Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident (10 page)

7

2012

MY TRIP TO RUSSIA HAD NOT PROVIDED THE RESOLUTION
I had hoped. At least I had earned Yuri Kuntsevich’s trust, despite the language barrier. He had led me to Tatiana and, after that, had set up a meeting with Lyuda’s brother, Igor—a man of few words, as it turned out. I later found out that Igor passed away not long after I interviewed him. The circle of people who had known the hikers was becoming smaller all the time.

Before I left Russia, Kuntsevich had transferred the entire Dyatlov case file to my laptop—452 digital pages, entirely in Russian. The case records had been available for viewing only since the late 1980s, when Gorbachev’s glasnost called for increased transparency of government activities. It wasn’t until the late ’90s that partial copies of the case—having been illegally smuggled out of the Sverdlovsk Regional State Archives—revived interest in the Dyatlov tragedy. But this incomplete copy of the case file was largely used by writers to sensationalize the tragedy, much to the exasperation of the Yekaterinburg prosecutor’s office. Additional clandestine photocopies continued to circulate into the new millennium, but it wasn’t until 2009 that stealthy copiers, most likely students, pieced together a comprehensive reproduction of the case and distributed it among a select number of enthusiasts.

Besides the case file, Kuntsevich had also given me nearly five hundred photographs and negatives courtesy of Lev Ivanov’s
daughter, Alexandra. She had been just a toddler when her father was appointed lead investigator to the case, and in 2009 she donated her father’s long-forgotten photo archive to the Dyatlov Foundation. While still in Russia, Jason and I had rushed to get the negatives printed. Once we had the prints in hand, we were faced with images more upsetting than I had been prepared for—the most disturbing of which were photographs from the Ivdel morgue of the hikers’ still-frozen bodies awaiting autopsy.

Why should anyone in Russia trust me? Why, as Kuntsevich had asked me, did I care so much about nine hikers who had died in a foreign country five decades ago? I couldn’t answer these questions to anyone’s satisfaction, least of all my own.

For over a year, I pored over the translated case files and the hikers’ journals, and many hours of my own transcribed interviews, as well as sought any other information on the case that I could find. When I felt I had exhausted these sources, I booked another flight to Russia. If I couldn’t find Yuri Yudin, I could at the very least put myself in the place of Igor Dyatlov and his friends. I would embark on the hikers’ expedition, starting out from the Yekaterinburg train station and concluding on the remote slope in the northern Ural Mountains where they had died.

I communicated my plans to Kuntsevich via e-mail. He didn’t seem particularly surprised by my proposal, but then his e-mails were always matter-of-fact. He agreed not only to host a second visit, but also to accompany me on my trek and to arrange for guides to take us deep into the mountains. When I asked him yet again how I might track down Yuri Yudin, his response gave me slim hope:
I will try
. When I asked him what gear I should bring, he wasn’t any more specific than:
Bring warm clothes
. When I inquired where we would be staying on our hike, he wrote:
In a snow igloo
. Was he serious? Was I? His succinct responses and my inability to interpret them were starting to drive me slightly crazy. But what else could I do but trust him? I began my trip preparations.

When one lives in the Mediterranean climate of the Los Angeles basin, preparing for an excursion of subarctic temperatures takes some imagination. Whenever I was torn between two items—
Gore-Tex or Polartec?
—I had to remind myself that Igor Dyatlov and his friends hadn’t been afforded the luxury of such conundrums. Their idea of “windproofing” had been to add another sweater under their jackets. And if they needed weather-resistant footwear, the only option was to sew their own boot covers. Even so, I spent an obscene amount of time and money on purchasing warm items for the trip: a wool hat with earflaps; two pairs of Gore-Tex gloves; woolen socks; Gore-Tex oversocks; long underwear; a fleece-lined, seal-colored Patagonia midlayer jacket; a military-issued outer jacket; and, my proudest purchase, my “Arctic Pro” model boots, insulated with thermal foam and encased in rubber. I was so pleased with my new boots that when they arrived, I brought them to a send-off lunch with some friends, informing them how warm my feet would be in temperatures as low as –60 degrees Fahrenheit. I even urged my friends to take turns trying them on in the restaurant.

Before I left, I received a final e-mail from Kuntsevich containing a few details on my brief layover in Moscow. The e-mail would have been unsurprising had it not been for a sentence thrown in at the bottom:
Yuri Yudin sends his greetings
. I had temporarily given up on the hunt to track down the Dyatlov group’s only survivor, and I wasn’t sure how to respond to this cryptic bit of information. Had Kuntsevich really tracked down Yudin, or was Yudin simply sending a message from his place of hiding? Rather than try to resolve this over e-mail, I decided to save my questions for when I saw Kuntsevich in person.

Soon I was on another fifteen-hour flight headed east. I was alone this time, but there was something else that was different about this trip: At thirty-nine years old, I was now a father. My girlfriend, Julia, had given birth a year earlier—on February 1—to our beautiful son, Dashiel. For the rest of my life there would be this invisible
string tying me to my family, tugging at the first sign of danger, warning me not to leave my son minus a parent. All that protective gear in my suitcase was not so much to protect myself, as it was to protect someone far more vulnerable. Julia’s unswerving support, and her insistence that I make this second trip, had certainly helped settle my nerves, but an investigation into the Dyatlov case wasn’t the sort of endeavor that allayed one’s fears of unforeseen disaster.

Kuntsevich would again be waiting for me at the Yekaterinburg airport, but he was sending someone to meet me during my Moscow layover—a man named Vladimir Borzenkov. As was typical of our exchanges, Kuntsevich had told me little about Borzenkov, other than that the man would be acting as “my attorney.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, or why I would need an attorney. Before I left, Kuntsevich had provided me with a snapshot of Borzenkov: a middle-aged man in a white hat.

Once we landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, I made my way through security, laptop in tow. I was now traveling with several hundred pages of case files on my laptop, and in my ever-increasing paranoia, I had created aliases for my Dyatlov-case folders. “Dyatlov” was now “Dash,” my son’s nickname. I had even created a decoy folder on my desktop labeled “Russia Trip 2012,” complete with touristy excursions dug up on websites and my plans for visiting the famous Kungur Ice Caves, which I had no intention of seeing. Until I knew more about the case, I didn’t think it wise to go trumpeting to the Russian authorities my real reason for being in their country. I can’t be sure if my complex system of folder aliases was a stroke of genius or simply the result of having read too many John le Carré novels.

After some of the crowds around the baggage carousel had dispersed, I noticed a man, probably in his sixties, standing alone against one wall, gripping a briefcase in both hands. He had closely trimmed white hair and a mismatched suit—black pinstriped jacket paired with navy pants. He looked more like a writer or academic than an attorney.

I approached him hesitantly. “Excuse me, Vladimir Borzenkov?” He stepped forward. “Donnie?” We shook hands, and between my meager Russian and his halting English, we agreed to make our way to the nearest airport café. As we walked, I noticed a dark skeleton key bobbing from a cord around his neck. This detail might have puzzled me had I not already gathered from my last trip that (A) skeleton keys were still widely in use in Russia, and (B) Russians were fond of wearing keys and cell phones around their necks, where they were less likely to be lost or stolen.

We arrived at an empty café and sat down at a corner booth. Before I could drop my luggage and settle into my seat, Borzenkov had undone the lock on his high-security briefcase. Within seconds the table was covered in maps, hand-drawn diagrams, and what he told me were declassified government documents—all in Russian, of course. I adopted a pose of intense interest, poring over the pile even though I couldn’t understand a word of what I was looking at. I took out my laptop, but the lack of Wi-Fi in the airport prevented me from resorting to Google Translate. Borzenkov opened his own laptop, a bulky antique, and pecked out a string of words into what looked to be crude translation software. After five minutes of this, we’d gotten nowhere.

To ease the awkward silences, I offered to buy him a warm drink or a candy bar, but he shook his head and continued to barrel through the mountains of data. Despite my inability to understand 90 percent of what he was saying, and the fact I hadn’t slept in twenty-six hours, I had no doubt that he was giving me insights into the Dyatlov case. The man’s dedication to the incident was clear, and I was deeply grateful for his time.

After two hours of frustrating back-and-forth, I stopped trying to understand him and simply watched his expressions. I again tried to offer him something to eat or drink from the café, but he refused. I then produced an energy bar from my backpack, which
he accepted. He studied its gummy consistency like a scientist, opening the wrapper carefully and taking a hesitant bite before promptly placing it in his briefcase.

When it was time for me to catch my connecting flight to Yekaterinburg, we said our good-byes, and I thanked my “attorney” profusely in Russian. Though what I was thanking him for exactly, I wasn’t sure. As I headed to my gate with a final wave, I was fairly certain that I would never see Vladimir Borzenkov again.

I ARRIVED AT THE YEKATERINBURG AIRPORT JUST AFTER
3:00
AM
. Despite my crushing jet lag, I was delighted to see Yuri Kuntsevich’s smiling face. It was over a year since we’d last seen each other. No sooner had we exchanged hugs than he took the phone dangling from his neck and began to talk into it. He appeared to be in the middle of some heavy negotiation, though what he could be negotiating at three in the morning, I could only guess. Was he comparing notes with Borzenkov? I soon found out he was just trying to find our driver.

Outside, there was snow on the ground and a pervasive sense of early-morning calm. As I stood with Kuntsevich waiting for our car, I drew in deep lungfuls of icy air. It felt right to be back. When the car dropped us at Kuntsevich’s apartment, I was greeted by the familiar odor of fossil fuel. Inside the apartment, Olga was awake and preparing breakfast for us. Her face brightened when we entered, and after a warm hug, she was ready with an English greeting: “Good to see you again” and “You are like family.” She had clearly been practicing.

I swapped my shoes for rubber slippers, and within five minutes of our arrival the three of us were seated around the compact kitchen table. The space was so cozy that Olga didn’t have to get
up from her chair to serve the food from the counter or stove. She simply swiveled and grabbed what she needed. Russian political radio filled the air as we ate chicken wrapped in foil, with potatoes, cabbage and sour cream.

As we neared the end of the meal, Olga surprised me with yet more of her English vocabulary. I was touched by her efforts, and was starting to feel ashamed that I hadn’t learned more Russian. But I quickly forgot my guilt when I understood what she was trying to communicate in her earnest, overenunciated English. She and her husband, she said, had a guest staying downstairs in the spare apartment. He had arrived the previous day. The guest was Yuri Yudin.

8

2012

KUNTSEVICH AND I HEADED DOWN TO THE LOWER FLAT
, where Yuri Yudin was staying. I’d spent time in the unit on my first visit, and had come to think of it, in its role as the Dyatlov Foundation offices, as “ground zero” for the case. Now, as Kuntsevich unlocked the door, I saw the main room’s assemblage of evidence through the eyes of Yudin: the cracked bamboo ski poles, Zorki 35mm cameras, clothing, tent materials, drawers of case files, maps, as well as scores of photos from the 1959 rescue effort. I wondered how he felt about sleeping here, among the belongings of his fallen comrades.