Investigation by KP correspondents Nikolai Varsegov and Natalia Ko. Special correspondents passed along the route of tourists-skiers who died in the Northern Urals half a century ago under very mysterious circumstances
The inexplicable loss of the An-2 aircraft with a pilot and 12 passengers on board in the Northern Urals in June this year made us recall once again the no less mysterious story of the Dyatlov Pass, where in the winter of 1959 9 students and graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute died.
They were desperate and experienced athletes, who more than once performed hikes of the highest difficulty. But something terrible made them leave the tent half-naked at night. Why all the tourists froze. Investigators have never been able to find a clue to this tragedy. The case was closed with a hint of mysticism: "The reason for the death of the students was a spontaneous force, which they were unable to overcome."
For the media in those Soviet times, this story immediately became taboo, but passed from mouth to mouth, frightening citizens with the most terrible assumptions. The military was suspected of the death of tourists. It was rumored that the tourists were accidentally witnesses to the testing of a secret weapon. Therefore, they were killed by special forces. But escaped convicts, poachers from the regional party committee, and ordinary hunters were also suspected. US spies and UFOs, who were then flying over the Northern Urals, were also suspected. But even now, with the appearance of the documents of the investigation, all these versions have not disappeared, but have even more entrenched in the minds of people.
THE TRUTH IS SOMEWHERE NEAR
We, too, got carried away with the study of that story, conducting our own large investigation. The truth about the death of those tourists, as it seemed to us, is somewhere very close - which is what we'll talk about. But for ignorant readers, first we will tell about those events.
On January 23, 1959, ten skiers from the UPI tourist club set off from Sverdlovsk to the mountains of the Northern Urals. Here are their names: group leader Igor Dyatlov, Zinaida Kolmogorova, Rustem Slobodin, Yuri Doroshenko, Yuri Krivonischenko, Ni-
Promotional video:
Kolai Thibault-Brignoles, Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Kolevatov, Semyon Zolotarev (born in 1921, tourism instructor). And, finally, Yuri Yudin is the only survivor of the group.
Tourists had to ski 350 kilometers and conquer the mountain on the way.
Otyrten is 1182 meters high. Until February 14, the group was supposed to return to the village of Vizhay and give their relatives a telegram.
The hike began easily and cheerfully, as recorded in the tourist diaries. At the stations and on the trains, there were conflicts with the police because of loud laughter of students and singing of songs. However, the guys had a paper armor, which clearly stated that their trip (no joke!) Was timed to coincide with the opening of the XXI Congress of the CPSU. And the matter was decided without protocols. But a serious trouble happened before going on the track. The tenth participant, Yuri Yudin, felt acute pain in the joints and had to return. His farewell was captured by a photographer. There, Luda Dubinina, as it were, plays the "farewell of a Slav" on camera …
Time passed, but there were no telegrams from the guys … On February 26, rescuers found an empty, cut tent on Mount Holatchakhl and from it there were traces of bare feet down to the forest. After that, 5 frozen bodies were found within a radius of one and a half kilometers. The bodies of the rest were found only in May under the melted snow. Almost all the tourists were naked and half-naked. Others had fatal injuries - broken ribs, punctured heads. Others died from the cold. Lyudmila Dubinina had no eyes and no tongue. The forensic experts were unable to explain the cause of the injuries. Even now no one can firmly say the most important thing - why did the tourists leave the tent into the bitter frost and their own destruction?
Investigators found neither blood stains nor signs of a struggle either in the tent or nearby. All valuables and money of tourists remained in the tent. Here is a half-eaten dinner. And it is completely mysterious - the tent turned out to be ripped open from the inside! That is, during dinner, something suddenly happened that made tourists instantly cut the tent and get out …
THE CORPSES OF TOURISTS DISCOVERED IN PRISON MORGA
Ivdel greeted us with a sticky tropical heat over 30, which we did not expect in August in the latitudes of the Northern Urals. We also did not expect that this town in the taiga wilds would turn out to be quite beautiful and clean against the backdrop of mountain landscapes. True, its view is overshadowed by a large prison hospital, surrounded by a blank fence with barbed wire and towers. Since the pre-war era, this region has been replete with prison camps, for logging and mining of useful ores require a lot of labor.
Igor Dyatlov's group arrived in Ivdel on the night of January 25, 1959. In their diaries, they dedicated only a dozen words to this city:
“… At about 24.00 we arrived in Ivdel. Large waiting room. They took turns on duty all night. The bus will leave for Vizhai early in the morning. In a month, the first bodies of tourists will be brought to the same city.
“I was young then, I worked as a nurse,” recalls Zoya Nikitichna Savina. - I saw them at the bus stop. They are all funny. They laughed out loud. And then they were brought to the morgue, I looked through the window. The girl was lying there and the guys, I don't remember how many. The girl had socks on her feet. And their friend, who did not go with them, stood by the morgue and cried.
One must think that only joint disease saved their comrade Yuri Yudin from that incomprehensible death. According to people who know Yudin, all these years he … has been waiting for his group. Never married. Lives lonely and very poor. Suffering from a Russian disease and keeping four cats.
In the same hospital in the morgue, Maria Ivanovna Salter worked as a surgeon's assistant. If you believe a number of sources, then after in the year of publicity, she said that from the place of death of tourists, not 9, but 11 corpses were brought to Ivdel.
“… Where did the other two come from - I don't know. I immediately recognized them, in these clothes I saw them for the last time at the bus stop. They brought us to the military hospital to be opened, but they didn’t even show one body, they immediately took it to Sverdlovsk. Some military man was during the autopsy, pointed at me and said to Dr. Prutkov: "Why do you need her?" Prutkov was a polite person, but that time immediately: "Maria Ivanovna, you can go!" They still took a nondisclosure agreement from me. They were taken from everyone, including drivers and pilots who carried bodies …"
Unfortunately, Maria Ivanovna died recently. And her daughter could not remember such stories of her mother. But the current chief physician of the military hospital in Ivdel, Colonel Vladimir Konyushevsky, told from the stories of his father that the bodies of the tourists were first indeed taken to the morgue of their hospital, and then transported for autopsy to a nearby prison hospital. Maybe because of special secrecy? Konyushevsky's father did not say anything about the number of corpses, but he saw that the bodies were orange. This could be the so-called maceration - redness from frostbite.
The KGB
There were many versions, even associated with some kind of spy and sabotage trail, since all tourists had a degree of secrecy. UPI students were trained to work in closed enterprises, others already worked in secret factories. It was even assumed that there could be one or more spies among the tourists. And these spies, having killed their comrades, whether on an enemy plane or by helicopter, flew abroad. Perhaps with hostages. Otherwise, where are the bodies of the other four? Therefore, before we were sent on the trail of the deceased group, the newspaper's management turned to the FSB with a request to provide some materials from the investigation of those years through the KGB. The FSB officers eagerly rummaged through their archives and gave us an answer that surprised us a lot and added another big mystery to this case. But we will designate this mysterious answer later in the course of this investigation.
Continued in the next issue.
We would ask everyone who was somehow involved in this story, in its investigation, to share with us their memories, and possibly exact knowledge of the causes of that tragedy.
Send messages to the following addresses: [email protected], [email protected].
The film "There were 9 of them …" - on the TV channel today at 11.10.