The full composition of the Dyatlov group with brief biographies and photos. New scary finds. About what could not be

So, friends, today there will be a big and interesting post about one of the most famous and mysterious stories times - a story about the events in 1959 at the Dyatlov Pass. For those who have not heard anything about this, I will briefly tell the story - in the snowy winter of 1959, a group of 9 tourists died in the Northern Urals under extremely strange and mysterious circumstances - the tourists cut the tent from the inside and fled (many in the same socks) into the night and cold, later, severe injuries will be found on many corpses ...

Despite the fact that almost 60 years have passed since the tragedy, a complete and exhaustive answer to what actually happened at the Dyatlov Pass has not been given so far, there are a lot of versions - someone calls the version of death an avalanche of tourists, someone - a fall nearby of the remnants of a rocket, and some even drag in mysticism and all sorts of "ancestral spirits". However, in my opinion, the mystic has absolutely nothing to do with it, and the Dyatlov group died from much more banal reasons.

What started it all. Hike history.

A group of 10 tourists led by Igor Dyatlov left Sverdlovsk on a hike on January 23, 1959. According to the Soviet classification used in the late fifties, the hike belonged to the 3rd (highest) category of difficulty - in 16 days the group had to ski about 350 kilometers and climb the Otorten and Oiko-Chakur mountains.

What is interesting - "officially" the campaign of the Dyatlov group was timed to coincide with the XXI Congress of the CPSU - the Dyatlov group carried slogans and banners with them, with which they were supposed to be photographed at the end point of the campaign. Let's leave the question of the surrealism of Soviet slogans in the deserted mountains and forests of the Urals, something else is more interesting here - in order to fix this fact, as well as for the photo chronicle of the campaign, the Dyatlov group had several cameras with them - the pictures from them, including those presented in my post, are cut off on the date January 31, 1959.

On February 12, the group was supposed to reach the end point of its route - the village of Vizhay and send a telegram from there to the sports club of the Sverdlovsk Institute, and on February 15 return to Sverdlovsk by rail. However, the Dyatlov group did not get in touch ...

The composition of the Dyatlov group. Oddities.

Now we need to say a few words about the composition of the Dyatlov group - I will not write in detail about all 10 members of the group, I will only talk about those that will later be closely connected with versions of the death of the group. You may ask - why are 10 members of the group mentioned, while there were 9 dead? The fact is that one of the members of the group, Yuri Yudin, left the route at the beginning of the campaign and was the only one from the whole group who survived.

Igor Dyatlov, team leader. Born in 1937, at the time of the campaign he was a 5th year student of the radio engineering faculty of the UPI. Friends remembered him as a highly erudite specialist and a class engineer. Despite his young age, Igor was already a very experienced tourist and was appointed leader of the group.

Semyon (Alexander) Zolotarev, born in 1921 - the oldest, and perhaps the most strange and mysterious member of the group. According to Zolotarev's passport, the name was Semyon, but he asked everyone to call himself Sasha. A participant in the Second World War, who was incredibly lucky - only 3% of the conscripts born in 1921-22 survived. After the war, Zolotarev worked as a tourism instructor, and in the early fifties he graduated from the Minsk Institute of Physical Education - the same one located on Yakub Kolas Square. According to some researchers of the death of the Dyatlov group, Semyon Zolotarev served in SMERSH during the war years, and in the post-war years he secretly worked in the KGB.

Alexander Kolevatov And Georgy Krivonischenko. Two more "unusual" members of the Dyatlov group. Kolevatov was born in 1934, and before studying at the Sverdlovsk UPI, he managed to work at a secret institute of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building in Moscow. Krivonischenko, on the other hand, worked in the closed Ural city of Ozersk, where the very top-secret one that produced weapons-grade plutonium existed. Both Kolevatov and Krivonischenko will be closely associated with one of the versions of the death of the Dyatlov group.

The remaining six participants in the campaign, perhaps, are unremarkable - they were all students of the UPI, about the same age and similar biographies.

What the search engines found at the place of death of the group.

The campaign of the Dyatlov group took place in the "normal mode" until February 1, 1959 - this can be judged from the surviving records of the group, as well as from photographic films from four cameras, which captured the tourist life of the guys. Recordings and pictures are cut off on January 31, 1959, when the group parked on the slope of Mount Kholat-Syakhyl, this happened on the afternoon of February 1 - on this day (or on the night of February 2) the entire Dyatlov group died.

What happened to the Dyatlov group? The search engines that went to the parking lot of the Dyatlov group on February 26 saw the following picture - the Dyatlov group's tent was partially covered with snow, ski poles and an ice ax were sticking out near the entrance, Igor Dyatlov's rain jacket was on the ice ax, and scattered things of the Dyatlov group were found around the tent ". Neither valuables nor money inside the tent were touched.

The next day, the search engines found the bodies of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko - the bodies lay side by side near the remains of a small fire, while the bodies were practically undressed, and broken cedar branches were scattered around - which supported the fire. 300 meters from the cedar, the body of Igor Dyatlov was discovered, who was also dressed very strangely - he was without a headdress and shoes.

In March, April and May, the bodies of the remaining members of the Dyatlov group were successively found - Rustem Slobodin (also very strangely dressed), Lyudmila Dubinina, Thibaut-Brignolles, Kolevatov and Zolotarev. Some of the bodies had traces of severe, still intravital injuries - depressed fractures of the ribs, a fracture of the base of the skull, the absence of eyes, a crack in the frontal bone (in Rustem Slobodin), etc. The presence of such injuries on the bodies dead tourists gave rise to a variety of versions of what could happen at the Dyatlov Pass on February 1-2, 1959.

Version number one is an avalanche.

Perhaps the most banal and, as for me, the most stupid version of the death of the group (which, however, is followed by many, including those who personally visited the Dyatlov Pass). According to the "avalanche" version, the tent of those who stopped at the parking lot and were inside the tourists at that moment was covered by an avalanche - because of which the guys had to cut the tent from the inside and go down the slope.

Many facts put an end to this version - the tent discovered by the search engines was not at all crushed by a snow slab, but was only partially swept up by snow. For some reason, the snow movement ("avalanche") did not knock down the ski poles, which were calmly standing around the tent. Also, the "avalanche" theory cannot be explained by the selective effect of an avalanche - the avalanche allegedly crushed the chests and crippled some of the guys, but at the same time did not touch the things inside the tent - all of them, including fragile and easily crumpled, were in in perfect order. At the same time, things inside the tent were randomly scattered - which the avalanche certainly could not do.

In addition, in the light of the "avalanche" theory, the flight of the "Dyatlovites" down the slope looks absolutely ridiculous - usually they go sideways from the avalanche. Plus, the avalanche version does not explain in any way the downward movement of the seriously injured Dyatlovites - it is absolutely impossible to go with such severe (consider fatal) injuries, and most likely, the tourists got them already at the bottom of the slope.

Version number two is a rocket test.

Supporters of this version believe that just in those places in the Urals where the Dyatlov expedition took place, a certain ballistic missile or something like a "vacuum bomb" was tested. According to supporters of this version, a rocket (or its parts) fell somewhere not far from the Dyatlov group’s tent, or something exploded, which caused severe injuries to part of the group and a stampede of the rest of the participants.

However, the "rocket" version also does not explain the main thing - how exactly did the seriously injured members of the group travel several kilometers down the slope? Why are there no signs of an explosion or other chemical attack on the things, or on the tent itself? Why were things inside the tent scattered, and half-dressed guys, instead of returning to the tent for warm clothes, started making a fire 1.5 kilometers from it?

And in general, according to available Soviet sources, no missile tests were conducted in the Urals in the winter of 1959.

Version number three « controlled delivery » .

Perhaps the most detective and most interesting version of all - the researcher of the death of the Dyatlov group by the name of Rakitin even wrote a whole book about this version called "Death on the trail" - where he studied this version of the death of the group in detail and in detail.

The essence of the version is as follows. Three of the members of the Dyatlov group - namely Zolotarev, Kolevatov and Krivonischenko - were recruited by the KGB and were supposed to meet with a group of foreign intelligence officers during the campaign - who, in turn, were supposed to receive secret radio samples from the Dyatlov group of what is being produced at the Mayak plant "- for this purpose, the "Dyatlovites" had with them two sweaters with radio materials applied to them (radioactive sweaters were indeed found by search engines).

As conceived by the KGB, the guys were supposed to transfer radio materials to unsuspecting intelligence officers, and at the same time photograph them quietly and remember the signs - so that the KGB could "lead" them in the future and eventually reach a large network of spies that allegedly worked around closed cities in the Urals . At the same time, only three recruited members of the group were devoted to the details of the operation - the remaining six did not suspect anything.

The meeting took place on the side of the mountain after setting up the tent, and in the course of communicating with the "Dyatlovites" a group of foreign intelligence officers (most likely disguised as ordinary tourists) suspected something was wrong and opened the KGB "setup" - for example, noticed an attempt to photograph them, after which decided to liquidate the entire group and leave along forest paths.

It was decided to frame the liquidation of the Dyatlov group as a banal everyday robbery - under the threat of firearms, the scouts ordered the Dyatlovites to undress and go down the slope. Rustem Slobodin, who decided to resist, was beaten, he later died on the way down the slope. After that, a group of scouts turned over all the things in the tent, looking for Semyon Zolotarev's camera (apparently, it was he who tried to photograph them) and cut the tent from the inside so that the "Dyatlovites" could not return to it.

Later, already with the onset of darkness, the scouts noticed a fire near the cedar - which the Dyatlovites, who were freezing at the bottom of the slope, were trying to make, went down and finished off the remaining living members of the group. It was decided not to use firearms - so that those who would investigate the murder of the group would not have unambiguous versions of what happened and obvious "traces" along which they could send the military to comb the nearby forests in search of spies.

In my opinion, this is a very interesting version, which, however, also has a number of drawbacks - firstly, it is completely incomprehensible why foreign intelligence officers needed to kill "Dyatlovites" hand-to-hand, without using weapons - this is quite risky, plus it makes no practical sense - they could not help but know that the bodies would not be found until spring, when the spies were already far away.

Secondly, according to the same Rakitin, there could not be more scouts than 2-3 people. At the same time, downed fists were found on the bodies of many "Dyatlovites" - in the version of "controlled delivery" this means that the guys fought with spies - which makes it unlikely that the beaten scouts ran down to the cedar and even hand-to-hand finish off the surviving "Dyatlovites".

All in all, there are still a lot of questions...

Mystery 33 frames. instead of an epilogue.

The surviving member of the Dyatlov group, Yuri Yudin, believed that the guys were definitely killed by people - according to Yuri, the "Dyatlovites" witnessed some secret Soviet tests, after which they were killed by the military - arranging the matter so that it was not clear what happened there on really. Personally, I am also inclined to the version that the Dyatlov group was killed by people, and the real chain of events was known to the authorities - but no one was in a hurry to tell the people about what really happened there.

And instead of an epilogue, I would like to place such a last frame from the film of the "Dyatlovites" - according to many researchers of the death of the group, it is in it that we need to look for the answer to the question of what actually happened on February 1, 1959 - someone sees in In this blurry defocused frame, traces of a rocket falling from the sky, and someone - the faces of scouts looking into the tent of the "Dyatlovites".

However, according to another version, there is no mystery in this frame - it was taken by a forensic expert in order to unload the camera and develop the film ...

So it goes.

What do you think really happened to the Dyatlov group? Which version do you prefer?

Write in the comments if you're interested.

The mystery of the death of Sverdlovsk tourists in February 1959 and atomic espionage in the Soviet Urals. Excerpt from a book

This story excites the imagination for more than a decade. Books have been written about her, films made, thousands of pages of Internet forums and blogs are devoted to her. The authors of more than two dozen versions of varying degrees of authority and reliability have been trying for decades to drive strange and contradictory events into the Procrustean bed of their own logic, cutting off what did not correspond to it, and adding what, in their opinion, should have been added. But the true picture of what happened on the evening of February 1, 1959 on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl in the Northern Urals has never been restored, and apparently it will never be done again. This book attempts to analyze all the information accumulated by 2013 on the fact of the mysterious death of Sverdlovsk tourists at the Dyatlov Pass in the winter of 1959.

The composition of the tourist group. Campaign history

In January 1959, a group of tourists consisting of 10 people left Sverdlovsk, who set themselves the task of going through the forests and mountains of the Northern Urals on a ski trip of the 3rd (the highest at that time) category of difficulty. For 16 days, the participants of the trip had to ski at least 350 km and climb the North Ural mountains Otorten and Oiko-Chakur. Formally, the trip was organized by the tourist section sports club Ural Polytechnic Institute (UPI) and is dedicated to the upcoming opening of the 21st Congress of the CPSU, but out of ten participants, four were not students. Let's briefly dwell on personnel groups, since in the course of the further narration the names and surnames of these people will be constantly mentioned.

1. Igor Alekseevich Dyatlov, born in 1937, leader of the campaign, 5th year student of the radio engineering faculty of the UPI, highly erudite specialist and, of course, a talented engineer. Already in the 2nd year, Igor developed and assembled VHF radio stations, which were used to communicate between two groups during a hike in the Sayans in 1956. By the way, a very unpleasant incident for Dyatlov's pride was connected with these radio stations: when distributing the weight load between the participants of the campaign, Igor overestimated the weight by 3 kg. He did this so that they would not put extra weight in his backpack. Dyatlov was caught in a lie on the third day of the campaign and must have undergone many unpleasant minutes. What happened, however, did not at all cancel his unconditional engineering talent. He was the developer of a small-sized stove, which was used on campaigns in 1958-1959. and proven to work. Igor Dyatlov was offered to stay at the UPI after graduation to continue his scientific work, and in early 1959 he even took shape as an assistant in one of the departments. By 1959, Dyatlov had considerable experience in long-distance hikes of varying degrees of difficulty, and among the members of the tourist section of the UPI sports club was considered one of the most trained athletes. People who knew Igor spoke of him as a thoughtful person, not having a penchant for hasty decisions and even slow (but slow in the sense that he always kept pace slowly). Dyatlov was the developer of the route along which the group set off on a hike on January 23. According to some recollections, Igor seemed to sympathize - and not without reciprocity - with Zina Kolmogorova, who also took part in this campaign (but it is hardly worth overestimating the depth of their relationship - it was precisely platonic sympathy and nothing more).

2. Yuri Nikolayevich Doroshenko, born in 1938, student of the Faculty of Hoisting and Transportation Machines of the UPI, a well-trained tourist who had experience of long hikes of varying degrees of complexity. At one time he courted Zina Kolmogorova. Yuri traveled with the girl to her hometown of Kamensk-Uralsky, where he was introduced to her parents and sister. In the future, their relationship seemed to be upset, but this did not prevent Yuri from maintaining good feelings for both Zina and his more successful rival Igor Dyatlov.

3. Lyudmila Alexandrovna Dubinina, born in 1938, a 3rd year student of the Faculty of Engineering and Economics of the UPI, from the first days of her studies took an active part in the activities of the tourist club of the institute, sang excellently, photographed (many photographs in the winter campaign of 1959 were taken namely Dubinina). The girl had considerable travel experience. During a hike in the Eastern Sayans in 1957, she received a gunshot wound to her leg due to an accidental shot by a hunter accompanying the students, courageously endured both the wound itself and the subsequent (very painful) transportation. In February 1958, she was the senior hiker of the 2nd category of complexity in the Northern Urals.

4. Semyon (Alexander) Alekseevich Zolotarev, born in 1921, the oldest participant in the campaign and, perhaps, the most mysterious person on this list. He asked to be called Sasha, and therefore appears under this name in many documents and memoirs. In fact, he bore the name Semyon and came from North Caucasus(from the Kuban Cossacks, from the village of Convenient on the border with the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), where he regularly visited his mother. Born in the family of a medical assistant, he belonged to the generation most affected by the Great Patriotic War (of the conscripts born in 1921–1922, about 3% survived), went through almost the entire war (in the Armed Forces from October 1941 to May 1946. ). He became a candidate member of the CPSU (b) in 1944, was a battalion Komsomol organizer, after the war he joined the party. He had 4 military awards, among them - the Order of the Red Star, received for building a pontoon crossing under enemy fire. Special attention should be paid to the military past of Semyon Zolotarev - in the future we will have to return to him for a more thorough analysis. After the end of the war, Semyon tried to continue his military career - in June 1945 he entered the Moscow Military Engineering School, which, however, was cut almost immediately. In April 1946, Zolotarev, as part of the course, transferred to the Leningrad Military Engineering School, but, apparently, it was not his destiny to serve in the army, since this school was also reduced following the Moscow one. In the end, Semyon Zolotarev ended up at the Minsk Institute of Physical Education (GIFKB), which he successfully graduated in 1951. In the mid-1950s, he worked as a seasonal tourism instructor at various camp sites in the North Caucasus, and then at the Artybash camp site (Altai), after which in the summer of 1958 he moved to the Sverdlovsk region and became a senior instructor in tourism at the Kourovskaya camp site. However, just before going to Otorten with Igor Dyatlov's group, Zolotarev quit Kourovka. He was single, which seemed rather unusual at the time. His tattoos were very curious: images of a five-pointed star, beets, the name "Gene", the date "1921", the letter combination DAERMMUAZUAYA, the combinations "G + S + P = D", "G + S", as well as individual letters "S" next to with a star and a beet. Most of the tattoos, with the exception of the inscription "Gene" at the base of the thumb of the right hand, were hidden by clothing, so that the participants in the campaign, apparently, did not know anything about them.

5. Alexander Sergeevich Kolevatov, born in 1934, 4th year student of the Faculty of Physics and Technology of the UPI. This is another (along with Zolotarev) "dark horse" in the group. Before the Sverdlovsk "Polytech", Alexander managed to graduate from the Sverdlovsk Mining and Metallurgical College (with a degree in metallurgy of heavy non-ferrous metals) and leave ... for Moscow to work as a senior laboratory assistant at the secret institute of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, which at that time was called a mailbox (p / z) 3394. Subsequently, this "mailbox" turned into the All-Russian Research Institute of Inorganic Materials, which was engaged in developments in the field of materials science for the nuclear industry. While working in Moscow, Alexander Kolevatov entered the All-Union Correspondence Polytechnic Institute, studied for one year and transferred to the 2nd year of the Sverdlovsk Polytechnic Institute. The history of his departure, work in Moscow for three years (August 1953 - September 1956) and subsequent return to Sverdlovsk is very unusual for that time. As in the case of Zolotarev, we will turn to the analysis of the unusual details of life young man, for now, we note that by 1959 Kolevatov already had experience in hiking trips of various categories of complexity. People who knew Alexander noted such strong traits of his character as accuracy, sometimes reaching pedantry, methodicalness, diligence, as well as pronounced leadership qualities. The only member of the group, Alexander smoked a pipe.

6. Zinaida Alekseevna Kolmogorova, born in 1937, 4th year student of the radio engineering department of the UPI, the soul of the institute's tourist club. Like the rest of the group, Zina already had considerable experience in hiking in the Urals and Altai of varying degrees of difficulty. During one of the campaigns, the girl was bitten by a viper, for some time she was on the verge of life and death, with great courage and dignity she endured the suffering that fell to her lot. Zina Kolmogorova demonstrated unconditional leadership qualities, knew how to rally the team, was a welcome guest of any student company.

7. Georgy (Yuri) Alekseevich Krivonischenko, born in 1935, graduate of the UPI, in 1959 - engineer of plant No. Chelyabinsk region where weapons-grade plutonium was mined. On September 29, 1957, one of the world's largest man-made disasters occurred there, which became widely known only in the post-perestroika period. The consequence of this catastrophe (often called the "Kyshtym accident") was the formation of the so-called East Ural radioactive trace with a length of about 300 km. George was a witness to this catastrophe and a participant in its liquidation. In the context of the present study, this circumstance should be taken into account. Krivonischenko was a friend of Dyatlov, participated in almost all the campaigns that Igor went on. Georgy was also friendly with most of the other participants in the campaign, who often visited his parents' Sverdlovsk apartment. Although in reality Krivonischenko's name was George, his friends usually called him Yuri (i.e., the situation with the name change is approximately the same as in the case of Zolotarev).

8. Rustem Vladimirovich Slobodin, born in 1936, graduate of the UPI, worked as an engineer in a closed branch design bureau (p/box 10). There is an idea that Rustem's father in 1959 was the chairman of the trade union committee of the UPI, but it does not correspond to reality. The trade union committee of "Polytech" was headed by Rustem's namesake, and his father was a professor at another Sverdlovsk university. Rustem Slobodin for a number of years went on hiking trips of various categories of complexity and was, of course, an experienced tourist. He was a very athletic young man, mobile, hardy, he was fond of long-distance running, he went to the UPI boxing section. Rustem played the mandolin perfectly, which he took with him on this trip. By the way, his Turkic name is nothing more than a tribute to international fashion, Rustem Slobodin's parents were Russian.

9. Nikolai Vladimirovich Thibault-Brignolles, born in 1934, foreman from Sverdlovsk, graduate of the construction department of the UPI in 1958. Thibaut came from a family of well-known French mining engineers who had worked for several generations in the Urals. Nikolai's father was subjected to repression during the Stalin years, and the boy was born in the camp where his mother was kept. To Sverdlovsk

Thibaut-Brignoles came from Kemerovo, studied well, graduated from the institute with an average score of 4.15, and his academic success was on the rise, and by the end of his studies, his performance was much better than in his first years. Nikolai had experience of hiking in various categories of difficulty, he was well acquainted with UPI students - members of the institute's tourist club. Everyone who knew Thibaut noted his energy, enterprise, friendliness and humor.

10. Yury Efimovich Yudin, born in 1937, 4th year student of the Faculty of Engineering and Economics of the UPI, became interested in tourism at the institute, made a total of 6 long trips of various categories of difficulty, including the 3rd one, the highest for that time.

The main motive for organizing the campaign was the enthusiasm of its participants. The implementation of this ski crossing could not bring any material benefits. The trade union committee of the "Polytech" gave students 100 rubles each. financial assistance, but since this assistance was purely symbolic, all participants chipped in another 350 rubles. to replenish the travel fund. Part of the equipment was obtained at the institute, part was the property of the members of the group. All the tourists were healthy, the task was fully consistent with the level of their training and technical equipment.

It is impossible not to say a few words about the team spirit of this small team. All its members had a higher or incomplete higher education, and it should be remembered that in those days the status of such education was much higher than today. They were truly multi-talented and erudite people, moreover, they received a certain life experience, passed a kind of test "for strength". It is known that almost all participants in the transition had previously encountered wild animals in the taiga, and the cases of the snake bite of Zina Kolmogorova and the injury of Lyuda Dubinina speak for themselves. These girls were reliable, devoted and proven comrades far from ordinary tests. Undoubtedly, the members of the group had psychological resistance to stress loads, had developed sense joint and several liability and mutual assistance. Almost all of them knew each other well for several years, and this circumstance gave them mutual confidence. The only person unfamiliar to everyone was Semyon Zolotarev.

Within the group, there was at least one connection based on special interpersonal sympathies. We are talking about the pair "Igor Dyatlov - Zina Kolmogorova". It would not be an exaggeration to say that these young people were united by a platonic affection. Of course, in a normal situation, this high and beautiful feeling can only be welcomed, but in an extraordinary, stressful situation, associated with a risk to life, it can play a very dangerous role, serve as a kind of detonator for the destruction of unity of command and subordination. In extreme circumstances, love attachment can unexpectedly and, moreover, negatively affect the adoption of an important decision, push a person to refuse to execute a command, or induce suboptimal (from the point of view of the majority) actions. This should be remembered, especially since such extreme situations, no doubt, arose during the campaign ...

So, on January 23, 1959, the group left Sverdlovsk and on the night of January 24-25 arrived in the village of Ivdel (about 340 km north of the departure point). On the road, there were two noteworthy incidents involving police officers. In one case, tourists were not allowed to spend the night in the station building in Serov, and Yuri Krivonischenko, mockingly, began to beg near the closed station doors for “alms for sweets” (this trick ended for him with a walk to the station police station). In the second case, some drunkard stuck to the tourists on the Serov-Ivdel train, saying that the guys had stolen a bottle of vodka from him, and demanding that it be returned. Of course, no one began to swear with him, but this only inflamed the brawler. As a result, the conductor had to hand him over to the police at the station. For members of the group, both incidents had no negative consequences, since the travel order, which notified that the hiking trip was timed to coincide with the “red date” (that is, the opening of the CPSU congress), eliminated all obstacles and unnecessary questions from officials.

In the afternoon of January 26, the group safely left Ivdel for the village. 41st quarter, where the loggers lived. In fact, it was the very edge of the inhabited world - then completely uninhabited Ural forests began, gloomy and inhospitable. At about 19:00–20:00, the group arrived without incident in the village of the 41st quarter, settled down for the night at the loggers' hostel. The head of the 1st forest area named Ryazhnev, the local king and god, generously provided the tourists with a cart with a horse and a driver, on which they put their backpacks on the morning of January 27 and, putting on their skis, made the next transition - to the village of the Second Northern Mine. This locality, once part of the extensive system of IvdelLAG, by 1959 was already completely abandoned. Not a single inhabitant remained there, and out of 24 houses, only one had a reliable roof and was at least somehow suitable for standing. The group spent the night in it. It should be noted that the driver who drove the horse was a certain Velikiavichus, a Lithuanian who was sentenced in 1949 to 10 years in the camps and went to the settlement in 1956. By itself, this character does not play a special role in the narrative, but his presence strongly indicates one thing. a very important circumstance: the entire north of the Sverdlovsk region and the Komi ASSR was in those years stuffed with institutions of the former Stalinist Gulag. A very large percentage of the population of the Urals was then one way or another connected with the once powerful repressive machine - former camp inmates, and unescorted, and camp servants lived here. By 1959, the former GULAG system was already largely decayed and noticeably reduced, the frightening abbreviation disappeared already in 1956 (then, instead of the GULAG, the unpronounceable GUITK appeared - the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Colonies), but people ... people remained! In the context of what happened in the future, this should be remembered ...

In the Second North, the members of the group were attracted by a warehouse of geological samples. Pieces of at least one of the pyrite exploration cores they took with them. During his stay in the village (January 27–28), one of the tourists, Yuri Yudin, fell ill. He had to refuse further participation in the campaign, and on the morning of January 28, 1959, the group warmly said goodbye to him. Yudin returned to the settlement of the 41st quarter together with Velikiavichus, and the remaining 9 people moved on.

Actually, this is the end of that part of the hiking trip of the Dyatlov group, which is confirmed by objective evidence from outsiders. We can judge the future only from the diaries of the participants in the campaign and the materials of the prosecutor's investigation.

Igor Dyatlov and a group of tourists led by him intended to make a transition through the Northern Urals in such a way that in the first days of February they would go to Mount Otorten (or Otyrten, height 1234 m), and by February 12 they would be in the village of Vizhay, from where they were supposed to give a telegram to the UPI for a safe arrival. However, already on January 28, Dyatlov doubted the possibility of meeting the deadline and, when saying goodbye to Yuri Yudin, asked the latter to send a message to the sports club about a possible postponement of the end of the campaign. It was about a delay of one or two days, that is, the deadline was shifted by the leader of the campaign to February 14.

This move seemed logical. By mid-February, the participants of another ski crossing in the Northern Urals (a group led by Yuri Blinov) returned to UPI. They all talked about heavy snowfalls in that area, so Igor Dyatlov's decision to postpone the return date looked quite balanced and reasonable.

However, neither on February 14, nor on February 15, nor on February 16, the group did not appear in the village of Vizhay and did not send a telegram to the Polytech sports club. By this time, students began to arrive at UPI after the holidays. Yuri Yudin also appeared, having separated from Igor Dyatlov's group halfway. Of course, questions were addressed to him about the whereabouts of the group and the circumstances of the campaign, but Yuri could not bring any clarity; he only certified that until noon on January 28, there were no conflicts, no emergency, or any suspicious situations in the group. On February 17, 1959, relatives of some members of the group (primarily Lyuda Dubinina and Alexander Kolevatov) began to call the head of the UPI sports club demanding to clarify the fate of the missing tourists. Similar calls followed in the party committee of the institute.

Lev Semyonovich Gordo, who headed the UPI sports club, tried to extinguish the scandal that was beginning. On February 18, he told Zaostrovsky, secretary of the UPI party committee, that a telegram had been received from Dyatlov notifying him of a delay on the way. Apparently, Gordo seriously hoped that in a day or two the missing tourists would show up and the problem would resolve itself.

But the problem has not disappeared. Relatives of the students applied to the Sverdlovsk City Party Committee, and now the leaders of the party leadership began to ask unpleasant questions to the institute leadership. The need to equip a rescue expedition became obvious, but it immediately became clear that none of the sports leadership at the level of the UPI and the city had accurate information about the route of the Dyatlov group. This was a gross violation of the order of organizing tourist trips. The necessary information began to be feverishly restored according to the stories of people who heard about the plans from members of the missing group. The situation was saved by a person who was completely outside the Polytech sports club - Ignatius Fokich Ryagin, a friend of the Kolevatov family, who spoke in detail with Alexander about the upcoming campaign in mid-January. Ryagin recreated the route of the group from memory, and on February 19, Rimma Kolevatova, Alexander's sister, handed over the map to Colonel Georgy Semenovich Ortyukov, a teacher of tactics from the military department of the UPI, who led the search for the group in those February days and later put a lot of effort to find out the history of the campaign.

The beginning of the search operation. General chronology of searches.

Discovery of the first bodies

dead tourists

On February 1959, the tourist section of the UPI held an emergency meeting, on the agenda of which there was one question: "Emergency with the Dyatlov group!" The meeting was opened by the head of the department of physical education at the Polytech, A. M. Vishnevsky, and the chairman of the student trade union committee, V. E. Slobodin. They officially announced that the delay of Igor Dyatlov's group was not authorized and gives rise to concern about the fate of its members. The decision of the meeting was unanimous: urgently organize a search and rescue operation and form groups of volunteers from among the students of the institute who are ready to take part in it. It was also decided to seek help from the tourist sections of other universities and institutions of Sverdlovsk. On the same day, the trade union committee allocated the money necessary for the purchase of products and everything necessary for search engine groups. A 24-hour telephone line has been launched to coordinate activities within the framework of the ongoing operation. A separate item was the decision to create a headquarters for rescue operations under the student trade union committee.

The next day, February 21, tourist groups of Yuri Blinov and Sergei Sogrin, who had just returned to Sverdlovsk from planned trips, began to move into the search area. The third group of tourists led by Vladislav Karelin, who, by coincidence, was already in the Northern Urals, also declared their readiness to act in the interests of the rescue operation. On the same day, the chairman of the UPI sports club, Lev Gordo, and the aforementioned member of the bureau of the tourist section, Yuri Blinov, flew from Sverdlovsk to Ivdel on a special flight on an An-2 plane. From that day on, they began flying around the area of ​​the upcoming searches, moving along the route of the missing group in the hope of seeing from the air either the tourists themselves or the signs they left. Looking ahead, we can say that neither this nor the following days the overflights yielded any results.

On February 22, the headquarters of the rescue operation held a review of the formed groups in the main building of the UPI. There were three of them, they were headed by UPI graduate Moses Axelrod, 4th year student Oleg Grebennik and third-year student Boris Slobtsov. By this time, the activity of the regional authorities had also yielded results. It became known that a group of military personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs under the command of Captain A. A. Chernyshev (these were IvdelLAG escorts), as well as a group of cadets of the school of sergeants of the Ministry of Internal Affairs under the command of Senior Lieutenant Potapov (7 people) were connected to the search. Local security officials promised (and subsequently kept their promise) to provide cynologists with dogs, sappers with mine detectors and a radio operator with a walkie-talkie for the search operation. Two foresters were seconded from the regional Forestry Department to the headquarters. They were supposed to take on the role of guides. With a similar purpose, two Mansi hunters were sent to Ivdel. The territory on which the search operation was to be carried out was their traditional habitat (i.e., the place of residence and fishing).

On the same days, recognized experts in tourism and mountaineering - Bardin, Shuleshko, Baskin - began to arrive from Moscow for the purpose of an expert assessment of the situation and prompt consultations. The operational management of the search directly on the spot - that is, in the mountains of the Northern Urals - was carried out by the most experienced and authoritative specialist in tourism in Sverdlovsk, the master of sports

E. P. Maslennikov.

According to the general plan of the rescue operation, groups of volunteer searchers were supposed to land from helicopters at different points along the route of the Dyatlov group. They had to carry out a search on the ground for traces of the group's stay and establish its possible fate (the rescuers were interested in parking lots, ski tracks, specially left signs, etc.). We emphasize that not only students from the Polytechnic University were involved in the search, but also tourists from some other universities and organizations of Sverdlovsk. The advance of ski groups to the area of ​​operation began on February 23, 1959.

A group led by Polytech student Boris Slobtsov, 11 people on February 23, was landed on Mount Otorten, in the very place that was the main goal of the campaign of Igor Dyatlov and his comrades. If the disappeared tourists visited the summit, they should have left traces of their stay there - a clearly visible "bookmark" with a note (such "bookmarks" were usually arranged under a pile of stones, and their detection was not a problem). Due to pilot error, the group landed not on the highest of the three peaks of Otorten, but on one of the neighboring ones, which somewhat delayed the searchers. The next day - February 24 - the skiers began an active search, went to the desired peak and made sure that the Dyatlovites had not been there.

Further, the group first descended into the valley of the Lozva River, and then moved to the valley of the Auspiya River. The order to move there was contained in a note by Colonel Ortyukov, dropped from a flying plane with a pennant. In the area of ​​​​Auspiya, the searchers of Slobtsov were waiting for their first success - on February 25 they stumbled upon an old ski track, which, in their opinion, should have belonged to the Dyatlov group. Subsequently, this assumption was confirmed - Slobtsov and his search engines really found the ski track of the missing group. It became clear that she was somewhere nearby, literally a few kilometers away (since it was no more than 15 km to Otorten, and the missing tourists had not been there).

It must be emphasized that none of the search students believed in the tragic outcome of the Dyatlov campaign. Everyone was inclined to believe that there were injured or sick people in the missing group, so Dyatlov and his comrades were sitting in a well-equipped camp and waiting for help. Local residents, who were also involved in the prospecting work, were more skeptical, but their opinion was ignored at that moment.

Already in the afternoon of February 25, Slobtsov tried to determine in which direction the Dyatlov group was moving, for which, despite the twilight, he divided his team and sent it up and down the Auspiya. The part that went upstream the Dyatlovites quickly lost the ski track, while the other part stumbled upon a long-standing tourist camp. By general opinion, it was supposed to belong to the wanted group of Dyatlov, but it was not possible to date the parking lot, so the discovery did not give anything.

The next day, the search unfolded with renewed vigor. The feeling that the object of search is somewhere nearby gave strength. On the morning of February 26, Slobtsov's group broke up into three parts: one had to find a food warehouse, which the Dyatlovites had to leave before starting to climb the mountains, the other had to find a place for their exit from the river valley. Auspiya, the third had to go along the old ski track in order to check the version of a possible emergency on the way.

So, the search engines split up and began to perform the tasks received. The group that was supposed to look for traces of the exit of the Dyatlovites from the river valley. Auspiya, climbed the pass, which played the role of a watershed. It represented a saddle to the right and to the left, from which the valleys of two rivers, Auspiya and Lozva, went with a noticeable decrease. This group included three people - UPI students Boris Slobtsov and Mikhail Sharavin, as well as the local forester Ivan Pashin, the most ordinary 50-year-old Russian man who lived all his life in the village of Vizhay and worked in the local forestry.

The crest of the pass, on which three skiers went, connected Mount Kholat-Syakhyl (the Russified name "Kholatchakhl") and an unnamed height 905.4. (A forced explanation must be made at this point. Cartography in 1959 was not as accurate as it is now, so the heights of many peaks on the maps of that time differ from those indicated now. The height of Mount Kholat-Syakhyl was then considered equal to 1079 m, now but it "grew up" to 1096.7 m. The heights of other mountains also differed somewhat. In this study, we adhere to modern data.) Guide Ivan, tired of climbing the pass, fell behind a little, and then generally sat down to rest, refusing to accompany the students. Slobtsov and Sharavin moved forward alone. After some time, their attention was attracted by a black dot on the northeastern slope of Kholat-Syahyl. Looking closer, the students realized that they saw a tent partially covered with snow.

Approaching her, Slobtsov and Sharavin guessed that they had finally found the tent of the Dyatlov group and no other. The fact is that this tent was very non-standard and well recognizable - it was sewn from two 4-person tents, lengthening it by 2 times, which is why its dimensions were 1.8 x 4 m. Boris Slobtsov personally took part in the manufacture of the tent in 1956 ., so that he could not be mistaken in identification.

The tent was oriented with the entrance to the south. Its northern part turned out to be littered, it was covered with snow 15–20 cm thick. The general appearance and density of snow indicated that it appeared here not as a result of an avalanche, but was swept by the wind. Next to the tent was a pair of skis stuck in the snow, and an ice ax stuck out of the snow directly at the entrance. On the ice ax lay a windbreaker jacket that belonged to Igor Dyatlov (however, in different time Slobtsov and Sharavin told about the discovery of this windbreaker in different ways: either it was lying on an ice ax at the entrance, then right in the snow at the entrance, or its sleeve was peeking out of the tent. It is no longer possible to achieve complete accuracy in this matter, but the main thing in all these memories is that the search engines saw Dyatlov's windstorm immediately, as soon as they approached the tent). The two bottom buttons at the entrance to the tent were undone, and a sheet protruded from the gap that formed, serving as a canopy. From the general appearance of the found parking lot, it was immediately possible to conclude that there were no living people in the tent. There was a Chinese-made flashlight on its roof, the layer of snow under the flashlight body was 5–10 cm, while there was no snow at all on the flashlight itself. Subsequently, the flashlight was identified as belonging to Igor Dyatlov. Boris Slobtsov took it in his hands and turned it on - the flashlight lit up.

Dropping their skis, Sharavin and Slobtsov tried to inspect the tent. The first began to rake the snow piled on it, and the second, armed with the found ice ax, began to strike at the roof slope, hoping to get quick access to the central part of the tent. It turned out to be quite easy to tear the tarpaulin with an ice pick, especially since the cloth had already been cut in several places. In the process of cutting the tent, the blade of the ice ax (as it turned out a little later) landed in a bag of crackers and pierced it.

Throwing away the cloth torn by an ice ax, Slobtsov and Sharavin gained access to the inside of the tent. They were relieved to see that there were no corpses there - this discovery strengthened the hope of finding their comrades alive and well somewhere else.

The search engines did not conduct a thorough search - there was no time for this, as the weather deteriorated and a snowstorm began. Having captured an ice ax, a flashlight, Dyatlov's windbreaker, as well as 3 cameras and a flask of alcohol found during a cursory inspection of the tent, Slobtsov and Sharavin headed back to the camp. Around 16:00, Mansi hunters, who were to take on the role of guides, and radio operator Yegor Semenovich Nevolin joined the group of Boris Slobtsov. This man was probably the only one actor who directly observed the course of the search operation from beginning to end. Nevolin had a walkie-talkie with him, so Slobtsov's group got a stable connection with the leadership. At 18:00 (the time of the session is known exactly), Nevolin transmitted a radiogram to the headquarters of the operation, which reported the discovery of a tent. Soon an answer was received with instructions to prepare a place for receiving a large search group. To accommodate it, it was supposed to put up two 50-seat army tents. In addition, the radiogram said that an employee of the prosecutor's office, who was to carry out the necessary investigative actions on the spot, as well as Colonel Ortyukov, flew to the location of the Slobtsov group. The latter was to lead the search on the spot.

The diary of the campaign of the group of Igor Dyatlov, picked up by Slobtsov when inspecting the tent, was carefully studied by the search engines. The last entry was dated January 31, it followed that on that day the tourists made an attempt to leave the valley of the river. Auspiya and in a couple of days make a quick transition to Otorten, main goal of your hike. For maximum unloading, they decided to arrange a storage shed - a warehouse of things and products, the need for which was not expected in the near future. In other words, climbing the mountain was planned light, with a minimum load. When returning from Otorten, they had to pick up the cargo left in the storehouse. Judging by the entries in the diary, as of January 31, all members of the group were in good health and mood. And that was good news.

Another good news was that the windbreaker brought by Slobtsov and Sharavin to the camp contained a metal box containing Igor Dyatlov's passport, money in the amount of 710 rubles. And Railway tickets group members. The fact that a significant part of the money was untouched, according to the general opinion of the members of the search group, testified that the missing tourists were not attacked by fleeing criminals, and therefore the reason for their absence has no criminal overtones.

At dinner, the searchers decided to drink alcohol found in Dyatlov's tent, which was done with considerable (and, moreover, quite understandable) enthusiasm. This episode must be paid attention to, since it will have to be returned to in the course of further narration. Then there was a very curious exchange of remarks, which cannot be ignored. Boris Slobtsov offered to drink to the health of the wanted guys, to which the forester Ivan Pashin responded very gloomily: “You’d better drink to the repose!” The students were furious, considering the replica of a local resident cynical and inappropriate, it almost came to a fight. Even then, after the discovery of the abandoned tent, none of them wanted to believe in the bad...

The next day - February 27, 1959 - the rescue camp was to be moved from the valley of the river. Auspiya to the Lozva valley. Since it became known from the diary of the campaign that the Dyatlov group decided to leave Auspiya, it was logical to think that this was exactly what the missing tourists did. And so, the search had to be moved further along the proposed path of their travel, i.e. closer to Otorten.

Slobtsov's group split up again: part of the forces was sent to search for the storehouse, someone began to assemble a tent, and two people - Yuri Koptelov and Mikhail Sharavin - went to the Lozva valley to look for a new place for the camp. They climbed the pass and stood in such a way that Mount Kholat-Syahyl was on their left hand, the valley of Auspiya was behind their back, and the valley of the Lozva River was right in front of them. Their attention was attracted by a tall cedar, standing on a high hillock above the stream, a little below the pass. This stream was one of the many tributaries of the Lozva, on that winter day, of course, it was completely ice-bound and covered with snow. The cedar was located on a steep bank of a stream, and in order to climb to it, one had to overcome about 5–7 m of the slope. The flat area on which the tree was located served as an excellent viewing point for the Kholat-Syahyl slope, and the search engines, without saying a word, headed towards it.

Before reaching the tree about 10-15 m, they stopped because they saw two corpses lying directly under the cedar. Nearby, one could easily see the traces of an old fire.

There was not much snow - only 5–10 cm, because the tree grew in a rather windy place. Yuri and Mikhail decided not to approach the bodies, they only went around the cedar in a circle, hoping to see the bodies of other people, but found nothing. But they made another discovery - in the vicinity of the cedar there were quite a lot, about a dozen, stumps cut with a knife fir. Moreover, the trees themselves were nowhere to be seen, so the search engines concluded that the cut trees went into the fire. It looked rather strange, since there was enough dead wood around and it seemed unreasonable to spend time and effort on cutting live trees with knives. Only much later did the mysterious cutting of young fir trees receive an explanation, and we will touch on this issue later.

After that, the searchers moved back to the camp in order to inform their comrades about the terrible find. At the pass, Sharavin and Koptelov separated - the first remained to wait for the helicopter, which was just circling overhead, landing, and the second continued to move to the camp.

During the day on February 27, the search groups of Karelin, Captain Chernyshov, as well as hunters Moiseev and Mostovoy with two dogs arrived at the site of the operation. Also in the search area appeared Evgeny Petrovich Maslennikov, mentioned above, and the prosecutor of the city of Ivdel, Vasily Ivanovich Tempalov (they arrived by helicopter at about 13-14 hours). In addition, the delivery of supplies for the upcoming expansion of the search camp has begun, given that a further increase in the number of people involved in the search was expected in the coming days. According to the recollections of the participants in those events, the entire pass between the valleys of Auspiya and Lozva that day was littered with backpacks and all kinds of cargo delivered by helicopters.

It was decided not to move the search camp from the Auspiya valley yet. Since the bodies of dead tourists were found in the Lozva valley, it was necessary to carry out the necessary investigative actions there, and the presence of outsiders, for obvious reasons, could interfere with this.

Meanwhile, events continued to develop inexorably (February 27 generally turned out to be a day rich in tragic discoveries). During the examination of the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl, on the way from the abandoned tent to the cedar, another - the third in a row - male corpse was discovered. The investigator of the prosecutor's office of the city of Ivdel, V.I. Tempalov, who had arrived at that time in the search area, personally examined the body and determined the distance from it to the cedar, under which there were two other bodies, at 400 m. The found corpse lay on its back behind a crooked dwarf birch , with his head he was oriented up the slope, towards the tent. The layer of snow in this place was relatively small and did not completely hide the body.

The deceased was identified as Igor Dyatlov, the leader of the campaign.

After that, the examination of the mountainside continued, and after a while the dog of the hunter Moiseev discovered under a layer of snow about 10 cm thick a fourth corpse, this time a female. The distance between this body and the corpse of Dyatlov, found a few hours earlier, was determined by prosecutor Tempalov at 500 m. The female body was also oriented with its head towards the top of the mountain, i.e. towards the tent. The deceased was identified as Zina Kolmogorova. It was striking that the tent on the slope, the corpses of Kolmogorova, Dyatlov and the cedar near the stream were practically on the same line in the line of sight.

The bodies found under the cedar were initially identified as those of Yuri Krivonischenko and Semyon Zolotarev. Only after a few days it became clear that the latter had been identified by mistake and that the body belonged to Yuriy Doroshenko. The bodies were frozen and looked little like people in life. Everyone who has seen these dead tourists noted a conspicuous change in skin color, and different narrators describe this color in different ways - from yellow-orange to brown-brown. The words of one of the witnesses to the funeral of the dead students briefly and succinctly convey this feeling of strangeness: “It was as if blacks were lying in the coffins.” The subjective perception of color was influenced by both the illumination and the emotional state of the eyewitnesses, but there is no doubt that the appearance of the dead was very unusual. In addition, on the open parts of the bodies found on February 27, various kinds of abrasions, wounds, incomprehensible streaks, similar to bruises or cadaveric spots, were noticeable - in general, the dead looked really frightening. The feeling of unnaturalness of their appearance was intensified by the fact that the corpses were only partially dressed, did not have headdresses and shoes, and the bodies found under the cedar were, moreover, in underpants. One could only guess what kind of threat drove people out of the tent in socks and underpants into the cold in the wild uninhabited area.

On February 27, searchers began to probe the snow on the slope with ski poles, hoping to find new corpses. Soon, ski poles were replaced by avalanche probes, a kind of pointed metal pins 3 m long, with “pricks” of which it was necessary to check the places where bodies might be under the snow. The search engines got up in a chain and began to move in the chosen direction, preventing the chain from breaking, making each square meter snow surface at least 5 “pricks” with a probe. It was not just hard, but really exhausting work, requiring not only physical, but also moral strength. After all, they were looking for dead people!

While the dead tourists were being searched on the slope of Holat-Syahyl (Kholatchakhlya), another group began to dismantle the Dyatlov group's tent. It is not entirely clear why this extremely important event was held without the participation of the prosecutor and was not recorded in any way - neither in the protocol nor on film. Whatever happened to Igor Dyatlov's group, this event began near the tent, and everything that was connected with the environment and the arrangement of things inside was extremely important for understanding what happened. Meanwhile, the work with the tent, the analysis of the objects stacked in it, their transfer down the slope was practically left to chance. One of the participants in the notorious “parsing the tent” (in fact, destroying traces), the search engine V.D. Brusnitsyn subsequently described this process during interrogation: “Snow was chosen with the help of skis and ski poles. Ten people worked without any system. In most cases, everything was pulled right out from under the snow, so it was very difficult to establish where and how each item lay.

In order for the reader to better understand how chaotic the process of inspecting things in the tent was and the careless attitude to potentially important evidence, one can mention a roll of film that rolled down the mountainside and was discovered only the next day. The rescuer Georgiy Atmanaki, during an official interrogation at the prosecutor's office in April 1959, said that he was "15 meters below the tent<....>rolled out during a preliminary inspection of the tent the day before. It is clear that there could be no talk of any fixation of traces with such an organization of activity. Therefore, prosecutors later had to restore the situation inside and around the tent according to the stories of the participants in this action.

The slope of Mount Kholat-Syakhyl is generally quite flat and its steepness is on average 10–12 degrees. In some places, the angle increases to 20 degrees, but there are also horizontal platforms. On one of these sites, the tent of the Dyatlov group was set up. Nothing is really known about the footprints around the tent; there is evidence that the ski trail from the Auspiya valley to the place where the tent was set up remained visible until March 6th. But there are other versions, according to which no significant traces were found either on the approach to the tent or around it; it would be more accurate to assume that no one paid due attention to the traces at the time. Nevertheless, all the search engines that visited the area of ​​the tent on February 27 and 28, 1959, agreed that there were no “suspicious traces” (that is, a large animal) on the site around. Outside the horizontal platform, chains of well-defined footprints began, leading down the slope. These were not ordinary footprints in snowdrifts, but columns of compacted snow that remained after strong wind blew the snowdrifts. It may seem surprising, but these footprints were perfectly preserved and it was possible to judge not only the direction of movement and rearrangements within the group, but also which foot (in a sock or boots) left a footprint. Everyone who saw these footprints on the slope claimed that they were left by 8-9 pairs of legs, that is, they undoubtedly belonged to tourists from the Dyatlov group. Their departure from the tent had an orderly character, people did not run chaotically, but walked in a close-knit group.

At a distance of 80–90 m from the tent, there was a noticeable divergence of the tracks, as if two people (two pairs of legs) separated from the main group, but they did not go far and continued to move parallel to the main group, apparently maintaining voice contact with it. The tracks were well traced on the slope for more than half a kilometer. Judging by the tracks, the movement of the group was carried out in the direction of the river valley. Lozva was almost straightforward (Boris Efimovich Slobtsov, in his official testimony during the investigation, described the situation near the tent and the trail as follows: “From the tent<...>at a distance of about 0.5–1 meter, several slippers from different pairs were found, and ski caps and other small items were also scattered. I don’t remember and didn’t pay attention to how many people there were traces, but it should be noted that the traces were initially left in a heap, next to each other, and the distant traces diverged, but now I don’t remember how they diverged.

While studying the trails, the attention of the searchers was attracted by a footprint in a boot with a heel. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a single one and its value was not appreciated by anyone, at least at that moment. No one thought about why there are many footprints in socks and felt boots, and only one footprint in a boot. According to the general opinion, one of the members of the tour group descended in the boot, and this assumption suited everyone. Only much later it turned out that none of the nine tourists had shoes on their feet ... The trail was not properly fixed, it was not even measured with a ruler. Only a single photograph remained, objectively confirming the existence of a footprint in a boot next to the exit path for tourists.

There was a pair of skis near the tent, and opinions about the form in which they were found were subsequently divided: someone said that the skis stood upright, stuck in the snow at the entrance to the tent, but there is also evidence that the skis were tied and lay on the snow. Away from the tent, at a distance of about 10 m, things were found in the snow that, as it turned out later, belonged to Igor Dyatlov - a pair of socks and cloth slippers wrapped in a cowboy shirt.

This bundle looks like someone has thrown it aside. The tent of the Dyatlov group was installed regularly, however, the extensions farthest from the entrance were torn off, which is why the northern part of the tent was apparently fluttered by the wind for some time. However, by the time the search engines appeared, it had already been sprinkled with a layer of snow 20-30 cm thick. 8 pairs of skis were placed under the bottom of the tent, 9 backpacks were brought inside, laid to give greater stability to the bottom.

The southern ridge of the tent (the one where the entrance was) was fixed on a ski pole, the northern ridge was littered and was not fixed with a ski pole. 2 blankets were spread over the backpacks, 7 more blankets were either folded or crumpled, and formed a frozen pile. Six quilted padded jackets were randomly piled on top of the blankets.

At the very entrance, on the left hand side (when viewed from the entrance), almost all the footwear that the group had at their disposal was found: 7 felt boots (that is, 3.5 pairs) and 6 pairs of ski boots.

The shoes looked randomly thrown off. 2 more pairs of boots lay in the central part of the tent on the right hand. Also on the right hand, but closer to the entrance, were placed things that can be conditionally called household inventory - axes (two large and one small), a saw in a case, two buckets (inside one of them there was originally a flask with alcohol, which Boris took the day before Slobtsov), two pots, and a cylindrical stove. Different witnesses described the state of the stove in different ways: some claimed that it was full of chips and chopped wood, while others said that there were parts of a dismantled chimney inside. It is important for us now to note that the stove at the time of the emergency was clearly not used by the group for its intended purpose. Here, next to the household inventory, there were 2 or 3 bags of crackers.

Immediately, at the entrance, a ski pole was found, thrown on top of other things. The stick looked like someone was trying to chip it with a knife. This stick is one of the many serious uncertainties that exist around the death of the Dyatlov group. The fact is that the tourists did not have spare ski poles and damage to at least one of them could seriously impede the movement of the entire group. It is completely incomprehensible who and why could engage in such a senseless and downright sabotage business as chipping a stick with a knife. In addition, it is not entirely clear how it was possible to cut bamboo with a knife at all (and according to Yudin, the group had only bamboo ski poles at its disposal). There is an assumption that the stick found in the tent was not bamboo, but it is impossible to confirm or deny this now - no one photographed the stick and its further fate is generally unknown.

The attention of the rescuers, who were dismantling the tent, was attracted by a large, about three kilograms, piece of ham - “loin”, taken out of the bag, and a strip of pork skin, torn from the ham, lying on the blanket. At the moment when an emergency happened with the Dyatlov group, the tourists clearly intended to cut this “loin” for eating.

Also, somewhere here, in the part of the tent closest to the exit, was found "Evening Otorten", a comic self-made wall newspaper of tourists, written on a notebook sheet of paper. It is appropriate to quote its content, since some versions of the tragedy that happened will be associated with it:

Editorial. Let's meet the 21st congress with an increase in the number of tourists!

The science. IN Lately in scientific circles there is a lively discussion about the existence of Bigfoot. According to the latest data, Bigfoot live in the Northern Urals, in the region of Mount Otorten.

Philosophical seminar "Love and tourism" - held daily in the tent (main building). Lectures are read by Dr. Thibaut and Candidate of Love Sciences Dubinina.

Armenian riddle. Is it possible to heat 9 tourists with one stove and one blanket?

Technology news. Tourist sled. Good for train, car and horse riding. Not recommended for transporting cargo on snow. For advice, please contact designer comrade. Kolevatov.

Sport. A team of radio engineers composed of Comrade. Doroshenko and Kolmogorova set a new world record in the stove assembly competition - 1 hour 02 minutes. 27.4 sec.

Publishing body of the trade union organization of the Khibina group.

It is noteworthy that the original of this wall newspaper is not in the case file, there is only a typewritten copy, so it is impossible to say by whom it was written (and in general, whether by one person or several). In addition, it is not entirely clear where exactly in the tent this sheet was located; there is evidence that he was found pinned to the inner canopy, but this is inaccurate.

In the part of the tent farthest from the entrance there were food (sugar, salt, cereals, condensed milk) and an unremarkable log. The latter, apparently, was supposed to be used for kindling.

The search engines dismantled the tent, removed things from it and moved them down the slope for the convenience of subsequent evacuation. 3 pairs of skis were taken out from under the tent, two of which were given to the hunters Moiseev and Mostovoy, and one was used as stakes to mark the places where the bodies of Kolmogorova and Dyatlov were found on the slope.

On February 28, 1959, prosecutor Vasily Ivanovich Tempalov initiated a preliminary investigation into the discovery of the bodies of four tourists from the Dyatlov group.

On March 1, the tent and the property found in it without an inventory were taken by helicopter to Ivdel. The identification of things and the establishment of their belonging to members of the group with the participation of Yuri Yudin was already carried out there.

On the same day - March 1 - the only forensic prosecutor in the Sverdlovsk regional prosecutor's office, Lev Nikitovich Ivanov, arrived at the camp of search engines, who led the investigation into the death of the Dyatlov group. Since that time, the search engines have begun to probe the slope of Kholat-Syahyl with avalanche probes delivered to the camp. The work was carried out with the full dedication of the participants, during the day each of them probed up to 1 thousand square meters with a probe. m, sometimes moving in the snow with a depth of 1.5 m.

The work has been done enormously. During the week (from March 2 to March 9), the searchers systematically "felt" the Kholat-Syakhyl slope from the location of the Dyatlov tent to the Lozva valley, carried out a methodical combing of the forest in the area of ​​​​the cedar, under which the first two bodies were found, and made a circular detour of height 905 ,4. Then they checked the descent from this height to Lozva and a long ravine 50 m from the cedar. The “probing” of the ravine was carried out for 300 m, but this work could hardly be considered effective, since the snow depth there exceeded 3 m and the length of the probes was clearly insufficient.

During this operation, a serviceable Chinese flashlight with a dead battery was found, which was in the on state. It was found on the 3rd stone ridge at a distance of about 400 m from the tent. (The slope of Kholat-Syakhyl is crossed by three long stone ridges, located almost horizontally. The uppermost, conditionally 1st, is about 200 m away from the tent, the next one is 250–280 m, and, finally, the 3rd, the last, is located at a distance of about 400 m. The members of the Dyatlov group, when descending to the cedar, would inevitably have to overcome each of them.) The location of the flashlight - on the line "tent - cedar" - corresponded to the version of the retreat of the Dyatlovites (or part of them) in the direction of the tree under which they were the bodies of two tourists were found.

On March 2, 1959, a group of three search engine students and two Mansi hunters found a storehouse left by the Dyatlovites before climbing Kholat-Syakhyl. He was, as expected, in the valley of the river. Auspiya, about 300 m from the search camp. The Dyatlovites arranged a storehouse on the ground, fenced it with spruce branches and marked it with a vertically standing pair of skis, on which they pulled torn leggings. The storage room gave the impression of being undisturbed. It was located about 100 meters from the bank of the Auspiya and half a kilometer from the border of the forest. It contained various products (cereals, sugar, etc., a total of 19 items with a total weight of 55 kg), firewood, as well as things that tourists might not need during the few days they needed to climb to Otorten and return back to the Auspiya valley. Among them were a mandolin, the mentioned pair of skis used as a guide, 2 pairs of boots (ski and warm ones), an ice ax, as well as a hat, a mask and a cowboy jacket (1 each). Labaz, with the discovery of which there were hopes for clarifying the fate of the group, did not add anything new to the information known to the search engines. It only became clear that after the emergency leaving of the tent, none of the participants in the campaign returned to the storehouse.

The next day - March 3, 1959 - at the airport of the city of Ivdel, the property of the missing group, delivered there from the search area by helicopter, was dismantled and recorded. We list the most significant items and personal items found in the tent in the context of this study: 9 windbreaker jackets, 8 padded padded jackets (colloquially “quilted jackets”), 1 fur jacket, 2 fur sleeveless jackets, 4 pieces of storm pants, 1 cotton pants , 4 scarves, 13 pairs of mittens (fur, cloth and leather), 8 pairs of ski boots, 7 felt boots, 2 pairs of slippers, 8 pairs of leggings, 3 skating caps, 1 fur hat, 2 felt berets, 3 compasses, 1 pocket watch, 1 Finnish knife, 3 axes (2 large and 1 small in a leather case), 19 shoe covers, 2 buckets, 2 kettles, 2 flasks, 1 first aid kit. There were also a significant number of small items - socks, footcloths, masks, toothbrushes - taken from backpacks, which made it difficult to determine their belonging to specific participants in the campaign.

What conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of the composition of objects thrown by the Dyatlovites in the tent? First of all, they left their shelter, leaving their outerwear - quilted jackets, windbreaker jackets, boots, felt boots and hats. Only an exceptionally serious threat could induce a group of 9 young and physically strong people to urgently leave the camp in the winter in the evening in a completely uninhabited forest region. The question, apparently, stood like this: either retreat down the slope, or immediate and inevitable death at the place where the headscarf was installed. At the same time, it cannot be said that the group was completely unarmed - the tourists threw three axes and one Finnish knife in the tent, in addition, most likely, they had some knives with them, because they cut the fir and birch trees near the cedar with knives. However, the danger that the Dyatlovites faced was such that axes and knives could not help resist it.

In addition to this, in general, obvious conclusion, the investigators made another one: the crisis situation began to develop at the time of dressing the group (preparing for bed). This could explain the fact that almost all shoes and outerwear were removed and thrown into the tent. This conclusion has become a kind of axiom, taken for granted by the vast majority of researchers of this tragedy.

On the same day, March 3, 1959, a group of Boris Slobtsov, consisting of students from the Sverdlovsk Polytechnic University, left the search area. The reasons why the group had to be withdrawn were both the extreme fatigue of its members and the need to return to school as soon as possible. No one in the leadership of the institute would postpone the session or forgive academic "debts" for the sake of students participating in the search operation. On the same day, leaders of the all-Union tourist movement appeared in the search camp - we are talking about the Moscow experts already mentioned above Bardin, Shuleshko and Baskin. They had to evaluate the organization of the search operation on the spot and draw preliminary conclusions about the nature of the incident that led to the death of part of the group of Igor Dyatlov. Bardin and Baskin stayed at the site of the search operation until March 8, and Shuleshko left the day after them.

Based on the results of their stay in the camp and studying the situation “on the spot”, the “Muscovites” prepared a report, a kind of expert opinion, in which they made an attempt to look at what happened to the Dyatlov group in an unbiased and sober manner. They explained the departure of the Dyatlovites from the tent to the cedar by the prolonged nature of the danger that took place on the slope and prompted tourists to urgently seek salvation in the Lozva valley. Since the clothes of the victims clearly did not match the weather conditions, experts suggested that the danger caught those at the moment of changing clothes. This assumption for many years became a kind of axiom, from which the creators of most versions of what happened were repelled. On the whole, the report of the Moscow specialists was drawn up in terms that were very cautious, if not evasive; they did not blame anyone for the tragedy and refrained from harsh assessments. In the wording of this document, one can feel the hand of a sophisticated clerk seeking to distance himself from the potentially dangerous content of the document.

Where arrived on the morning of January 24th. Describing this day, Yudin made an oft-quoted entry in the group's general diary:

January 24th.
7.00 Arrived in Serov. We traveled with Blinov's group. At the station, they met horror with how hospitable: they did not let them into the room and the policeman pricked up his ears; everything is calm in the city, there are no crimes and violations, as under communism; and here Yu. Krivo<нищенко>sang a song, at one moment they grabbed him and took him away.
Noting for the memory of Mr. Krivonischenko, the sergeant explained that clause 3 of the internal regulations at the stations forbids disturbing the peace of passengers. This is perhaps the first station where songs are prohibited, and where we sat without them. We go to Ivdel from Serov at 6.30 pm. We received a very warm welcome at the school near the station. The supply manager (she is also a cleaner) heated water for us, provided everything she could and what was needed to prepare for the campaign.
Free all day. I want to go to the city, for example, to local history museum and on an excursion to the met<аллургический>factory, but a lot of work with the distribution of equipment and its preparation.
12-2.00. During the break between the 1st and 2nd shifts, a meeting with the students was organized. There were so many, so many, and they were all so curious.
Zolotarev: “Children, now we will tell you ... Tourism happens, it gives an opportunity ...” Everyone is sitting, silent, afraid. Z. Kolmogorova: “Tra-ta-ta-ta, what’s your name, where have you been, wow, well done, and lived in tents!” And it went, and it went. The questions were endless. I had to show and explain every little thing from a flashlight to a tent. The guys took two hours, they did not want to let us go. They sang songs to each other. The whole school accompanied us to the station. The thing ended with the fact that when we left, the kids roared and asked that Zina stay with them and be their leader, they would all listen to her, study well.
In the car, some other young alcoholic demanded half a liter from us and declared that we had stolen it from his pocket.
Dispute - a conversation about love at the provocation of Z. Kolmogorova. Songs. Revision, Dubinina under the seat. Garlic with bread, without water. And we arrived in Ivdel at about 12.00.
Large waiting room. Complete freedom of action. They took turns watching all night. The bus to Vizhay will leave early in the morning.
Yudin

In the evening we took a train to Ivdel. We arrived in Ivdel at night from January 24 to 25, in the morning of the same January 25, the Dyatlovites went by bus to Vizhay, where they spent the night in a hotel.

On the morning of January 26, the group hitchhiked to the logging camp (settlement 41 quarters). There, on January 27, they put their backpacks on the cart allocated by the head of the forest area, got on their skis and went to the abandoned village of the 2nd Northern mine, which was previously part of the IvdelLAG system; on the same day, it turned out that Yuri Yudin could not continue the campaign due to pain in his leg. Nevertheless, he reached the 2nd Northern with a group to collect stones for the institute and, perhaps, hoping that the pain would pass before the start of the active section of the route.

On the morning of January 28, Yudin, after saying goodbye to the group and giving his comrades his part of the total cargo and personal warm clothes, returned back with a cart. Further events are known only from discovered diary entries and photographs of the hikers.

The first days of the hike along the active part of the route passed without any serious incidents. Tourists skied 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).

On the same day, 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. Rescuers were struck by the fact that both bodies were stripped down to their underwear. Doroshenko was lying on his stomach. Beneath 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. At the same time, it was recorded: Doroshenko's foot and hair on the right temple were burned, Krivonischenko had a burn of the left leg 31 × 10 cm and a burn of the left foot 10 × 4 cm. A fire was found next to the corpses, which went into the snow. On the cedar itself, at a height of 4-5 meters, branches were broken off (some of them lay around the bodies), traces of blood remained 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 relatively a lot 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.

About 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.

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 corpse of Rustem Slobodin was found under a layer of snow of 15-20 cm using iron probes. 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.

Location of all three bodies found on the slope, their postures indicated that they died on the way back from the cedar to the tent.

There were no signs of violence on the bodies of the first tourists found, all people died from hypothermia (at autopsy, it was revealed that Slobodin had a craniocerebral injury (skull crack 16 cm long and 0.1 cm wide), which could be accompanied by repeated loss of consciousness and contributed to freezing). Other hallmark there was a skin color: according to the recollections of the 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. At the same time, rescuers first of all searched for people on the side of the mountain. The pass between peaks 1079 and 880 and the ridge towards Lozva, a spur from peak 1079, the valley of the continuation of the 4th source of Lozva and its continuation from the mouth along the valley of Lozva for 4-5 km were also investigated. But everything was to no avail.

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. 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 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. “It was as if blacks were lying in coffins,” one of the participants in the funeral remarked. 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.

official investigation

The official investigation was launched after the initiation of a criminal case by the prosecutor of the Ivdelsky district, Vasily Ivanovich Tempalov, on the fact of the discovery of corpses on February 6, 1959, and was carried out for three months.

Vladimir Ivanovich Korotayev, an investigator from the Ivdel prosecutor's office, began an investigation into the death of the Dyatlov group. After V. I. Tempalov visited Sverdlovsk along with the case, the investigation was entrusted to the forensic prosecutor of the Sverdlovsk prosecutor's office, Lev Nikitich Ivanov.

In one of the cameras, a photo frame (taken last) was preserved, which shows the moment of excavation of snow to set up a tent. Given that this frame was shot with a shutter speed of 1/25 second at aperture 5.6, with a film sensitivity of 65 GOST units, and also taking into account the frame density, we can assume that the tent was set up around 5 pm on February 1, 1959 . A similar picture was taken with another camera. After this time, no record and no photographs were found.

Mysterious 33rd photo frame from Yuri Krivonischenko's film. According to one version, it was made in a tent when "someone" looked into it, according to another version - it depicts luminous balls in the sky, which were rumored during the search period. In Rakitin's version, this frame is considered a film development defect.

The attention of researchers of the death of the group was attracted by the 33rd frame of the film from the camera of Yuri Krivonischenko. The most common version suggests that the frame was taken from a tent and was the last one that night. Meanwhile, Aleksey Rakitin suggests that the ill-fated photograph is the work of a forensic expert who, before removing the film, first pressed the shutter to find out if it was cocked (the 1950s Zorky models did not have any marks, by which it was possible to determine the position of the shutter without pressing it) and rewound it back into the cassette, and therefore this 33rd photo captures what at that moment fell into the field of view of the lens (taking into account unadjusted sharpness and shutter speed).

The investigation found that the tent was abandoned suddenly and at the same time by all the tourists:

The location and presence of items in the tent (almost all shoes, all outerwear, personal belongings and diaries) indicated that the tent had been abandoned suddenly and simultaneously by all the 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, up to 500 meters in the snow, there were traces of people walking from the tent to the valley and into the forest ... 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 felt boots , feet shod in a soft sock, etc. The tracks 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 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.

Investigator V. I. Tempalov, who was among the first at the scene of the tragedy, testified about the traces: “Down from the tent 50-60 [m] from us on the slope, I found 8 pairs of traces 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 tracks were visible only on the 50-meter section, there were none further, since the lower from the mountain, the more snow. All this indicated that there was an organized retreat in a dense group, there was no disorderly and "panic" flight from the tent.

The head of the search, E.P. Maslennikov, in a radiogram dated March 2, 1959, indicated that the reason why the tourists left the tent was unclear:

The main mystery of the tragedy is 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 person going outside, which gave some reason for everyone else to hastily abandon the tent.

The investigation initially worked out the version of the attack and murder of tourists by representatives of the indigenous people of the northern Urals Mansi. Mansi Anyamov, Sanbindalov, Kurikov and their relatives fell under suspicion. Some were imprisoned in a pre-trial detention cell, accused of forcibly entering a tent with tourists. None of them took the blame. However, soon with the help of an employee of one of the Ivdel studios, who was invited as a witness to investigator Korotaev's office, it was established that the cuts in the tent were made not from the outside, but from the inside. The appointed examination confirmed the statement of the weaver:

The nature and form of all (...) injuries indicate that they were formed from the contact of the fabric on the inside 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 3 significant incisions - approximately 89, 31 and 42 cm long. 2 large pieces of fabric were torn out and were missing. In addition, there was a cut from the ridge to the side wall, located in the part of the slope farthest from the entrance, near the very rear wall. At the same time, the damage was caused by cutting from the inside with a knife, and the blade did not immediately cut through the fabric, that is, the one who cut the tarpaulin had to repeat his attempts over and over again.

As a result, the Mansi were released. In turn, the Mansi said that they saw strange "fireballs" over the place of death of tourists. They not only described this phenomenon, but also drew it. According to Korotaev, after the case was transferred to L. N. Ivanov, the drawings disappeared from the case. "Fireballs" during the search period were observed by the rescuers themselves, as well as other residents of the Northern Urals.

Meanwhile, the search for the remaining tourists began to be seriously delayed, and no main version was formed, although the government commission demanded certain results. 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. He once again visited the scene of the accident, explored the forest, and together with E.P. Maslennikov examined the scene. They found that some young fir trees at the edge of the forest had burnt marks, but these marks were not concentric or otherwise. There was no epicenter. At the same time, the snow was not melted, the trees were not damaged.

After finding the corpses of four tourists in the stream, at the insistence of L. N. Ivanov, their clothes were sent to the Sverdlovsk SES for radiological examination. The chief radiologist of Sverdlovsk Levashov made the following conclusion:

Items submitted for examination (sweaters, trousers) contain radioactive substances. Individual samples of clothing contain a slightly overestimated content of a radioactive substance, which is a beta emitter. The detected radioactive substances are washed away during washing, that is, they are not caused by a neutron flux and induced radioactivity, but by radioactive contamination with beta radiation. The lack of appropriate instruments and conditions in the laboratory did not allow for radiochemical analysis to determine the chemical structure of the emitter and the energy of its radiation.

Transcription from the film "The Secret of the Dyatlov Pass".

According to Anatoly Gushchin, a journalist from Oblastnaya Gazeta of Yekaterinburg, radiation from clothes only slightly exceeds the natural background in Yekaterinburg - 10 ... 18 microR / h.

Ivanov reported on the results revealed to the Second Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the CPSU A.F. Eshtokin, after which the latter, with the approval of the 1st Secretary A.P. Kirilenko, gave a completely categorical instruction: absolutely everything should be classified, sealed, handed over to the special unit and forgotten about it . In addition, a non-disclosure agreement was taken from all participants in the search for the Dyatlov group for 25 years.

The criminal case was closed on May 28, 1959 due to the absence of a crime event. The decision to terminate the criminal case states:

“Knowing 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 February 1, 1959 only at 15.00. Subsequently, along 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, the tourists took 500-600 m to the left and instead of the pass formed by peaks 1079 and 880, they went to the eastern slope of peak 1079. It was Dyatlov's second mistake.

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

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 their death was an elemental force, which people were unable to overcome ".

After being checked in Moscow by the Prosecutor's Office of the RSFSR, the case was returned on July 11, 1959, and by order of the prosecutor of Sverdlovsk N. Klinov, it was kept in a secret archive for some time (sheets 370-377 of the “case”, containing the results of a radiological examination, were handed over to the Sov. secret archive). But then it was declassified and handed over to the archive of the Sverdlovsk region. At the same time, the RSFSR prosecutor's office, after checking the case, did not report any new information and did not give any instructions to “classify the case”.

Autopsy results

On March 4, 1959, the expert of the regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination Boris Alekseevich Vozrozhdenny and the forensic expert of the city of Severouralsk Ivan Ivanovich Laptev examined four bodies of dead tourists delivered to Ivdel. This work was carried out in the premises of the morgue of the Ivdel penal colony. The following was recorded:

1. Doroshenko - bodily injuries (bruises and abrasions) belong to the category of lungs without health problems; numerous traces of frostbite of the extremities were revealed (“the terminal phalanges of the fingers and feet are dark purple”); internal organs are full of blood; fractures of bones and cartilage are not fixed;
2. Krivonischenko - numerous abrasions, scratches, deposits were revealed; the tip of the nose was missing; two burns were recorded - a burn of the left leg 31×10 cm and a burn of the left foot 10×4 cm;
3. Kolmogorov - frostbite 3-4 degrees of phalanges of the fingers; numerous abrasions ranging in size from 1.5 * 1.0 cm to 0.3 * 3.0 cm on the hands and palms; wound 3.0 * 3.2 cm with a scalped skin flap on the right hand; encircling the right side, passing to the back, skin shedding measuring 29.0 * 6.0 cm; swelling of the meninges;
4. Dyatlov - numerous abrasions, scratches, deposits were revealed; on the palm of the left hand, a superficial wound was recorded from the second to the fifth fingers, up to 0.1 cm deep; internal organs are filled with blood.

For all the dead, it was concluded that death was caused by exposure to low temperatures (freezing). Time of death - 6-8 hours after the last meal.

On March 8, 1959, B. A. Vozrozhdenny conducted a forensic medical examination of the corpse of Rustem Slobodin. Recorded: numerous abrasions, scratches, deposits were revealed; in the areas of the right and left temporal muscles diffuse hemorrhages with impregnation of soft tissues; from the anterior edge of the left temporal bone forward and upward, a crack up to 6.0 cm long and with a divergence of edges up to 0.1 cm, the crack is located from the sagittal suture at a distance of 1.5 cm; discrepancies of the temporo-parietal suture of the skull bones on the left and right (determined as postmortem). But at the same time, the expert noted that the bones of the base of the skull were intact and there was no pronounced hemorrhage in the subcerebral membranes.

Vozrozhdenny specifically pointed out: “The specified closed trauma of the skull was caused by a blunt instrument. At the moment of occurrence, it undoubtedly caused a state of short-term stunning of Slobodin and contributed to the rapid freezing of Slobodin. Taking into account the above bodily injuries, Slobodin could move and crawl in the first hours from the moment they were inflicted. Slobodin's death came as a result of his freezing.

On May 9, 1959, forensic expert B. A. Vozrozhdenny, together with forensic expert Henrietta Eliseevna Churkina (examined the sections of the tent), performed an autopsy and examination of the bodies of the last four members of the deceased group of Igor Dyatlov. The autopsy was also carried out in the premises of the morgue of the Ivdel penal colony. The expert found and described the bodies of the dead in the following condition:

1. Dubinin - the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th ribs were broken on the right, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th ribs were broken on the left; absence of soft tissues in the region of the superciliary arches, bridge of the nose, eye sockets and the left temporo-zygomatic region. The bones of the facial part of the skull are partially exposed; in the region of the left parietal bone, a soft tissue defect measuring 4.0 * 4.0 cm, the bottom of which is the parietal bone; eyeballs are absent; the cartilages of the nose are flattened (but the bones of the back of the nose are intact); absence of soft tissues of the upper lip on the right with exposure of the upper jaw and teeth; the tongue is absent in the oral cavity;
2. Zolotarev - on the back of the head on the right, a wound 8.0 * 6.0 cm with bone exposure, fractures of 2,3,4,5 and 6 ribs on the right; lack of eyeballs; absence of soft tissues in the region of the left eyebrow, 7.0*6.0 cm in size, the bone is exposed.
3. Kolevatov - behind the right auricle in the zone of the mastoid process of the temporal bone, a wound of an indefinite shape measuring 3.0 * 1.5 * 0.5 cm penetrating to the bone (that is, the mastoid process of the temporal bone); in the region of the orbits and superciliary arches - the absence of soft tissues with the exposure of the bones of the skull, the eyebrows are absent;
4. Thibault Brignoles - diffuse hemorrhage in the right temporal muscle. A depressed fracture of the temporo-parietal region measuring 9.0 * 7.0 cm (the area of ​​depression of the temporal bone 3.0 * 8.5 * 2.0 cm). Multi-comminuted fracture of the right temporal bone with the transition of the bone crack into the anterior cranial fossa to the supraorbital region of the frontal bone. Another crack - with a divergence of edges from 0.1 cm to 0.4 cm - on the back surface of the Turkish saddle with a transition to the middle cranial fossa.

The expert concluded:

• Kolevatov's death was caused by exposure to low temperatures (freezing);
• Dubinina's death - as a result of extensive hemorrhage in the right ventricle of the heart, multiple bilateral fracture of the ribs, profuse internal bleeding into the chest cavity. These injuries could have occurred as a result of exposure to a large force that resulted in a severe closed fatal injury to the chest. Moreover, injuries of a lifetime nature are the result of exposure to great force, followed by a fall, throw or bruise of the chest;
• Zolotarev's death - as a result of multiple bodily injuries;
• the death of Thibaut-Brignolles - as a result of a closed multi-comminuted depressed fracture in the region of the vault and base of the skull, with profuse hemorrhage under the meninges and in the substance of the brain in the presence of low ambient temperature.

In addition, B. A. Vozrozhdenny, in a conversation with L. N. Ivanov, explains the nature of the bodily injuries of Thibault-Brignolles in this way:

• Question: "From the action of what force Thibault-Brignoles could receive such a wound?"
• Answer: “As a result of a throw, a fall, but, I believe, not from the height of my height, that is, I slipped, fell and hit my head. An extensive and very deep fracture of the vault and base of the skull was received by a blow equal in strength to a blowback by a car moving at high speed.
• Question: "Is it possible to assume that Thibaut was hit with a stone that was in the hand of a man?"
• Answer: "In this case, soft tissues would be damaged, but this was not found."

Publication of the case

25 years after the closing 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." Therefore, it was preserved in the archive of the Sverdlovsk region, and it was preserved in full.

The full case file has never been published. A small group of researchers got acquainted directly with the materials; the rest had access to a few scanned and posted on the Internet photographs, excerpts from the protocols of examinations and interrogations. However, it is possible that the case contains Additional materials, which can change the perception of the events that have occurred.

In June 2012, the Public Foundation "In Memory of the Dyatlov Group" began raising funds to copy the original criminal case from the archives of the Yekaterinburg GASO.

Investigation work

The search engines and the investigation had specific tasks: the first thing was to find the group, dead or alive, while the investigation was to establish the presence or absence of corpus delicti. The bodies of all the victims were found, and the collected information and examinations showed that there were no signs of a crime, and the case was closed. However, the investigation did not answer the question - how did the people act after they left the tent, under what circumstances were four tourists injured, and how did it happen that no one survived.

The result of the specific tasks of the search engines and the investigation was that the case materials are fundamentally incomplete, and they lack important information that would make it possible to understand the causes of the events. There are many gaps:

In other words, in fact, there is not much reliable information about what exactly the members of the group did in the last hours of their lives and in what sequence. Numerous gaps in information make it difficult to understand what happened to the end and complete clarity.

According to the results of the investigation, for shortcomings in the organization of tourist work and weak control, the bureau of the Sverdlovsk city committee of the CPSU punished in the party order: the director of the UPI 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. Chairman of the board of the sports club UPI Proudly removed from work.

Versions

The conclusions of professionals - tourists and climbers, with some discrepancies in assessments, in general and in general boil down to the fact that for some reason on the evening of February 1 or at night from February 1 to 2, spending the night in a tent on a treeless mountain slope, members of the group in hurriedly left the tent and moved down the slope towards the forest. People left partly without getting dressed, without shoes, without getting the necessary things and equipment from the tent, not wearing all their outer clothing. It is this fact - the reason for the group leaving the tent - that is the main issue in this tragedy.

There are many versions of the reasons that prompted the group to leave the tent, and each has its own weak points. There are also a number of super unusual, unexplained features seen during the autopsy: for example, a barely noticeable purple tint to clothes, Dubinina's missing tongue and eyeballs of men, the strange skin color of the dead, or the fireballs that witnesses spoke about.

Evgeny Buyanov in the book "The Mystery of the Dyatlov Accident" gives the following classification of versions of what happened:

1. Versions explaining the accident by the action of natural factors
2. Man-made versions linking the accident with some kind of weapons testing, etc.
3. Criminal versions explaining the death of the group by a crime committed by fugitive criminals or by representatives of the authorities, or by representatives of the opposition, for example, hiding saboteurs
4. Other versions (UFO action, accidental poisoning, etc.)

Natural

Avalanche

The version suggests that an avalanche descended on the tent, after which the tent collapsed under a load of snow, the tourists cut the wall during the evacuation from it, which made it impossible to stay in the tent until the 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.

As suggested by E.V. Buyanov, one of the reasons for the avalanche was cutting the slope at the site of the tent. At the same time, the injuries of some tourists are explained by the load of a large mass of snow due to the squeezing action when resting on the hard bottom of the tent. Buyanov, referring to the book “Feeling of snow. Avalanche Hazard Assessment Guide” (A. Rudneva, A. Adobesko and M. Pankova, M., 2008), notes that the accident site of the Dyatlov group is located in an area with a “weak” avalanche danger, where “avalanches occur in separate places and descend in snowy years": an area related to "inland continental regions with avalanches from recrystallized snow" .

Opponents of the avalanche version point out that experienced climbers from the search groups did not find any traces of the avalanche. Neither the tent itself nor the wires to which it was attached were moved, and the ski poles stuck in the snow were not knocked down. A pile of snow on the tent would inevitably lead to the collapse of the slope and would make it impossible to apply those cuts that were made. The choice of retreat of the group down from the avalanche is not entirely clear, although all tourists know that it is necessary to go sideways, and retreat down is deadly wrong in the event of an avalanche. In addition, if severe bodily injuries of several tourists were inflicted by an avalanche, then the selectivity of the traumatic effect on Dubinina, Zolotarev and Thibaut-Brignolles is completely incomprehensible, and it seems unlikely that three such seriously injured people could be moved from the tent to the place where their bodies were found. In the published documents of the investigation, in particular, the expert directly rejects the possibility of Thibault-Brignolle's independent movement, based on the injuries he received. The rescuers did not find the concentration of traces that would inevitably have formed when carrying the wounded. The selectivity of an avalanche that mercilessly mutilated people, but very prudently did not affect thin-walled metal products such as mugs, flasks, buckets, chimney pipes, looks strange.

Collapse of the tent with a relatively small pile of snow

According to some calculations, the installation of a tent with digging a layer of snow on a weak slope and the prevailing weather conditions - the temperature transition from zero to -30 ° C in one night - in the complex could contribute to the fact that a layer of snow slid down onto the tent, which did not continue its movement behind it . This version explains the abandonment of the tent and its condition, and the explanations for further events are similar to the avalanche version and have the same weaknesses: it is not clear why the tourists, instead of digging out equipment and clothes from under the snow, the whole group went down the slope .

Buyanov explains it this way - the tent was half-filled, it was very difficult to dig something out of it in the dark in the cold and with a strong wind, loose snow again crumbled down when trying to dig it out, it is possible that the slope would collapse again - all this, not to mention injuries and psychological shock, contributed to the realization that it was necessary to leave the mountain as soon as possible. In addition, being on the mountainside itself was dangerous - because of the possibility of a repeated avalanche in case of attempts to dig out things. And again - with a strong wind and frost, being there for poorly dressed people for any long time was tantamount to suicide. It was necessary to immediately seek shelter, a place protected from the wind, where one could light a fire and try to keep warm. This is exactly what the guys from the Dyatlov group tried to do, going down to the forest, where they had a storehouse. However, a fatal mistake was made - they went down the wrong slope and the storehouse remained on the other side of the pass. The group realized this already at the very edge of the forest. After that, leaving the seriously wounded and giving them their outer clothing, the strongest went back up to the tent.

The writer Boris Akunin adheres to a similar version:

I think that nothing mysterious happened there at the pass.
At night, when the group was getting ready for dinner and changing clothes for bed, because of the strong wind, the snow layer moved, the tent was half filled up. Frightened that this was an avalanche, the guys rushed down the slope. We decided to make a fire at a safe distance and wait for the morning to understand whether there is a danger of an avalanche or not.
We started to freeze. Obviously, there was a dispute between the two leaders - the senior group Dyatlov and the instructor Zolotarev. Three went with Zolotarev into a ravine, where they dug a hole or a hole in the snow, laying down cut trees. Five remained at the cedar, but after a while they realized that they would not hold out until morning. Separated again. Two for some reason (perhaps they were afraid to return) did not budge, and Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova decided to take a chance, went back to the tent for warm clothes and skis. These five people are frozen.
One of the "Zolotarevtsy" returned to the cedar when Krivonischenko and Doroshenko had already died, and took off their warm clothes.
Hiding in a ravine, the four, in principle, accepted the right decision but misfortune befell them. Most likely, the dug up snow collapsed and crushed three to death, and the fourth, for example, stunned. In May, a stream of melt water carried the bodies several tens of meters from the floor. Eyeballs and tongue were pecked by a bird or eaten away by some other living creature.
This is the overall picture of what I think happened. A number of unanswered questions remain, but each of them can be answered rationally without going beyond the framework of this concept.

Impact of sound

There are versions according to which the cause of the incident was the sound (or infrasound) impact of natural or man-made origin.

This version is not confirmed by anything and can only be considered as a conjecture, since there are no facts indicating the presence of infrasonic radiation in that place. As well as there are no facts (experiments, evidence) confirming that such an impact is generally possible. It should also be noted that a sound source of such strength is a very powerful thing, it simply does not occur in nature, and an artificially created one is very expensive and costly.

Other versions

There are also a number of versions explaining what happened by a collision with wild animals (for example, bears, wolves, elks), poisoning of group members methyl alcohol or drugs, the consequences of a natural phenomenon (for example, ball lightning).

However, there were no other traces around the tent, except for the traces of the Dyatlovites themselves. On the other hand, a collision with wild animals (for example, bears, wolves, elks) could occur in the area where the last four dead were found in the spring. In this area, there were no traces of both people and animals, as they were swept up by snow.

Criminal

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 the prisoners would hardly have left money, food and alcohol untouched.

Death at the hands of Mansi

The places where the Dyatlovites died are indeed mentioned in Mansi folklore. From the book by A. K. Matveev “The Peaks of the Stone Belt. Names of the mountains of the Urals ":

“Kholat-Syakhyl, a mountain (1079 m) on the watershed ridge between the upper reaches of the Lozva and its tributary 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. According to the conclusion of the forensic experts, the craniocerebral injuries of Thibaut-Brignolle and Slobodin could not have been caused by a stone or other weapon - then the external tissues would have been inevitably damaged. During the investigation, this version was worked out among the first, but was subsequently refuted.

From the decision to terminate the criminal case:

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

Under the decision are the signatures of the investigator, whose case was in production, ml. Counselor of Justice (corresponds to the army rank - major) L. Ivanov and early. Investigation Department of the Sverdlovsk Regional Prosecutor's Office, Counselor of Justice (corresponds to the army rank - Lieutenant Colonel) Lukin.

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 extremely unlikely under any circumstances. Aleksey Rakitin noted that, judging by the published photographs, at the very beginning of the journey, everyone in the group was in a great mood, which makes it even more impossible that their death could be the result of a sudden internal conflict.

Murder by employees of IvdelLAG on domestic grounds

The death of tourists occurred as a result of a conflict with local law enforcement officers involved in poaching. Employees of IvdelLAG, out of hooligan motives, attacked a tourist group, which led to death from injuries and hypothermia. .

conspiracy theories

There are a number of versions according to which the military or special services are to blame for the death of the Dyatlov tourist group:

Version about the impact of some test weapon

It has been suggested that the tourists were hit by some kind of weapon being tested, the impact of which provoked a 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 radioactivity of the clothes of some tourists recorded by the investigation is slightly increased compared to the natural background. The rumors about secret tests can be confirmed by a number of coincidences found in the history of rocket development at the Uralmash plant. Since 1955, the MR-12 meteorological rocket and the Onega complex have been manufactured there. The missile unit was phased out in 1963 - the same year the Otorten area was reopened to tourists.

Of the evidence, only a strange railway line near the village of Polunochnoye rests right on the mountainside, fragments of rockets found by the hunter Lednev a couple of years later in the Kholat-Syakhyl region, and old photos of clearings in the wilderness. In favor of the version can be attributed to the messages: the search engine Syunikaev about the cannonade in the first days of the search; prosecutor Ivdel Tempalov, a former artilleryman, who noticed suspicious craters from a helicopter on the opposite slope of Kholat-Syahyl; and A.P. Kirilenko himself, who sent the relatives of the dead for a pension “to the military”.

But, on the other hand, how should a rocket fall in order to deprive the eyes and tongue? In addition, the missile range involves roads, buildings, a village, an airfield, a radar station. There were no traces of this.

The version about the tour group as witnesses of secret tests

It has been suggested that the death occurred at the hands of the military, who removed unwanted witnesses of some secret exercises or tests.

The version of the escaped prisoners and the search party

Also, there is a hypothesis about the destruction of the tourist group by a detachment of soldiers looking for runaway prisoners. However, there were no escapes during this period. No signs of a struggle were found near the tent. In addition, on the one hand, the guards had the right to immediately open fire on those who escaped (and there are no traces of the use of firearms), on the other hand, the assumption that the soldiers did not distinguish fugitive prisoners from tourists and that the tourists became to resist the authorities.

Version of "controlled delivery" (author Alexey Rakitin)

There is a version of A.I. Rakitin, according to which the group included secret KGB officers: Semyon Zolotarev, Alexander Kolevatov and Yura Krivonischenko. One of them, portraying an anti-Soviet young man, was "recruited" some time before the campaign. foreign intelligence and agreed under the cover of a hike along the route to meet with foreign spies disguised as another tourist group and hand over samples of radioactive materials 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 trying 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 what is generally known to 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 would inevitably die at night from the cold). Rustem Slobodin tried to resist the attackers and was beaten by them, as a result of which he lost consciousness while moving away from the tent. This was not immediately noticed by the rest, Dyatlov went in search of Slobodin, then Kolmogorov; they died of hypothermia. To facilitate the orientation of those who had left, a fire was lit. Noticing the firelight, the agents realized that the tourists were able to organize themselves for survival and decided to finish them off. The survivors had dispersed by that time, and as they were discovered, to obtain information and to eliminate them, agents used torture and hand-to-hand combat techniques - this is how bodily injuries, torn out tongue and eye sockets are explained. The bodies of the four tourists, discovered later than everyone else, were thrown into the ravine in order to make it difficult to detect them. The saboteurs searched the tent and the bodies of the dead and seized the cameras with which they were photographed, as well as the death records of the tourists.

Paranormal

This group of versions uses fantastic and mythological entities, such as yeti, to explain the incident. Most of these versions come from various kinds of researchers. paranormal activity, ufologists, psychics, etc., who find in the circumstances of the death of the Dyatlov tourist group some features similar to the alleged behavior of the phenomena or objects studied by these specialists. Exists whole line fantastic versions of the causes of the death of the Dyatlov group.

An incident in the context of the history of Russian tourism

The death of the Dyatlov group, for all its drama, is not a unique event both for that time and for sports tourism at all. The fame of this particular case is associated with the active work of relatives and friends of the victims, who made significant efforts to perpetuate the memory of the victims and publicize the circumstances of the tragedy. An important role is also played by the uncertainty of the main cause of the accident - the circumstances of leaving the tent. In many other cases they are well known. But to this day, such incidents periodically occur, and far from always their circumstances are clarified in their entirety.

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. 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 decree of March 17, 1961. But it is impossible to forbid people to voluntarily go on a hike in quite accessible terrain - tourism turned 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 death of the Dyatlov tourist group in literature and art

Literature

Documentary prose

• Oleg Arkhipov."Death under the heading "Secret"". Reflections on the tragedy of the group of Igor Dyatlov, publishing house "Istina", Tyumen, 2012

Fiction

In mid-2005, the Ural magazine, in which Anna Matveeva's story appeared four and a half years ago, published Anna Kiryanova's mystical thriller The Sorni-Nai Hunt. The novel was based on the story of the death of the Dyatlov group, but the novel itself was neither a documentary nor an artistic version of real events. Given that the name of the protagonist of the novel was Dyatlov(but not Igor, A Egor; this was the only coincidence in the novel of the real surname and the surname of the character), the editors of the magazine and the author declared that “Hunting Sorni-Nai” is an “aesthetic rethinking” of the “Ural myth” about the death of the tourist group. However, the published magazine version of the novel was noticed not so much by literary critics as by friends and associates of tourists who died almost half a century ago. Kiryanova spoke about this in an interview:

After the publication of the book, a group of elderly friends of the Dyatlovites chased me, accusing me of having amassed a huge fortune by publishing this novel in the Ural magazine, that I insulted honor and dignity ...<...>If the city is called "Sverdlovsk", I cannot call it "Zhopinsk". These academicians stood with posters under my windows, and since then I decided not to write anything like that. Apart from trouble, I have gained nothing from the publication of this novel. Of course, I then went out and calmly told these friends of the Dyatlovites that it was necessary to write denunciations, requests and demands in 1959, and not in 2005.

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

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

Tent under the snow

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

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

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

Undressed corpses

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

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

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

From the last strength

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

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

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

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

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

crippled bodies

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

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

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

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

The criminal case on the fact of the death of the Dyatlov group was terminated with the following wording: “Given the absence of external bodily injuries and signs of a struggle on the corpses, the presence of all the 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 the death of tourists was an elemental force, which the tourists were not able to overcome.

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

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

Warnings and Errors

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

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

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

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

"At random"

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

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

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

In a snow sarcophagus

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

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

In hope of salvation

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

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

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

First victim

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

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

Fall and injury

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

The fall from a seven-meter height onto the rocky bottom of the stream did not go unnoticed for all three, they all received multiple bodily injuries, later described by the forensic expert: Thibaut-Brignolles - a severe head injury, Zolotarev and Dubinina - chest injuries, multiple fractures of the ribs. The boys could no longer move.

Fight for life

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

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

Stress Sel e

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

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

Clothes on corpses

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

Last push

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

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

white silence

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

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

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

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

More versions :

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

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

3. The mystery of the Dyatlov Pass is solved:

Many people in Russia, the USSR and far abroad heard about the tragic death on February 2, 1959 of nine students-tourists of the Ural Polytechnic Institute (UPI) in the northern Urals.

In the media over the past time, many articles have been published on this topic, there have been many reports and discussions on television. In the US, Hollywood was even going to make a feature film.

In the picture, the students of the deceased group of tourists (from left to right) bottom row: Slobodin R.S. , Kolmogorova Z.A., I.A. Dyatlov I.A., Dubinina L.A. Doroshenko Yu.A.
Top row: Thibault-Brignolles N.V., Kolevatov A.S., Krivonischenko G.A., Zolotarev A.I.

The event attracted wide public attention due to the fact that the investigation conducted in 1959 by the Sverdlovsk prosecutor's office did not give a clear answer about the causes of death of young people.

In the decision to terminate the criminal case by the prosecutor L.N. Ivanov literally said the following:

“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 unable to overcome ."

The uncertainty of the conclusion of the investigation about the "elemental force" gave rise to a lot of fiction, mysticism and fears. Many different versions have been put forward from a UFO attack, Bigfoot to American spies. Over time, additional information appeared in various media sources, which was not attached to the criminal case, and therefore no real reasons were named.

It remains only to supplement the missing "links in the chain" of interconnected events in order to tell about the tragedy that has occurred. Let's leave the details that have already been told and highlight the main thing that was missed.

Start

So, a group of UPI students in the amount of ten people (one fell ill on the way and returned back) on January 26, 1959 left the city of Ivdel, Sverdlovsk region. Passing the villages of Vizhay and Severny, then they set off on their own on skis for a two-week transition to Mount Otorten (1234 m) in the northern Urals. The tourists laid their route along the sledge-deer trail of the hunters of the local northern Mansi people.

Along the way, some students kept their diaries. Their observations are interesting. An entry from the diary of the group leader, fifth-year student Igor Dyatlov:

01/28/59 ... After talking, we crawl into the tent together. A suspended stove radiates heat and divides the tent into two compartments.

01/30/59 “Today is the third cold overnight stay on the bank of the river. Auspii. We start to get involved. The oven is a big deal. Some (Thibaut and Krivonischenko) are thinking of constructing steam heating in a tent. Canopy - hanging sheets are quite justified. Weather: temperature in the morning - 17 ° C, in the afternoon - 13 ° C, in the evening - 26 ° C.

The deer path ended, the thorny path began, then it ended. It was very difficult to cross the virgin soil, the snow was up to 120 cm deep. The forest is gradually thinning, the height is felt, the birches and pines are dwarfed and ugly. It’s impossible to walk along the river - it didn’t freeze, but under the snow there is water and ice, right there on the ski track, we go along the bank again. The day is drawing to a close, and we must look for a place to camp. Here is an overnight stay. The wind is strong from the west, knocking snow off the cedar and pine trees, giving the impression of a snowfall.”

01/31/59 “We reached the border of the forest. The wind is from the west, warm and piercing, the wind speed is similar to the air speed when the plane rises. Nast, naked places. You don’t even have to think about the device of the lobaza. About 4 hours. You have to choose accommodation. We go down to the south - in the valley of the river. Auspii. This is probably the snowiest place. The wind is light on snow 1.2-2 m thick. Tired, exhausted, they set about arranging an overnight stay. Firewood is scarce. Sickly raw spruce. The fire was built on logs, reluctance to dig a hole. We dine right in the tent. Warm. It is hard to imagine such comfort somewhere on the ridge, with a piercing howl of the wind, a hundred kilometers from settlements.

Today was a surprisingly good overnight stay, warm and dry, despite the low temperature (-18° -24°). Walking today is especially difficult. The trace is not visible, we often stray from it or go gropingly. Thus, we pass 1.5-2 km per hour.
I am at a great age: the nonsense has already weathered, and it is still far from insanity ... Dyatlov.

On February 1, 1959, at about 5 p.m., students in last time set up their tent on the gentle slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (1079 m) below 300 meters from its top.

The guys took pictures of the place where and how they pitched the tent. The evening was cold and windy. The picture shows how skiers on the slope dig deep snow to the ground, being in hoods, and how a strong wind blows snow into the hole.

1.02.59 Battle sheet No. 1 "Evening Otorten" - written by students before going to bed:

“Is it possible to heat nine tourists with one stove and one blanket? A team of radio engineers composed of Comrade. Doroshenko and Kolmogorova set a new world record in the stove assembly competition - 1 hour 02 minutes. 27.4 sec.

The slope of Mount Holatchakhl is 25-30 degrees. Setting up the tent, the guys did not expect the avalanche to come down from the top. The hill was not so steep, and by the beginning of February the crust was strong, which kept a person without skis.

In the diary entries, it is highlighted that they had a collapsible stove, and they stoked it in a tent. The oven was very hot!

When the tent was dug deep into the snow on the mountainside under the “cornice of crust” and the furnace was flooded, the snow around them melted. In the cold, the melted snow froze, turning into a hard edge of ice.

After dinner, taking off their shoes and warm outerwear, the guys went to bed. But in the early morning of February 2, something happened that soon determined their fate ...

Let's get a little off topic

In 1957, in the Arkhangelsk region, just at the latitude of the northern Urals, the (at that time secret) Plesetsk cosmodrome was opened. In February 1959, it was renamed the 3rd Training Artillery Range. From 1957 to 1993, 1372 ballistic missile launches were carried out from here. (This information is from Wikipedia).

Spent stages of ballistic missiles with the remnants of liquid fuel fell, burning over the deserted regions of the northern Urals. Therefore, many residents of those places often noticed burning fires (balls) in the night sky.

The falling, burning stage of the rocket over the mountainside, where the students spent the night, was photographed at night (or early in the morning) (with a diaphragm delay) by the instructor of the group Alexander Zolotarev. This was his last picture.

On the left of the picture, traces from the falling rocket stage are visible, and in the center of the frame there is a light spot from the camera's diaphragm.

Witnesses of the event were other people who were at that time far from the group, who spoke about this during the investigation.

It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that February 2, 1959 was Monday - the beginning of working week(for the military too).

Whether it was a rocket stage with incompletely burned fuel remaining in it, or it was a rocket that deviated from the given flight trajectory, which was automatically blown up, or the falling rocket (stage) was shot down by another rocket, as a training target - it no longer matters that specifically was the source of the explosion.

From the blast wave, the snow on the side of the mountain shuddered and moved down in places. On top of the snow was a heavy layer of snow crust (sometimes called "board"). Nast is thick and hard rather than a board, but an icy, multi-layered “plywood sheet”. So strong that people ran on it without shoes without falling through. This can be seen from the footprints going down the mountain from the tent. A photo of footprints from the mountain and an abandoned tent (below) was taken later around February 26-27, 1959 by members of the search party.

The guys in the tent slept with their heads to the top of the mountain.

The night before, the heat from the stove had melted the edges of the snow around the tent, turning it into solid ice, which hung over them like an "ice ledge" from the side of the mountain. After the explosion, this ice, pressed down from above by a heavy load of crust and snow, fell on the tent and on the heads of the people sleeping in it. Subsequently, a forensic medical examination found broken ribs in two and cracks (6 cm long) in the skull in two more.

One of the tent poles (farthest in the picture) was broken. If the stance broke, then the effort was quite enough to break the bones of people who were not expecting anything, lying relaxed.

The students in the darkness of the tent, of course, could not appreciate the real danger that had arisen. They considered the ice and crust with snow that fell on them to be a general avalanche. Being in a state of shock, for fear of being buried alive under the snow, in a panic they instantly cut the tent from the inside and, being without shoes (in socks only), and without warm outerwear, jumped out and rushed to run from the snow avalanche down the mountainside.

No other danger would have forced the guys to do this. On the contrary, they would hide in a tent from another external threat.

Having gone down a run for 1.5 km down to the forest, the guys only there were able to soberly assess the situation and the real threat of death - from hypothermia. They had 1-2 hours to live without shoes and outerwear in the cold and in the wind. The air temperature in the early morning of February 2 was about -28°C.

The students kindled a fire under the cedar tree and tried to keep warm. Having figured out that there was no avalanche, the three ran back up the mountain to the tent for warm clothes and shoes, but they no longer had enough strength. On the way up the mountain from fatal hypothermia, all three fell and froze there.

Subsequently, two were found frozen under a cedar near an extinct fire. Four more (three of them with fractures received earlier in the tent), who felt worse from injuries than others, tried to wait for those who had left for clothes, hiding from the cold wind in a ravine. They also froze. This ravine was then covered with snow, and the guys were found later than the others on May 4, 1959.

Radiation was found on the clothes of people covered with snow.

In the USSR, according to the chronology of tests of thermonuclear bombs, in the period from September 30, 1958 to October 25, 1958, 19 explosions were carried out in the atmosphere at the Dry Nose test site of Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Ocean (opposite the Ural Mountains). This radiation fell with snow on the ground in the winter of 1958-1959 (including in the northern Urals).
In the picture below, the location of the discovery of four bodies covered with snow in a ravine.

Returning to the materials of the criminal case

Witness Krivonischenko A.K. showed during the investigation:

“After the burial of my son on March 9, 1959, students, participants in the search for nine tourists, were at my apartment for dinner. Among them were those tourists who, in late January and early February, were hiking in the north, somewhat south of Mount Otorten. There were, apparently, no less than two such groups, at least the participants of two groups said that they observed on February 1, 1959 in the evening a light phenomenon that struck them to the north of the location of these groups: an extremely bright glow of some kind of rocket or projectile .

The glow was constantly strong, so that one of the groups, being already in the tent and preparing to sleep, were alarmed by this glow, went out of the tent and observed this phenomenon. After a while, they heard a sound effect like great thunder from afar.”

Testimony of investigator L.N. Ivanov, who finished the case:

"... a similar ball was seen on the night of the death of the guys, that is, from the first to the second of February, students-tourists of the geofaculty of the pedagogical institute."

Here, for example, is what the father of Lyudmila Dubinina, in those years a responsible worker of the Sverdlovsk Economic Council, said during interrogation in March 1959:

“... I heard the conversations of students of the Ural Polytechnic University (UPI) that the flight of undressed people from the tent was caused by an explosion and high radiation ..., On February 2, at about seven o'clock in the morning, a projectile was seen in the city of Serov ... I wonder why the tourist routes from the city were not closed Ivdel…”

An excerpt from the protocol of interrogation of Slobodin Vladimir Mikhailovich - the father of Rustem Slobodin:

“From him (Chairman of the Ivdel City Council A. I. Delyagin) I first heard that at about the time when a catastrophe happened to the group, some residents (local hunters) observed the appearance of some kind of fireball in the sky. The fact that the fireball was observed by other tourists - students told me E.P. Maslennikov.

The individual features of the damage to the bodies of some of the victims do not change the overall picture of what happened. The damage only served as false conjectures.

For example, the hardened foam from the mouth of one is due to vomiting, which was caused by inhalation of vapors (or carbon monoxide from rocket fuel) dispersed in the air above the mountain. Also from this is the unusually red-orange color of the skin on the surfaces of corpses exposed to the sun. Damage to an already dead body (nose, eyes and tongue) in others was done by mice or birds of prey.

name real reason the death of students on the night of February 2, 1959 - from a test of missiles, from an explosion in the air that served to move the crust and snow on Mount Holatchakhl, the investigation did not dare.

The investigator of the Sverdlovsk prosecutor's office V. Korotaev, who first began to conduct the case (later during the years of glasnost), said:

“... the first secretary of the (Sverdlovsk) city committee of the party, Prodanov, invites me to his place and transparently hints: there is, they say, a proposal - to stop the case. Clearly, not his personal, nothing more than an indication from above. At my request, the secretary then called Andrei Kirilenko (first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional party committee). And I heard the same thing: stop the case!
Literally a day later, investigator Lev Ivanov took it into his own hands, who quickly turned it off ... ". - With the above wording about "irresistible elemental force."

All secrets (military or otherwise), one way or another, harm people. Secrets are called secrets, what to say openly about them to the people is a shame because of their immoral nature.

As the wise Chinese thinker Lao Tzu noted:

"Even the best weapons do not bode well."