Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident (35 page)

Igor, Rustik and Zina have remained closest to the tent, but have become separated from one another. Igor settles into a tree-lined ravine where he suffers the final stages of hypothermia. Even if he had been carrying matches with him, the surrounding birches would have made poor firewood. He is cold and alone, without so much as the company of his friends, who are less than 200 yards away. He collapses next to a small birch, gripping its branches until his final breath. Rustik falls on some stones and fractures his skull. He loses consciousness, but ultimately succumbs to the cold. Zina also injures herself on a stone, breaking her nose. With blood running down her face, she attempts to crawl back up the slope in the direction of the tent, but she loses muscle strength, collapses, and dies of hypothermia.

By the time the waning crescent moon rises at 3:00
AM
, radiating blue behind the cloud cover, all nine hikers are motionless. They are frozen in various positions of surrender and intense struggle. In savage winter conditions, and over a vast stretch of ground, all nine fought for their own and one another’s lives with the bravery and endurance worthy of Grade III hikers. It was a distinction they would never earn, but one that each of them so rightly deserved.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

THE HIKERS

Yuri Doroshenko “Doroshenko”:
January 29, 1938–February 1–2, 1959 (21 years old). A student of radio engineering at UPI.

Lyudmila Dubinina “Lyuda”:
May 12, 1938–February 1–2, 1959 (20 years old). The youngest of the Dyatlov group, and one of two women. A student in the construction school at UPI, with an emphasis on economics.

Igor Dyatlov “Igor”:
January 13, 1936–February 1–2, 1959 (23 years old). The leader of the Dyatlov hiking group—a radio enthusiast, photographer and engineering student at UPI.

Alexander Kolevatov “Kolevatov”:
October 16, 1934–February 1–2, 1959 (24 years old). A student of nuclear physics at UPI.

Zinaida Kolmogorova “Zina”:
January 12, 1937–February 1–2, 1959 (22 years old). One of two women in the Dyatlov hiking group. A student of radio engineering at UPI.

Yuri Krivonishchenko “Georgy”:
February 7, 1935–February 1–2, 1959 (23 years old). A student of construction and hydraulics at UPI.

Rustem Slobodin “Rustik”:
January 11, 1936–February 1–2, 1959 (23 years old). Graduated from UPI with a mechanical engineering degree.

Nikolay Thibault-Brignoles “Kolya”:
June 5, 1935–February 1–2, 1959 (23 years old). Graduated from UPI with a civil construction degree.

Yuri Yudin “Yudin”:
July 19, 1937–April 27, 2013 (21 years old at time of the incident). The tenth member of the Dyatlov hiking group, who turned back in 1959 because of his chronic rheumatism.

Alexander Zolotaryov “Sasha”:
February 2, 1921–February 1–2, 1959 (37 or 38 years old). The oldest member of the Dyatlov group. A hiking instructor and a WWII veteran, he worked in a mining factory but was studying to be a military engineer when he joined the hiking group in 1959.

FRIENDS AND FAMILY OF THE HIKERS

Rufina Dyatlova
: Igor Dyatlov’s younger sister. Like her brother, she was a student in radio engineering at UPI. She was twenty-one at the time of the incident.

Slava Dyatlov:
Igor’s older brother. His love of hiking and the outdoors inspired Igor to follow his lead. Slava had since graduated from UPI with a degree in radio engineering by the time of the incident.

Tatiana Dyatlova
: Igor Dyatlov’s younger sister. She was twelve at the time of the incident. Graduated from UPI with a chemical engineering degree.

Stanislav Velikyavichus
: A Lithuanian freelance worker and former prisoner who escorted the Dyatlov group to the abandoned geological settlement. The hikers called him “Grandpa Slava.”

Yevgeny Venediktov “Boroda” (or “Beard”)
: A member of the Sector 41 woodcutter settlement.

THE 1959 INVESTIGATIVE AND SEARCH TEAMS

Georgy Atmanaki:
A search and rescue volunteer and a member of the hiking party (along with Shavkunov and Karelin) who witnessed the light orbs in February 1959.

Yuri Blinov
: A UPI student, hiking-club member and friend of the Dyatlov group. He was among the first to search for the hikers. Blinov’s own hiking group had shadowed Dyatlov’s for the first portion of their trip. He was among the last to see the group alive.

Vadim Brusnitsyn:
A search volunteer and UPI student who was part of Mikhail Sharavin and Boris Slobtsov’s larger search team. His testimony during the investigation helped establish Sharavin and Slobtsov’s discovery of the tent.

Lev Gordo
: The then-47-year-old director of the UPI sports club. Along with Yuri Blinov, Gordo was among the first to search for the hikers.

Lev Ivanov
: Criminal investigator at the Sverdlovsk regional prosecutor’s office. He replaced Vasily Tempalov as lead investigator on the Dyatlov case.

Vladislav Karelin:
A search volunteer and a member of the hiking party (along with Shavkunov and Atmanaki) who witnessed the light orbs in February 1959.

Abram Kikoin:
Brother of famous nuclear physicist Isaak Kikoin. He taught physics at UPI and headed the school’s mountaineering club; for that reason, he was assigned to head up a relief search team to look for the missing hikers.

Ivan Laptev:
Forensic expert who autopsied the Dyatlov hikers’ bodies.

Levashov
: Sverdlovsk’s chief municipal radiologist, who performed radiation tests on the hikers’ clothing and organs at Ivanov’s request.

Yevgeny Maslennikov:
One of the most experienced outdoorsmen in Sverdlovsk at the time of the hikers’ deaths. He had been an adviser to the Dyatlov group and was eventually asked to lead a search party.

Nikolay Moiseyev:
A police lieutenant who, with his trained dogs, was among those who found the hikers’ bodies.

Colonel George Ortyukov
: A lecturer of reserve-officer training at UPI. Heavily involved in the search efforts, he was the first to assemble a formal search party.

Mikhail Sharavin:
UPI student and search volunteer. Discovered the hikers’ tent with Boris Slobtsov.

Vladimir Shavkunov
: a member of the hiking party (along with Karelin and Atmanaki) who witnessed the light orbs in February 1959.

Boris Slobtsov:
A UPI student, search volunteer and a friend of the Dyatlov hikers. Slobtsov discovered the tent along with Mikhail Sharavin.

Vasily Tempalov
: The original prosecutor assigned to investigate the case. A junior counselor of justice at the Ivdel prosecutor’s office, he was quickly replaced by Lev Ivanov, who outranked him.

Aleksey Vozrozhdyonny:
Forensics expert. Conducted the autopsies of the Dyatlov group together with Ivan Laptev.

THE PRESENT - DAY TEAM

Vladimir Borzenkov:
A disaster expert, aviation engineer, investigator and leading authority on the Dyatlov case.

Donnie Eichar:
Filmmaker, author.

Olga Kuntsevich
: Yuri Kuntsevich’s wife, resident of Yekaterinburg.

Yuri Kuntsevich
: President of the Dyatlov Foundation, hiker and Young Pioneer instructor in Yekaterinburg.

Jason Thompson:
Author’s producing partner and friend, accompanied him on his first trip to Russia.

Dmitri Voroshchuk:
Geologist and translator who participated in the expedition to Dyatlov Pass with the author, Borzenkov and Kuntsevich.

THE HIKERS’ TIMELINE

January 23, 1959

The Dyatlov group boards a train in the city of Sverdlovsk and departs to Serov at 9:05
PM
.

January 24, 1959

The hikers arrive in the town of Serov at 7:39
AM
. They spend the afternoon entertaining children at School #41. In the evening the hikers depart on the train for Ivdel. They arrive in Ivdel around midnight.

January 25, 1959

The hikers board a 6:00
AM
bus to Vizhay. Arriving at around 2:00
PM
, they are given luxurious accommodations by the director of the free workers’ camp.

January 26, 1959

While waiting for their next means of transportation, the hikers seek advice from the town’s forester. The hikers then travel by truck to a remote woodcutting settlement in Sector 41 and arrive at 4:30
PM
. The hikers spend the night in the workers’ dormitory, singing songs and reciting poetry until early the next morning.

January 27, 1959

They wait until for 4:00
PM
for a man with a horse and cart to take them to another northern settlement, an abandoned geological site. The hikers travel late into the night up the frozen Lozva River on their way to the site.

January 28, 1959

After a difficult trek up the frozen Lovza River, the Dyatlov hikers arrive in good spirits at the abandoned geological site in the dark early morning hours. The hikers find an empty house and sleep until daylight. Later that day, Yuri Yudin says his final farewell to his friends and returns back home due to poor health. The rest of the group continues skiing north along the Lozva River.

January 29, 1959

The Dyatlov hikers trek further along the Lozva River and set up camp near the frozen Auspiya River.

January 30, 1959

The hikers continue along the Auspiya River and note in their journals the Mansi symbols on the trees. Deep snow begins to make skiing more difficult.

January 31, 1959

The hikers continue upstream on the Auspiya River and set up camp for the night.

February 1, 1959

In the first half of the day, the hikers construct a temporary storage shelter and leave some supplies inside to lighten their packs for the trip up Otorten Mountain. The group then skis all afternoon, arriving at what would become known as Dyatlov Pass at 3:00
PM
. The sun sets at 4:58
PM
. They set the tent on the eastern slope of Holatchal mountain at an altitude of 1,079 meters (3,540 feet).

THE INVESTIGATION TIMELINE

February 2, 1959

The tenth hiker, Yuri Yudin, returns home to Emelyashevka.

February 12, 1959

The Dyatlov hikers are expected to return to Vizhay. Yudin, who is still in Emelyashevka, forgets to relay the message to Sverdlovsk that the Dyatlov group will be three days late.

February 15, 1959

Relatives of the hikers are unaware of their expected delay and begin to worry when their loved ones fail to return to Sverdlovsk as planned by February 13.

February 16, 1959

Igor’s sister, Rufina, alerts school administrators that her brother and the rest of the hiking group have not returned home.

February 17, 1959

Between 6:00–7:00
AM
, various hikers, hunters and military personnel in the Ural region report seeing light orbs in the sky.

Bowing to pressure from friends and family of the hikers, university officials send an inquiring telegram to Vizhay, the city from which the Dyatlov group would be traveling.

February 18, 1959

A request for a search plane by the families of the Dyatlov hikers is refused by university administrators.

February 19, 1959

A telegram from Vizhay informs university administrators in Sverdlovsk that the Dyatlov group has not arrived.

Colonel Georgy Ortyukov at UPI begins assembling a formal search party to look for the missing hikers. Yuri Blinov, a UPI student whose group had traveled with Dyatlov’s on their first leg of the trip, is among the first to join.

February 20, 1959

A formal search for the nine missing hikers begins. Yuri Blinov and Lev Gordo, president of the sports club of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, fly by helicopter to Ivdel. From Ivdel they take a Yak-12 surveillance plane north to scan the Ural ridge for the missing hikers, but must turn back early due to bad weather.

Yuri Yudin returns to Sverdlovsk from his hometown of Emelyashevka and is informed that his friends have not yet returned.

The Ivdel prosecutor’s office orders a criminal investigation into the case of the missing hikers.

February 21, 1959

Vasily Tempalov, an Ivdel prosecutor, is assigned to head the investigation.

Blinov and Gordo fly to the Mansi village of Bahtiyarova to extract what information they can from the local tribe. They learn that a group of young hikers stopped for tea in the village earlier that month.

February 22, 1959

A search party under the leadership of UPI student Boris Slobtsov heads to Ivdel by plane.

February 23, 1959

The search parties arrive by helicopter on the eastern slope of Otorten Mountain, the hikers’ intended destination.

Two planes survey the mountain area to the east from Otorten Mountain and the Lozva River banks.

February 24, 1959

Boris Slobtsov’s search party surveys the Lozva valley and the Auspiya River. Mountaineering expert Yevgeny Maslennikov arrives from Sverdlosk to join the search. There is an escalation in the search efforts as UPI students, family members, local officials and volunteers from surrounding work camps target various routes to Otorten Mountain.

February 25, 1959

A search helicopter over the Auspiya River picks up ski tracks. Leaflets are dropped from the search plane that instruct Boris Slobtsov’s party to alter its route and follow the recently spotted tracks.