On the night of February 1-2, 1959, in the Northern Urals, at the pass, which later received the name of Dyatlov, a tourist group of nine people died. For the next anniversary of the tragedy in Yekaterinburg, a voluminous almanac about a mysterious incident was released
Its circumstances were so mysterious that even after 57 years, researchers cannot calm down, trying to understand what made the half-naked young people cut the tent from the inside and look for shelter at the bottom of the slope. Why did some of them have internal injuries incompatible with life? For some reason, the military was actively involved in the search, although they had never looked for lost students before.
Tolkov added a more than strange conclusion of the investigators: "The cause of the death of the tourists was a spontaneous force, which the tourists were unable to overcome."
Rossiyskaya Gazeta asked Yuri Kuntsevich, head of the Dyatlov group's memory fund, whether new facts had appeared in the mysterious case.
Yuri Konstantinovich, tell us about the book - is this the result of all the investigations carried out to date? How much attention is paid to each of the many versions?
Yuri Kuntsevich: This is a two-volume almanac of about a thousand pages with a circulation of 200 copies. The first volume is the criminal case itself from cover to cover, each page is reprinted or presented in facsimile with all notes.
After reviewing the case, the reader can open the second volume, which contains opinions. From the mass of all versions and assumptions, we took only those that have a real foundation and are confirmed by testimony. That is, they discarded devils, witches, aliens, Bigfoot - in general, pure fantasy.
How many versions are left in the end?
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Yuri Kuntsevich: The book will contain about a dozen versions. We have grouped them according to basic principles. For example, the largest section is man-made versions: the appearance on the pass of any technical devices that predetermined the tragedy.
From the mass of all versions and assumptions, we took only those that have a real justification and are confirmed by witness testimony
Do you yourself adhere to this assumption - testing secret weapons and eliminating casual witnesses of military experiments?
Yuri Kuntsevich: It's not my job to give explanations. How can you stick to any version if each subsequent version refutes the previous one? I just grouped them together and provided evidence. There are no conclusions in the book, since this is the competence of people who know much more than you and me. I would like to appeal to their memory and honesty, because more than half a century has passed and all the nondisclosure subscriptions have expired.
What has happened over the past year in the Dyatlov group? Has the official investigation been resumed?
Yuri Kuntsevich: Familiarization with the case has begun. One investigator deals with this topic, his work is paid for by the interested public. He came to me and told me that he had the testimony of living witnesses who then, in 59, participated in the investigation of the tragedy. They admit that they had a clear direction from above to wind down the case. And it was turned off with the formulation of elemental force, which the students were unable to overcome.
Does this investigator have the right, for example, to exhume the remains? I mean Zolotarev, a member of the group, about whose burial place there are doubts
Yuri Kuntsevich: With additional investigation, I think so. But if such a decision is made, then previously unknown documents will emerge, which will have to be made public.
How did the story end with the discovery in Germany of allegedly resold secret documents about the involvement of one of the Dyatlovites in the state secret?
Yuri Kuntsevich: We were extremely surprised: suddenly, scraps of documents were sent to us from Germany. They immediately handed over the papers for authentication and found out that it was a forgery, however, quite skillful, and a whole group of "masters" was working on it.
We were promised correspondence of party bodies, orders of the supreme authorities for only four thousand dollars - as soon as we transfer the money, we will receive the documents. The falsifiers were let down by the fact that the forms were of the wrong period, they used the wrong order of drafting documents and the text was typed on a later typewriter.
Is it correct to assume that these papers will confirm the version of the showdown of the KGB and spies at the pass?
Yuri Kuntsevich: No, there was a hint of party instructions. I really looked for these documents in the party archives and noticed an unpleasant thing: it turns out that the Communist Party still has secrets from the people that are not disclosed to us.
Do you think there are, in principle, documents somewhere that give a reasoned answer to the question, what actually happened at the pass in 1959?
Yuri Kuntsevich: I am convinced that such documents exist. There is even a suspicion of exactly where and what to look for. The problem is that we, as a public organization, may be refused for a formal reason - and they will be right. It is necessary that the request be made by an official representative of the Investigative Committee.
Yuri Konstantinovich, let us remind readers of the main versions and the main inconsistencies in them. What facts prove technogenic interference?
Yuri Kuntsevich: Bullets, remnants of rockets and even a part of the engine that we found during one of the summer expeditions, pseudo meteorites, were found at the pass. All this material evidence suggests that there was a training ground in the area of the mountain.
Did you find out what kind of rocket engine it is?
Yuri Kuntsevich: It has a number on which you can find out where and when it was produced. But when and under what circumstances the projectile was launched, no one will tell you. It is only known that in 1959 such missiles were already in service.
What explains the appearance of mysterious fireballs in the mountains?
Yuri Kuntsevich: Many have seen them: the Mansi, the workers of Ivdellag, and the tourists. But these balls can have a different nature. If you look at the geological map, you can see that at the contact of the European and Siberian plates there is a huge - up to 40 kilometers wide - quartz vein. If the plates are shaken, even by a millimeter, it is quite possible that powerful electrical discharges form - this is called piezoelectric effects.
There is an assumption that under certain conditions - for example, with increased humidity - the discharge is formed into a plasmoid ball. It has no weight, its diameter is up to two meters, the temperature is over a thousand degrees, it cannot be shot with any weapon.
Pilot Gennady Patrushev (he participated in the search operation of the Dyatlovites) died in 1961, once again flying around the north of the Sverdlovsk region, probably just meeting with one of the plasmoids. After all, before that, during interrogation at the KGB, he admitted that he had seen fireballs.
As his widow says, Patrushev recorded all observations in his journals, which he then ordered his wife to destroy. It is known that the pilot's mother kept these notebooks in a woodpile in the yard. Some hope there is still a slim chance of finding the records. But I think it’s unlikely - at that time people were afraid too much. It was not for nothing that Patrushev's friend, State Security Officer Sergei Misharin, committed suicide. And very calmly: I went to the bathhouse, put on a uniform and shot himself.
Quite in vain, some slander Dyatlov: they say, he chose the wrong place to sleep, close to the top, where piercing winds
It is believed that Patrushev was the first to see the Dyatlov group's tent from the air
Yuri Kuntsevich: In this case, let us recall one more fact that was recorded on the first page of the criminal case: the investigation was started on February 6, while the relatives of the group members began to sound the alarm only on February 17. As Patrushev's wife recalls, he flew north from Sverdlovsk for some time, then returned.
I have no idea how you can establish the exact dates of his flights. We have official testimony from another pilot who, not on February 26, when the first bodies were found, but earlier - on the 25th - flew over that place and saw two corpses near the tent.
Just the other day, a witness appeared who remembered the story of one of the Mansi about how the northern people "punished" those who disturbed their shrines. This circumstance again forced to talk about the version of the attack on the Mansi Dyatlovites
Yuri Kuntsevich: The book talks about this very briefly. Mansi is a completely peaceful people, how much we travel in those places, we always find contact. In the diaries of the Dyatlovites themselves, you will see the Mansi dictionary - that is, they talked with them, communicated, took pictures in their clothes, which they made from reindeer skins in an absolutely amazing way.
Another version is the explanation of the death of the group by climatic reasons
Yuri Kuntsevich: Nobody denies this either. There is information about the meteorological situation at that time and in that area - data on precipitation, wind speed, solar activity …
But these are observations in the area of the Burmantovo meteorological station, which is located east of Vizhay - at least 60 kilometers to the pass. In the mountains and at a much shorter distance, the weather situation can be very different
Yuri Kuntsevich: That's right: the weather from the European part can be transferred to the Ural ridge, but not from Burmantovo. But we must take into account that there is also such a document.
At the same time, it is completely in vain that some slander Dyatlov: they say that he chose the wrong place to sleep, close to the top, where the piercing winds are. And he did not choose - it was a forced stop. In the criminal case, it is written that Kolevatov has a subluxation, and in the last pictures you can see how Zina is bandaging his leg. What happened next is unknown.
The last defocused shot with a luminous object suggests that someone hastily grabbed the camera and pressed the shutter before the lens had been extended.
From the tracks that the search engines found, it is clear that the Dyatlovites did not run down the slope, but calmly retreated - the distance between the steps is small, this is not jumping. On the other hand, it is possible that these are not their traces at all. You look at the photos - you can see the prints of heels, and all the band members were without boots.
Moreover, when I was there in winter, I specially walked through the fresh snow, columns of footprints formed, but after two hours they were gone - the wind blew everything away. In this case, how could the traces of the Dyatlovites survive for almost a month? If only the snow melted and turned into ice. …
In addition, several times we conducted another experiment - we tried to move around the pass in socks. And you won't walk two meters - in a severe frost, the sock sticks to the snow, and you get your bare feet out of the track, at the next step you lose the second sock.
Do you suspect that the picture that appeared before the search engines was inspired?
Yuri Kuntsevich: This version is also confirmed by some other facts: for example, I cannot find an explanation of how the bodies of four tourists could end up at a depth of three meters under the snow in a stream. This could only happen if they were dropped from a helicopter. And where has it been seen that the commander of the military district himself took part in the search for students who were lost and frozen? And he came in person, allocated planes, helicopters and soldiers.
But after all, at that time the government was so powerful that there was no need to take tourists away one and a half kilometers from the tent, toss up evidence, create the appearance of an unauthorized departure - they would give out nine closed coffins and warn that people were frozen, it was impossible to open them
Yuri Kuntsevich: The fact is that there were students on the search, as well as excellent trackers from the surrounding villages, who know how to make a fire in the snow, how to set up a tent, how a group can walk. They needed to provide at least some explanation.
In this case, why did the investigators, when instructing to wind up the case as quickly as possible, did not bend one of the most innocuous versions, for example, about an avalanche or other falling snow on the tent?
Yuri Kuntsevich: At that time, there was not even such a version. She was born in the head of the St. Petersburg explorer Yevgeny Buyanov, who had never been to the pass in winter. In the summer, he walked with me five times, measured how sloping the slope was, proved that the Dyatlovites, setting up the tent, cut the snow, depriving the crust of support, so the snow board slid down on them, pressing some to death.
It's hard to explain how the guys' skin particles ended up on the cedar branches
Buyanov says that similar tragedies in the 80s were repeated in the Northern Urals - only there no one had time to get out of the tent, everyone died under the snow. Is it so?
Yuri Kuntsevich: There was a case on Mount Sablya - this is the Subpolar Urals. There was a rather steep slope, the snow accumulated and drove off. Buyanov also recalls the deadly tragedy at Khan Tengri, the highest peak of the Tien Shan. According to his logic, examples of avalanches in the Himalayas can be cited.
But you need to understand that these are completely different mountains and completely different conditions. Kholat Syakhyl is a gentle mountain, the total slope is no more than 15 degrees, it is not difficult to climb it, moreover, everything blows away from its top. If a layer of compacted snow is formed, then it, like anchors, is held by sharp stones on which the crust rests. This can be seen even in the photographs of search engines 50 years ago - well, where will the avalanche go if stones stick out all around?
Are there any details in the tragedy of the Dyatlov group that no version can explain?
Yuri Kuntsevich: Of course, there are plenty of them. For example, confusion in clothing, as if many were wearing the wrong things. Two army windings were found, which were used by the guards of the camps - the tourists did not have such. It is difficult to explain how the particles of the guys' skin ended up on the cedar branches (this, perhaps, perhaps, again only in the version with the helicopter).
Tell me, who came up with the idea of applying to the "Battle of Psychics" three years ago, and most importantly - why?
Yuri Kuntsevich: It was not our initiative - we were invited. I just thought I'd rather go than any of the other researchers who only take one version into account. I came and saw that all the psychics knew the script. And they loved to repeat that this is a secret that we shouldn't even try to reveal. So for me it was just a fun adventure.
Do you think the last of the group, Yuri Yudin, who died in April 2013, could have been aware of the circumstances that led to the death of his friends?
Yuri Kuntsevich: It happened that every year after the conference, for a month or two, he lived at the headquarters of the foundation, in the summer they went to the pass together. We spent a lot of time analyzing different versions, digging through maps, comparing facts and speculations … He was very worried about what had happened, all the time he was looking for answers. Yura handed over his entire archive to the foundation - it has yet to be disassembled and systematized. I'm sure he told everything he knew.
Photo: Tatiana Andreeva / rg.ru
Irina Oshurkova (Yekaterinburg)
