"Komsomolskaya Pravda" received the first results of the exhumation of the body, presumably, of Semyon Zolotarev.
Recall that in the winter of 1959, nine tourists disappeared in the mountains of the Northern Urals, who went on a hike 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 not clear why the guys fled to the bitter frost and to their death.
On April 12, at the Ivanovskoye cemetery in Yekaterinburg, we exhumed the body of one of the most mysterious members of the Dyatlov group, Semyon Zolotarev. For now, let's talk with the prefix - presumably - Zolotarev, since the DNA examination is not yet ready.
The very moment the skull was found. Photo: ALEXEY BULATOV.
We are asked: why did you do this?
We answer:
1. To establish the identity of the one who lies in the grave under a memorial sign with a sign "Semyon Zolotarev". Neither the relatives nor the city cemetery service have any documents for this burial. And so it is generally unclear whether someone is buried there?
2. And if there are remains in the grave, then assess the nature of the skeletal injuries.
Promotional video:
At our request, the exhumation was carried out by a forensic medical expert of the Moscow Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination Sergei Nikitin. Also at the cemetery was a tragedy researcher, doctor Galina Sazonova. We talked to them on the air of the radio "Komsomolskaya Pravda" (97.2 Moscow), where we told about the first results of the examinations.
Here is a transcript of the conversation.
Expert Sergey Nikitin washes the skull for the photomixing method. Photo: ALEXEY BULATOV.
Where did the stones come from?
Sergey Nikitin (SN): The grave turned out to be very peculiar. The question even arose whether such a burial is typical. It turned out that the grave was 90 percent covered with large pieces of granite and covered with fine granite chips.
Correspondents (Cor): There is an opinion that the grave was opened, and then they simply filled up with stones.
SN: I believe that at the Ivanovskoye cemetery, almost all the graves are covered with stones, since it is located on the mountain. When all the stones had been removed, we found a skeleton lying on its back, with its feet facing east. This is an Orthodox orientation. They began to extract the bones of the skeleton. On sheets of cardboard, Galina and I laid out the bones in anatomical order. In particular, Galina laid out the ribs. At that time I was working on the skull. It had to be washed and dried.
Photo of the grave of Semyon Zolotarev at the Ivanovsky cemetery, taken in 1959.
Cor: You took a skull in your hands and immediately said that it was a man's skull and it was 35-40 years old.
SN: In such studies, the question is initially resolved: gender, age, racial type of a person. So this skeleton belongs to a man, the age is within 35-40 years, the racial type is Caucasian. Even individual bones can be subject to age determination. But the most informative is the skull, with teeth on it. Rather, their degree of wear and tear. They allow you to more objectively and accurately determine the age using a special table. The skeleton of this man fit within 35-40 years. And Zolotarev was supposed to be 38 years old. We also assess the dental status. We evaluate traces of dental intervention. The condition of the teeth was exactly the same as that described at the autopsy in 1959. The same stainless steel crowns on the same teeth.
Photo of Semyon, which was used by expert Sergey Nikitin for photo overlay.
Cor: There was one interesting crown.
SN: Yes, a kind of crown of the seventh tooth, the adjacent tooth was on the same root. And this crown is on the second spine. These are the features of the dentist's approach. Apparently, he decided that it would be most optimal to carry out the intervention in this way.
Cor: Could this false crown be some kind of spy bookmark? Sorry for this question, but it gets asked on the forums.
SN: These are just features of the dental intervention. The doctor decided to preserve the roots as much as possible, so that the person could chew more fully.
Galina Sazonova (GS): Are such prostheses typical for placement in places of detention? (There is a version that instead of Semyon they buried a fugitive convict - Ed.)
SN: This is the usual job of a dentist. Slightly above average. It is no different in anything remarkable. Conventional stainless steel crowns.
GS: I helped only at the first stage, when they were still cleaning the bones from the ground, working with a brush. I did pre-filtering of the bones. I didn’t do an expert skeleton layout. I ask you to answer the question: where did the front tooth go?
SN: This loss occurred on April 12 this year, in the process of removing the skull from the grave. We didn't have time to look for him. He remained in the grave.
GS: Was there any other damage to the skull?
SN: The skull was not damaged. All trauma occurred in the chest.
GS: Why isn't there hair?
SN: This is a private phenomenon. In some graves, under certain conditions, the hair is preserved. Even after hundreds of years, the hair is perfectly preserved. And somewhere they are not saved.
The portrait of Semyon and the image of his skull coincided in 13 main positions. Photo: ALEXEY BULATOV.
FULL MATCH
Cor: What is the photomixing method that you used?
SN: This method was developed in 1956 by Yuri Mikhailovich Kubitsky, a Soviet military expert. He guessed that it was possible to identify a person by superimposing a photographic image on an image of a skull. The skull is on a stand in front of the camera. In those days, the negative of the photograph was superimposed on the frosted glass of the viewfinder. By rotating, moving the skull and moving it away and closer in relation to the lens, the skull was inscribed point by point, the contours were compared. And after that, a statement whether there is a coincidence of these contours.
Cor: At what points are the image aligned?
SN: The main points are ear, points of the corners of the eyes, subnasal point, point of the line of closing of the lips, chin point, contours of the parietal, parietotemporal, temporal, lower contour of the face. There are a number of other points. The maximum can be estimated about 24 signs, if we have a high-quality photograph of a bald person and if the skull does not have significant losses. But for identification, 12 signs are enough, provided that we determine the sex of a person and his age. In our case, 13 features coincided. This suggests that these are the remains of Semyon Zolotarev.
He was lying on something solid
GS: In 1959, the expert described that Zolotarev had two lines of rib fractures. "After removing the organocomplex from the thoracic and abdominal cavity, fractures of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth ribs on the right along the peri-sternal and middle axillary lines are determined." How did this coincide with what we saw?
SN: It almost completely coincided. Except for a small minor amendment. I would define the axillary line not as the middle line, but as the posterior axillary line. Some bones have not been examined. We examined the right shoulder blade, there were three fractures. This was not noted in the act. I assumed at first that it was posthumous injury. The whole grave was littered with pieces of granite, the pressure on the bones of the skeleton was decent. But then I reassessed, because the left shoulder blade was intact. If there were post-mortem injuries, it is logical to assume that both the left scapula would have been broken, and multiple fractures in general would have been other bones of the skeleton.
GS: Yes, we didn't see the damage. We found much more fragile bones. Even the thyroid cartilage. And the skull itself is not crushed. It turns out that this weight had no effect on the bones.
SN: The stones in the process of laying, when burying the grave after the funeral, formed in the form of a vault. They do not press down. The ribs were broken on the right, and the right shoulder blade. This fits into the mechanism of rib fracture formation.
GS: Is it correct to say that we evaluate the chest as a construction and are talking about structural fractures? That is, one impact could cause several fractures?
SN: This suggests that the zone of contact, impact exceeded the dimensions from the first to the sixth rib. It was a large, heavy mass. Most likely snow.
HS: Can you tell when these injuries were received?
SN: The presence of blood in the pleural cavity of Zolotarev unambiguously indicates that it was during his lifetime.
GS: What position was the person in at the time of the injury?
SN: We can definitely say that he was lying on his back. And the traumatic impact took place from front to back, maybe a little from right to left.
GS: Was the surface the person was lying on relatively hard?
SN: Yes. It is unlikely that he was lying in the snow.
GS: You found that not all ribs are broken equally. Can we say that the force that acted on the chest was most effective where the ribs are completely broken? And where they did not break, it seems like the impact was lower?
SN: With this kind of compression and similar fractures along the axillary line, the ribs broke due to excessive flexion. This is called flexion fracture. On the peristernal line, the nature of the fractures was extensor. This suggests that the traumatic effect occurred at the moment when the person was lying on his back, and suggests the direction of the traumatic mass.
GS: Is this an option, like being crushed by a concrete slab? Or is it a variant of shock compression? There is a version that a large mass of snow fell.
SN: Was it a shock or a slow squeezing for some time? When a corpse is examined not to the same degree of change as the corpse of Zolotarev was at the time of autopsy, there are soft tissues, subcutaneous fatty tissue, then hemorrhage into the subcutaneous fatty tissue can be assessed. If it was a blow, then we would see hemorrhages in the muscles and subcutaneous fatty tissue. If this mass such as a snow layer was compressed gradually, it is unlikely that we would see this hemorrhage.
GS: Hemorrhages were noted at autopsy. Both on histology and in the act.
SN: This suggests that it was a sharp compression, a sharp impact. Not gradual.
Cor: Does it look like a blow from, say, a car?
SN: A car is like a comparison. In our case, we can say that it was a shock impact of a large mass.
GS: Could there be a blast?
SN: Completely excluded. The injuries would be of a different nature.
WHY HAS BEEN THE BREAK?
Cor: A callus was found on the tibia of the leg, which indicates an intravital fracture. But there is an opinion that Semyon never had injuries.
SN: The examination revealed a trace of a long-standing intravital fracture of the right fibula in its middle part. It is impossible to judge the age of the fracture.
GS: Is it possible to judge the nature of the healing by such a callus?
SN: The two halves were aligned on the axis. There was no displacement. A banal fracture. Maybe he was formed in childhood. Zolotarev went through the entire war. A bullet wound is unlikely. Although it could have been different. If the bullet shoots through the bone, it will be a defect - shortening of the bone.
FROM THE AUTHORS
COULD A TOURIST WITH SUCH INJURIES PASS ONE AND A KM ON THE SLOPE?
We thank Sergey Nikitin and Galina Sazonova for an interesting conversation and for the work done. And we want to add that in the certificate of the death of Semyon Zolotarev, issued on May 12, 1959 by the registry office of Yekaterinburg to Semyon's mother, it appears that he died from "the action of low temperature." As the results of the examinations carried out show, this is not the whole truth.
After the broadcast, we asked additional questions to expert Nikitin to clarify the picture of what happened.
- If we assume that a huge layer of snow covered the tourist, let's think Semyon Zolotarev, when he was lying in the tent, could Zolotarev move with such injuries?
- I think he could, but somehow. But Lyuda Dubinina is unlikely. She had a general deformity of the chest and her injuries were more severe.
- When Semyon was found in the stream, he had a camera on his chest. Quite a difficult thing for those times. Could he walk with such injuries and with a camera around his neck?
- It is unlikely that the camera prevented him from moving. But we cannot say for sure where he got his rib injury. You can admit this option. Two people with rib injuries and another with a skull injury were found in the stream. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that they dug a cave in the ravine area, but the snow fell off and covered them.
However, we still have to analyze in detail the nature of Semyon's rib injuries. We plan to conduct a more thorough examination of the skeleton on the basis of photo and video materials that were filmed during the exhumation.
NIKOLAY VARSEGOV, ANTON CHELYSHEV, NATALIA VARSEGOVA