knife were not found. At the same time, there were no assumptions that they were used for a firebox. Firstly, they do not burn well, and secondly, there was a relatively large amount of dry material around. Almost simultaneously with them, 300 meters from the cedar up the slope in the direction of the tent, the body of Igor Dyatlov was found.

He was slightly covered with snow, reclining on his back, with his head towards the tent, his arm around the trunk of a birch. Dyatlov was wearing ski trousers, underpants, a sweater, a cowboy shirt, and a fur sleeveless jacket. On the right leg - a woolen sock, on the left - a cotton sock. The clock on my hand showed 5 hours and 31 minutes. There was an icy growth on his face, which meant that before he died, he breathed into the snow.

Numerous abrasions, scratches, deposits were revealed on the body; a superficial wound from the second to the fifth fingers was recorded on the palm of the left hand; internal organs are filled with blood. Approximately 330 meters from Dyatlov, up the slope under a layer of dense snow 10 cm, the body of Zina Kolmogorova was found.

She was warmly dressed, but without shoes. His face showed signs of nosebleeds. There are numerous abrasions on the hands and palms; a wound with a scalped skin flap on the right hand; encircling the right side, passing to the back of the skin; swelling of the meninges.

A few days later, on March 5, 180 meters from the place where Dyatlov's body was found and 150 meters from the location of Kolmogorova's body, the body of Rustem Slobodin was found under a layer of snow of 15-20 cm. He was also quite warmly dressed, while on his right leg he had a felt boot worn over 4 pairs of socks (the second felt boot was found in the tent). On the left hand of Slobodin, a watch was found that showed 8 hours 45 minutes. There was an ice build-up on his face and there were signs of nosebleeds. A characteristic feature of the last three found tourists was skin color: according to the recollections of rescuers - orange-red, in the documents of the forensic medical examination - reddish-crimson.

The search for the remaining tourists took place in several stages from February to May. And only after the snow began to melt, objects began to be found that indicated the rescuers in the right direction to search. The exposed branches and scraps of clothes led to the hollow of the stream about 70 m from the cedar, which was heavily covered with snow.

A large tent of the Dyatlov group, sewn from several small ones. Inside was a portable stove designed by Dyatlov.

The excavation made it possible to find at a depth of more than 2.5 m a flooring of 14 trunks of small firs and one birch up to 2 m long. On the flooring lay a spruce branch and several items of clothing. According to the position of these objects on the flooring, four spots were exposed, made as “seats” for four people. The bodies were found under a four-meter layer of snow, in the bed of a stream that had already begun to melt, below and slightly away from the flooring. First they found Lyudmila Dubinina - she froze, kneeling, facing the slope at the waterfall of the stream.

Mansi "runes". The traditional system of Mansi individual "marking". The signs are called "tamgi" ("tamga" in the singular). Each Mansi has his own personal tamga. It's like a generic business card, a signature that is left in some memorable places - usually hunting or parking places. Let's say a hunter got an elk, butchered it and left it to take it out later. He makes a stes and marks it with his tamga.

The other three were found a little lower. Kolevatov and Zolotarev lay in an embrace "chest to back" at the edge of the stream, apparently warming each other to the end. Thibaut-Brignolles was the lowest, in the water of the stream. Krivonischenko and Doroshenko's clothes - trousers, sweaters - were found on the corpses, as well as a few meters from them. All clothes had traces of even cuts, as they had already been removed from the corpses of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko. The dead Thibault-Brignolles and Zolotarev were found well-dressed, Dubinina was worse dressed - her faux-fur jacket and cap ended up on Zolotarev, Dubinina's unbuttoned leg was wrapped in Krivonischenko's woolen trousers. Krivonischenko's knife was found near the corpses, with which young firs were cut near the fires. Two watches were found on Thibault-Brignolle's hand - one showed 8 hours 14 minutes, the second - 8 hours 39 minutes.

At the same time, all the bodies had terrible injuries received in their lifetime. Dubinina and Zolotarev had fractures of 12 ribs, Dubinina - both on the right and on the left side, Zolotarev - only on the right. Later, the examination determined that such injuries can only be received from a strong blow, like hitting a car moving at high speed or falling from a great height. It is impossible to inflict such injuries with a stone in a person’s hand. In addition, Dubinina and Zolotarev do not have eyeballs - they are squeezed out or removed. And Dubinina's tongue and part of her upper lip were torn out. Thibaut-Brignolles has a depressed fracture of the temporal bone. Very strange, but during the examination it was found that the clothes (sweater, trousers) contain applied radioactive substances with beta radiation.

According to experts, the start of climbing the mountain in bad weather was Dyatlov's mistake, which may have caused the tragedy.

One of the last photos. Tourists are clearing a place for a tent on a mountainside.

The last and most mysterious photo. Some believe that this shot was taken by someone from the Dyatlov group when the danger began to approach. According to others, this shot was taken while the film was being removed from the camera for processing.

Here is a schematic picture of a hypothetical incident and the recovered bodies. Most of the group's bodies were found in the head-to-tent position, and all were located in a straight line from the cut side of the tent, for over 1.5 kilometers. Kolmogorova, Slobodin and Dyatlov did not die while leaving the tent, but on the contrary, on the way back to the tent.

The whole picture of the tragedy points to numerous mysteries and oddities in the behavior of the Dyatlovites, most of which are practically inexplicable.
- Why did they not run away from the tent, but retreated in a line, with the usual step?
- Why did they need to kindle a fire near a high cedar in a windy area?
- Why did they break cedar branches at a height of up to 5 meters, when there were many small trees around for a fire?
- How could they get such terrible injuries on level ground?
- Why didn’t those who reached the stream and built sun loungers there survive, because even in the cold it was possible to hold out until the morning?
- And finally, the most important thing - what made the group leave the tent at the same time and in such a hurry with practically no clothes, no shoes and no equipment?

The tent discovered by the search group:

Initially, the local population of the northern Urals, the Mansi, was suspected of the murder. Mansi Anyamov, Sanbindalov, Kurikov and their relatives fell under suspicion. But none of them took the blame. They were more afraid of themselves. Mansi said that they saw strange "fireballs" over the place of death of tourists. They not only described this phenomenon, but also drew it. In the future, the drawings from the case disappeared or are still classified. "Fireballs" during the search period were observed by the rescuers themselves, as well as other residents of the Northern Urals.

And on March 31, a very remarkable event occurred: all members of the search group who were in the camp in the Lozva valley saw a UFO. Valentin Yakimenko, a participant in those events, in his memoirs very succinctly described what happened: “Early in the morning it was still dark. Orderly Viktor Meshcheryakov came out of the tent and saw a luminous ball moving across the sky. He woke everyone up. "He did not hide behind the slope of the mountain. We saw him in the southeast of the tent. He was moving in a northerly direction. This phenomenon excited everyone. We were sure that the death of the Dyatlovites was somehow connected with him." What they saw was reported to the headquarters of the search operation, located in Ivdel. The appearance of a UFO in the case gave the investigation an unexpected direction. Someone remembered that "fireballs" were observed approximately in the same area on February 17, 1959, about which there was even a publication in the newspaper "Tagil Worker". And the investigation, resolutely rejecting the version of "malicious Mansi killers", began to work in a new direction. Well-preserved traces of the Dyatlovites:

The Mansi legends say that during the global flood on Mount Kholat-Syakhyl, 9 hunters disappeared earlier - they “died of hunger”, “boiled in boiling water”, “disappeared in a terrible radiance”. Hence the name of this mountain - Kholatchakhl, in translation - the Mountain of the Dead. The mountain is not a sacred place for the Mansi, rather the opposite - they always bypassed this peak. The discovery of a storage shed made by the Dyatlovites with supplies that they left here so as not to drag excess cargo up the mountain. One of the strange circumstances of the case is that, fleeing from an unknown danger, the tourists did not go to the storehouse, where there was food and warm clothes, but in the other direction, as if something was blocking the path to the storehouse.

There are many versions of what happened, which can be divided into 4 groups: natural (an avalanche descended on the tent, the tent collapsed under the weight of the attacking snow, the snow that attacked the tent made breathing difficult for tourists, which forced them to leave the tent, etc., the impact of infrasound formed in the mountains , ball lightning, this also includes versions with attacks by wild animals and accidental poisoning), criminal (attacks by Mansi, fugitive convicts, special services, military, foreign saboteurs, illegal gold miners, as well as a quarrel between tourists) and man-made (testing of secret weapons (for example , a vacuum bomb), hitting a tent with a snowmobile or other equipment, etc.) and, finally, fantastic ones (evil mountain spirits, UFOs, Bigfoot, air electric discharge explosions of comet fragments, toroidal tornado, etc.).

There is a version of A. I. Rakitin, according to which the group included secret KGB officers: Semyon Zolotarev, Alexander Kolevatov and, possibly, Yura Krivonischenko. One of them (Kolevatov or Krivonischenko), posing as an anti-Soviet young man, was “recruited” by foreign intelligence some time before the campaign and agreed to meet with foreign spies disguised as another tourist group under the cover of the campaign and transfer samples of radioactive materials from his enterprises in the form of clothing items containing radioactive dust (in reality, it was a “controlled delivery” under the supervision of the KGB). However, the spies revealed the group's connection with the KGB (perhaps when they tried to photograph them) or, conversely, they themselves made a mistake that allowed the uninitiated members of the group to suspect that they were not who they claim to be (they used the Russian idiom incorrectly, discovered ignorance of the well-known for the inhabitants of the USSR fact, etc.). Deciding to eliminate the witnesses, the spies forced the tourists to undress in the cold and leave the tent, threatening with firearms, but not using it, so that death looked natural (according to their calculations, the victims should have inevitably died at night from the cold). The corpse of Igor Dyatlov in socks:

It is worth noting that at all times a lot of tourists died. Mostly from the cold. Thus, the death of a group of tourists in the winter in itself was not something extraordinary. Out of the ordinary it was made by various mysterious circumstances. The peculiarity of the incident is that all "realistic" versions (such as the version about an avalanche) rest on these inexplicable nuances and inconsistencies, which suggests that the group encountered something from the category of "unknown". The official version read: “Given the absence of external bodily injuries and signs of a struggle on the corpses, the presence of all the values of the group, 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 of their death was an elemental force, which people overcome were unable to."

The death of the Dyatlovites occurred in the last period of the existence of the old system of supporting amateur tourism, which had the organizational form of commissions under the Sports Committees and the Unions of Sports Societies and Organizations (SSSO) of territorial entities. There were tourist sections at enterprises and universities, but these were disparate organizations that interacted poorly with each other. With the growing popularity of tourism, it became obvious that the existing system could not cope with the preparation, provision and support of tourist groups and could not provide a sufficient level of tourism security. In 1959, when the Dyatlov group died, the number of dead tourists did not exceed 50 people per year in the country. Already in the following year, 1960, the number of dead tourists almost doubled. The first reaction of the authorities was an attempt to ban amateur tourism, which was done by a decree of March 17, 1961. But it is impossible to forbid people to voluntarily go hiking in quite accessible terrain - tourism has gone into a “wild” state, when no one controlled the training or equipment of groups, the routes were not coordinated, only friends and relatives followed the deadlines. The effect followed immediately: in 1961, the number of dead tourists exceeded 200 people. Since the groups did not document the composition and route, sometimes there was no information either about the number of missing persons or about where to look for them. The corpse of Dubinina by the stream:

By the Decree of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions of July 20, 1962, sports tourism again received official recognition, its structures were transferred to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (trade unions), tourism councils were created, commissions under the SSOO were abolished, organizational work to support tourism was largely revised and reformed. The creation of tourist clubs on a territorial basis began, but work in organizations did not weaken, but intensified thanks to the broad information support that appeared due to the exchange of experience of amateur organizations. This made it possible to overcome the crisis and ensure the functioning of the sports tourism system for several decades. Igor Dyatlov's body:

Special agencies suggested that the relatives of the victims bury them in the village closest to the pass, but they insisted that the bodies be brought home. All the guys were buried in a mass grave at the Mikhailovsky cemetery in Sverdlovsk. The first funeral took place on March 9, 1959 with a large crowd of people. According to eyewitnesses, the faces and skin of the dead guys had a purple-bluish tint. The bodies of four students (Dyatlov, Slobodin, Doroshenko, Kolmogorova) were buried in Sverdlovsk at the Mikhailovsky cemetery. Krivonischenko was buried by his parents at the Ivanovo cemetery in Sverdlovsk. The funeral of tourists found in early May took place on May 12, 1959. Three of them - Dubinina, Kolevatov and Thibault-Brignolles - were buried next to the graves of their group mates at the Mikhailovsky cemetery. Zolotarev was buried at the Ivanovo cemetery, next to the grave of Krivonischenko. All four were buried in closed coffins. In the early 1960s, a memorial plaque with their names and the inscription "There were nine of them" was erected at the place where the tourists died. On the stone remnant on the Dyatlov Pass, an expedition in 1963 installed a memorial plaque in memory of the "Dyatlovites", then in 1989 another memorial plaque was installed there. In the summer of 2012, 3 plates were fixed on the outlier with the image of the pages of the magazine "Ural Pathfinder" with publications about the "Dyatlovites".

Later, a lot of articles and books were written on this topic, several documentaries were shot. In 2011, the British company Future Films took on the screen adaptation of Alan K. Barker's book "Dyatlov Pass" in the style of a "horror film", in February 2013, Renny Harlin's film "The Mystery of Dyatlov Pass" was released. Dyatlov Pass today:

The death of the Dyatlov group is a mystery that even today causes controversy, bewilderment and horror. Films have been made and articles written about this tragedy, various versions are being expressed, but none of them has been able to explain the mysterious death of 9 trained sports young people on the slope of Mount Holatchakhl, not far from the nameless pass, later called the Dyatlov Pass. The frozen and crippled bodies of all nine members of the group were found within one and a half kilometers from the tent. This tragedy happened on the night of February 2, 1959.

The search group found an empty tent, which, as the examination showed, was cut from the inside, traces of a group of 8 people leading down. And bodies. Which were found in different places for a mile and a half. The bodies were half-dressed. Some are crippled. And no traces of other people or animals in the area were found. There were also no signs of a conflict in the tent. The last photo was taken around 5 p.m. on February 1st. On it, the guys have fun setting up a tent. In the evening, no one made entries in their diaries: they had fun by making a wall newspaper. Then they went to bed.

Then they were awakened. Something. And this "something" instilled such horror that it forced strong trained guys and girls to flee urgently. Cut the tent and run down the slope. They obviously didn’t have time to get dressed: the bodies found were half-dressed, mostly barefoot. Traces of a group of 8 people were found. It is obvious that one of the group left the tent at night (possibly Zolotarev, because it was he who was dressed best of all), saw "something", or "something" happened to him (for example, he was blown off the slope by a strong wind) and he screaming woke up his comrades.

This is the only thing that can be said with a high degree of probability: one went out of the tent, and then somehow woke the others. Everything else remained shrouded in the darkness of the unknown. Five died from exposure to low temperatures, four - violent death. Could death come from falling on stones? According to the medical examiner, the impact force should be approximately equal to that of a high-speed vehicle with impact and body rebound. Or the impact of an air blast wave.

The composition of the Dyatlov group:

Igor Dyatlov (23 years old), Zinaida Kolmogorova (22 years old), Yuriy Doroshenko (21 years old), Yuriy Krivonischenko (23 years old), Lyudmila Dubinina (20 years old), Alexander Kolevatov (24 years old), Rustem Slobodin (23 years old), Tibo - Brignol Nikolay (23 years old), Zolotarev Alexander (37 years old).

In this article, we will not state our (or someone else's) version of what happened, but simply acquaint you with some excerpts from the interrogations of witnesses, from which you can fully restore the chronology of events. Of no less, and in our opinion, even greater interest is the conclusion of an expert examination of the content of radioactive substances and evidence of strange events that took place during this period (see below). The nature and level of detected radioactivity could not explain the injuries and deaths of tourists. Obviously, therefore, the data of the radiological examination were withdrawn from the criminal case “as irrelevant to the case” and were not mentioned in the decision to dismiss the case.

From the interrogation of the witness Yudin:

Our group initially consisted of 11 people: me, Dyatlov, Kolmogorova, Dubinina, Doroshenko, Kolevatov, Krivonischenko, Slobodin, Thibaut-Brignolles, Bienko and Vishnevsky. Subsequently, Vishnevsky and Bienko decided not to participate in the campaign, and two days before the departure, the instructor of the Kourovskaya camp site SA Zolotarev, whom none of the members of our group knew before, joined our group.

The area where we were supposed to go to make a trip was outlined at the end of December 1958. It was decided to start the campaign from the village. Vizhaya, go to the ridge, before that it was necessary to reach the village. 2 north, then go along the ridge and return to the village. Vizhay. Dyatlov suggested crossing the top of the mountain, or rather, visiting the top of Mount Otorten, there were no objections. The project of the campaign was made by Dyatlov.

From mountains. Sverdlovsk left on January 22, 1959, all together, arrived in Ivdel on the night of January 25, from where they left by bus the next day (January 26) in the afternoon and arrived on the same day in the village. 41st quarter, we spent the night there in the loggers' hostel. On January 27 (corrected from "28" - approx. comp.) January 1959, our group went on skis in the direction of the village. 2 North. On the evening of January 27, 1959, we arrived in the village. 2 Severny, spent the night there in an abandoned hut.

My leg hurt, I could not participate in the campaign, so on January 28, 1959 from the village. 2 Severny returned back to the mountains. Ivdel, and the remaining 9 people on skis and with all the equipment left along the route.

So, on the morning of January 28, Yudin, after saying goodbye to the group and giving his comrades his part of the total cargo and some personal warm things, returned back with a cart, and further events are known only from the discovered diaries and photographs of the participants in the campaign.

On January 28, leaving the 2nd Northern, the tourists skied along the Lozva River and spent the night on its banks.

On January 29, a transition was made from the parking lot on the banks of the Lozva to the parking lot on its tributary Auspiya along the Mansi trail.

On January 31, the Dyatlovites approached Mount Holatchakhl, at that time better known as "height 1079", and tried to climb the slope, but due to the unsuitability of the treeless terrain reached for laying a storehouse, evening time and strong wind, they were forced to descend again into the Auspiya valley and spend the night there.

On February 1, having equipped a storehouse in the Auspiya valley, the group again climbed the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl, where they stopped for their last night not far from the nameless pass, later called the Dyatlov Pass, in 1963 a memorial plate was installed here. Here, that terrible and still unsolved tragedy broke out.

Organization of searches

On February 12, the Dyatlov 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, and return to Sverdlovsk on February 15. However, there was no news from them. Having contacted Vizhay, the head of the UPI sports club Lev Semyonovich Gordo and the head of the department of physical education A. Vishnevsky found out that the group had not returned ...

The military joined the search on the spot: a group of captain A. A. Chernyshev and a group of operational workers with search dogs under the command of senior lieutenant Moiseev, cadets of the SevUralLag sergeant school under the command of senior lieutenant Potapov and a group of sappers with mine detectors under the command of lieutenant colonel Shestopalov.

Also, radio operators from the exploration party Egor Nevolin and B. Yaburov, as well as some local residents of the Mansi: Stepan and Nikolai Kurikov, hunters brothers Bakhtiyarov and Anyamov, and others joined the search engines.

The group of Slobtsov was abandoned first (February 23), then Grebennik (February 24), Axelrod (February 25), Chernyshev (February 25-26). Another group, which included Mansi and radio geologist Yegor Nevolin, began moving from the lower reaches of the Auspiya to its upper reaches.

From the record of the interrogation of the witness Axelrod M.A. - member and leader of the search group.

On February 26, despite the bad weather, my group (I was appointed leader) consisting of Axelrod, Sogrin, Tipikin, Yaburov, Chigvintsev was landed from a helicopter at 4 o'clock in the afternoon 8 kilometers east of Otorten height. Since time was running out in the evening, I decided not to conduct searches that day, but to stop for the night, which we did below the forest border in the Sulpa River valley.

On the morning of February 27 at 8 a.m. For 10 minutes, the search group consisting of Axelrod, Sogrin and Tipikin went out to search, leaving Chigvintsev and Yaburov with the radio station R.B.S. in the camp to communicate with the plane (this was agreed in advance). We returned to the camp only at seven o'clock in the evening. For 10 hours of searching with a fifteen-minute break for lunch, we searched for about forty, forty-five kilometers, bypassing the entire valley of the western tributary of the Sulpa River along the forest border, examining all the passes between the peaks of the mountains Otorten, 1024, 1039; 1041, having made a traverse of the Otorten peak from the southwest to the northeast and a separate ascent to Otorten with a bypass of the cornice of the southern kart of Otorten.

A note dated 1956, left by tourists from Moscow State University, was taken from the top of the mountain. At about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, a plane flying over us dropped a pennant with an order to carefully continue further searches and with a message that all the belongings and skis of the Dyatlov group were found 12-13 kilometers south of us on the slope of Mt. 1079.

It became clear to me that the Dyatlov group was dead and offered to bare their heads. It was clear that the group could not go anywhere without skis.

When departing from Ivdel, we had an agreement that on February 28 at 4 a.m. a helicopter would fly for us. At about five o'clock in the evening on February 28, the group in full strength was transferred to Ivdel. We flew together with the Ivdel district prosecutor Tempalov. He informed me that the naked corpses of four people had been found: Dyatlov, Kolmogorova, Krivonischenko and Zolotarev (later identified as Doroshenko).

In Ivdel, to the question of Artyukov, what are our future plans, I personally and the whole group fully provided their time at the disposal of the search headquarters and the next day, together with the regional criminal prosecutor Ivanov L.N. Sogrin, Tipikin and I were dropped by helicopter into the search area. We immediately had to change into felt boots instead of boots and take part in loading the tent and things of the Dyatlov group into the helicopter. Three corpses - Kolmogorova, Dyatlov and Doroshenko, lay already brought from the valley near the remnant stone on the pass.

The group immediately took part in the search. It was clear to me that none of the dead had left the valley, a lot of time had passed, the corpses, of course, lay under the snow, and it was only necessary to look for them here. From that day until the day of departure (March 9), I took part in the search every day with a probe in my hands. At first, he participated as the head of his own group of five people, and then, when part of the tourists departed for Ivdel, as the head of the entire civilian part of the search group.

The search tactics were not established from the very beginning. At first, the search groups went in a wide search, rarely and shallowly piercing the snow cover with ski poles from the tent to the cedar (1500 m), and then the tactics changed. The search engines, standing close to each other, elbow to elbow, walked along or across the slopes of the emergency valley, deeply piercing the snow with metal probes.

This method gave results: on March 5, one of the members of the dead group, Rustem Slobodin, was found under the snow, the smallest thickness of 350 mm. He was lying with his stomach down, his arms outstretched, on one of which, the right one, the knuckle of the thumb was grafted with something. On the same hand was a watch. There is a cap on the head, on the basis of which I believe that at the time of death there was no particularly strong wind, because he would inevitably have blown off the cap from the head, if not alive, then dead, Slobodin. One leg, the right one (I could be mistaken) was in felt boots, the left without it, pulled up under the right leg. The face is very calm, no traces of violence were visible during this external examination. Under the knees, chest, ie. parts of the body, on which the weight of the lying person was distributed, was a layer of half-ice-half-snow with a thickness of about 70 - 80 mm, which allowed me to conclude that Slobodin did not die instantly, but<неразборчиво>, after the fall, some more time.

The corpse was located approximately in the middle between Kolmogorova and Dyatlov. As you know, 2 corpses were found near the cedar: Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, but a thorough study of the bonfire suggests that there were more people around the bonfire. My bases are as follows:

1.) Judging by the work done, the two cannot cope with the amount of work that has been done there.

2.) A small burnt, obviously female scarf was found by the fire.

3.) A tattered cuff of a dark-colored sweater was found, which is not on any of the tourists already found.

What happened to the Dyatlov group? Opinion of M. Axelrod.

On February 1, the group got up late. Late because the day before, judging by the diary, the group was very tired, and because in the morning, or after the diary was written, late in the evening it was decided to make a storehouse in order to free the shoulders that had been strained by the previous campaign for at least three days , increase the speed of movement. In the morning the group got up at 11 o'clock and proceeded to set up a storage shed. While the storage shed was being made, while we were sorting out what to take with us and what to leave (this had not been done the day before, because the arrangement of the storage shed was in doubt), breakfast was ready. It was about 2 o'clock. And I believe that the group left the place no earlier than half past three, setting themselves one of 2 tasks:

1) Pass from forest to forest, from the valley of Auspiya to the valley of Lozva or:

2) Considering that for several days now the group has been walking through exceptionally deep snow, the movement through which is extremely tiring. Considering that the group had a good rest on this half-day break, had a late meal, move as far as possible along the border of the forest without entering the forest.

A group with light backpacks goes on the route, but relatively late time - about 5 hours, poor visibility, or rather, the absence of it, makes the group stop for the night outside the forest. This does not exclude any of the options offered here. Was the decision to sleep on a bare ground (I deliberately avoid the word slope, because I believe that the slope, as such, played no role in their death) justified? In my opinion yes. Why?

Last year, in the Subpolar Urals, we had four such overnight stays. All of them were in conditions where the safety of the group dictated the need to stop where there was space while there was still daylight to pitch the tent. It was in severe (-25 - 30 C) frosts and there were no reasons to recognize this decision as tactically incorrect. So Dyatlov had precedents, and they stopped for the night without losing heart, without blindly submitting to the forces of nature.

It is possible that while the group was putting up a tent, 2-3 people went on reconnaissance. The tent has been set up. The tent was set up with the weather in mind. Stretched tight<непонятно>, backpacks are laid on the windward side inside, a "barricade" of the stove and backpacks is arranged at the entrance so that it does not blow out. In the tent, of course, the temperature is below zero and you need to show too much restraint and self-control in order to write with stiff hands in 25-30 degree frost, fill in your diaries.

The only thing for which there was enough strength and humor was the release of "Evening Otorten". Personally, the letters seem angular to me, and the handwriting is similar to Zolotarev's, but with significant changes. It's possible in cold weather. By the way, it is clear from the diaries that Zolotarev loved to draw and his comrade, judging by the photographs, was not without humor. Having laughed enough, the group that had rested during the day (almost only 2-3 kilometers covered with lightweight backpacks), the group goes to bed ...

… The awakening was terrible.

My firm conviction is that nothing and no one from the inside could instill panic in the guys. From the inside - in the sense of the tent itself. This means that they were forced to flee by the manifestation of some external forces. If the tent is asleep, closed, then it is either a very bright light, or a very strong sound, or both.

It may be that the signal to escape was given by one of the comrades who came out to urinate, dropping his flashlight in surprise. At the entrance, only a few clasps are undone. The triangular end of the tent is stretched well, therefore it is not easy for one person to climb through. Crush, crush. Maybe at this time, not knowing what to grab onto, Slobodin puts on a felt boot (is it his own?). Someone falls into the hands of a saving knife. Not from the first time, but from the third time the tent is cut open and a panic flight begins down the wind, to where it is easiest to run. The fact that there is a forest, guess only later.

I, with a group of tourists, stood for a long time at the site of a tent with a group of tourists (Sogrin, Korolev, Baskin, Shuleshko) and we came to the unanimous conclusion that if they had only one chance to return, they would return and return with any wind. The group is running. But these are not animals, but young, energetic, Soviet people. They run one, two groups. Somewhere on a ridge of stones, Slobodin breaks his head and soon falls. But after all, the tent is not visible, the cold snow burns his legs, or maybe Slobodin closes the group of fugitives, and he remains lying on the snow.

And somewhere even earlier, Zina Kolmogorova broke away and lost sight of the latter. After wandering for a long time, and she lays down on the snow.

The rest run to the forest, to deep snow and begin to fight for life with superhuman efforts. At the cost of a long time of frostbitten hands and feet, the fire is lit and Dyatlov, the leader of the group, a faithful comrade, goes in search of the stragglers and freezes there.

It is quite possible that Komogorova did not fall behind earlier, but went to look for Dyatlov and Slobodin, who had not returned. It had not yet dawned on her that it was a matter of life and death, that the group should not be broken up, but she was always in a team (school, vocational school, institute, tourist section) and for her the tourist slogan "Die yourself, but help a friend out" not an empty phrase. She goes into a blizzard, up and falls exhausted into the snow and freezes.

There are several people around the fire. They decided to collect more spruce branches behind the cedar, bury themselves in it and wait out the bad weather, especially since there are no thin firewood nearby, they can’t break thick ones, and their hands and feet are already frostbitten. They understand that they will never return to the tent. Two, Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, fall asleep, die, and the rest, in a last attempt to save their lives, rush either to the storehouse or to the tent. Along the way, death overtakes them.

M. Axelrod (signature)
24/IV/59

Message gr. Avenburg

Prodanov, Vishnevsky, March 31, 1959, 9.30 local time.

On March 31, 0400, orderly Meshcheryakov noticed a large fiery ring in the southeast direction, which moved towards us for 20 minutes, then hiding behind Hill 880.
Before disappearing beyond the horizon, a star appeared from the center of the ring, which gradually increased to the size of the moon, began to fall down, separating from the ring.
An unusual phenomenon was observed by the entire personnel, alerted.
Please explain this phenomenon and its safety, as in our conditions it produces an alarming impression.

Avenburg, Potapov, Sogrin.

Citizens' message Piguzova

Head of the Ivdel police department 17. II. A.D. 59 6:50 local time an unusual phenomenon appeared in the sky. Movement of a star with a tail. The tail looked like dense cirrus clouds. Then this star freed itself from its tail, became brighter than the stars and flew away. It gradually began to swell, as it were, a large ball was formed, shrouded in haze. Then a star lit up inside this ball, from which at first a crescent moon was formed, then a small ball was formed, not so bright. The big ball gradually began to fade, became like a blurry spot. At 7:05 he completely disappeared. The star moved from south to northeast.

Meteorological Technician Tokareva (signature)
Beginning HMS Piguzov (signature).

Examination for the content of radioactive substances

In the radiological laboratory of the Sverdlovsk City Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, samples of internal organs (biosubstrates) and clothing were examined for the content of radioactive substances. We will not give the entire text of the expert's opinion here, we will only acquaint you with the conclusions:

Final findings of the audit:

1. The studied solid biosubstrates contain radioactive substances within the limits of the natural content determined by Potassium-40.

2. Individual samples of clothing examined contain slightly overestimated amounts of radioactive substances or a radioactive substance that is a beta emitter.

3. Detected radioactive substances or radioactive substance when washing clothing samples tend to be washed away, that is, they are not caused by a neutron flux and induced radioactivity, but by radioactive contamination with beta particles.

Chief radiologist of the city of Levashov 05/27/1959 (Signed).

During the investigation, Levashov was asked additional questions:

1. Should there be (can there be) increased contamination of clothing with radioactive substances under normal conditions, i.e. without being in a radioactively contaminated environment or place?

Answer: It shouldn't be perfect.

2. Was there contamination of the objects you examined?

Answer: As indicated in the conclusion, there is contamination with radioactive substances (substance) by beta emitters of individual, selective sections of clothing, sent samples. So, for example, the clipping from No. 4 - brown sweater at the time of the study had 9900 decays of beta particles per minute per 150 sq. cm, and after washing (for 3 hours with us) it gave 5200 decays per minute of beta particles from 150 sq. cm. For example, we can say that according to the sanitary rules that exist in our country, contamination in beta particles from 150 sq. cm per minute should not exceed 5000 decays before cleaning (washing), and after cleaning (washing) there should be a natural background, i.e. e. as much as cosmic radiation gives to all people and all objects in a given area, this is the norm for those working with radioactive substances.

The cutout from No. 1 - the sweater belt shows 5600 decays before washing, and after washing - 2700. The lower part of the harem pants from No. 1 shows 5000 decays before washing and 2600 after washing. Your data indicate that all these objects were in running water for a long time before the study, i.e. have already been washed.

Answer: Yes, the clothing is either contaminated with radioactive dust from the atmosphere, or the clothing has been exposed to contamination through handling or contact with radioactive materials. This pollution exceeds, as I have already pointed out, the norm for persons working with radioactive substances.

4. What do you think, what could be the degree of contamination of individual objects, if we take into account that before the study, they were in running water for about 15 days.

Answer: It can be assumed that the contamination of individual sections of clothing was many times greater, but here it must be taken into account that the clothes could be washed unevenly, that is, with varying degrees of intensity.

As we already mentioned, the data of this examination were withdrawn from the criminal case as having nothing to do with the death of tourists.

Maybe that's why the mystery of the death of the Dyatlov group has not yet been disclosed? Is it possible that some secret tests were carried out and the object crashed, thereby causing a strong shock wave and a burst of radiation? What led to a hasty escape from the tent and, ultimately, to death?

At the end of the article, we attach the decision to close the case.

APPROVE:

PROSECUTOR OF THE SVERDLOVSK REGION
STATE COUNSELOR OF JUSTICE III CLASS
(N. KLINOV)

RESOLUTION.

The prosecutor criminalist of the Sverdlovsk Regional Prosecutor's Office, Junior Counselor of Justice Ivanov, having considered the criminal case initiated on the occasion of the death of 9 tourists in the Ivdelsky district of the Sverdlovsk region,

installed:

January 23, 1959 a group of amateur tourists in the amount of 10 people went on a ski trip along the route: mountains. Sverdlovsk - mountains. Ivdel - pos. 2nd Northern - Mount Otorten - Mount Oika-Chakur - Northern Toshemka River - settlement. Vizhay - Ivdel - mountains. Sverdlovsk.

The group included: Dyatlov Igor - student of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, leader of the campaign; Dubinina L.A., Kolmogorova Z.A., Kolevatov A.S., Yudin Yu.E., Doroshenko Yu.N. — UPI students; Zolotarev A.A. – instructor of the Kourovskaya tourist base, Slobodin R.V., Krivonischenko Yu.G., Thibaut-Brignolles N.V. — engineers of enterprises in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk.

All participants of the hike had good tourist training and could participate in the hike of the III category of difficulty. The group was supplied with the necessary equipment and food, the trip was financed by the trade union committee of the Ural Polytechnic Institute.

Arriving safely at the start of the hiking trip - to the village. On January 28, 1959, the 2nd Northern Ivdelsky District, a group went on a campaign. One tourist - Yudin Yu.S. returned home from the 2nd Northern site, as he could not continue the campaign due to illness.

From diary entries, sketches of the route and developed photographic films of tourists, it is seen that on January 28, 1959, the group went upstream the river. Lozva, 30. I. 59, the group continued to move, 31. I. 59, the tourists went to the river Auspiya and tried to pass through the pass to the valley of the river. Lozva, however, due to the low temperature and strong wind, they were forced to return down and stopped for the night. I.II.59 in the upper reaches of the river. In Auspiya, the tourists built a shed, in which they left a supply of food and all unnecessary equipment.

Returning on 31.I.59 to the valley of the river. Auspiya and knowing about the difficult conditions of the relief of the height "1079", where the ascent was supposed, Dyatlov, as the leader of the group, made a gross mistake, expressed in the fact that the group began the ascent on I.II.59 only at 15-00.

Subsequently, on the ski trail of tourists, preserved by the time of the search, it was possible to establish that moving towards the valley of the fourth tributary of the Lozva River, the tourists took 500-600 m to the left and instead of the pass formed by the peaks "1079" and "880", went to the eastern slope of the summit "1079".

This was Dyatlov's second mistake.

Having used the daylight hours to climb to the peak "1079", in conditions of strong wind, which is common in the area, and a low temperature of about 25-30 ° C, Dyatlov found himself in unfavorable overnight conditions and decided to pitch a tent on the slope of the peak "1079 "so that in the morning of the next day, without losing altitude, go to Mount Otorten, to which there were about 10 km in a straight line.

One of the cameras preserved a frame (taken last), which shows the moment of excavation of snow to set up a tent. Considering that this shot was taken with a shutter speed of I / 25 sec., with an aperture of 5.6 at a film sensitivity of 65 Units. GOST, and also taking into account the density of the frame, we can assume that the tourists started setting up the tent at about 5 pm on January 1, 1959. A similar picture was taken with another camera.

After this time, no record and no photographs were found.

According to the protocol of the route commission, the head of the group, Igor Dyatlov, on February 12, 1959, had to telegraph to the UPI sports club and the Committee of Physical Education (comrade Ufimtsev) about their arrival in the village of Vizhay.

Since the control deadline - 12.II.59 passed, and no information was received from the group, tourists who knew Dyatlov closely began to insistently demand that measures be taken to search, and on 20.II.59, the leadership of the Institute sent a search group along the route of Dyatlov and then some more groups. Later, soldiers and officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, airplanes and helicopters of civil and military aviation were sent to search.

On February 26, 1959, on the eastern slope of summit "1079", the group's tent was discovered with all the equipment and food in it. The tent and everything that was in it were well preserved.

Inspection of the tent showed that it was set up correctly and provided overnight accommodation for tourists. The tent is equipped with 2 blankets, backpacks, storm jackets and trousers. The rest of the blankets were crumpled and frozen. On the blanket were found several pieces of the skin from the loin.

The location and presence of objects in the tent (almost all shoes, all outerwear, personal belongings and diaries) indicated that the tent was suddenly left at the same time by all tourists, and, as established in the subsequent forensic examination, the lee side of the tent, where the tourists settled their heads , turned out to be cut from the inside in two places, in areas that ensure the free exit of a person through these cuts.

Below the tent, for up to 500 meters, traces of people walking from the tent into the valley and into the forest were preserved in the snow. The tracks are well preserved and there were 8-9 pairs. Examination of the traces showed that some of them were left with an almost bare foot (for example, in one cotton sock), others had a typical display of a felt boot, a foot shod in a soft sock, etc. The paths of the tracks were located close to one another, converged and again diverged not far from one another. Closer to the border of the forest, the tracks disappeared - they turned out to be covered with snow.

Neither in the tent nor near it were found signs of a struggle or the presence of other people.

On February 26, 1959, 1500 meters from the tent, near the border of the forest, the remains of a fire were found, and near it the corpses of Doroshenko and Krivonischenko, stripped to their underwear, were found. At 300 meters from the fire, in the direction of the tent, the corpse of Dyatlov was found, another 180 meters from it - the corpse of Slobodin, and 150 meters from Slobodin - the corpse of Kolmogorova. The last three corpses were located on a straight line from the fire to the tent. Dyatlov lay on his back, head towards the tent, his hand clasping the trunk of a small birch. Slobodin and Kolmogorova were lying face down, their posture indicated that they were crawling towards the tent. Money, personal items (pens, pencils, etc.) were found in the pockets of Kolmogorova, Dyatlov and Slobodin. On the left hand of Slobodin, thrown aside, a watch was found that showed 8 hours 45 minutes. Dyatlov's clock showed 5 hours 31 minutes.

A forensic medical examination established that Dyatlov, Doroshenko, Krivonischenko and Kolmogorova died from the effects of low temperature (frozen), none of them had any injuries, apart from minor scratches and abrasions. Slobodin had a crack in the skull 6 cm long, which spread to 0.1 cm, but Slobodin died of cold.

May 4, 1959, 75 meters from the fire, towards the valley of the fourth tributary of the Lozva, i.e. perpendicular to the path of movement of tourists from the tent, under a layer of snow 4-4.5 meters away, the bodies of Dubinina, Zolotarev, Thibault-Brignolles and Kolevatov were found. On the corpses, as well as a few meters from them, Krivonischenko and Doroshenko's clothes were found - trousers, sweaters. All clothes have traces of even cuts, tk. filmed already from the corpses of Doroshenko and Krivonischenko.

The dead Thibault-Brignolles and Zolotarev were found well-dressed, Dubinina was worse dressed - her faux fur jacket and cap ended up on Zolotarev, Dubinina's unbowed leg was wrapped in Krivonischenko's woolen trousers. Krivonischenko's knife was found near the corpses, with which young firs were cut at the fire. Two watches were found on Thibaut's hand - one of them shows 8 hours I4 minutes, the second - 8 hours 39 minutes.

A forensic autopsy established that Kolevatov's death was caused by low temperature (frost), Kolevatov had no bodily injuries. The death of Dubinina, Thibaut-Brignolles and Zolotarev resulted from multiple bodily injuries. Dubinina has a symmetrical fracture of the ribs: 2, 3,4,5 on the right and 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 on the left. In addition, there is an extensive hemorrhage in the heart.

Thibaut-Brignolles has an extensive hemorrhage in the right temporal muscle - accordingly, a depressed fracture of the skull bones measuring 3 x 7 cm, with a bone defect of 3 x 2 cm.

Zolotarev has a fracture of the right ribs 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 along the thoracic and mid-clavicular line, which led to his death.

The investigation did not establish the presence of other people on February 1 or 2, 1959 in the area of \u200b\u200bheight "1079", except for a group of tourists Dyatlov. It has also been established that the population of the Mansi people, who live 80-100 km from this place, is friendly to Russians, provides tourists with lodging for the night, provides them with assistance, etc. The place where the group died is considered by the Mansi unsuitable for hunting and reindeer herding in winter.

Taking into account the absence of external bodily injuries and signs of a struggle on all the corpses, the presence of all the values of the group, and also taking into account the conclusion of the forensic medical examination on the causes of death of the tourists, it should be considered that the cause of the death of the tourists was an elemental force, which the tourists were unable to overcome .

For shortcomings in the organization of tourist work and weak control, the bureau of the Sverdlovsk Civil Code of the CPSU punished in the party order: the director of the Ural Polytechnic Institute Siunov, the secretary of the party bureau Zaostrovsky, the chairman of the trade union committee of the Criminal Procedure Code Slobodin, the chairman of the city union of voluntary sports societies Kurochkin and the union inspector Ufimtsev. The chairman of the board of the sports club of the Gordo Institute was removed from work.

Considering that there is no causal connection between the actions of the persons listed above, who made shortcomings in the organization of sports work, and the death of tourists, and, not seeing corpus delicti in this case, guided by paragraph 5 of article 4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR,

decided:

The criminal case on the death of a group of tourists should be terminated by further proceedings.

PROSECUTOR CRIMINALIST
ML. COUNSELOR OF JUSTICE (IVANOV)

I AGREE:
HEAD OF INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT
COUNSELOR OF JUSTICE (LUKIN)

Group members

Initially, the group consisted of ten people:

Yuri Yudin dropped out of the group due to an illness that caused severe pain in his leg before entering the active part of the route, due to which he was the only one from the whole group to survive. He was the first to identify the personal belongings of the dead, he also identified the bodies of Slobodin and Dyatlov. In the future, he did not take an active part in the investigation of the tragedy. In the 1990s, he was deputy head of Solikamsk for economics and forecasting, chairman of the Polyus city tourist club. He died on April 27, 2013, and, according to his last will, was buried on May 4 in Yekaterinburg at the Mikhailovsky cemetery, along with seven other participants in the campaign.

hike

There is an opinion that the last campaign of the group was timed to coincide with the 21st Congress of the CPSU (the materials of the criminal case do not confirm this). For 16 or 18 days, the participants of the trip had to ski at least 300 km in the north of the Sverdlovsk region and climb two peaks of the Northern Urals: Otorten and Oika-Chakur. The hike belonged to the 3rd (highest) category of difficulty according to the classification of sports hikes used in the late fifties.

Transportation

ski trip

Waiting for the group to return

Looking for a group

February

The search work began with the clarification of the route along which the Dyatlov group set off. It turned out that Dyatlov did not hand over the route book to the UPI sports club, and no one knows for sure which route the tourists chose. Thanks to Rimma Kolevatova, the sister of the missing Alexander Kolevatov, the route was restored and handed over to rescuers on February 19. On the same day, the use of aviation for the search for the missing group was agreed, and on the morning of February 20, the chairman of the UPI sports club, Lev Gordo, flew to Ivdel with an experienced tourist, a member of the UPI tourist section bureau, Yuri Blinov. The next day they conducted aerial reconnaissance of the search area.

On February 22, the tourist section of the UPI formed 3 groups of searchers from students and employees of the UPI who had tourist and mountaineering experience - the groups of Boris Slobtsov, Moses Axelrod and Oleg Grebennik, who were transferred to Ivdel the next day. Another group, led by Vladislav Karelin, was decided to be transferred to the search area directly from the campaign. On the spot, the military joined the search - a group of Captain A. A. Chernyshev and a group of operational workers with search dogs led by senior lieutenant Moiseev, cadets of the SevUralLag sergeant school led by senior lieutenant Potapov and a group of sappers with mine detectors led by lieutenant colonel Shestopalov. Local residents also joined the search engines - representatives of the Mansi Kurikov family (Stepan and Nikolai) and the Anyamovs from the village of Suevatpaul (“Mansi Suevata”), hunters the Bakhtiyarov brothers, hunters from the Komi ASSR, radio operators with walkie-talkies for communication (Egor Nevolin from the exploration party, B . Yaburov). The head of the search at this stage was the master of sports of the USSR for tourism Yevgeny Polikarpovich Maslennikov (secretary of the party committee of the VIZ, was the “issuer” of the route commission for the Dyatlov group) - he was responsible for the operational management of the search teams on the spot. The head of the military department of the UPI, Colonel Georgy Semenovich Ortyukov, became the chief of staff, whose functions included coordinating the actions of civil and military search teams, managing aviation flights in the search area, interacting with regional and local authorities, and the leadership of the UPI.

The area from Mount Otorten to Oika-Chakur (70 km in a straight line between them) was identified as the most promising for searches, as the most remote, difficult and potentially more dangerous for tourists. The search groups decided to land in the region of Mount Otorten (the northern groups of Slobtsov and Axelrod), in the region of Oika-Chakura (the southern group of Grebennik) and at two intermediate points between these mountains. At one of the points, on the watershed in the upper reaches of the Vishera and Purma rivers (about halfway from Otorten to Oika-Chakur), Chernyshev's group landed. It was decided to send the Karelin group to the Sampalchakhl mountain region - to the headwaters of the Niols River, 50 km south of Otorten, between the groups of Chernyshev and Grebennik. All search teams were tasked to find the traces of the missing group - ski tracks and traces of parking lots - go along them to the accident site and help the Dyatlov group. The group of Slobtsov was abandoned first (February 23), then Grebennik (February 24), Axelrod (February 25), Chernyshev (February 25-26). Another group, which included Mansi and radio geologist Yegor Nevolin, began moving from the lower reaches of the Auspiya to its upper reaches.

The place of lodging for the night is located on the North-Eastern slope of height 1079 at the headwaters of the Auspiya River. The lodging place is located 300 m from the top of mountain 1079 under a mountain slope of 30°. The overnight place is a platform leveled from snow, at the bottom of which 8 pairs of skis are laid. The tent was stretched out on ski poles, fixed with ropes, 9 backpacks with various personal belongings of the group members were spread out at the bottom of the tent, quilted jackets, windbreakers were laid on top, 9 pairs of boots in the heads, men's trousers were also found, also three pairs of felt boots, warm fur jackets were also found, socks, a hat, ski caps, dishes, buckets, a stove, axes, a saw, blankets, products: crackers in two bags, condensed milk, sugar, concentrates, notebooks, a route plan and many other small things and documents, and a camera and accessories for camera.

This protocol was drawn up after the tent was excavated from the snow, and things were partially dismantled. A more accurate idea of the state of the tent at the time of discovery can be obtained from the protocols of interrogation of members of the Slobtsov search group.

Subsequently, with the participation of experienced tourists, it was found that the tent was set up in accordance with all tourist and mountaineering rules.

In the evening of the same day, a group of Mansi hunters joined Slobtsov's group, moving on deer upstream of the Auspiya together with the radio operator E. Nevolin, who transmitted a radiogram to the headquarters about the discovery of the tent. From that moment on, all groups that were involved in rescue work began to gather in the search area. In addition, the prosecutor of the Ivdelsky district, Vasily Ivanovich Tempalov, and a young correspondent for the Sverdlovsk newspaper “Na Smena!” joined the search engines. Yuri Yarovoy.

The next day, February 26 or 27, search engines from the Slobtsov group, whose task was to choose a place for the camp, discovered the bodies of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko (the latter was first mistakenly identified as Zolotarev). The place of discovery was on the right side of the channel of the fourth tributary of the Lozva, about 1.5 km to the northeast of the tent, under a large cedar near the edge of the forest. The bodies lay next to each other near the remains of a small fire, which had sunk into the snow. Rescuers were struck by the fact that both bodies were stripped down to their underwear. Doroshenko was lying on his stomach. Under his body, 3-4 knots of cedar of the same thickness were found. Krivonischenko was lying on his back. Around the bodies were scattered small items and scraps of clothing, some of which were burned. On the cedar itself, at a height of up to 4-5 meters, branches were broken off, some of them lay around the bodies. According to the observations of the search engine S.N. Sogrin, in the area of the cedar “there were not two people, but more, since a titanic work was done on the preparation of firewood, spruce branches. This is evidenced by a large number of cuts on tree trunks, broken branches and Christmas trees.

Almost simultaneously with this, 300 meters from the cedar up the slope in the direction of the tent, Mansi hunters found the body of Igor Dyatlov. He was slightly covered with snow, reclining on his back, with his head towards the tent, his arm around the trunk of a birch. Dyatlov was wearing ski trousers, underpants, a sweater, a cowboy shirt, and a fur sleeveless jacket. Woolen sock on the right leg, cotton sock on the left. On the face of Dyatlov there was an icy growth, which meant that before his death he breathed into the snow.

In the evening of the same day, about 330 meters up the slope from Dyatlov, under a layer of dense snow of 10 cm, with the help of a search dog, the body of Zinaida Kolmogorova was discovered. She was warmly dressed, but without shoes. There were signs of a nosebleed on his face.

March

A few days later, on March 5, 180 meters from the place where Dyatlov's body was found and 150 meters from the location of Kolmogorova's body, the body of Rustem Slobodin was found under a layer of snow of 15-20 cm using iron probes. He was also quite warmly dressed, he had 4 pairs of socks on his feet, on his right leg there was a felt boot on top of them (the second felt boot was found in the tent). There was an icy growth on Slobodin's face and signs of nosebleeds.

The location of the three bodies found on the slope and their postures indicated that they died on the way back from the cedar to the tent.

On February 28, an emergency commission of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU was created, headed by the deputy chairman of the regional executive committee, V.A. Pavlov, and the head of the department of the regional committee of the CPSU, F.T. Yermash. In early March, members of the commission arrived in Ivdel to officially lead the search. On March 8, the head of the search at the pass, E.P. Maslennikov, made a report to the commission on the progress and results of the search. He expressed the unanimous opinion of the search party that the search should be stopped until April in order to wait for the snow to shrink. Despite this, the commission decided to continue the search until all the tourists were found, organizing a change in the composition of the search party.

April

The search for the rest of the tourists were carried out on a vast territory. First of all, they searched for bodies on the slope from the tent to the cedar with the help of probes. The pass between peaks 1079 and 880, the ridge towards Lozva, the spur of peak 1079, the continuation of the valley of the fourth tributary of Lozva and the valley of Lozva at 4-5 km from the mouth of the tributary were also explored. During this time, the composition of the search groups changed several times, but the searches were inconclusive. By the end of April, the search engines concentrated their efforts on exploring the vicinity of the cedar, where the thickness of the snow cover in the hollows reached 3 meters or more.

May

In the first days of May, the snow began to melt intensively and made it possible to find objects that indicated the rescuers in the right direction to search. So, plucked coniferous branches and scraps of clothing were exposed, which clearly led into the hollow of the stream. An excavation carried out in a hollow made it possible to find at a depth of more than 2.5 m a flooring with an area of about 3 m² of 14 peaks of small firs and one birch. Several pieces of clothing lay on the floor. According to the position of these objects on the flooring, four spots were exposed, made as "seats" for four people.

With further search in a hollow, about six meters from the flooring downstream of the stream, under a layer of snow from two to two and a half meters, the bodies of the remaining tourists were found. First they found Lyudmila Dubinina, in a kneeling position with her chest resting on a ledge that forms a waterfall of a stream, with her head against the current. Almost immediately after that, the bodies of three men were found next to her head. Thibaut-Brignolles lay separately, and Kolevatov and Zolotarev - as if hugging "chest to back". At the time of the discovery protocol, all the corpses were in the water and were characterized as decomposed. The text of the protocol noted the need to remove them from the stream, since the bodies may further decompose even more and may be carried away by the fast current of the stream.

Concerning a place of these finds in materials of criminal case there are divergences. The protocol drawn up on the spot indicates the location "from the famous cedar, 50 meters in the first stream." And the previously sent radiogram indicates the southwestern position of the excavation site relative to the cedar, that is, close to the direction of the abandoned tent. However, the decision to dismiss the case indicates the place “75 meters from the fire, towards the valley of the fourth tributary of the Lozva, that is, perpendicular to the path of tourists from the tent.”

On the corpses, as well as a few meters from them, clothes of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko were found - trousers, sweaters. All clothes had traces of even cuts, tk. filmed already from the corpses of Doroshenko and Krivonischenko. The dead Thibault-Brignolles and Zolotarev were found well-dressed, Dubinina was worse dressed - her faux fur jacket and cap ended up on Zolotarev, Dubinina's unbowed leg was wrapped in Krivonischenko's woolen trousers. Krivonischenko's knife was found near the corpses, with which young firs were cut at the fire.

The bodies found were sent to Ivdel for a forensic examination, and the search was curtailed.

Funeral organization

According to the testimony of Alexander Kolevatov's sister, Rimma, party workers of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU and employees of the UPI offered to bury the dead in Ivdel, in a mass grave with the establishment of a monument. At the same time, conversations were held with each parent separately; requests to resolve the issue in a coordinated manner were refused. The persistent position of the parents and the support of the secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU Kuroyedov made it possible to organize a funeral in Sverdlovsk.

The first funeral took place on March 9, 1959 with a large crowd of people - on that day they buried Kolmogorova, Doroshenko and Krivonischenko. Dyatlov and Slobodin were buried on March 10. The bodies of four tourists (Kolmogorov, Doroshenko, Dyatlov, Slobodin) were buried in Sverdlovsk at the Mikhailovsky cemetery. Krivonischenko was buried by his parents at the Ivanovsky cemetery in Sverdlovsk.

The funeral of tourists found in early May took place on May 12, 1959. Three of them - Dubinina, Kolevatov and Thibault-Brignolles - were buried next to the graves of their group mates at the Mikhailovsky cemetery. Zolotarev was buried at the Ivanovo cemetery, next to the grave of Krivonischenko. All four were buried in closed zinc coffins.

official investigation

The official investigation was launched after the initiation of a criminal case by the prosecutor of the city of Ivdel, Vasily Ivanovich Tempalov, upon the discovery of corpses on February 26, 1959, and was conducted for three months. Tempalov, on the other hand, began an investigation into the causes of the death of tourists - he inspected the tent, the places where the bodies of 5 tourists were found, and also interrogated a number of witnesses. Since March 1959, the investigation was entrusted to the forensic prosecutor of the Sverdlovsk prosecutor's office, Lev Nikitich Ivanov.

The investigation initially considered the version of the attack and murder of tourists by representatives of the indigenous people of the northern Urals Mansi. Mansi from the Anyamov, Bakhtiyarov and Kurikov families fell under suspicion. During interrogations, they testified that they were not in the area of Mount Otorten in early February, they did not see students from the Dyatlov tourist group, and the sacred prayer mountain for them is located elsewhere. It soon became clear that the cuts found on one of the slopes of the tent were made not from the outside, but from the inside.

The nature and form of all these injuries indicate that they were formed from the contact of the fabric of the inner side of the tent with the blade of some kind of weapon (knife).

The examination found that on the slope of the tent, facing down the slope, there were three significant incisions - approximately 89, 31 and 42 cm long. Two large pieces of fabric were torn out and were missing. The cuts were made with a knife from the inside, and the blade did not immediately cut through the fabric - the one who cut the tarpaulin had to repeat his attempts over and over again.

At the same time, the results of the autopsy of the bodies discovered in February-March 1959 did not reveal fatal injuries in them and determined the cause of death as freezing. Therefore, suspicions with Mansi were removed.

According to V. I. Korotaev, who worked in the Ivdel prosecutor’s office in 1959, the Mansi, in turn, said that they had seen a strange “fireball” at night. They not only described this phenomenon, but also drew it. Along with this, "fireballs" were seen on February 17 and March 31 by many residents of the Middle and Northern Urals, including tourists and search engines near the Dyatlov Pass.

Meanwhile, the government commission demanded certain results, which were not - the search for the remaining 4 tourists was seriously delayed, and no main version was formed. Under these conditions, the investigator Lev Ivanov, having multiple testimonies of disinterested persons, began to develop in detail the "technogenic" version of the death of people associated with some kind of test. In May 1959, being at the site of the discovery of the remaining bodies, he, together with E.P. Maslennikov, once again examined the forest near the scene. They “found that some of the young fir trees at the edge of the forest had a burned mark, but these marks were not concentric or otherwise. There was also no epicenter.” At the same time, the snow was not melted, the trees were not damaged.

Having in his hands the acts of a forensic medical examination of the bodies of tourists found in the stream, according to which the presence of bone fractures caused by “impact of great force” was stated, Ivanov suggested that they had undergone some kind of energy impact and sent their clothes and samples of internal organs to the Sverdlovsk City SES for physical and technical (radiological) expertise. According to its results, the chief radiologist of the city of Sverdlovsk Levashov came to the following conclusions:

The studied solid biosubstrates contain radioactive substances within the limits of the natural content determined by Potassium-40.

Individual clothing samples examined contain slightly overestimated amounts of radioactive substances or a radioactive substance that is a beta emitter.

Detected radioactive substances or a radioactive substance when washing clothing samples tend to be washed away, that is, they are not caused by a neutron flux and induced radioactivity, but by radioactive contamination with beta particles.

“In one of the cameras, a photo frame (taken last) was preserved, which depicts the moment of excavation of snow to set up a tent. Given that this shot was taken with a shutter speed of 1/25 sec. with an aperture of 5.6, with a film sensitivity of 65 GOST units, and also taking into account the frame density, we can assume that the installation of the tent began at about 5 pm on February 1, 1959. A similar picture was taken by another device.
After that time, not a single record and not a single photograph was found.”

The investigation established that the tent was abandoned suddenly and simultaneously by all the tourists, but at the same time, the retreat from the tent took place in an organized, dense group, there was no disorderly and “panic” flight from the tent:

“The location and presence of items in the tent (almost all shoes, all outerwear, personal belongings and diaries) testified that the tent was left suddenly and simultaneously by all tourists, and, as established in the subsequent forensic examination, the lee side of the tent, where the tourists settled down heads, turned out to be cut from the inside in two places, in areas that ensure the free exit of a person through these cuts.
Below the tent, for up to 500 meters, traces of people walking from the tent into the valley and into the forest were preserved in the snow. The tracks are well preserved and there were 8-9 pairs. Examination of the tracks showed that some of them were left with an almost bare foot (for example, in one cotton sock), others had a typical display of a felt boot, a foot shod in a soft sock, etc. The tracks of the tracks were located close to one another, converged and again diverged not far from each other. Closer to the border of the forest, the tracks disappeared - they turned out to be covered with snow.
Neither in the tent nor near it were found signs of a struggle or the presence of other people.

This is confirmed by the testimony of investigator V.I. Tempalov, who worked at the site of the tragedy in the early days:

“Below the tent, 50-60 [m] away, on a slope, I found 8 pairs of footprints of people, which I carefully examined, but they were deformed due to winds and temperature fluctuations. I failed to establish the ninth trace, and it was not. I photographed the tracks. They walked down from the tent. The tracks showed me that the people were walking at a normal pace down the mountain. The footprints were visible only on the 50-meter section, there were none further, since the lower from the mountain, the more snow.

The reason for the abandonment of the tent could not be determined by the head of the search, E.P. Maslennikov. In a radiogram dated March 2, 1959, he stated:

“... the main mystery of the tragedy remains the exit of the entire group from the tent. The only thing other than an ice ax found outside the tent, a Chinese lantern on its roof, confirms the possibility of one clothed person walking outside, which gave some reason to everyone else to hastily abandon the tent.”

The ruling notes that the tourists made a number of fatal mistakes:

“... knowing about the difficult conditions of the relief of height 1079, 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 on 02/01/59 only at 15:00.
Subsequently, on the ski trail of tourists, preserved at the time of the search, it was possible to establish that, moving towards the valley of the fourth tributary of the Lozva, the tourists took 500-600 m to the left and instead of the pass formed by the peaks “1079” and “880”, they went to the eastern slope peaks „1079“. This was Dyatlov's second mistake.
Having used the rest of the daylight hours to climb to the peak of "1079" in conditions of strong wind, which is common in this area, and a low temperature of about 25-30 ° C, Dyatlov found himself in unfavorable overnight conditions and decided to pitch a tent on the slope of peak "1079" so that in the morning of the next day, without losing height, go to Mount Otorten, to which there were about 10 km in a straight line.

Based on the facts set forth in the decision, it was concluded:

“Given the absence of external bodily injuries and signs of a struggle on the corpses, the presence of all the values of the group, 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 of the death of tourists was an elemental force, which the tourists were not able to overcome ".

Thus, there were no perpetrators of the tragedy. Meanwhile, the bureau of the Sverdlovsk city committee of the CPSU, in the party order, for shortcomings in the organization of tourist work and weak control, punished: director of the UPI N.S. Siunov, secretary of the party bureau F.P. Union of Voluntary Sports Societies V. F. Kurochkin and Inspector of the Union V. M. Ufimtsev. The chairman of the board of the UPI sports club, L. S. Gordo, was dismissed from work.

Ivanov reported on the results of the investigation to the second secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU A.F. Eshtokin. According to Ivanov, Eshtokin gave a categorical instruction: “to classify absolutely everything, seal it up, hand it over to the special unit and forget about it.” Even earlier, the first secretary of the regional committee, A.P. Kirilenko, insisted on maintaining secrecy during the investigation. The case was sent to Moscow for verification by the Prosecutor's Office of the RSFSR and returned to Sverdlovsk on July 11, 1959. Deputy Prosecutor of the RSFSR Urakov did not provide any new information and did not give a written instruction to classify the case. Officially, the case was not classified as classified, but by order of the prosecutor of the Sverdlovsk region N. Klinov, the case was kept in a secret archive for some time (case sheets 370-377, containing the results of the radiological examination, were handed over to a special sector). Later, the case was transferred to the state archive of the Sverdlovsk region, where it is currently located.

The widespread opinion that a non-disclosure subscription was taken from all participants in the search for the Dyatlov group for 25 years has not been documented. The materials of the criminal case contain only two signatures (Yu.E. Yarovoy and E.P. Maslennikov) on non-disclosure of the materials of the preliminary investigation in accordance with Article 96 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926, the validity of which ceased with the termination of the criminal case.

Autopsy results

The forensic medical examination of all the dead was carried out by the forensic expert of the regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination Boris Alekseevich Vozrozhdenny. Ivan Ivanovich Laptev, a forensic expert from the city of Severouralsk, also participated in the study of the first four bodies on March 4, 1959, and on May 9, 1959, forensic expert Henrietta Eliseevna Churkina took part in the study of the last four bodies. The research results are summarized in the following table:

Name	Opening date	Cause of death	Factors Contributing to Death	Other
Doroshenko Yu. N.	4.03.1959		-
Dyatlov I. A.	4.03.1959	Cold exposure (freezing)	-	Deposition, abrasions, skin wounds (obtained both in vivo and in an agonal state and posthumously)
Kolmogorova Z. A.	4.03.1959	Cold exposure (freezing)	-	Deposition, abrasions, skin wounds (obtained both in vivo and in an agonal state and posthumously)
Krivonischenko G. A.	4.03.1959	Cold exposure (freezing)	-	Burns II-III degree from a fire; deposition, abrasions, skin wounds (obtained both in vivo and in an agonal state and posthumously)
Slobodin R.V.	8.03.1959	Cold exposure (freezing)	Closed craniocerebral injury (frontal bone fracture on the left side)	Divergence of the sutures of the skull (postmortem); deposition, abrasions, skin wounds (obtained both in vivo and in an agonal state and posthumously)
Dubinina L. A.	9.05.1959	Extensive bleeding into the right ventricle of the heart, multiple bilateral fracture of the ribs, profuse internal bleeding into the chest cavity (caused by exposure to great force)	-
Zolotarev A. A.	9.05.1959	Multiple rib fracture on the right with internal bleeding into the pleural cavity (caused by high force)		Bodily injuries of soft tissues of the head area and "bath skin" of the extremities (postmortem)
Kolevatov A.S.	9.05.1959	Cold exposure (freezing)	-	Bodily injuries of soft tissues of the head area and "bath skin" of the extremities (postmortem)
Thibaut-Brignolles N.V.	9.05.1959	Closed multi-fragmented depressed fracture in the region of the vault and base of the skull with profuse hemorrhage under the meninges and into the substance of the brain (caused by exposure to great force)	Cold exposure	Bodily injuries of soft tissues of the head area and "bath skin" of the extremities (postmortem)

For the first five bodies examined, the forensic medical reports indicated the time of death within 6-8 hours from the last meal and the absence of signs of alcohol consumption.

In addition, on May 28, 1959, forensic expert B. A. Vozrozhdenny was interrogated, during which he answered questions about the possible circumstances of serious injuries found on three of the bodies found in the stream, and about the possible life expectancy after receiving such injuries. From the transcript of the interrogation follows:

All injuries are characterized by the Renaissance as life-time and are caused by the impact of a great force, obviously exceeding that which occurs when falling from a height of one's own height. As examples of such a force, Vozrozhdenny cites the impact of a car moving at high speed with a blow and throwing of the body and the impact of an air blast wave.
Thibaut-Brignolles' craniocerebral injury could not have been caused by a blow to the head with a stone, since there was no damage to the soft tissues.
After being injured, Thibaut-Brignoles was unconscious and unable to move independently, but could live up to 2-3 hours.
Dubinina could live 10-20 minutes after being injured, while remaining conscious. Zolotarev could live longer.

It should be noted that during the interrogation, B. A. Vozrozhdenny did not have the data of histological studies, which were completed only on May 29, 1959 and could give him additional data to answer the questions posed by the investigation.

Publication of the case

25 years after the termination of the case on the death of the Dyatlov group, it could be destroyed "in the usual manner" according to the terms of storage of documents. But the prosecutor of the region, Vladislav Ivanovich Tuikov, instructed the case not to be destroyed as “socially significant”.

Currently, the case is stored in the archives of the Sverdlovsk Region, and it is possible to get acquainted with it in the "limited access" mode only with the permission of the Prosecutor's Office of the Sverdlovsk Region. The full case file has never been published. However, copies of the case materials can be found on a number of Internet resources. A small number of researchers got acquainted with the original materials, including the tenth participant in the campaign, Yuri Yudin.

Criticism of the criminal case and the work of the investigation

After the appearance of the case materials in public sources, the quality of the work of the investigation was repeatedly criticized. So, the investigator Valery Kudryavtsev criticizes the insufficient attention of the investigation to the details of the state of the tent and things of the Dyatlov group (under the conditions of the intervention of the search engines) and to the traces of the group on the slope, and conspiracy theorist A.I. .

Forensic expert V. I. Lysy, a candidate of medical sciences and an expert in the field of research on corpses subjected to freezing, considers B. A. Vozrozhdenny’s conclusions about the lifetime of the craniocerebral injuries of Slobodin and Thibaut-Brignolles to be erroneous. In his opinion, the injuries of the skulls discovered by the Renaissance are posthumous, and the tourists "died from hypothermia and did not receive any fatal intravital injuries." He also believes that such diagnostic errors in Soviet forensic practice before 1972 were systematic.

The case itself, stored in the archive, is also criticized. Many amateur researchers express doubts about the completeness and reliability of the documents contained in it. The inconsistency of the date on the cover with the date of the decision to open a criminal case and the absence of a criminal case number are often mentioned. The extreme expression of this point of view is the opinion that there is (or previously existed) another case about the death of the Dyatlov group, which allegedly contains true information about the circumstances of the incident. Although on this moment there is no objective evidence of this, the “other case” hypothesis is supported by some experienced lawyers.

Versions of the death of the group

There are about twenty versions of the death of the group, which can be divided into three main categories:

natural

Strong wind

This version was expressed during the investigation by local residents, it was also considered by search engine tourists. It was assumed that one of the Dyatlovites left the tent and was blown away by the wind, the rest rushed to his aid, cutting the tent for a speedy exit, and were also carried away by the wind down the slope. Soon the version was rejected, since the search engines themselves experienced the effects of strong winds in the vicinity of the scene and made sure that with any wind it was possible to stay on the slope and return to the tent.

Avalanche

The version first put forward in 1991 by M. A. Axelrod, a participant in the search and supported by geologists I. B. Popov and N. N. Nazarov, and later by masters of sports in tourism E. V. Buyanov and B. E. Slobtsov (also a participant in the search ). The essence of the version is that an avalanche descended on the tent, crushing it with a significant load of snow, which caused the urgent evacuation of tourists from the tent. It was also suggested that the serious injuries received by some of the tourists were caused by the avalanche.

Following his predecessors, E. V. Buyanov believes that one of the reasons for the avalanche was cutting the slope at the place where the tent was set up. Buyanov notes that the site of the accident of the Dyatlov group belongs to the "continental hinterland with avalanches from recrystallized snow." Referring to the opinions of several experts, he claims that in the area of the tent of the Dyatlov group, a relatively small but dangerous collapse of a layer of compacted snow, the so-called "snow board", could have taken place. The injuries of some tourists in his version are explained by squeezing the victims between the dense snow mass of the collapse and the hard bottom of the tent.

Opponents of the avalanche version point out that the traces of the avalanche were not found by the participants in the search, which included experienced climbers. They note that the ski poles buried in the snow to fasten the tent remained in place and question the possibility of making the cuts discovered by the investigation from the inside of the fallen tent. The "avalanche" origin of severe injuries of three people is rejected in the absence of traces of the impact of the avalanche on other members of the group and fragile objects in the tent, as well as the possibility of independent descent of the injured or transportation by their surviving comrades from the tent to the place where the bodies were found. Finally, the departure of the group from the avalanche danger zone straight down, and not across the slope, seems to be a gross mistake that experienced tourists could not make.

Other versions

There are also a number of versions explaining what happened by a collision with wild animals (for example, a connecting rod bear, elk, wolves [ ]), poisoning tourists with sulfur-containing volcanic gases, exposure to rare and little-studied natural phenomena (winter thunderstorms, ball lightning, infrasound). There is a tendency to consider some of these versions as "anomalous" and put them in the same category as .

Criminal and technogenic-criminal

Common to this category of versions is the presence of human malicious intent, which is expressed in the murder of the Dyatlov tourist group and / or concealment of information about the impact of some technogenic factor on it.

Criminal versions

In addition to extremely dubious assumptions about the accidental poisoning of a tourist group (poor-quality alcohol or some kind of psychotropic drug), the subcategory of criminal versions includes:

Attack by escaped prisoners

This possibility was not mentioned in the decision to terminate the criminal case. The former investigator of the Ivdel prosecutor's office, V.I. Korotaev, claims that there were no escapes during the incident.

Death at the hands of Mansi

Experienced tourists reject this version both in Yarovoy's book and in reality. An expert on survival in extreme conditions, VG Volovich, also spoke out against the version of the internal conflict.

Attack of poachers - employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

According to this version, the Dyatlovites encountered law enforcement officers engaged in poaching. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (most likely, Ivdellag), out of hooligan motives, attacked the tourist group, which led to the death of tourists from injuries and hypothermia. The fact of the attack was subsequently successfully covered up.

Opponents of this version point out that the surroundings of Mount Kholatchakhl are difficult to access, unsuitable for winter hunting, and therefore not of interest to poachers. In addition, the possibility of successfully concealing a skirmish with tourists in the context of the ongoing investigation into their deaths is called into question.

"Controlled Delivery"

There is a conspiracy version of Alexei Rakitin, according to which several members of the Dyatlov group were undercover KGB officers. At the meeting, they were supposed to convey important disinformation regarding Soviet nuclear technology to foreign agents disguised as another tourist group. But they revealed this plan or accidentally unmasked themselves and killed all members of the Dyatlov group.

Former Soviet intelligence officer Mikhail Lyubimov was skeptical about this version, calling it a "detective novel." He noted that Western intelligence services in the fifties were really interested in the secrets of the Ural industry and carried out agents, but called the methods of work of the special services described by Rakitin implausible.

Technogenic criminal

According to some versions, the Dyatlov group was hit by some kind of weapon being tested: ammunition or a new type of rocket. It is believed that this provoked the hasty abandonment of the tent, and possibly directly contributed to the death of people. The following are mentioned as possible damaging factors: components of rocket fuel, a sodium cloud from a specially equipped rocket, the impact of a nuclear or volumetric explosion.

Yekaterinburg journalist A.I. Gushchin published a version that the group was the victim of a bomb test, most likely a neutron one, after which, in order to preserve state secrets, the death of tourists was staged in extreme natural conditions.

There are versions explaining the incident as an avalanche provoked by a man-made factor (for example, an explosion). It was in this direction that the “avalanche” version was developed by its founder M. A. Axelrod.

A common drawback of all such versions is that it is pointless to test new weapons systems outside a specially equipped test site, which allows evaluating their effectiveness in comparison with analogues, identifying advantages and disadvantages. During the incident, the USSR maintained a moratorium on nuclear tests, violations of which were not recorded by Western observers. According to E. V. Buyanov, referring to the data received from A. B. Zheleznyakov, an accidental hit of a rocket in the area of Mount Kholatchakhl is excluded. All types of missiles of the corresponding period, including those that were tested, either do not fit in terms of range, taking into account possible launch points, or were not launched in the period February 1-2, 1959.

Mystical and fantastic

This category includes versions that use factors to explain the incident, the existence of which is not recognized by the scientific community: paranormal phenomena, alien contacts, curses, attack by Bigfoot, evil spirits, etc.

The death of the Dyatlov group, for all its drama, is not a unique event both for that time and for sports tourism in general.

The death of the Dyatlovites occurred in the last period of the existence of the old system of supporting amateur tourism, which had the organizational form of commissions under the Sports Committees and the Unions of Sports Societies and Organizations (SSSOO) of territorial entities. There were tourist sections at enterprises and universities, but these were disparate organizations that interacted poorly with each other. With the growing popularity of tourism, it became obvious that the existing system could not cope with the preparation, provision and support of tourist groups and could not provide a sufficient level of tourism security. In 1959, when the Dyatlov group died, the number of dead tourists did not exceed 50 people per year in the country. The very next year, 1960, the number of dead tourists almost doubled. The first reaction of the authorities was an attempt to ban amateur tourism, which was done by a resolution of the Secretariat of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions of March 17, 1961, which abolished the Federation and the tourism sections under the voluntary councils of the Union of Sports Societies and Organizations. But it is impossible to forbid people to voluntarily go hiking in quite accessible terrain - tourism has gone into a “wild” state, when no one controlled the training or equipment of groups, the routes were not coordinated, only friends and relatives followed the deadlines. The effect followed immediately: in 1961, the number of dead tourists exceeded 200 people. Since the groups did not document the composition and route, sometimes there was no information either about the number of missing persons or about where to look for them.

By the Decree of the Presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions of July 20, 1962 “On the further development of tourism”, sports tourism was again officially recognized, its structures were transferred to the jurisdiction of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (trade unions), tourism councils were created, commissions under the SSSOO were abolished, organizational work to support tourism was in much revised and reformed. The creation of tourist clubs on a territorial basis began, but work in organizations did not weaken, but intensified thanks to the broad information support that appeared due to the exchange of experience of amateur organizations. This made it possible to overcome the crisis and ensure the functioning of the sports tourism system for several decades.

https://www.site/2017-06-20/voennyy_medik_rasskazal_svoyu_versiyu_gibeli_gruppy_dyatlova

"Death came from paralysis of the respiratory center"

A military medic told his version of the death of the Dyatlov group

A picture taken by the Dyatlov group on their last trip

The story of the mysterious death on the night of February 1-2, 1959 in the north of the Sverdlovsk region of a group of nine tourists led by a fifth-year student of UPI (joined UrFU) Igor Dyatlov is one of those in which no one will ever be able to put an end to it . There are a million versions: an avalanche, a bigfoot, a rocket explosion, a sabotage group, runaway prisoners, Mansi, dissatisfied with the invasion of sacred places for them. Recently, the site's correspondent met a former military medic, 66-year-old Vladimir Senchenko. Now he lives in Kamensk-Uralsky, but he comes from the north of the region, he served in missile units for many years ..

- What do you know about this whole story with the death of tourists?

- Let's start with the map .. A military paramedic, he served in the missile forces and I know about this case. Tired of listening: either the aliens flew in, or the bear came out and kicked everyone.

- In fact, there are more versions, and for the most part they are not so fantastic.

- In those years, military tests were carried out in the Ivdel region, missiles were tested. All the locals were well aware of this. They were often called fire snakes. I myself, when I was still living in Maslovo, saw 5-6 launches every winter. In the summer, by the way, they were not. Only held in winter. They went from the Serov region to the north, approximately along the Serov-Ivdel railway. Once, by the way, I saw that two rockets were flying at the same time. What does it say? The fact that these were not tests of only ballistic missiles. According to the instructions, they cannot test two ballistic missiles at the same time. Yes, everything was classified, but even the last losers in our country knew that weapons, including atomic weapons, were being tested in the north. We were strongly advised not to walk in the rain, not to walk in the snow. And why? Because the fallout was radioactive.

- You want to say that the entire north of the Sverdlovsk region is infected?

- It's less now. Listen further. When I graduated from medical school, I was sent to Vizhay for distribution. But I did not get to Vizhay, I worked in the village of Pervoi Severny. I was settled there with geophysicists, at least that's how they were introduced to me. Allegedly, they make up some kind of cards and all that stuff. On weekdays, these people disappeared in the taiga, and on weekends they rested in the village. One fine day, it was Monday and I had a day off, one of them, the youngest, stayed at the base. He must have been 25 years old. He offered me a drink, I didn't refuse, sat down. I asked him why he didn't go with everyone. And then he started talking. I won’t go, he says, no more, how do you live here, they say? He says you can't live here, there's radiation all around. It turned out that they are not geophysicists. They walk through the taiga and collect all sorts of junk left over from the launches. I say I want to live. The next day, he planned to go to their office, get paid and leave the village. Only when the next day I came home after work, I could not get into the apartment. Turns out it was a shot. He locked himself in a room and shot himself. This is instead of going home. Two uncles came and took away the body. me for interrogation. I pretended to be, as we then said, "rags."

- How is this connected with the Dyatlov Pass?

“The problem is that people have absolutely no idea what an explosion is. It is believed that these are, relatively speaking, fragments, a bunch of holes and all that. Specifically, what is a blast wave, hydrodynamic shock, absolutely no one knows. Even I, who worked as a physician for seven years and served in missile units from the Caucasus to the Urals, until some point studied it only as an elective. I want to say that the four wounded from the Dyatlov group (Rustem Slobodin, Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexei Zolotarev, Nikolai Thibault-Brignolle - site) are not a bear or aliens at all, this is a shock wave.

- In fact, this is one of the most popular versions, why are you so sure of this?

- All these combinations of injuries suggest such an idea: broken ribs, head injuries. This is what happens in a blast. He fell, say, on a backpack, on a stone or on another person during the explosion - he broke his ribs, injured his head. True, if you paint these injuries separately, and this is exactly what was done in the conclusion of the pathologist, then nothing is clear. It is not ruled out that the pathologist could have known about everything, but he was simply forbidden to write as he was. (The forensic medical examination of all the dead was carried out by the forensic expert of the regional bureau of forensic medical examination Boris Vozrozhdenny. At the same time, the forensic expert of the city of Severouralsk Ivan Laptev also participated in the study of the first four bodies on March 4, 1959, and an expert took part in the study of the last four bodies on May 9, 1959 -criminalist Henrietta Churkina - site).

- Do you want to say that near Mount Holatchakhl, on the slope of which on February 1, 1959, the group of Igor Dyatlov got up for the night, there was a rocket explosion?

- Let me remind you that the launches were carried out mainly in the evening. At least, it was at this time of day that they were most often observed in those years by local residents, including myself. At this time, the Dyatlov group was just getting up for the night. The second important point: all missiles during testing are equipped with a self-explosion system. The most secret part at that time was rocket fuel, for better ignition, an oxidizing agent based on nitric acid was added to it. Therefore, the electronics blew up the fuel tank. The rockets then went at a low altitude, and the Dyatlov group stood on the mountain. There is every reason to believe that we are dealing with a self-explosion of a rocket that occurred close to them.

- The minus of the rocket version is that the Ministry of Defense assures that there were no launches that day.

- We read carefully what they wrote: there were no training launches of ballistic missiles. Question: were any others produced? Nobody asked this question. We could talk about tactical missiles with a range of 300-400 km.

- In favor of the rocket version speaks a strange reddish-orange skin tone, which was seen on the bodies of dead tourists. Allegedly, these are traces of the impact of rocket fuel.

- When the tank with this fuel was opened, smoke or orange-colored vapor instantly appeared from there. Vapors bubbled up like a fountain, from orange to brown depending on the lighting. They are quite heavy. On the one hand, they are slowly deposited, on the other hand, they are slowly blown away by the wind. In general, it turned out that the group, after the explosion of the rocket, fell under a cloud of vapors of this fuel.

- Where did the rocket itself or its fragments go in this case?

- It is a mistake to believe that a rocket falls apart during self-explosion. The rocket body itself went a little further. According to the instructions, at the first opportunity, but no later than three days later, helicopter pilots took him away. They usually follow. Large parts were collected at the earliest opportunity, and small ones were collected before the 70s.

Could they see the tent and the bodies on the slope?

— We could see the tent. But these comrades have strict orders to follow their own course and not interfere in anything else. Especially by that time everyone was already dead. A cloud of vapors went down from the place of detonation, and there is no need to explain what acid vapors are.

- Stop, just right.

- To imagine what it is, you can pour nitric acid in the room. There is a strong irritant effect on the respiratory tract, effects on the eyes. A strong cough, runny nose, tears begin. I believe they were in the tent by the time the cloud reached them. I had to run. By this time, they began to choke, hence the cuts on the tent. Where to run? Just down, away from the cloud. In addition, try to drag a wounded person uphill in winter, and they had a ratio of four wounded to five survivors.

- I believe that they went down to the river (a tributary of the Lozva - site). We found this niche near the river: a cliff, there they simply hid from the wind.

In the case of the death of the Dyatlov group - new evidence

Relax a little, look around. It's cold, not enough clothes. We must return. But there is a strong irritation in the eyes, they do not really see. Plus cough, runny nose. Here you need to understand one more thing, the susceptibility of each person is different. For example, I tolerate acid more easily than alkali. Then they decide to leave part of the group by the river, the rest climbed a little higher up the slope to the edge of the forest, where they break branches and burn a fire ..

Why didn't anyone come back? There was not much to go to the tent.

“The oxidizing agent I told you about does not cause burns as such. It is quickly absorbed into the body and causes poisoning, accompanied by a red-orange color of the skin. Within half an hour, a person dies from paralysis of the respiratory center. That's why they didn't reach the tent either.

- When they found the bodies, they lay on the slope one after another. Closest to the tent was Zinaida Kolmogorova. Why?

- There may be several versions. They received the same poisoning, but everyone's tolerance is different. The resistance of the woman's body, as a rule, is higher, so she climbed the farthest.

- The rocket version, however, does not explain why some of the dead had no eyes, and Dubinina had no tongue and part of her lower lip.

- Everyone paid attention to this and went in cycles in it. In fact, the bodies were not immediately covered with snow. Eyes, lips, tongue - all these are the softest tissues, birds could really peck them out or gnaw them out by mice. There is an explanation why, for example, there was no tongue - they were suffocating, and this girl simply died on inspiration. The mouth remained open, and the animals could well take advantage of this.

- Good. Do you have an understanding of which missile test could lead to the death of the Dyatlov group?

- The launch of the S-75 complex flies one to one like those fiery snakes that we saw in my native village. This is a rocket, by the way, which on May 1, 1960, Powers was shot down in the sky over Sverdlovsk (pilot of the American U-2 spy plane - website). It is not ruled out that in 1959 it was tested. Around the same years, by the way, the S-125 complexes were tested. I think this question could be addressed to the Ministry of Defense.