In January 1973, at the Chivruai pass of the Kola Peninsula, a group of 10 students from the KAI - Kuibyshev Aviation Institute was killed. Death from frostbite was named as the main version of what happened. The real reasons for the death of young people are still unknown …
The Chivruay tragedy of 1973 on the Kola Peninsula
Death at the pass
In the 1970s, northern romance still attracted young people. The Kola Peninsula with its northern lights, the exotic charm of the Lovozero tundra and the desertedness was the very place where it could be fully experienced.
On January 25, 1973, two youth groups led by experienced instructors Valentin Zemlyanov and Mikhail Kuznetsov set off on a ski trip to the Kola Peninsula. Most of its participants were first-year students of the Kuibyshev Aviation Institute, so at the very beginning they decided to go together. 10 people went on the route, among whom was one girl - Lida Martina. All but one of the students were expert tourists. For Mikhail Kuznetsov, this was not the first ski trip to the Khibiny. By that time, the guys had been engaged in the tourist section for several years and had experience in hiking. The route qualification commission, which checked their preparation, gave the go-ahead.
The groups left the village of Revda and headed towards the Chivruay pass. The return to Kirovsk was scheduled for January 31st. However, no one returned to the city on the appointed date. In Kuibyshev, 10 people were reported missing even earlier, on January 27, after the group did not register with the control and rescue service.
Everything that happened during the campaign became known from the diaries of the participants. On January 26, the guys, having passed the Seidozero, went upstream of the Chivruay River. It was very cold that day: -24 ° С. In the evening, the tired tourists stopped to rest. However, for some reason, they did not set up tents, and after refreshed, we went further along the route. And this in the coming twilight and with a gusty wind!
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Why they made this decision is not clear. There were no apparent reasons for the risk. There was enough food, and overcoming the pass was planned for January 27. At night, the frost sharply intensified, and the wind became hurricane, with gusts up to 50 m / s. Perhaps he prevented the tourists from putting up their tents.
Further more. The group split up. For some reason, five people left. Maybe for help or for exploration. By morning, all the participants in the campaign were frozen. Someone got lost, someone, exhausted, could not go further, and someone needed help that did not come on time.
When on January 31, people did not return to Kirovsk, the rescuers could not immediately start searching because of a strong blizzard. Therefore, the search party on skis only reached the pass on 6 February. They found five frozen bodies at once. And two more to the side. From under the snow could be seen Kuznetsov's hand holding the canopy of the tent. On February 27, the bodies of two more participants in the campaign were found at a distance of 2 km at the edge of the gorge. The remains of the last tourist, Ilya Altshuler, were found on the right slope of the pass only in June.
There are still more questions than answers in this case. Why did the guys start climbing the plateau at night? Why were you in a hurry? Why did the group split up? Why did experienced tourists not cope with the bad weather, which was still not abnormal?
Then, in 1973, information about the death of the group in the Khibiny was classified. Perhaps that is why a lot of versions and conjectures around this incident appeared.
Obvious-incredible
Viktor Voroshilov from Nizhny Novgorod, a cousin of one of the dead guys - Anatoly Pirogov, decided to figure out the causes of the tragedy himself. In 1973, he was a little over 2 years old, he could not know the details of what happened. Therefore, in February 2019, Victor set off on the group's route. Communicating with local residents, he learned that they had their own versions of the death of tourists - and everything from the category of "obvious-incredible." So, people assumed that the guys could well have been killed by Bigfoot, who perceived their invasion as a threat to their territory. The natives also sinned against Seydozero itself, which is notorious among them. Allegedly, a certain force emerged from him, which influenced the consciousness of tourists, depriving their actions of logic. Not without the mysterious death of students and an alien version. According to her, the tourists saw a UFO and panicked.
There is also an assumption according to which young guys fell victim to the Arctic hysteria - measuring. Affected by this disease, people do not feel pain, enter a state of trance, fall out of reality, they have an obsessive thought to go north. The following fact speaks in favor of this version. A female instructor from Murmansk told Viktor Voroshilov that some of the group members were found sitting on their backpacks in some sweatpants. This suggests that people were not themselves …
Most experts nevertheless lean towards the official version, according to which all the guys died from hypothermia. Tamara Muravyova, a friend of Mikhail Kuznetsov, who later took part in his search, agrees with her. Before the group set out on the route, there was no information about the impending extreme temperature jump. Meanwhile, in Kirovsk on January 26, the temperature dropped from -10 ° C to -45 ° C. A severe frost hit, and such a hurricane wind rose that after the concert in the House of Culture, people were not allowed out into the street: they waited for everything to calm down. In those places, such an atmospheric front, accompanied by a strong wind, is able to move with great speed. This can explain the fact that tourists were scattered around. As for the secrecy surrounding the circumstances of the group's death,then in those days, in principle, they did not particularly talk about disasters and cataclysms, so as not to sow panic.
Unwanted witness
Nevertheless, some details of the tragedy still became public knowledge. For example, it is known that some corpses lacked eyeballs: they seemed to be cut out of their sockets. And this, you see, does not fit in any way with the hypothermia version, but rather with murder. It is possible that this is why Viktor Voroshilov started his own investigation. However, he did not manage to complete it. On September 17 last year, his burnt corpse with a traumatic brain injury was found next to a burnt car. Perhaps Voroshilov's death was associated with his commercial activities. But it is possible that it was the result of his excessive attention to the Chivruay tragedy: he too actively took up her investigation. Judge for yourself. On August 13, 2019, Victor took part in the Let Them Talk program, dedicated to the tragic events of 1973. And shortly before his death, he spoke on the phone with Vladimir Nagaev, the author of the book "The half-life of the Khibina group", dedicated to the death of tourists of the Dyatlov group in February 1959. At the meeting, he promised to tell about the role of Lida Martina in the campaign and give some documents. But…
Very scary probes
According to one of the pseudo-scientific versions, the tourists in the Khibiny were scared to death by the tests of secret weapons, which were carried out in January 1973 on the Kola Peninsula. But official sources do not confirm this. According to them, the only thing that could be launched there is meteorological probes, but they could hardly panic people.
Ten people and one "dog"
During the search for the group, rescuers found 11 pairs of skis. Because of what, rumors immediately appeared that another unknown participant was walking with the guys. However, an explanation for the extra pair of skis was found quickly, and it turned out to be very simple: it was a "dog" - spare skis that "led" along a string like a dog.
Magazine: All the riddles of the world №8. Author: Galina Minnikova