60 years after the death of the Dyatlov group, the Prosecutor General's Office again began investigating the causes of the tragedy. The department emphasized: out of 75 versions of what happened in the Northern Urals, three natural ones will be tested - an avalanche, the so-called "snow slab" and a hurricane. Meanwhile, in the memory fund of the Dyatlov group, they assure: they have proof that even twelve days before the discovery of the first bodies, investigators knew about the death of tourists. This, albeit indirectly, is confirmed by a number of alternative versions. According to one of them, the death of the Dyatlovites was staged, and the scene of the incident was cleaned up in order to hide the evidence testifying to the tests of the secret weapon.
Seven dozen versions
On January 23, 1959, a group of nine students of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, led by a fifth-year student Igor Dyatlov, went on a ski trip. The path of tourists lay on the northern Ural mountains Otorten and Holatchakhl. The hike was designed for 16 days, on February 12 the Dyatlovites had to reach the final point of the route - the village of Vizhay - and send a telegram to the institute's sports club. But no news came from them. The search operation began on February 20. On the twenty-sixth, a cut-up tourist tent was found, and the next day, one and a half kilometers from it, the first victims, Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko, were found. Moreover, both were stripped to their underwear, lying near the fire.
Monument to the dead tourists in 1959. Photo: Dmitry Nikishin.
In the following days, three more were dug up - Dyatlov himself, Zina Kolmogorova and Rustem Slobodin. The rest of the group was only found in May, when the snow began to melt. On February 26, a criminal case was opened into the death of students, but three months later it was dropped. “Considering the absence of bodily injuries and signs of struggle on the corpses, the presence of all values, it should be considered that the cause of the death of tourists was a spontaneous force, which the tourists were unable to overcome,” the decree said.
But what kind of "spontaneous force" was that that made the guys cut the tent and rush into the bitter frost without clothes and shoes? And why did Lyuda Dubinina and Semyon Zolotarev have broken ribs, and Thibault-Brignolle's skull? All these questions gave rise to many criminal versions of the death of the Dyatlovites. For example, it has been suggested that they were killed by representatives of the Mansi tribe, for whom Mount Kholatchakhl has ritual significance. It was also assumed that the tourists could be dealt with by poachers from among the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - allegedly the members of the group became unwitting witnesses to the crimes of the police.
There are also completely conspiracy theories. According to one of them, the group could get into the epicenter of testing some new weapon, for example, a missile. Its fall could both provoke an avalanche, which covered the tourists, and become the direct cause of their death. So, the Yekaterinburg journalist Anatoly Gushchin suggested that the Dyatlovites witnessed the testing of a neutron bomb, after which, in order to preserve state secrets, their death was staged, and the site of the tragedy was cleaned up. This version is also supported by the fact that a slightly overestimated amount of radioactive substances was found on individual samples of clothing.
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Perhaps this version is not as fantastic as it seems. Some time ago, the writer and researcher of the riddle of the Dyatlov Pass, Oleg Arkhipov, announced the existence of a note that the prosecutor of the city of Ivdel Vasily Tempalov (it was he who initiated the case) left to the investigator for especially important cases of the prosecutor's office of the Sverdlovsk region, Vladimir Korotaev. From this service, one can conclude that the regional prosecutor's office knew about the death of the group even before the official discovery of the bodies.
Wrong for twelve days
The note, along with many other papers, was given to Arkhipov by the widow of Vladimir Korotaev. It is dated February 15, 1959. The letter says that Tempalov was urgently summoned to Sverdlovsk "to report to the deputy prosecutor of the RSFSR in the criminal case on the death of tourists."
The Auspiya river, along the bed of which tourists from the Dyatlov group moved.
It turns out that even 12 days before the discovery of the bodies, the prosecutor's office knew that the Dyatlovites were dead?
Another curious moment. In the note, Tempalov asks Korotaev to interrogate one witness "on the question of whether the head of the tourist group, Dyatlov (who died), said that they would return to Vizhay not on 12 / II 59, but on 15 / II 59"
Yes, we can assume that the Ivdel prosecutor simply confused the month. But February is mentioned in several places in the note. In one, the date of February 15 is crossed out, and instead of it another is put - February 16. In this paragraph of the letter, Tempalov asks Korotaev to follow the case of a certain Reeb, according to which "a verdict should be passed on 16/2/59".
“Anyone can make a mistake in the date. But being wrong in several places? Moreover, to cross it out, and then put the wrong date again - this is already out of the realm of fantasy,”Arkhipov argues.
The answer lies in the results of chemical examination
For almost ten years that the writer has been researching the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass, he has accumulated many questions about this case. But the main thing is why the results of histological and chemical studies of fragments of the internal organs of tourists disappeared from the materials.
“Forensic scientist Boris Vozrozhdenny, when he performed the autopsy of the first five bodies found on the pass, sent tissue fragments to Sverdlovsk for chemical and histological examination. There is a note about this in medical documents. And in the Sverdlovsk Regional Bureau of Forensic Medicine, according to my information, these studies were carried out. I even have the names of forensic chemists - Deminov and Chashchina. But there is no act with the results in the case. Why was it withdrawn, what was in this document? - asks Arkhipov.
In addition, according to the writer, the location of the cadaveric spots on the bodies of some of the victims does not coincide with the position of the bodies at the time of their discovery. “For example, Yuri Doroshenko was lying face down, Zina Kolmogorova was on her side. And cadaveric spots were found on the back of the bodies. I consulted with forensic doctors, they said that this could not be,”Oleg wonders.
Also, the researcher is alarmed by the presence in Ivdel during the days of the search operation of the commander of the Ural Military District.
At the same time, Oleg Arkhipov is skeptical about the version that the bodies of the Dyatlovites could have endured, and indeed faked their death: “These are very large-scale manipulations. Who are they for? All the same, in those days the case was secret, no one could have imagined that the Soviet Union would collapse and information would be freely available."
At the same time, the natural nature of the death of Dyatlovites Arkhipov excludes: “I don’t want to fall into conspiracy theories, but, in my opinion, the solution to this tragedy is in the seized forensic chemical expertise. If there was nothing shocking in it, the results would not need to be hidden."
Made a mistake mechanically
The prosecutor's office calls all these arguments untenable. Just in order to exclude speculation on the death of the Dyatlovites, the investigation was resumed. The head of the Department for Supervision over the Execution of Federal Legislation of the Prosecutor's Office of the Sverdlovsk Region Andrei Kuryakov (it is he who is in charge of the inspection), during the broadcast on the official channel of the department, said that in the near future a group of investigators and experts would again go to the scene of the tragedy, after which new examinations would be appointed - for now nine of them are planned.
“The main one will be situational. She will talk about whether it is possible, having cut the tent, to leave it, whether it is possible to do it all together or only in turn. Is it possible to go down the mountain and then climb back to the tent. Answers to these questions can be obtained after a trip to the pass in winter, since it is necessary to assess the situation, take measurements, explained Kuryakov.
He also added that out of 75 versions of the death of the Dyatlov group, 72 are untenable. The investigation will consider only three natural ones: an avalanche, the so-called "snowboard" and a hurricane. “After the necessary measurements with modern technology, the experts will be able to tell whether these natural phenomena are possible at the place of death,” explains Kuryakov.
As for the note discovered by Arkhipov, the prosecutor's office has already checked it. Everything indicates that Vasily Tempalov really was mistaken in the date.
An expert psychologist explained how the Ivdel prosecutor made a mistake in several places at once. The specialist connected this with the fact that while writing the note, Tempalov was thinking about the events of February, when the group died. “He goes to report on the events that took place in February, he asks to find out if Dyatlov said that he would return on February 15, and automatically puts February at the end of the note,” explained Andrey Kuryakov.
We cut up the tent so as not to suffocate
On February 2, an annual conference was held in the building of the Ural Federal University, organized by the Dyatlov group memory fund. It presented the very note of the Ivdel prosecutor and a number of archival documents. Also, 20 researchers of the mysterious history from different cities of Russia spoke. The versions sounded the most unusual. For example, Valentin Yakimenko, who participated in the search for tourists in 1959, suggested that the group could have been doused with heptyl by an airplane flying over them. That is why the participants of the campaign left the tent in such a hurry.
Yuri Gordo put forward a version that the group got into a kind of "forbidden zone". The researcher considers the fact that his father (it was he who signed the route sheets for the Dyatlovites, and then organized the search) was not immediately given a plane as proof. Moreover, the dispatchers allegedly said: "We do not fly into restricted areas." And a certain comrade in civilian clothes went on the first flight with the search engines, who controlled all their actions.
Petersburg scientist, master of sports in tourism Evgeny Buyanov also spoke at the conference. The prosecutor's office considers his version of the events at the pass to be the most plausible. Buyanov believes that a number of mistakes led to the death of tourists. First, they set up a tent on the side of the mountain, which is a multi-layer "board". During the day in the sun, the snow melts, at night it freezes, turning into ice, then fresh snow falls from above. Leveling the parking space, the Dyatlovites cut the base of the reservoir and themselves created an emergency: they provoked an avalanche. They cut open the tent so as not to suffocate inside.
Anastasia Gnedinskaya