At the very beginning of 1999, the newspaper "Uralsky Rabochy" (now actually closed) published a series of articles related to the mystery of the death of tourists, at an altitude of 1079, in 1959. Since that glorious time, the heroic story of the death of tourists has gone for a walk in the fields and forests of our Motherland. So that all subsequent studies, versions and theories of the so-called. "Woodpeckers" (as they call a group of fanatics, as a rule, amateurs, who are trying to study this tragic story) are the most common plagiarism. All versions were announced and published, long before the appearance of the phenomenon of clinical "woodpecker studies". Well, much earlier than a group of enterprising people "organized" a commercially profitable fund of the same name.
I must say that before the publication of these articles in "Uralsky Rabochiy" on one Sverdlovsk TV channel, a very interesting film was released. "The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass" documentary film by TAU (Ural Television Agency). The topic for the director of TAU Innokenty Sheremet is almost dear. Since his wife, Anna Matveeva (a well-known writer), for a long time and very seriously studied the topic of the death of the Ural tourists.
So, the publications in "Uralsky Rabochiy" were a logical continuation of an old topic, previously revealed by the film at TAU.
And so the editorial office of Uralsky Rabochy received a letter from a resident of Verkhnyaya Salda, Nikolai Ivanovich Kuzminov. He read the story from 30.01.1999 entitled: "The price of state secrets is nine lives." Apparently stated in such a way that it angered the man, so he decided to tell what he had been silent about for so long. In Kuzminov's presentation, the story turned out as follows. I will try to give it as close as possible to the text of the letter.
In 1959, the author of the letter served in the military service in the Northern Urals. After a group of tourists disappeared, he and ten of his fellow soldiers were sent to the slope of the pass to look for dead people. They lived in the same tent, together with the UPI students. All the time, when the search work was going on, strong winds raged over the pass. Which made their task much more difficult. Kuzminov was in charge of a group of servicemen. He was there from March to May, in fact, until the end of the search work. He was subordinate to the head of the search group and Colonel Ortyukov, a teacher of the military department of the UPI.
The bodies were searched with a metal probe. Examining everything around, meter by meter. And so it was every day. Further, his story begins to resemble science fiction. Since nothing of what he wrote in the letter was never published, not in the materials of the criminal case, not, especially, in the stories of numerous eyewitnesses.
From the words of Nikolai Ivanovich, it turned out that the first of the corpses found (found by the fire) were completely undressed, and their hands were burned. As if they were then thrown into the fire? And the bodies of people in the stream and near the floor were found already at the direction of the Mansi from the Kurikov family. At the same time, one corpse was fully clothed, and on his hand he had three watches and two cameras. Even more interesting is the description of the body of the deceased Lyudmila Dubinina. According to Nikolai, the body of the girl was dragged on his back by a man (he did not remember his name), and the dead Dubinina hugged him by the neck. Kuzminov's letter also contains a story about the found flooring of coniferous trees. Apparently, the former soldier is not sure that this flooring was made by the hands of tourists. Since Nikolai did not believe that half-naked people can live so long as to equip such a structure.
But the most important thing was at the end of the letter. Kuzminov was sure that the contact with the so-called fireballs was the cause of the death of the group. Apparently Kuzminov was sure that these were missiles. The same tragedy almost happened to him. It is interesting that no one except Nikolai Ivanovich mentions this case. Somehow they observed such a ball. They were summoned from the tent by the orderly, who first noticed him in the night sky. After 5-6 minutes, people's minds became clouded, and they began to diverge in different directions. They were saved only by the fact that Kuzminov (at the command of the leader) began to shoot into the air with a pistol. After the emergency, the servicemen gave a radiogram with a request to organize their evacuation. They were told that this phenomenon was associated with tests (!) Of rocket fuel on hydrogen. The phenomenon is not dangerous if at this time you do not go outside the tent. The soldiers were promised,that there will be no more tests (for the duration of the search).
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It is impossible to find out the correctness of what Kuzminov wrote. In September 2001, he died of myocardial infarction. His widow knows nothing about this story. He didn't tell her.
As always, such important information was literally "buried" by the efforts of the so-called sect. "Academic" woodpeckers. If they misunderstand something, they don't tell anyone. Or, as in this case, the original information is removed as far as possible. The few speculations I did find on this topic struck me with their disinterest. The forum participants agreed that: the old man mixed everything up. Although, in 1999, Kuzminov was a little over 60 years old. He was still very far from real old age. But are such "trifles" noticed?
Now my conclusion. The information in the letter is very important. It is clear that full-scale tests of rocket engines were carried out at the crash site. Most likely with the help of S-75 air defense missile systems. One detail. The rocket launcher had: a two-stage SAM. The first stage (accelerator) is powder, the second stage is liquid. By the way, the moment of launch of such rockets is also in the photographs of the search work of the 1959 season. Hydrogen was used as fuel, as well as methyl alcohol as an important component of the fuel. Methyl alcohol allowed the fuel not to freeze in the cold, although it had a slightly lower detonation temperature than oxygen. I have already described where the test bench was in my recent article. On the slope of Mount Otorten. The detonation of a rocket at a low altitude caused panic among tourists. And the vapors of methyl alcohol caused intoxication and disorientation of the group. Besides,methanol causes hyperemia (overflow of blood in an organ) and edema of the optic nerve and retina, which as a result lead to their atrophy and blindness. So, all the talk that people could go blind has every chance of being true. It was about methanol that I wrote relatively recently. But then I did not consider the version that methanol could be in rocket fuel.
Unfortunately, I did not find any other details or details. So that this version will remain so for a very long time. Another thing surprised me. How could such venerable and experienced people not make ends meet on their own? After all, from Kuzminov's letter all this becomes obvious.
In the process of preparing this article, I used materials taken by me from various open sources.
Perhaps there is a rocket launch in this photo.
An S-75 missile hits an American Phantom.
S-75.
Fragment of a scanned letter from Kuzminov to the newspaper Uralsky Rabochy.