The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation resumes investigation into the circumstances of the death of a group of tourists led by Igor Dyatlov in the mountains of the Northern Urals in 1959. As noted in the department, three versions of the death of the tourist group are most likely, all of them are associated with natural phenomena: an avalanche, a snow slab and a hurricane.
The official representative of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, Alexander Kurennoy, on the departmental video channel "Ether" announced the beginning of a new investigation into the circumstances of the death of a group of tourists led by Igor Dyatlov in 1959 in the mountains of the Northern Urals.
Mysterious note
In May 2018, a note was published, found in a private archive by Tyumen writer Oleg Arkhipov. In a document dated February 15, 1959, the prosecutor of the Ivdel region, Vasily Tempalov, writes that he is forced to leave for Sverdlovsk in a criminal case about the death of tourists, and also speaks of the need to follow the sentence of a certain citizen Reeb the next day.
The released document forced some enthusiasts to put forward conspiracy theories, which boil down to the fact that the Soviet security forces immediately learned about the death of tourists, but for some reason they concealed this fact, because the place of the last parking lot of the Dyatlov group was discovered only on February 25-26.
Dyatlov's group tent, partially excavated from snow. Photo of A. S. Cheglakov.
The speculation related to Tempalov's note was dispelled by the head of the department for supervision over the execution of federal legislation of the prosecutor's office of the Sverdlovsk region, Andrei Kuryakov. On the air of an interactive video service on the website of the General Prosecutor's Office, he spoke about the check carried out in connection with the discovery of the note, which showed that Reeb's case was actually brought to court only on April 12, and Tempalov did not go to Sverdlovsk on February 15 - he simply made a mechanical mistake when writing …
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Despite the fact that Tempalov's note did not become a cause for a sensation, the prosecutor's office is determined to put an end to the case of the death of the "Dyatlovites".
“Why, after 60 years, the prosecutor’s office took up this case? Because relatives and social activists are asking to establish the truth,”said Alexander Kurennoy.
According to him, today there are 75 versions of the tragedy. However, the department will check only three of them as the most likely. All of them are associated with natural phenomena - a snowboard, an avalanche and a hurricane. As Alexander Kurennoy emphasized, the crime in the death of the Dyatlov group is completely excluded.
In March, prosecutors of the Sverdlovsk region will go to the Dyatlov pass and will investigate the causes of the tragedy on the spot. They have already analyzed the criminal case and carried out a number of preparatory measures. In total, nine new examinations have been assigned to the case. The findings of the audit will become known approximately in April this year.
The death of the Dyatlov group
A group of ten tourists led by Igor Dyatlov set out from Sverdlovsk on a hike dedicated to the XXI Congress of the CPSU, January 23, 1959. By train, bus and a passing truck, they reached the logging village, located in the 41st forest quarter. On January 27, the group got on skis and reached the abandoned village of the 2nd Northern mine. There it turned out that one of the members of the group, Yuri Yudin, could not continue the hike due to pain in his leg. On January 28, the young people said goodbye - Yudin returned back on a cart provided by the loggers, and the group moved on. On February 1, tourists climbed the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl and stopped for the night at the pass, which now bears the name of Dyatlov.
Members of the Dyatlov group before the start of the campaign.
On February 12, the group had to complete the route, and on the 15th, return to Sverdlovsk. When this did not happen, relatives, friends and the management of the sports club became worried. The tourist route was established on February 19, after which a search and rescue operation began. Tourists, climbers, military men, Interior Ministry officers and local hunters were involved in the search for the missing.
On February 23, rescuers managed to get on the trail of the group, and two or three days later the last parking lot was discovered. There were skis, warm clothes and food supplies in and around the tent. On February 26 or 27, search engines found the first bodies of the dead tourists. The entire group was found only in May, after the snow melted.
Immediately after the discovery of the first bodies, a number of strange details emerged. Several of the dead tourists were lightly dressed. Some had no shoes on. After death, several participants in the campaign were stripped by their comrades who were still alive. There were no obvious signs of a violent death, but some of the victims had fractures and other injuries.
A memorial plate in memory of the dead tourists from the Dyatlov group, fixed on the outlier near the scene.
On March 9-10 and May 12, members of the Dyatlov group were buried. The investigation into the death of tourists began on February 26. The case file notes the testimony of witnesses who, in February-March 1959, allegedly saw some "fireballs" in the sky in the area of the pass. It is also mentioned that some samples of the clothes of the deceased tourists contained radioactive substances.
It was not possible to establish what actually happened to the group. On May 28, 1959, the criminal case was closed "due to the absence of corpus delicti." According to experts, tourists were killed on the night of February 1 to 2. All members of the group simultaneously left the tent, but it was not possible to find out what prompted them to take this step. An autopsy showed that some of the tourists froze to death, the rest died as a result of severe injuries. Why the group did not return to the tent for clothes and food, no one could explain.
From UFOs to avalanches
The mystery of the death of the "Dyatlovites" attracted the attention of many enthusiastic researchers, who put forward dozens of versions, which can be conditionally divided into three groups. The first - paranormal - explain the death of tourists by the influence of UFOs or otherworldly forces. Proponents of conspiracy theories argue that tourists could have been the victim of a secret weapon test or a clash between intelligence officers. Those who associate the death of the "Dyatlovites" with natural phenomena are sure that the tourists died as a result of an accident caused by some kind of cataclysm.
Svyatoslav Knyazev, Elizaveta Komarova