In the winter of 1959, nine tourists disappeared in the mountains of the Northern Urals under the leadership of Igor Dyatlov. A month later, rescuers found their tent cut open. And within a radius of one and a half kilometers from it - five frozen bodies. The bodies of the rest were found only in May. Almost all the tourists were naked and half-naked. Some have fatal injuries. It is still unclear why the guys fled to the bitter frost and to their own death.
The oldest participant in the fatal campaign was the 37-year-old front-line soldier Semyon Zolotarev. We have written about him more than once. Semyon - according to his passport, he is Alexander (this is how Zolotarev introduced himself to everyone) was born in the Kuban (the village of Convenient) on February 2, 1921 - according to his passport. And in the church metric, the date of his birth is March 1, 1921.
Semyon finished 10 classes. At that time, this is the level of almost the current professor. Komsomolets actively involved in sports. It is unlikely that such an interesting guy could be ignored by the law enforcement agencies? We think not. Where Zolotarev actually served during the war, and maybe after the war, is still a mystery. You can't trust documents. In his biography, Zolotarev indicates that he began his combat path in October 1941 in battalion 1570 as part of the 24th engineer brigade of the 8th engineer army.
In fact, this battalion was only formed on April 1, 1942. It turns out that Semyon fought for six months in a battalion that was not there. In the summer of 1942, the 1570 battalion was practically defeated. 15-20 people survived. 291 people are listed as dead and missing. Semyon did not receive a single wound throughout the war.
From August to December 1942, Semyon indicates that he fought in the 20th motor-engineering battalion as a squad leader.
In fact, this battalion existed from September 1 to November 1. Broken up due to heavy losses. Again, it is not clear where Semyon fought for three months? One can only assume that he actually served in such secret units, which cannot be disclosed in his biography even after the war?
Of course, there are many speculations in connection with Zolotarev's dark military past, that in fact Semyon could have died, and someone else, similar to our hero, used his documents. There is, for example, vague information about Semyon's older brother, Nikolai, who worked for the Germans, and disappeared without a trace at the end of the war. But we do not undertake to develop this topic, for lack of documents, facts.
But even if we assume that someone else was hiding under the face of Semyon, then a riddle emerges here, baffling us. Both Semyon and, presumably, the double did not have tattoos on their hands. After the war, Semyon (or his double) taught physical education lessons, undressing to the waist. Students of tattoos do not remember, just as Semyon's relatives do not remember them. But the deceased on the pass, which was designated as Semyon Zolotarev, had strange tattoos on his hands: something similar to a beet or a card of spades sign, as well as an incomprehensible abbreviation "DAERMMUAZUAYA".
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The face of the one who died at the pass, and designated as Semyon Zolotarev, was unrecognizable. Therefore, there are still doubts - was the one buried under the monument to Semyon Zolotarev? In addition, Zolotarev's burial was not recorded at all in the register of cemeteries in Yekaterinburg. That is, according to the documents, he was not buried in this city. This prompted Semyon's relatives to ask us to conduct an exhumation and establish a relationship with the help of DNA examination. We, KP journalists, willingly undertook to help them, in order to study the nature of the deceased's injuries.
MATCHED ALMOST EVERYTHING
Expert Eduard Tumanov was not at the exhumation, but he carefully studied the photos and videos of the remains.
“I cannot say,” said Eduard Viktorovich, “that my conclusions are fundamentally different from those of expert Nikitin, who conducted the exhumation. He is a very competent expert. We just did what he did not do in the cemetery. The damage was compared with the damage described by the expert Vozrozhdenny in 1959 in the morgue of the city of Ivdel.
Almost everything coincided. True, the Vozrozhdenny, describing the metal crowns, pointed to one more. But one of the teeth is covered with a metal amalgam filling on the chewing surface. And it can be assumed that in conditions of insufficient illumination, he took the amalgam shine for a metal crown.
One tooth was not found during the exhumation. But this often happens when the teeth fall out when the skull is removed. In the sand, they can simply not be noticed.
As for the localization of rib fractures, the one indicated by the Vozrozhdenny, and the one that was revealed during the exhumation of the skeleton, completely coincide.
WHAT THE EXPERT SILENT ABOUT
- But there is something missing in the description of the Revived, - continues Eduard Viktorovich. - It does not describe the fractures of the scapula, which were identified during exhumation. But this can be explained by the fact that the Vozrozhdenny did not fully investigate the corpse, that is, the soft tissues of the back were not opened, which should have been done with this type of examination for such injuries.
It turns out that the fracture of the ribs arose as a result of compression (squeezing) of the chest in the anteroposterior direction, somewhat diagonally. It was compression with some fairly hard, blunt object with a surface comparable to the surface of the chest. A fracture of the scapula is more typical for traumatic effects by some object, whose traumatic surface is less than the surface of the scapula.
- Can we say that it was two blows on the back in the area of the shoulder blade?
- Yes, two hits. The localization of the scapula injuries suggests that there were at least two traumatic effects in the scapula projection.
- And if we assume that Semyon fell on his back? There are many sharp stones on the slope.
- It can be hypothetically assumed that he was lying, leaning with a spatula on protruding stones. At the same time, chest compression was applied to him from front to back. But this is already a big assumption.
- Expert Sergei Nikitin describes in his conclusion that Zolotarev received these injuries while lying on his back. Suppose he was lying on his back in a snow cave in a ravine. And a huge mass of snow fell on him. Not only the ribs were broken, but also the scapula, which was crushed against the stones.
- If there was a solid surface under the body, then the spinous processes of the vertebrae would have broken. But the spinous ones are not damaged.
- And supposing that he was killed with two stabs in the back?
- Not. Scapula fractures are not fatal fractures.
- The picture is immediately visible. Someone is swinging a stick at a person. He tries to dodge and turns his back, as it were. And the blow instead of the head falls on the top of the back, on the shoulder blade.
- As an option. Or just a person is standing. They come up to him from behind, beat him with the same stick. You correctly noted about the stick, because the broken lower edge of the shoulder blade in the area of the corner could just be broken from a blow by an elongated object.
EXPLOSION EXCLUDING
- And Semyon, it seems, had a fracture of the pelvic bones?
- There is a defect in the right ilium. Fragment is missing. I cannot say - this defect already existed from the very beginning when the basin was removed from the grave, or it formed when it was removed.
“But it doesn't look like the bone was damaged by a shovel during excavation.
- Does not look like. But it is possible to determine an intravital or postmortem fracture only in strictly laboratory conditions.
- If we assume that the fracture of the ilium is also intravital, as well as fractures of the ribs and scapula, what is the picture of the tragedy?
- You know, if I was simply presented with a description of the damage, and I did not know the circumstances of the case, I would say that the person was most likely run over by a car. But, given the situation as a whole, I am ready to believe in mysticism. All fractures are different. And it must be some incredible coincidence for all injuries to form, for example, from a large mass of snow falling on a person.
- Could it be blows?
- You need to share the damage. Rib fractures are from compression. Scapula fractures - from blows, at least two blows. Iliac fractures are also a shock. In addition, a fracture of the hip is also on the right side like ribs and scapula.
- Is it possible to break the ilium with a stick or butt blow?
- It is hard to say. It can be broken with a kick if the person is lying down. True, the force of the blow must be very high.
- Are we considering a blast wave?
- We exclude. None of the victims show signs of the explosion. But at the same time, in fact, no one has the same type of damage. They are all different. There is a depressed skull fracture in Nikolai Thibault. There are rib fractures, well, slightly along other anatomical lines. Others have no damage to the bones of the skeleton, but there is damage to the soft tissues. Someone showed no damage at all.
- Can you define something in common?
- We can say that the injuries noted in the victims are the action of hard, blunt objects either with a predominant or limited traumatic surface, depending on where such injuries are localized. That is, we can exclude the effects of infrasound, ultrasound, blast waves, radiation, psychogenic facts there. We can all sweep it aside at once. This is exclusively the action of solid blunt objects.
STRANGE VISIONS
Of course, the car could not appear at the place where the children were killed. However, the reasoning of expert Tumanov reminded us of a story once told by a former geologist Vladimir Kuznetsov, who worked in the area of the Dyatlov Pass in 1968.
“At the end of August, we asked our chief to run to Mount Otorten for a few days, because we heard from senior comrades that there were brown iron ore at the top,” the geologist recalls. - And where there are brown iron ores, there may be copper and gold. We decided to take samples. Five of us went. We have three dogs with us. And as soon as we crossed the Cherkanur ridge, everyone immediately had a bad feeling. Some kind of fear. As if someone invisible is looking at you from behind. And all around the silence and birds are not heard. Then came a strip of felling about two kilometers wide. I had to walk down the trunks simply. We reached almost the upper reaches of the Lozva. It is five kilometers north of the Dyatlov pass. There are ten to fifteen kilometers left to Otorten. We decided to spend the night. We did not sleep at night. Five people, and so, were sitting by the fire, trembling, afraid. But all are young. How many times we walked alone in the taiga. And here is such an incomprehensible fear.
Geologists did not climb Otorten. We decided to go back, especially after we suddenly saw a blurred tractor track.
- His caterpillars are wide, like "Cheboksaryts". Where did it come from? - Kuznetsov is surprised. - Now I'm analyzing, it could never be there. The places are deaf, no forest was cut down there. It is not clear how the tractor could drive there on the road? It began near a small tributary of the Lozva, but where it ended is unknown. We later discussed more than once what it could be, but there were no options. Only technology could leave such a mark.
EXTRACT FROM INTERROGATION
In 1959, forensic scientist Boris Vozrozhdenny, who opened the bodies of the Dyatlovites in the morgue, answering the investigator's questions, said: “Thibault's head injuries could have been the result of throwing, falling or throwing the body away. I do not believe that Thibault could have received these injuries when falling from a height of his height, that is, that he slipped and hit his head. An extensive, depressed, multi-splintered, and very deep (fracture of the vault and base of the skull) fracture may be the result of being thrown away by a car moving at high speed or other traffic injury. After such a blow, he was in a state of severe brain concussion, i.e. was unconscious.
- How can you explain the origin of the injuries (rib fractures) in Dubinina and Zolotarev - can they be combined by one cause?
"They are the result of a great deal of force, roughly the same as that applied to Thibault."
NIKOLAY VARSEGOV, ANTON CHELYSHEV, NATALIA VARSEGOVA
