The most famous and mysterious case of the death of tourists is the tragedy that occurred with the Dyatlov group in early February 1959. The circumstances have not yet been clarified, and several dozen versions have been put forward. This story is known all over the world and formed the basis of several feature and documentary films. However, few people know that a similar and no less mysterious and tragic story thirty years later took place on one of the passes in Buryatia.
In August 1993, a group of seven tourists arrived in Irkutsk from Kazakhstan by rail to go to the Khamar-Daban ridge. Forecasters promised suitable weather for the ascent, and the group set off for the mountains. It consisted of three young men, three girls and 41-year-old leader Lyudmila Korovina, who had the title of master of sports in walking tourism.
The Khamar-Daban ridge does not shake with its height. The highest point is 2,396 meters. Situated on terraces with pointed peaks and ridges, the ridge is one of the oldest mountains on our planet. Thousands of tourists visit these beautiful places every year.
The group moved from the village of Murino to one of the highest mountains of the ridge called Hanulu. Its height is 2371 meters. Having covered about 70 kilometers in 5-6 days, the tourists stopped for a halt between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204m) and Tritrans (2310m).
Weather forecasters, however, did not guess. For several days in a row, it snowed and rained and the wind blew. At about 11 o'clock on August 5, when the tourists were about to leave the temporary parking lot, one of the guys became ill.
Valentina Utochenko.
Further, according to the only survivor Valentina Utochenko:
Sasha fell, blood began to flow from his ears, foam came from his mouth. Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina stayed with him, appointed Denis the senior, said to go down as low as possible, but not to enter the forest, then the guys Vika, Tanya, Timur began to fall and roll on the ground - symptoms like a choking person, Denis said - we quickly take the most necessary out of the backpacks and running down, bent over the backpack, pulled out the sleeping bag, raised her head. Denis fell and tore his clothes on, tried to drag the hand with him, but he broke free and ran away. She ran downstairs without letting go of the sleeping bag.
Promotional video:
I spent the night under a boulder, hiding with my head in a sleeping bag, it was scary, trees fell along the edge of the forest from the hurricane, in the morning the wind died down, more or less dawn rose to the scene of the tragedy, Lyudmila Ivanovna was still alive but could no longer move, showed in which direction Valya to go and passed out, Valya closed her eyes to the guys, packed her things, found a compass and went …
Relay tower.
After some time, the girl stumbled upon an abandoned repeater tower at an altitude of 2310 meters, where she spent another night all alone. And in the morning the tourist noticed the pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses, to which wires had once been forwarded, turned out to be abandoned. But Valentina went out to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream, on the sixth day after the tragedy she accidentally saw her and was picked up by a water tour group. They had already sailed past, but decided to return, it seemed suspicious that the tourist did not answer their greetings. The girl did not speak for several days because of the shock.
Interestingly, the daughter of Lyudmila Korovina with another tour group walked along the next route and agreed to meet with her mother at their intersection. But when Lyudmila's group did not come to the collection point, Korovina Jr. thought that they were simply late due to bad weather and continued on their way, at the end of which she went home, not suspecting that her mother was no longer alive.
For some unknown reason, the search dragged on, the bodies of tourists were found only when about a month had passed since the death of the guys and their leader !!! The picture was terrible, rescuers recall. The helicopter landed, and everyone on board witnessed a terrible sight: “The bodies are already swollen, everyone's eye sockets are completely eaten away. Almost all of the victims were dressed in thin leotards, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra …”What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the participants of the hike take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remained unanswered.
In Ulan-Ude, an autopsy was performed, which showed that all six died from hypothermia, and the investigation agreed that the tragedy was caused by the mistakes and incompetence of the group leader. But the facts say the opposite!