Mountain of the Dead (Dyatlov Pass). Mountain of the Dead Sverdlovsk Region Mountain of the Dead who was where is

03/06/2018 11/19/2019 by [email protected]

Nothing on Earth passes without a trace ... N. Dobronravov

INTRODUCTION

January 23, 1959 a group of tourists in the amount of 10 people led by Igor Dyatlov went to the mountains of the Northern Urals. This trip was organized with the support of the tourism section of the Ural Polytechnic Institute and was dedicated to the XXI Congress of the CPSU. The group faced a difficult task. The total length of the distance that the expedition members had to overcome on skis was almost 350 km. The path of the group lay through the forests and mountains of the Northern Urals. The final part of the trip was to be climbing the Otorten and Oiko-Chakur mountains. The category of difficulty of the route is the third (highest).
At the initial stage of the campaign, one person fell ill and therefore left the group (Yuri Yudin). The tourists continued their journey as part of nine people: Igor Dyatlov, Yuri Doroshenko, Lyudmila Dubinina, Semyon (Alexander) Zolotarev, Alexander Kolevatov, Zinaida Kolmogorova, Georgy (Yuri) Krivonischenko, Rustem Slobodin, Nikolai Thibault-Brignolles.

At the scheduled time, the group did not appear at the declared end point of the route, but the organizers of the trip did not worry at first - delays in tourist groups on the routes are common. When all the deadlines for waiting for the arrival of the guys passed, it became clear that something had happened to them. A large-scale search was organized, during which the group was found, but all of its members were found dead.
The tragedy occurred on the snow-covered slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (Kholat-Syahyl). The last entry in the group's travel diary was made on 31 January. In a tent abandoned by tourists, a humorous wall newspaper called “Evening Otorten” was found, written by participants in the campaign and dated February 1st. After the first of February, no records were found. Therefore, it is believed that the tragedy occurred on the night from the first to the second of February.

Various versions of their death were put forward, but, to date, none of them gives an exhaustive answer to the main question - what, after all, actually happened there. But it is necessary to find the answer, and therefore research into the causes of the death of the Dyatlov group continues. Every year, detachments of enthusiasts leave for the area of ​​the tragedy, which is now officially called the Dyatlov Pass. Based on the results of their search work, new versions are put forward, old ones are supplemented and refined.

Trying to understand the series of events that became fatal for tourists, the author gradually formed his own vision of the development of the tragic situation on Mount Holatchakhl. This was facilitated by the study of the materials of the criminal case, the materials of the search and research works of Askinadzi, Buyanov, Ivlev, Koskin, Rakitin, Slobtsov and many other researchers, as well as the study of a large amount of materials presented on the Internet on sites and forums on this topic.
The storyline of the story, in general, does not claim to be new. The main aspect of the study of tragic events undertaken is the reconstruction of the most likely actions of the members of the group at key moments in the development of this human drama. In addition, the author tentatively determined the time of the occurrence of two catastrophic events that ultimately killed the entire group of tourists.

The afterword presents the results of an analysis of some mysterious facts related to the campaign and members of the Dyatlov group, and also briefly considers the inconsistency of some versions of the death of the group for other reasons.
The author foresaw the possibility of interest in this topic from a wide range of readers, including those who do not have any information about the tragedy of the Dyatlov group, and therefore he tried to tell about the dramatic events that took place in a way that was understandable to anyone.

TWO DAYS BEFORE THE DISASTER

On January 31, at about 4 p.m. Ural time, the Dyatlov group reached the foot of the small mountain Holatchakhl, to the top of which it was planned to climb. By the time they reached the approaches to the mountain, the members of the group were certainly tired. In addition, in two hours, in the conditions of this area, twilight was expected. Yes, and the mountain met tourists unfriendly - a blizzard. There was no question of taking the summit on the move. The group was forced to retreat under the protection of the forest adjacent to the mountain. There was a camp for rest and overnight stay. Before going to bed, the guys developed a plan for subsequent actions, which would provide them with a significant saving of physical strength and time to storm Mount Kholatchakhl. According to this plan, the members of the group were to:
- during the first of February:
a) build a storehouse in which the main part of the group’s camping equipment, unnecessary for climbing, should have been left (discovered by search engines);
b) after the construction of the storehouse, rest;
c) after resting before dusk, make an exit from the forest and climb the mountainside as high as possible, then stop there for the night.
- during the second of February:
a) in the morning, after spending the night on the slope, climb to the top of Mount Holatchakhl;
b) after conquering the summit, return to the storehouse before dark.

A FEW HOURS BEFORE THE DISASTER

Having built a storehouse and having a rest, the group left the base camp and headed to Mount Kholatchakhl. The movement of the group along its slope is captured in photographs.

The pictures clearly show that the blizzard on the side of the mountain continued to rule its ball. Because of this, the tourists did not move very far up the slope. Pretty tired, we decided to settle down for the night. The tent was set up on a slope in difficult weather conditions. This is confirmed by the latest photographs taken by the participants of the campaign (their cameras were found, the films were developed). Later, experts from these photographs determined the time when the site for the tent was formed - about 17 hours (Ural time).

Daylight was waning very quickly, and the guys had to hurry in order to have time to put up a tent before dark. Due to strong snow whirlwinds, due to the fatigue of people, due to the haste, the site for the tent turned out to be undercut under the snowy slope. None of the group members noticed this. In order to protect the old tent from gusts of wind that could tear its patched-patched fabric, the guys had to go a little deeper relative to the upper edge of the snow massif of the slope. In the tent set in such a position, the Dyatlov group settled for the night.
The tourists had a camping stove for heating the tent, but it was not installed in the last overnight stay. Maybe the guys were tired and did not want to bother with installing the stove. Perhaps Dyatlov was afraid that the heat from the heated tent could adversely affect the snowy slope located close to it. In any case, Dyatlov decided to spend the night cold, with which everyone agreed. Such cold overnight stays were practiced by the Dyatlov group (they are mentioned in the travel diary of the tourist detachment).
The guys were tired and cold, but they were in a good mood. This is indicated by a camp wall newspaper written by them with humor called “Evening Otorten. No. 1". The search engines found it - it was fixed on the inner side wall of the tent.
Members of the tourist group had dinner in the time interval from 20:00 to 22:00 (the time is tentatively determined by the results of the pathoanatomical examination of the children's corpses). After dinner, they went to bed. The wake-up time of the group was appointed by Dyatlov early, most likely at 6-00 (the group was already behind schedule, and the weather conditions and short daylight hours did not allow to cool down).

THE SITUATION IN THE TENT ON THE EVE OF THE FIRST DISASTER

Early morning on the second of February. The tent duty officer was going to cook breakfast (the search engines found in the tent: a knife, a piece of loin, a piece of its skin - obviously, the duty officer could not resist and tried it).
The guys were already waking up: someone else was lying and dozing, catching the last minutes of sleep, someone began to get dressed half asleep. Zolotarev and Thibaut-Brignoles managed to almost fully dress and prepare for the ascent - this can be judged by the equipment of their corpses, which were later found, including the presence of a camera on the remains of Zolotarev.
At the time of the disaster, the entire group was inside the tent.

WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT WAS CAUSED.

At night, the blizzard was replaced by a heavy snowfall, and in the morning the first tragic event occurred - a partial collapse of the snowy slope near the tent. It was due to the following reasons:
- when forming a platform for a tent, cracks formed in the undercut part of the snow massif of the slope;
- from the fallen snow, the load on the snow mass, at the edge of which the tent was located, began to increase;
- this load caused spontaneous growth of cracks already existing in it in all directions in the snow massif;
- the undercut part of the snow massif of the slope could not withstand the load, broke along the cracks and collapsed.

The collapse was localized. The main part of the snow mass fell next to the tent, close to it, slightly propping up its side canvas. The falling snow almost did not hit the upper part of the tent (slopes). Thanks to this, people were not injured with loss of movement, no one was crushed to death.
The tent from the piled snow was deformed, but resisted, did not develop completely. The material of the tent, basically, withstood. Only in one place, on the side of the collapse, it was slightly torn. Through this gap, snow began to pour into the tent, and Dyatlov plugged it with the first jacket that came to hand, thereby preventing further snow from entering (this jacket was found by search engines in the tent and belonged to Dyatlov).

THE TIME OF THE FIRST TRAGEDY

The approximate time when the snow mass collapsed in the tent area allows us to determine the Dyatlov watch, which was later found on the hand of his corpse. They stopped at 5:31.
The reason for stopping his watch is damage to its mechanism. Damage to the watch mechanism could occur: either when Dyatlov, in order to prevent snow from entering through a slight damage to the tent canvas, tried to plug the gust with his jacket; or in the process of inflicting indiscriminate blows on the canvas of the tent in order to tear it and get out; or it happened during or after Dyatlov left the tent - from a blow, for example, to a stretch, a ski pole, or from a blow to something while helping his comrades.
But the clock of Thibault-Brignolles and Slobodin worked after the first disaster. Their clocks will stop later for another reason.

SITUATION IN THE TENT AT THE TIME OF COLLAPSE

When something unexpectedly fell on the tent, there was a turmoil with elements of panic. The members of the waking group could not understand anything. The tent is dark. Dyatlov gave the command to leave the tent. But it was not possible to do this through its “entrance”: the tent was skewed from the fallen snow, its canvas sagged; in the limited space because of this, the people inside the tent only interfered with each other. Then the command was given - to exit the tent, cut or tear its canvas; who can and what can. Someone tried to cut the sagging canvas of the tent horizontally, someone struck the canvas in the vertical direction. Dyatlov may have used the flatness of his slippers as a chopping tool and struck with them. When he managed to leave the tent, he threw away these slippers not far from it, as unnecessary (these slippers were later found by the search engines).
Examination of the tent established: the group exited from it through vertical cuts-ruptures in the canvas of the tent, made on the side opposite to the collapse; cuts-ruptures of the canvas of the tent were made by people inside it. A photograph of the torn tent and a diagram of its damage are present in the criminal case.

All members of the group left the tent, as indicated by the discovery of the bodies of the dead guys outside it. The people who left the tent were able to move on their own; their actions were conscious. This is confirmed by subsequent finds by search engines.
We can make an unambiguous conclusion - during the collapse of the snow mass on the tent, none of the guys received fatal or serious injuries.

AFTER LEAVING THE TENT

Subsequently, during an external examination of the found corpses of tourists, it was established: the guys got out of the tent, for the most part, without warm jackets, pants and hats, without shoes and mittens; each participant in the campaign was dressed in what he managed to put on just before the start of the disaster.
The guys who left the tent, of course, were in a state of passion. As a result of stress, adrenaline released into the blood temporarily blocked the body's reaction to weather conditions. They had not yet felt the wind blowing from the top of the slope. The sub-zero ambient temperature at the first moment of the tragedy also did not bother much yet. But all members of the Dyatlov group will feel the fatal power of cold very soon.

After leaving the tent, the guys assessed the situation correctly: the tent was seriously damaged and significantly deformed, especially in the place where the warm clothes were located. Trying to get them out of there immediately - the members of the group considered it a dangerous business. Will their attempts to get to warm things cause a new snowfall and, as a result of this, the death of people or their serious injuries? The only thing they managed to pull out was a light cloak like a plaid. The cape was almost half sticking out of the cut tent, so it was not dangerous to get it (this cape was later discovered by the search engines).

The excited state of the group members began to pass, it was replaced by a feeling of terrible cold, and each tourist of the group understood that further stay near the tent in such a practically defenseless form threatens them all with inevitable death from hypothermia.

The group made a decision - to move away from the tent in the direction of a high cedar, visible below the slope. This cedar still exists, and the distance from it to the location of the tent of the Dyatlov detachment was then 1500 meters. At the cedar, the guys planned to make a fire and warm themselves; From there, it was possible to quite safely control the development of the situation in the tent area, then, based on the observations, take adequate rescue actions.

DEPARTURE FROM THE TENT

The Dyatlov group began to move away from the tent down the slope, focusing on a high cedar. In the predawn twilight, the position of the cedar was discernible. For the time being, a weak wind from the top of the ill-fated slope blew the guys in the back, thereby facilitating their movement over rough terrain, and a small snowstorm raised by this wind did not prevent them from following the chosen direction. Subsequently, the search engines found on the surface of the slope traces of people walking towards the cedar. The tracks were located on the ground almost parallel, close enough to each other, and were left by a retreating group of people, numbering nine people.

Based on this, the following conclusions can be drawn:
- the guys went to the cedar with a frontal chain; perhaps they held each other's hands so that no one would get lost during the retreat, and if necessary, it would be possible to provide timely assistance to a weakened comrade;
- when retreating from the tent to the cedar, the members of the Dyatlov group did not support anyone, did not carry anyone, that is, all the guys were able to move independently. Otherwise, the traces of retreating people would sometimes have the character of “staggering from side to side”, as if they were carrying or supporting the injured member of the group, there would be traces of people falling, inevitable in such cases on snowy and rough terrain. But the search engines did not find such traces.
To mark the position of the tent on the slope to make it easier to observe it from the side of the cedar, Dyatlov put a lit flashlight on its upper part (the search engines later found it there, of course, extinct). However, someone had another flashlight, which will illuminate the path when the group departs. The retreat from the tent began and passed largely uneventfully; but the group still had to throw the second flashlight at the third ridge (the search engines found it there) - it went out, most likely, the battery failed in it. But the cedar was no longer far away. In general, we got there.

The obvious solution - you need a fire. Who has matches? Everyone starts looking for them, unbuttoning their pockets on their clothes. The matches were found, but the guys, perhaps, tried to fasten the pockets of their clothes back, but could not. And in order to better understand that situation, try in the cold, and even with the wind, with frozen or already partially frostbitten fingers, fasten a pocket or other part of the clothing with a button, while it shakes from the cold so that the tooth does not hit the tooth. Well, did it work? The guys didn't make it. Here is the answer to the question “Why were the pockets and elements of the clothes of the dead unbuttoned, and who did it?”, Which arose from the search engines when they discovered and examined the corpses of the guys.
The fire was kindled (search engines discovered its location). Judging by the size of the extinct fire, it was at first large enough to provide heat for a tourist group.

It was found that cedar branches were used for the fire. Traces of their breaks on the trunk of a cedar were found by search engines at a height of up to 5 meters.

Along with cedar branches, bushes and small trees growing near the cedar were also used as firewood.

Breaking off branches on a cedar did not do without the guys getting various injuries and gusts of their clothes. The icy branches and trunks of bushes and small trees collected for the fire lashed the faces of the children, inflicted wounds on the skin of their bare hands, and tore their clothes. And the snow cover of the area, both when moving from the tent to the cedar, and when collecting firewood near it, injured his legs.
This explains the presence of a large number of various injuries on the corpses of the guys - scratches, abrasions, bruises, minor wounds, as well as the deplorable state of the clothes of the dead.
The weather was getting worse. The temperature began to drop, the wind increased significantly, a blizzard began. Because of the blizzard, there was a decrease in visibility, and it became impossible to control the situation in the tent area. Due to the fatigue of the guys, the supply of firewood to the fire became irregular, so the fire became unstable, and the heat from it was no longer enough to warm the entire group of people. Everyone felt that they were starting to freeze. An experienced tourist Dyatlov noticed the first signs of depression in several members of the group.
The worsened weather conditions and the apathetic state of some of the guys forced Dyatlov to decide to split the group into two squads:
- the first group - two people. They stay by the fire. Their tasks are to maintain the fire, observe the tent and the events around it, and wait for the arrival of comrades from the second detachment. The guys who were the most hardy and physically strong were supposed to enter the first detachment. Its composition was formed from Doroshenko and Krivonischenko. As an additional protection from the cold, they left a cape like a plaid (the same one that they managed to pull out of the tent);
- the second detachment, in the amount of seven people, should go in search of a place where it will be possible to make a cave-type shelter in the snow (this is a well-known way of escaping from bad weather in winter camping conditions). The second detachment was supposed to include guys dressed tolerably enough to be able to work in the snow. The detachment included: Dyatlov, Kolmogorova, Thibaut-Brignoles, Zolotarev, Dubinina, Slobodin and Kolevatov.

FIRST SQUAD

Krivonischenko and Doroshenko carry out the tasks assigned to them by Dyatlov. The guys are doing everything to ensure the life of the fire, and therefore to save their lives. Doroshenko, inflating the fading fire, even scorched the hair on his head (found on his corpse). We need firewood all the time. They decided among themselves: while one follows the fire and warms himself, the other goes for firewood; who brought firewood, replaces his comrade at the fire, - it is his turn to go for wood fuel.
Exhausted Krivonischenko and Doroshenko could no longer produce cedar branches. Therefore, branches of shrubs and small trees growing in the undergrowth closest to the cedar were used as firewood for the fire. Anything that could burn and give heat was good. But in order to get to the fuel, the guys each time had to move further and further into the forest, overcoming fairly deep snow. In one of these trips for firewood, Doroshenko lost strength and fell. I couldn't get up or call for help. Tentacles of cold seized Doroshenko with a stranglehold. Trying to somehow protect himself from their deadly embrace, he tried to group himself, pressing his hands to his chest. This did not help much, Doroshenko felt that the cold was slowly but surely overcoming.
At this time, Krivonischenko was at the fire. He used firewood sparingly to support it, but their supply was inexorably decreasing. In this regard, he became concerned, and more and more often the question began to arise in his thoughts - “Where is Doroshenko? It is high time for him to return with firewood.” Gradually, the feeling of concern grew into a premonition of something unkind. It forced Krivonischenko to go looking for his comrade, and he found him in the forest, lying on his back. There was no time to figure out what happened (the fire was left unattended), and the place was not suitable for this. Grabbing Doroshenko by the legs, Krivonischenko, backing away, dragged his comrade to the fire. Moving in this way, poorly oriented in space, he stepped on a fire (this is where the burn marks on Krivonischenko's left foot came from). He didn't even feel it, because his frostbitten legs no longer felt anything. Leaving Doroshenko at the fire and throwing the last stocks of firewood into the fading fire, Krivonishnko was forced to immediately go for their replenishment.
Extremely tired, frozen to the marrow of his bones, Yura Krivonischenko returns to the cedar with firewood. He called out to a comrade who was lying motionless - there was no answer (the thought that his comrade was already dead did not even arise in Yura). Then Krivonischenko's gaze stops at the fire - uncontrolled by anyone, it almost went out.

Clearly realizing that all hope for salvation from the cold was only on the fire, Yura rushed to him. All the firewood brought, in a desperate attempt to save the fire, was sacrificed to him. And a weak flame pounced on them and gradually spread over them in numerous fiery streams. The buzzing and hissing flame of a flaring fire, accompanied by a cheerful crackle of firewood, has a calming effect on Krivonishenka. Enchanted by the reflections of the fire, captivated by its warmth, freezing Yura, unconsciously, sits down by the fire. Almost immediately, sleep began to take over his mind.
But finally the fire did not let him fall asleep. The unbearable heat of its flame brought Krivonischenko back to reality. Moving away from the fire, he saw with horror that the raging, devouring, merciless fire crept close to the feet of the motionless Doroshenko (because of this, his socks and legs were charred). And quite obviously, Krivonischenko made an attempt to drag his comrade away from the fire to a safe distance. Dragging him, Krivonischenko fell with a collapse on his side. During this fall, he involuntarily turned Doroshenko's body into a position on his stomach. In this position, Doroshenko's body was found by search engines.
Subsequently, after the pathoanatomical examination of the corpse of Doroshenko, questions arose that baffled many researchers and caused them bewilderment: “After all, it is known that cadaveric spots on the body of a deceased person can reliably determine in what position a person died. Cadaverous spots on Doroshenko's neck and back clearly indicated that he had died lying on his back. However, the corpse of Doroshenko was found lying on his stomach, respectively, the cadaveric spots were in the upper position. Who and why turned the dead tourist after his death from his back to his stomach? And where could Doroshenko die?
The answer is obvious. The coup of Doroshenko's body did not take place without the help of Yura Krivonischenko under circumstances now known to the reader. And Doroshenko really died on his back. And it happened either in the forest, where Doroshenko went for firewood and where he, exhausted, fell on his back and froze; or he died at the fire, to which he was dragged from the forest by Krivonischenko (the latter then left for firewood).

No matter where Doroshenko's death occurred, Krivonischenko found out about his death only after he dragged his comrade from the blazing fire and examined him. Sitting near the deceased, Yura was quite clearly aware that if one of the guys from the second detachment does not come in the near future, then this is the end. Because the fire will very soon begin to fade away, and there is no more firewood (he threw all the firewood he brought into the fire to reanimate it); again to go for firewood into the forest - he no longer has enough strength for this. Yura Krivonischenko could only wait for either the arrival of the guys, or the arrival of death. Who would be the first in this waiting race, he did not know. In the meantime, the cold very soon completely paralyzed Krivonischenko's will, then he fell into a state of deep apathy.
Inevitably freezing, Yura rolled over onto his back uncontrollably. In his fading consciousness, the last faint messages to the struggle for life arose, but he could no longer rise; I barely had enough strength to somehow cover myself and my comrade lying next to me with a cape, which became their last protection from the cold - for the living and the dead, and then with a common funeral shroud for them. At the completely freezing Krivonischenko, his left leg, in agony, stretches out and falls into the fading embers of the fire: the underpants in the lower part of the leg smolder, and the part of the lower leg under them in this place gets burned (found by search engines when examining the corpse). Soon Yura Krivonischenko freezes.
They were found just like that - lying nearby, covered with a cape. Krivonischenko froze, lying on his back, his right arm was bent at the elbow and thrown up, almost under his head, like that of a peacefully sleeping person. Doroshenko's body was found in the prone position, his hands were pressed to the body in the chest area.

SECOND SQUAD

The second detachment decided on the place where the shelter will be located. It was found seventy meters from the cedar, on the snow-covered slope of the ravine, but this place was not visible from the side of the cedar. The guys selflessly dig a cave, make a flooring inside it from trees collected in the nearest undergrowth. Lay things at the corners of the flooring to fix it.
The search engines found traces of dragging small trees and leaves and needles falling from their branches. According to these traces, the searchers found the location of the cave. During the excavation of the cave, the searchers found the flooring and things fixing it.

Later, not far from where the cave was, they found eerie human remains. They were located in a stream flowing along the bottom of a ravine and belonged to Dubinina, Thibaut-Brignolle, Zolotarev and Kolevatov. The condition of the dead children's bodies was terrible.

But this will be discovered later, but for now we will continue our story and return to the then still living guys working on the slope of the ravine.
The work on the construction of the shelter was close to completion, and therefore, leaving Zolotarev, Dubinin, Kolevatov and Thibaut-Brignolles to finish the cave, Dyatlov, together with Kolmogorova and Slobodin, went to the cedar for Krivonischenko and Doroshenko.

AGAIN AT CEDAR

At the cedar, a sad picture appeared before the eyes of the children: the fire went out, frozen Krivonischenko and Doroshenko lay under the cape. The situation on the slope in the area of ​​the tent did not cause concern, it gave hope for the possibility of returning to the tent for clothes, food, tools (all this was in the tent and was found there by the search engines).

The current circumstances forced Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova to make a tough decision: to remove outerwear from the dead guys for additional protection from the cold of the surviving members of the group. However, in order to remove the already frozen clothing from the frozen bodies, they had to cut it.
Before leaving, Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova said goodbye to their dead comrades, asked their forgiveness and, covering the undressed corpses of the guys with a cape, headed back to the cave.
On the way back, someone dropped a piece of cut clothing, which was then found by the search engines. This find helped them to take the right direction to search for the location of the cave shelter.

Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova returned to the cave and told their comrades the tragic news of the death of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko. When distributing clothes, it turned out that Doronina and Kolevatov needed additional insulation more than others. Therefore, they were given almost all the fragments of the cut clothes of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko.
Then the guys discussed the current situation. The members of the group made a decision: to complete the arrangement of the cave shelter, to rest, warm up and go to the tent. Take warm clothes, food, tools, skis and ski poles in it. After that, return to the cave again to rest, gain strength, and then get out to the people, to the "mainland".

NEW TRAGEDY. HER REASONS

No doubt each was busy with a business that ensured their overall survival. There were four people in the shelter: Zolotarev, Kolevatov, Dubinina, Thibaut-Brignolles. They completed the interior of the cave. Dyatlov, Kolmogorova, Slobodin - outside the cave. They went for firewood, then to make a fire in the shelter. Quite by accident, this trio of guys was above the arch of the cave. And then the cave collapsed.
Most likely, when digging the cave, its upper part was weakened. Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova became the load that the vault could not withstand and from which it collapsed.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE CAVE COLLAPSE

Zolotaryov, Kolevatov, Dubinin, Thibeaux-Brignolles, who were in the cave, were blown away by the collapsed snow mass to a stream flowing in a ravine next to the dug cave, about 4–5 meters from the flooring (determined by the search engines). Naturally, the guys fell hard. On the rocky bottom of the Thibault-Brignoles stream, he receives a severe head injury (local depressed fracture of the skull). Zolotarev and Dubinina receive multiple fractures of the ribs of the chest. Kolevatov on the bottom of the stream is not injured; but he turned out to be pressed against the body of Zolotarev by a mass of snow so hard that he simply suffocated (this was later found out during the post-mortem examination).
The examination also showed that after the collapse, all four guys were still alive for some time. However, very soon, they died under the rubble from cold, injuries and pressure from the snow mass.

The flooring, possibly as a result of its small thickness, and even fixed with things in the corners, remained in place. Or maybe the sliding vector of the collapsed snow mass, randomly, developed in such a way that the flooring remained unaffected by the landslide snow flow.
Dyatlov, Kolmogorova, Slobodin, being at the top of the snowy slope, collapsed along with the collapsed vault. They also filled up, but relatively shallow. They survived and were able to get out. As a result of the collapse, abrasions and bruises formed under the clothes on the bodies of the guys, which were found during the pathoanatomical examination. It was during the collapse of the arch of the cave as a result of the fall that Slobodin received a skull injury (crack), compatible with life.
Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova, who with difficulty got out of the snow blockade, were physically unable to look for the rest of the overwhelmed members of the group. And where to look for comrades in this snowy mass? There are no sounds like a human groan, no calls for help. Only a continuous, eerie howl of the wind is heard, reminiscent of the howl of a wolf starving in winter.

THE TIME OF THE SECOND TRAGEDY

Judging by the first watch found on the hand of the corpse of Thibault-Brignolles, the time of the collapse is 8 hours and 14 minutes. They stopped at the collapse of the snowy vault of the cave, at the moment the clock hit the rocky bottom of the ravine stream. His second watch stopped at 8:39 a.m. as a result of the pressure of the collapsed snow mass.
Slobodin, under a snow blockage, due to a crack in his skull, groaned loudly in pain, perhaps even screamed. Focusing on the sounds he made, they dug it up and pulled out Dyatlov and Kolmogorov. In the meantime, the guys were digging to Slobodin, his watch, under the pressure of the collapsed snow mass, also stopped, but at 8 hours 45 minutes.

LAST SOLUTION

The surviving guys made a decision - until they froze, we must quickly get to the tent. But first they went to the cedar. At the cedar, it was planned to take a short rest before the last throw to the tent, and also to assess the situation on the slope; if you have enough strength - kindle a fire. Slobodin had matches for lighting a fire. The search engines found in the pocket of the jacket of the corpse of Slobodin a matchbox with unused matches in the amount of 48 pieces.
Based on the fact that Slobodin's clock stopped at 8 hours 45 minutes, adding the time for his release from the rubble and for overcoming a distance of 70-75 meters from the site of the collapse of the cave to the cedar, it turns out that Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova were at the cedar for about 10 hours of the morning. For local conditions, it was already quite light at this time, and the location of the tent was visible. The guys did not manage to kindle a fire: firstly, there was no firewood near the extinct fire; secondly, they no longer had the strength or time to collect firewood for the fire. Therefore, the two guys and the girl had only one way out - after a little rest, move towards the tent.
A strong, gusty wind blew across the open slope. The weakened guys could no longer go against such a headwind; they decided to crawl towards the tent. The guys planned to get to it according to the following scheme. The crawling movement begins with the whole group. Dyatlov crawls first, followed by Slobodin, who closes Kolmogorov. Dyatlov, tired, lets Slobodin and Kolmogorova go forward, takes a break and catches up. Slobodin should do the same when he gets tired: let Kolmogorov and Dyatlov go ahead, and then, after resting, catch up with his comrades. Then it was the turn of a short rest for Kolmogorova: Dyatlov was crawling forward, followed by Slobodin, who had caught up with him after rest. Before the start of the movement, they agreed among themselves - a conditional signal for "overtaking" a tired wave of his left hand.

FORWARD TO THE TENT

The group started moving. The last round of the fight for life has begun.
After 300 meters, Dyatlov rolls over onto his back, waves his left hand, signaling Slobodin "to overtake." Having given a signal, Dyatlov's left hand, descending, caught on a branch of a tree or bush, she remained in this position (clearly visible in the photograph taken by the search engines).

Having let his comrades go ahead, Dyatlov is resting; his consciousness gradually sinks into sleep - as a result, he freezes. Slobodin and Kolmogorova crawl forward, they do not know that Dyatlov will never catch up with them.
After "overtaking" Dyatlov, after 150 meters, Slobodin's forces abruptly surrender. He is on the verge of losing consciousness (due to a crack in the skull, obtained during the collapse of the cave). He still managed to signal Kolmogorova "to overtake" - the position of his left hand is visible in the photograph. And then Slobodin freezes.

Kolmogorova, having overtaken Slobodin, crawls further towards the tent. Her arms are bent and located under the body, like a soldier crawling in a plastunsky way - thereby reducing the resistance to movement, reducing the cost of physical energy. However, after 300 meters, the forces leave the girl. The arms bent at the elbows are stiff from the cold and do not unbend (this is clearly seen in the photograph taken in the morgue, where the girl's corpse was placed for thawing).

Therefore, she failed to give the agreed signal to “overtake”. Kolmogorova in this situation had only one thing to do - to wait for the guys to catch up with her, and she had no doubt that Dyatlov and Slobodin were crawling after her. And she waited for the approach of her comrades until she froze. Her expectations were in vain. Zina Kolmogorova never found out that there was no one to advance to the tent after her.
The search engines found the frozen bodies of Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova. Their corpses were located in the listed sequence, practically on the same straight line of movement from the cedar to the tent.
And at this last distance to life, they have overcome half of the way. From the place of death of Kolmogorova to the tent remained 750 meters.

CONCLUSION

According to this scenario, the Dyatlov group could die. The conclusion of the investigating authorities on the fact of the death of the Dyatlov group is correct: death from the irresistible force of the elements, although it requires a significant addition. Taking into account the addition, the author formulates the cause of the death of the Dyatlov group in the following way: death from the irresistible force of the elements, due to two random tragic events that deprived the tourists of their means of life support.
From the beginning of the tragedy (the collapse of the snow mass of the slope on the tent at 5 hours 31 minutes) and until its end (the death of Kolmogorova), no more than five hours passed. Without warm clothing and food, without stable sources of heat and reliable shelter, the Dyatlov group was doomed. Only a miracle could save her, but the miracle did not happen.
And here there is no place for versions of the death of the Dyatlov group from a UFO, Bigfoot or other animals; from special forces, criminals, Mansi hunters, foreign saboteurs; there was no controlled delivery under the cover of the state security agencies; the tragedy that occurred is not the result of testing the latest, top-secret Soviet weapons.

AFTERWORD

OR COMMENTS TO SOME FACTS AND VERSIONS OF THE DEATH OF THE DYATLOV GROUP

About traces of radiation.

The general radiation background of the area in the area of ​​the tragedy, as it was in 1959, and now, remains within the natural natural level. Researchers-specialists found that the bodies of the dead members of the group and their clothes did not have traces of exposure to external radioactive radiation. However, fragments of clothing were found, on which places with a local distribution of particles of a radioactive substance, which is a source of "beta" radiation, were identified. These fragments of clothing were found on the corpses of Dubinina and Kolevatov.
It was established that the discovered fragments used to be parts of clothing belonging to Yuri Krivonischenko, and he worked at the secret enterprise of the Mayak Production Association, Chelyabinsk Region. It is quite possible that the appearance of places of radioactive "contamination" on Krivonischenko's clothes was associated with his production activities.

The origin of radioactive sites on clothing fragments.

Probably, Krivonischenko was involved in the instrumental support of laboratory and field nuclear research conducted by the Mayak Production Association. Most likely, he worked at installations for checking beta-radiation sources on solid substrates, beta-radiometers and other dosimetric and radiometric instruments.
It is possible that he traveled as part of research expeditions to the places of the “radioactive trace” formed after the accident at the Mayak Production Association in 1957. For carrying out research work in the field, the verification equipment was placed in a special vehicle (mobile laboratory).
And then one day, during such an expedition, shortly before Krivonischenko left for a mountain hike in the winter of 1959, due to his violation of safety precautions during verification work, a substance emitting "beta" particles (for example, an isotope of calcium - 45).
It is possible that during the verification work, Krivonischenko dropped the end Geiger counter of the MST - 17 brand. The calcium isotope - 45 was used in the design of the device and it was placed in a special capsule. Upon impact from the fall of the counter, the capsule and the body of the device were damaged. When examining the fallen device, the substance spilled out and got on the clothes. This or a substance similar to it could get on clothes in another way: it fell off a solid substrate of a source of "beta" radiation.
In such situations, it was required, according to the instructions, the immediate implementation of the appropriate decontamination of clothing. And without a doubt, this would have been accompanied by a very meticulous clarification of the circumstances of the "pollution", both by the expedition leadership and by the state security agencies. Knowing the severity of these bodies, the special status of the secrecy of the research being carried out, and, perhaps, feeling his direct guilt for the violation of safety regulations when working with radioactive materials, Krivonischenko was very frightened.
Out of fear of being severely punished, a young guy (23 years old) decided to hide the incident that happened to him, especially since there were no other employees in the laboratory at the time of the incident. And after returning from the expedition to the MAYAK PA, Krivonischenko, all the more, could no longer tell anyone anything about what had happened. He understood: for untimely reporting and concealing the fact of “pollution”, his guilt is even more aggravated and, accordingly, the severity of the punishment increases.

"Contaminated" clothes stored at the workplace in a personal special closet did not give him peace of mind. The constant fear of exposure did not leave Krivonischenko: what if, during his absence for the period of already permitted participation in the camping trip, some planned or unscheduled inspections of workplaces and clothing of employees admitted to especially secret research will be carried out by the relevant regulatory bodies of the enterprise. And then, for sure, the fact of “contamination” of overalls will be revealed, and for him, Krivonischenko, the concealment of this fact will end very, very badly. He decided to insure himself in this case.
At home, Krivonischenko had an accidental, decommissioned, but still in good condition overalls, identical to the one in which he was currently working. He decided to replace the "contaminated" overalls with his old overalls. I knew from my own experience that the security at the entrance of the enterprise did not attach much importance or did not pay any attention to who was wearing what when going to work or leaving it after the shift. The main thing for security is that the photo on the pass must match the face of the owner of the pass. And the conceived plan for the replacement of overalls was successfully implemented. After that, Krivonischenko went to Sverdlovsk in the clothes taken out, where the Dyatlov group was formed at the Ural Polytechnic Institute. Krivonischenko, as a specialist, reasonably believed that during the campaign, as a result of the natural decay of a radioactive substance, the “beta” radiation emitted by it should disappear. After the end of the trip, Krivonischenko was going to return the worn overalls, already without radioactive contamination, to the workplace. On that he calmed down.
There has always been a lot of tension in the tourism section at the Ural Polytechnic Institute with the equipment of the participants of any tourist groups. Each participant of the campaign, basically, took care of his own hiking equipment. Therefore, the clothes taken out from the enterprise, quite even suitable for a winter trip to the mountains, came in handy. In it, he went to storm Otorten. Subsequently, radioactive fragments of Krivonischenko's clothes were found on the corpses of Dubinina and Kolevatov.
It was these fragments of clothing that contributed to the emergence of a version about the supply of radiation data to foreign special services from the MAYAK software under the control of state security agencies. Authors and adherents of this version usually call it briefly - "controlled delivery".

Version "controlled delivery"

According to this version, it is assumed that Krivonischenko was the direct executor of the delivery operation, and the operation itself took place under the control of state security agencies. His organs were preliminarily subjected to planned radioactive contamination for transfer to enemy agents. After transferring the "contaminated" clothes to the spies, they would be under the "cap" of our counterintelligence.
Only now the American spies did not need such bulky radioactive things (pants, jacket): drag them from the mountains, from the center of Russia to your homeland, and even across the border. Surely the US intelligence services understood that the transfer of saboteurs for radioactive things into the mountains of the Northern Urals, especially in winter, had a great risk of failure due to the complexity of its organization and conduct, due to the large number of unpredictable accidents. That is why, instead of a primitive campaign of spies in the mountains, US intelligence planned in 1959 and carried out on May 1, 1960, the flight of the U-2 spy plane to the area where the MAYAK facilities were located. The missiles of the air defense forces of the Soviet Union, as was officially announced by the leadership of the country of the Soviets, the plane was shot down near Sverdlovsk.
If we assume that the Soviet security agencies would nevertheless decide on such a “controlled delivery” and involve Krivonischenko in it, then it would be more logical and easier to “contaminate” with radiation not clothes, but, for example, a handkerchief or a piece of cloth, and then transfer this contaminated material under control to foreign emissaries. And it would be much easier and more imperceptible for others in Sverdlovsk, for example, at the station, to convey it. And then, in the same place, track down and, if necessary, destroy enemy agents.
By the way, Krivonischenko could also transfer his radioactive clothes to foreign agents in Sverdlovsk, and not go to the mountains for this. And the mountains are not the place to catch spies.

Further, the state security leadership would not risk involving young tourists from the Dyatlov group in a special operation without appropriate training. Because of the inexperience of the guys, there would be a high probability of the failure of the operation, and the consequences of the failure for the leaders of the operation are easily predictable - an enemy of the people, an accomplice of American intelligence, a German-English spy, a Turkish terrorist; in the end - a shooting article.
Now about Zolotarev. He is the oldest in the Dyatlov group, besides, he was a front-line soldier, he had military awards. At the front, as some researchers suggest, Zolotarev could be associated with representatives of the NKVD, being their informant about the mood in the ranks of the Red Army and their commanders.
During the war, such fighters-informers were probably in various active units of the Red Army. But after the end of the war, the need for them decreased quantitatively due to the reduction in the size of the armed forces. Most of these informant fighters were demobilized, and the NKVD was not interested in their further fate - these people completely lacked promising intelligence skills, including Zolotarev. Otherwise, for Zolotarev, as a budding agent, the possibility of continuing his military career would not be closed: even if the two military schools where he studied were abolished, the security authorities would have found for him the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and even the tenth military school. But that did not happen.

So, after the war, Zolotarev was not in the field of view of the state security agencies, he was not their “canned” agent. He could not be involved in the "controlled delivery" operation due to unpreparedness and due to the specificity of the special operation being carried out (the informant's skills were clearly not enough here).
And there was no “controlled delivery” itself, because there was nothing to deliver. There were no traces of uranium or plutonium isotopes, the main components of nuclear charges of that time, on Krivonischenko's clothes; clothes could not provide information about the technologies for their production or information about the technologies for processing radioactive waste; It was impossible to get an idea of ​​the production capacity and industrial potential of the Mayak Production Association by clothing. It was this information that, in the first place, was of interest to foreign intelligence centers.
Some information about the activities of the Mayak Production Association, which is of interest to foreign intelligence services, could have been obtained by America and the West even before the campaign of the Dyatlov group and in a completely different way. For example, Colonel O.V. Penkovsky served and worked in the Main Intelligence Directorate, a high-ranking, well-informed official recruited by British and American intelligence services, who worked for them for a long time. He was exposed and arrested in 1962. By the nature of his official activity, being the deputy head of a department in the Department of Foreign Relations of the State Committee for Research Works, Penkovsky, of course, owned state secrets that he sold. Along with Penkovsky, there could be other traitors.
Therefore, the imperialists, in part, were aware of the activities of the Mayak Production Association and had some idea of ​​the research being carried out there. In this regard, the supply of “contaminated” clothes of Krivonischenko in order to misinform enemy intelligence would not have been successful. And to “contaminate” clothes, just for the sake of catching foreign scouts in the mountains, is absurd. The Soviet secret services had a large and rich arsenal of more effective methods and means of dealing with spies than Krivonischenko's pants and jacket.

Travel Dyatlov or on a trip as a business trip.

There is information about Igor Dyatlov receiving travel money for the trip, although any hiking trips of that time were carried out on "naked" enthusiasm. The question arises - "By whom, for what purpose was the travel money issued?"
The campaign was timed to the next congress of the CPSU. The group even planned to report to the first leaders of the party and the country almost from the top of Otorten. The party organization of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, in order not to stay away from such an important event dedicated to the native and beloved Communist Party, offered the institute leadership to support the youth initiative and provide financial assistance to the Dyatlov group, having issued it under the guise of travel expenses in the name of the group leader. The party committee did not even hint at the allocation of money from the party fund to support the event.
But the leadership of the Ural Polytechnic Institute had its own plans for the upcoming trip of tourists, not related to strengthening the prestige of the Communist Party, but called upon to solve scientific problems in the interests of the country. Perhaps, the military department of the Soviet state, during the period of the nuclear confrontation that had already begun, urgently demanded that the Ural scientists urgently provide updated information on the topography of the Ural Mountains (for use in strategic military purposes). In order to fulfill this requirement as soon as possible, the leadership of the institute decided to use the campaign of the Dyatlov group to obtain some preliminary data that lay the foundation for further thorough topographic research in the area.
In the campaign, Dyatlov had to complete the assigned work along the way. It is possible that in order to somehow interest Dyatlov, the work was linked to the topic of his diploma or to his subsequent work at the institute (the latter was offered to him). And although, due to the tragedy, it was not possible to do the planned work in that campaign, the institute nevertheless fulfilled the order of the Motherland.
According to the newly obtained data, the height of Mount Holatchakhl was 1096 meters, but in 1959 its height was considered to be 1076 meters. On the snow-covered slope of this mountain, in a littered tourist tent, a tripod for a camera was found in the group's belongings. The thing is quite large and weighty, you can’t call it a necessary accessory on a hike. But if Dyatlov planned to take a snapshot of the area on the route of the group, then the presence of a tripod becomes completely understandable. You can't do without it. This means that Dyatlov's accompanying work was precisely in the performance of such photography, and for its material support, the institute's management allocated him money, with which he bought a tripod and a camera for it.
Dyatlov instructed Zolotarev to take photographs, as the most experienced tourist. On the corpse of Zolotarev in the stream, a camera was found that did not belong to him, and which became Zolotarev's mysterious second camera for search engines and researchers of the tragedy.

However, there is no mystery here. This is the same camera for a tripod, bought by Dyatlov, like the tripod itself, with institute money.

Zolotarev's second camera.

A former military man, a front-line soldier, on whom the head of the group assigned responsibility for performing photographic work, of course, he never used this second camera in his field life. This is mentioned in the personal travel diaries of some members of the group. To photograph the scenes of camp life as a keepsake, Zolotarev used his personal camera (the search engines found this first, Zolotarev's personal camera and a cassette with camping pictures in a tent). Since the Dyatlovs had appointed a specific time for the start of the ascent to the top of Kholatchakhl, and therefore the implementation of the planned photographs there, the second camera on that tragic morning was on Zolotarev - no doubt, it was securely and conveniently fixed in the right place so as not to interfere with the assault on the mountain.
But suddenly tragedy struck. Despite this - and this did not happen in the war - the former front-line soldier Zolotarev hoped that everything would work out, the summit would be conquered and important pictures would be taken. Therefore, the camera did not leave; he remained on Zolotarev until the end of his life. After the discovery of the corpse of Zolotarev in the creek of the ravine, the camera was removed from his remains and sent for technical examination. Most likely, the seizure and sending for examination of the camera, along with radioactive fragments of clothing from the corpses of Dubinina and Kolevatov, were formalized in secret acts. For this reason, there are no such acts of seizure in the criminal case.
According to the results of the examination, the camera was recognized as uninformative investigative material, since it was not used at all throughout the entire campaign; there were no photographs. In addition, it is possible that by the time the corpses were discovered in the stream, “beta” - radiation from clothing fragments on the remains of Kolevatov’s body could illuminate the film in the camera: after all, the corpses of Zolotarev and Kolevatov were located very close to each other, literally one on top of the other (this clearly visible in the photo).

And if the first personal camera of Zolotarev, found in a littered tent, after the completion of the investigation was handed over to his relatives, then the second camera, given the secrecy of the examination, was simply destroyed with the preparation of the corresponding act. However, in the criminal case there is no act on the destruction of the camera, and there are no acts on the destruction of radioactive fragments of clothing either. But somewhere these secret acts of destruction should be now, unless they were also destroyed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

The secret of Zolotarev's tattoos.

Tattoo "Gene".
In those distant pre-war and post-war years, a man often tattooed either his own name or the name of his beloved girl or woman. Zolotarev had a tattoo named after Gene. However, at birth they called him Semyon, and when he met Dyatlov and the guys of the tourist group, for some reason he called himself Alexander. Then who is Gena? The question is certainly interesting.

Tattoo "G + S".
For most men, a tattoo from the initial letter of the name of the beloved girl or woman + the initial letter of their name (or, conversely, the sequence is not essential) thus immortalized their mutual love and fidelity to the relationship between them. Then, based on the “Gene” tattoo, the “G + S” tattoo can be deciphered as Gena + Semyon. Maybe Zolotarev had special feelings for a person who definitely did not have the female name Gena?

Tattoo "G + S + P \u003d D"
It can be deciphered as Gena + Semyon + some other “P” (Pavel, Peter, Prokhor? ..) = FRIENDSHIP. Apparently, it perpetuated the commonality of their interests, the peculiarity and originality of their relationship, the so-called FRIENDSHIP.

Tattoo "DAERMMUAZUAYA"
Similar in meaning to the tattoos "G+S", "G+S+P=D". Perhaps the mysterious tattoo is a sequence of the initial letters of the names of people to whom Zolotarev had a special, personal affection at different periods of his life. Obviously, the tattoo was not formed immediately, but sequentially over time, like a memory of meetings. In this case, one of the options for deciphering the DAERMMUAZUAYA tattoo is quite possible in the following form: “Dmitry, Andrei, Evgeny, Roman, Mikhail, Mikael, Umar, Alexander, Zakhar, Ulyan, Alexei, Yakov.” But there may be other names.
Considering the foregoing, it can be assumed that the presented transcripts of Zolotarev's tattoos recreate before us his image as a person with a non-standard attitude towards a certain half of the human race. Perhaps, somewhere, under some circumstances, rumors about the non-standard behavior of Zolotarev became known to some of the people around him. This, of course, should have somehow affected the fate of Zolotarev.

The fate of Zolotarev from Minsk to Otorten. The clue to his middle name.

Minsk. Zolotarev is studying in one of his pedagogical universities. First practice. Brilliant performance after its completion.
Second practice. Some scandal. The characterization of the trainee Zolotarev is very restrained, almost at the level of an unsatisfactory grade. After the second practice, Zolotarev becomes isolated, loses interest in the future profession of a physical education teacher.
Maybe during the second practice, Zolotarev showed signs of non-standard behavior in relation to someone, and this caused a scandal. Society rejected such behavior and punished people for it. However, there was, of course, no clear evidence. Therefore, the leadership of the organization where Zolotarev underwent his second practice, taking care of his reputation, the incident was “hushed up”. However, nevertheless, the leadership of the higher educational institution where Zolotarev studied was “whispered” about him.
Perhaps that is why, after graduating from the university, Zolotarev did not receive the mandatory assignment at that time to work in an educational institution. Having a higher education, Zolotarev leaves first for the Krasnodar Territory, then for the Caucasus and gets a job there as a simple tourism instructor. In the mid-fifties, he left for Altai and worked there for almost two years, in the same capacity, at the Artybash camp site.
Why did Zolotarev leave the warm, fertile region almost to the other end of the country, 3,500 km away, to the harsh climate of Altai? Most likely, in the Caucasus, at the place of work, there were vague, hard-to-proven rumors about Zolotarev's inappropriate behavior during some Caucasian hikes. Rumors reached employees and management at the place of work. Zolotarev was given to understand - it is desirable to quit and leave.
Zolotarev went to Altai, got a job at the Artybash camp site. However, tourists and climbers are a special, restless people (“better mountains can only be mountains that have not yet been” - V. Vysotsky). Someone, just one of these fidgets, who "walked around" earlier in the Caucasus, now ended up in Altai. I found out, by chance, that Semyon Zolotarev, who came from the Caucasus, works as an instructor at the Artybash camp site. This fidget, most likely, had heard a lot about his Caucasian faults. And they went to "walk" around the camp sites of Altai retelling, talk, gossip. They also reached the leadership of the tourist center "Artybash". Zolotarev, for obvious reasons, was forced to leave.

Semyon settled in the Ural Mountains, and it was there that the "transformation" of Semyon Zolotarev into Alexander Zolotarev took place. He met the new year, 1959, at the Kourovskaya camp site, at the place of his work. Perhaps, purely by chance, or perhaps traditionally, several tourists from the Ural Polytechnic Institute gathered at this camp site to celebrate the New Year. Igor Dyatlov was also there. Of course, we met, however, Zolotarev introduced himself to Dyatlov under the name Alexander. Certainly we talked. Zolotarev liked this young man, and, it seems, very much. Almost immediately after the New Year holiday, Zolotarev left the Kourovskaya camp site, arrived in Sverdlovsk and achieved admission to the Dyatlov group, going to conquer Otorten.
And what about Dyatlov? From communication at the Kaurovsky camp site, I understood: Zolotarev is not a beginner, he has extensive experience in hiking of various categories of difficulty. In addition, the initial size of the group decreased: 12 people were supposed to go, 9 remained. “The tenth will go,” perhaps Igor decided so. And Zolotarev was in the group. Getting acquainted with the members of the Dyatlov group, Zolotarev also called himself Alexander.
Why did Zolotarev hide his real name from both Dyatlov and other members of the tourist group? Because he reasoned like this: if, suddenly, some rumors about Semyon Zolotarev reach the Urals, then Zolotarev, who called himself Alexander, can always tell his comrades on the campaign - these rumors refer to his namesake.

Georgy Krivonischenko, aka Yura Krivonischenko.

Another riddle of the double name? No. Krivonischenko did not hide his name given to him at birth. Not in front of his fellow students at the institute, or in front of the participants in the campaign against Otorten, and even more so, in front of the team, working at the secret enterprise of the Mayak Production Association.
Everyone knew that his real name was George. Perhaps he stopped liking the name given by his parents during the period of maturity. George is somehow pompous for his youthful years. And just Zhora - it sounded, as it seemed to him, childish, and even frivolous for a growing young man. Therefore, he asked close friends and comrades to call him Yura.
The history of mankind knows many examples of changing names while maintaining a surname. Russian composer Georgy Sviridov - his real name is Yuri Sviridov, American writer Jack London - in fact it is John London, Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov - Viktor Khlebnikov, modern writer, publicist Zakhar Prilepin - his real name is Evgeny Prilepin. There are enough examples.
Each of these people had their own, purely personal reason to change the name, as, indeed, did Krivonischenko too.

Kolevatov's notebook.

During the campaign, a general travel diary of the group was kept, which was found in a tent after the tragedy. In the diary there is a mention of Kolevatov's notebook. About this there are entries in the personal diaries of some members of the group. Kolevatov never parted with his notebook and wrote down something in it every day. Nobody knew about the contents of the records.
What entries did the notebook contain? The authors of the “controlled delivery” version consider Kolevatov to be Krivonischenko’s assistant, and in his notebook Kolevatov made secret notes related to the ongoing special operation. But there is no evidence for this.
Was this notebook ever found? Some researchers refer to a photograph where, as they think, its vague outlines are guessed. In the photograph, Colonel Ortyukov, who is part of the search group, is indeed holding something in his right hand while extracting the remains of Kolevatov from the stream.

But what exactly he holds is completely unclear. In the materials of the criminal case on the fact of the death of the Dyatlov group, there is no mention of the discovery of Kolevatov's notebook.
If we assume that Kolevatov’s notebook was nevertheless found, then, most likely, like the radioactive fragments of clothing and Zolotarev’s second camera, it was seized for examination with the execution of secret seizure certificates. It can be assumed, with a very high degree of certainty, that there were no secret entries in the notebook. Most likely, the notes were related to one of the girls of the campaign; Kolevatov could have feelings for her. These feelings, of course, he hid from everyone and confided them only to paper. In this case, for the investigation, the contents of the notebook were of no interest. After the completion of the examination and the closure of the case on the fact of the death of the Dyatlov group, the notebook, together with radioactive fragments of clothing and Zolotarev's second camera, was destroyed with the preparation of the corresponding secret acts of destruction.

Version of the impact of the infrasonic wave.

It has been established and proven that exposure to a sound wave in the frequency range from 6 Hz to 9 Hz can lead a person into a state of panic, clouding of reason, up to suicide, or death from cardiac arrest. Signs of a person's death from exposure to infrasound of this frequency range are externally manifested in the form of the appearance and fixation of convulsive grimaces on the face of the deceased, called in the scientific world "mask of fear" or "mask of death". Such a deadly wave of sound can be generated at sea, in deserts, in mountains.
There is no posthumous “mask of fear” on the faces of the dead tourists. There was no panic in the behavior of the group, the actions of the group members were of a conscious nature throughout the entire time period of the tragedy. This is indicated by traces of an organized retreat from the tent to the cedar, traces of a fire and the collection of firewood for it, the division of the tourist group into two detachments, the construction of a cave, as well as the location of the corpses of Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova, which unequivocally suggests an attempt by the guys to get to the tent .
Infrasound is not the cause of the death of the Dyatlov group.

UFO version.

Extraterrestrial aliens had no reason to destroy a group of tourists. For them, it would be preferable to take all the guys aboard their intergalactic apparatus and, in order to study human beings, fly away to where they come from.
Like highly developed civilizations from other galaxies, aliens certainly have high technology. For them, it was not difficult, firstly, to detect earthlings (Dyatlov's group) in a timely manner on the slope of Mount Holatchakhl, where the aliens themselves, perhaps, wanted to explore something. Secondly, so that people do not interfere, erase their memory and teleport all members of the group to a place where they would soon be found, although they did not remember anything, but alive.
It should be noted that during the investigation into the circumstances of the death of the Dyatlov group, information was received about the appearance of mysterious fireballs in the sky of the Northern Urals, and even eyewitnesses who observed them were identified. It is established that the flights of these fireballs were observed on February 17 and 25, 1959. It is quite obvious that these celestial phenomena have nothing to do with the death of tourists that occurred on the night of February 1 to February 2. On that fateful night, no fireballs were observed in the entire foreseeable space of the Ural Mountains.
UFOs were not involved in the death of the Dyatlov group.

version of the attack.

Some researchers of the tragedy suggest that the Dyatlov group died as a result of an unexpected attack on them during the night stop. The following are considered for the role of the attackers: animals (bear, rassomahi and even Bigfoot), Mansi hunters (due to religious beliefs, this place is sacred for the Mansi people, there should not be strangers here) and, finally, a group of prisoners who escaped from the penitentiary labor camp (there were a sufficient number of such camps in the Urals at that time).
The search engines found that there are no traces of the presence of prisoners who fled from the camp or traces of animals, and there are also no traces of Mansi hunters' skis (without them, a hunter will not go to the taiga in winter). The tent was damaged but not looted.

If the beast attacked, then everything that was in the tent and she herself would be randomly scattered, torn apart. A hungry beast would thoroughly take care of it. And for sure, a piece of loin found in the tent by searchers would not have survived. It is quite obvious that this piece of loin would be of great nutritional value for no less hungry runaway prisoners. By the way, the dog of the searchers, who discovered a piece of loin, was subsequently rewarded with it and quickly found an appropriate use for it (this was told by the searchers themselves). In addition, a tool, knives, a flashlight, warm clothes, alcohol, skis and ski poles were found in the tent. Money and documents of the dead guys were found. For runaway prisoners, and for the Mansi hunter too, this is the Klondike, Eldorado. But nothing is touched.
Because there were no escaped prisoners at all, and this is confirmed by researchers who studied the lists of reports on escapes from camps in that region in the period before the campaign and during the campaign of the Dyatlov group; and the Mansi people living in those places did not experience hostility towards anyone. People they are timid, quiet; Soviet power and its laws were very respected, because they were very afraid of them. And, as it turned out later, there was no sacred place for the Mansi where the Dyatlov group died; in fact, it is located in a completely different area, far removed from the site of the tragedy.
Versions of the attack on tourists are not consistent for one simple reason - at the site of the tragedy, the search engines found traces and things that belonged only to members of the Dyatlov group.

Version of the cleansing operation.

The version is based on the fact that the members of the Dyatlov group became unwitting witnesses to the secret tests of military equipment and, in this regard, were destroyed during the cleansing operation.
Various authors of this version suggest that the tourists witnessed the fleeting flight of either a new secret aircraft, or a rocket in distress (the authors themselves do not really know what was flying there). They believe that the state security authorities are making a decision to physically destroy the members of the Dyatlov group, as unwanted witnesses to the tests in this area. It’s just not clear: when, how and from whom the USSR state security organs received information that tourists really saw something forbidden at night; who reported the exact coordinates of the last location of the Dyatlov group.
According to the cleansing version, a specialized group of military men was sent to the place of their overnight stay on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl in order to eliminate the tourist group. And how many traces from the members of the special forces group should have remained while they were chasing the guys of the tourist group at night, over snowy and rough terrain: from the tent to the cedar, from the cedar to the ravine and back. And where are these tracks? They are not there, just as there are no traces indicating where the specialized military group came from and where it went after the special operation.
This does not bother the authors of the purge version. They refer to one single photo taken by the search engines, where it allegedly shows a vague outline of a single incomplete trace from the heel of army shoes next to the footprint of one of the members of the Dyatlov group. However, the picture does not give an unambiguous understanding. But a plausible explanation for the appearance of a bizarre fragment can be given.

By the time it was discovered and photographed, the fragment had acquired a shape resembling the heel of a commando's shoe as a result of banal wind erosion. In addition, photography was carried out by a search engine from an arbitrarily chosen angle, and, quite possibly, in the picture, due to the “play” of reflected light and shadow, the captured fragment was even more distorted. The rest was done by the imagination of the authors of the purge version. But most importantly, the photographer who was filming the footprints at that moment did not arouse any associations and suspicions. And in general, if there were traces of army shoes there, then there would be much more of them, and they would not have remained unnoticed by the search engines. Accordingly, there would be clear photographs.
Some researchers of the mopping-up version suggest that they got rid of the guys by shooting them with top-secret, special bullets that leave no traces of defeat. Other researchers suggest that secret poison gases were used to destroy these guys. There are other fantasies too. To substantiate each of the proposed methods of killing members of the Dyatlov group, the most important thing is missing - factual confirmation, irrefutable material evidence.

To justify the presence of a punitive detachment that dealt with members of the Dyatlov group, some authors of the cleansing version cite the following arguments: the presence of bruises, bruises, abrasions on the bodies of the dead are traces of beatings, and burns on the legs of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko are traces of their torture by bonfire fire. But why, for what purpose, to beat and torture the guys, when it’s easier, “without bazaars”, in strict accordance with the task clearly set for the punishers, to immediately destroy them.
Torture, beatings, bullying are used to obtain some information. But it is quite obvious that, in and of themselves, observations of the flight of even a secret aircraft or a missile collapsing in flight, and, finally, even a UFO do not carry any significant information. These visual observations cannot reveal any technical secrets or secret characteristics of the observed object.
Search engines and subsequent researchers of the causes of the death of tourists did not find any traces of a man-made disaster dating back to January - February 1959 in this area. No debris from a crashed rocket, no traces of the components of its rocket fuel on the soil, no broken or fallen trees and shrubs from the shock wave allegedly initiated by a flying secret supersonic plane and hit tourists at the same time (there is such a version of the death of the group).
In the found hiking diary, there are no records of extraordinary events and phenomena along the entire route of the tourist group. It was established that on that fateful night the tourists were in a tent, sleeping. Even if we assume that the guys were awakened in the middle of the night by the light phenomena and sounds that accompanied the flight of the aircraft, it would take them some time to finally wake up and gain mental clarity, then at least put on something out of their clothes and get out from the tent. By this time, the events associated with the fleeting flight of an unknown object would have ended long ago, and before the eyes of tourists there would be only an empty, dark, cloudy sky, and snow falling from it.
From the foregoing, it follows that there was no mopping up operation due to the lack of a motive.

About traces of blood on the faces of some of the dead.

On the faces of Kolmogorova, Dyatlov, Slobodin, the search engines found frozen traces of bleeding around the mouth and nose. To the chagrin of the authors of the “cleansing” version, these traces of bleeding are not the result of beatings of the guys by the perpetrators of the punitive operation. Their appearance on the faces of two guys and one girl became possible due to the severe physical overstrain of the body of the guys struggling with the elements in the conditions of the strongest stressful situations and difficult weather conditions.
Dyatlov, Slobodin and Kolmogorova crawled to the tent at the limits of their last physical capabilities. They bit their lips so as not to lose consciousness and not let their comrades down. They crawled, damaging their faces on a fairly hard surface layer of snow. We crawled, periodically raising our heads so as not to miss the agreed signal to overtake, to make sure that the direction to the tent was maintained. They crawled to survive. And the burning wind, as if protecting the torn tent, threw charges of snow dust at the brave tourists, which blinded the guys, stung their faces with thousands of snow needles. Injured and frostbitten capillaries of the circulatory system of the face, unable to withstand the cold and physical exertion, burst. The blood oozing from the lips and nose, already extremely chilled in the bodies of the freezing guys, froze on their faces almost instantly.

About the color of the skin of the dead.

Some search engines really noted the unusual color of the skin of the face and hands of the dead. Subsequently, various versions of the explanation of this phenomenon appeared, for example, vaporous or droplet-like, dispersed fuel components of a flying and crashing ballistic missile getting on the skin; the use of poisonous substances against the Dyatlov group during the cleansing operation; the impact on the corpses of microorganisms and protozoan algae living on the slope where the tragedy occurred.
An examination of the corpses showed that no traces of alcohol were found in their bodies. Residual traces of exposure to any substances used in the manufacture of rocket fuel or poisonous gases were not found on the skin of the bodies of the dead, on their clothes, as well as on the territory of the unfolding tragedy.
Anyone who has been frostbitten in winter knows that frostbitten skin of areas of the face, such as the tip of the nose, areas of the cheeks of the face, earlobes or areas of the auricles, darken over time. Depending on the duration of exposure to cold air, the magnitude of its temperature, frostbitten areas of the skin can subsequently acquire a wide range of colors: from a slightly pronounced brown tint to dark brown, and even black inclusive. And it must be assumed that the guys from the Dyatlov group received very severe frostbite. This explains the intravital change in the color of the skin of their face and hands.
And after the death of tourists, the uneven distribution and different contrast of color shades of the skin of the face and hands is the result of the decomposition of organic tissue, which proceeds at different speeds. The rate of tissue decomposition depends on the ambient temperature, skin type, and the state of its surface. On the faces and hands of the victims there were abrasions, scratches, minor wounds received during their lifetime in the fight against the elements. The process of decomposition in places of damaged skin is faster than in undamaged skin.
After the discovery of the dead, their corpses were sent for post-mortem examination. The corpses were placed in the premises of the village hospital for thawing to a state suitable for forensic examination; the process of decomposition of cadaveric tissue accelerated. After the completion of the examination, when sending the bodies to the place of their burial, the conditions for storing and transporting corpses could not be observed - and who will comply with these conditions, who needs it. It is not surprising that after such an attitude towards the dead, some of those present at the funeral in the city of Sverdlovsk also noted the unusual color of the skin on the face and hands of the deceased children.
There is nothing strange and mysterious in the change in the color of the skin of the dead.

On the forensic medical examination of corpses.

The results of the examination were approved by the higher supervisory authorities, there were no complaints about the actions of the pathologists and the results they received. This means that the qualifications of pathologists did not raise doubts and corresponded to the current procedural norms and requirements of that time.
But some modern researchers of this tragedy arose dissatisfaction with the results of the examination; there were even accusations of professional unsuitability of the experts who conducted the pathoanatomical examination. Such researchers began to involve modern medical specialists and forensic experts in the analysis of the materials of the criminal case on the fact of the death of the Dyatlov group.
These involved specialists, no doubt professionals in their field of activity, tried to analyze the results of the pathoanatomical examination on the yellowed sheets of that criminal case. However, their conclusions, unfortunately, do not clarify the reasons for the death of the members of the Dyatlov group, and sometimes even more fog the circumstances of this difficult case.

As it was in reality, perhaps no one will ever know. Much has been lost in time. The first search engines, the first researchers of that tragedy, are gradually dying out. Time blurs the memory of the details of those events among the surviving first participants in the search and research work. But the most important and most important thing remains - the memory of the Dyatlov group, attempts to get to the bottom of the truth. The older generation of researchers of the tragedy of the Dyatlov group is being replaced by a new, young replenishment. And maybe these new young researchers full of energy will still establish the true cause of the death of the group. And God help them in this righteous cause.

In the north of the Urals, where the border of Komi and the Sverdlovsk region passes, inexplicable tragedies occur quite often. On the slopes of the peak "1079" or Mount KholatSyakhil (which in Mansi means "Mountain of the Dead"), under very mysterious circumstances, people have repeatedly died. According to legend, in ancient times, 9 Mansi were killed on this mountain.

The first tragedy occurred on February 1, 1959. On that sunny winter day, 10 Sverdlovsk tourists gathered to climb the mountain led by Igor Dyatlov. All are students, but experienced tourists - everyone has more than one hike in the Subpolar Urals behind them. One of them, Yuri Yudin, had a pain in his legs, and he returned to the village. See where the group started from. Then 9 people went: Igor Dyatlov, Zina Kolmogorova, Rustem Slobodin, Yuri Doroshenko, Yuri Krivonischenko, Nikolay Thibault-Brignolles, Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Zolotarev, Alexander Kolevatov. Before dark, they did not have time to ascend and spread the parking lot right on the slope. According to all tourist and mountaineering rules, they set up a tent, first putting skis on the snow. Ate, went to bed. In the criminal case, the conclusion was preserved that neither the setting up of the tent, nor the gently sloping 15-18-degree slope itself posed a threat. (According to some other estimates, the Dyatlovites set up a tent in a potentially dangerous place. See The mystery of the death of the Dyatlov group).

According to the location of the shadows in the last photograph, the experts concluded that by 6 pm the tent was already up. At night, something inexplicable happened - the whole group died under mysterious circumstances.

The lost Dyatlovites were searched for more than two weeks. Only in mid-February, the first two bodies were discovered from the air by pilot Gennady Patrushev, and he called a rescue group to the scene of the tragedy. Gennady Patrushev knew the guys well while still alive - they met in a hotel in the village of Vizhay, where the pilots lived, the Dyatlovites stopped there before climbing. According to Patrushev’s widow, Valeria: “Gennady was very interested in local legends and therefore dissuaded them - go to other mountains, but don’t touch these peaks, they are translated from the Mansi language like “Don’t go there” and “Mountain of 9 dead”! But the guys were not 9, but 10, they were all experienced tourists, they walked a lot in the Subpolar Urals, they did not believe in mysticism. And their leader Igor Dyatlov - such a strong-willed person - Gennady even called him "stubborn", no matter how much he persuaded him, he did not change that route ... "

Rescuers arrived at the scene, stumbled upon terrible finds. Two of the dead were lying at the entrance to the tent, another in the tent, cut open from the inside.

Probably, the tourists, having cut the tent with knives, rushed down the slope in panic horror. Who was in what - barefoot, in one felt boot, half-dressed. The chains of footprints went in a strange zigzag, converged and diverged again, as if people wanted to run away, but some kind of force again drove them together. No one approached the tent, there were no signs of a struggle or the presence of other people. No signs of any natural disaster: hurricane, tornado, avalanche. On the border of the forest, the tracks disappeared, covered with snow.

The two dead were lying by a poorly lit fire, stripped to their underwear. They were frozen, unable to move. 300 meters from them lay the body of I. Dyatlov: he crawled to the tent and died, looking longingly in her direction. There were no injuries on the body ... As the investigation later established, most died from the cold, but three people, including the one who remained in the tent, died from terrible injuries: broken ribs, pierced heads, hemorrhages. One of the girls had her tongue torn out. But there were no bruises or abrasions on the bodies! An autopsy revealed a crack in the skull of one of the guys, and this terrible blow was delivered without the slightest damage to the skin. But how could there be internal damage that did not affect the skin?

Recalls the former forensic prosecutor L.N. Lukin: “In May, together with E.P. Maslennikov, we examined the surroundings of the scene, found that some young fir trees on the border of the forest had a burnt mark, but these marks were not concentric or of any other system, there was no epicenter. This confirmed the direction, as it were, of a heat ray or a strong, but completely unknown, at least to us, energy, acting selectively, the snow was not melted, the trees were not damaged. It seemed that when the tourists on their feet walked more than five hundred meters down the mountain, then someone dealt with some of them in a directed way ... "

During the investigation of the criminal case, samples of clothing and internal organs of the dead were examined “for radiation”. From the expert opinion: “The studied clothing samples contain a slightly overestimated amount of a radioactive substance due to beta radiation. The detected radioactive substances are washed away during the washing of the samples, that is, they are not caused by a neutron flux and induced radioactivity, but by radioactive contamination.” That is, the clothes are contaminated either with radioactive dust that has fallen out of the atmosphere, or these clothes have been contaminated when working with radioactive substances.

Where could radioactive dust wake up on the dead? At that time, there were no nuclear tests in the atmosphere in Russia. The last explosion before this tragedy occurred on October 25, 1958 on Novaya Zemlya. Was this area at that time covered with radioactive dust from previous tests? This is also not excluded. Moreover, Lukin drove a Geiger counter to the place of death of tourists, and he “called such a fraction” there ...

But it is unlikely that traces of radioactivity are related to the death of tourists. After all, radiation will not kill in a few hours, and even more so will not drive people out of the tent! But then what?

Back then, in the 1950s, the investigation was developing a version connected, as they would say now, with UFOs. The fact is that during the search for the dead, colorful pictures unfolded over the heads of the rescuers, fireballs and shining clouds flew by. No one understood what it was, and therefore the fantastic celestial phenomena seemed terrible ...

Telephone message to the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee: “March 31, 59, 9.30 local time. On 31.03 at 04.00 in the South-West direction, Meshcheryakov, on duty, noticed a large ring of fire, which moved towards us for 20 minutes, then hiding behind a height of 880. Before disappearing beyond the horizon, a star appeared from the center of the ring, which gradually increased to the size of the Moon , began to fall down, separating from the ring. An unusual phenomenon was observed by many people raised in alarm. Please explain this phenomenon and its safety. in our conditions, this produces an alarming impression. Avenburg. Potapov. Sogrin."

L.N. Lukin says: “While the investigation was going on, a tiny note appeared in the Tagil Worker newspaper that a fireball, or, as they say now, a UFO, was seen in the sky of Nizhny Tagil. This luminous object moved noiselessly towards the northern peaks of the Ural Mountains. For the publication of such a note, the editor of the newspaper was fined, and in the regional committee they suggested that I not develop this topic "...

For some time, local Mansi were under suspicion, who once in the 1930s had already killed a female geologist who dared to go to the sacred mountain closed to mere mortals. Many taiga hunters were arrested, but ... all were released for lack of evidence of guilt.

The investigation of the criminal case was terminated on the grounds that "the cause of death was an elemental force, which people could not overcome."

At the moment, none of the put forward versions of the death of the Dyatlovites is considered generally accepted. Despite numerous attempts to find an explanation for the tragic incidents, they continue to remain a mystery to both researchers of anomalous phenomena and law enforcement agencies.

In an attempt to explain the death of nine experienced hikers, a wide variety of versions have been and are being put forward - from ball lightning that flew into the tent, to the harmful effects of a man-made factor.

According to some searchers, the skin of the dead was of a strange, purple or orange color, on the clothes of some experts found an excess of the radiation background at times. And all the dead were absolutely gray-haired. Pathologist Maria Salter, who took part in the autopsy, noted that the expression of extreme horror froze on all faces, but the skin, in fact, "was just dark, like that of ordinary corpses."

Who and for what in their stories “painted” the corpses? If the skin were orange, then it would not be excluded that the guys were poisoned by unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine rocket fuel (orange heptyl). And the rocket, it seems, could deviate from the course and fall (fly) nearby.

A new confirmation of the rocket version appeared relatively recently, when a strange 30-centimeter ring was found in the area where the Dyatlov group died. As it turned out, it belonged to a Soviet combat missile. Talk of secret tests surfaced again, and it was recalled that the search teams twice, on February 17 and March 31, 1959, observed "either rockets or UFOs" flying across the sky.

After studying the archives, Kosmopoisk managed to establish that there were no rocket launches in the USSR in those days. On February 17, 1959, the USA launched the Avangard-2 solid propellant, but this launch could not be observed in Siberia. On March 31, 1959, the R-7 was launched from Baikonur, the launch was unsuccessful. Launches from Plesetsk have been made since 1960, construction has been carried out since 1957, theoretically from Plesetsk in 1959 only R-7 test launches could be made. But this rocket could not have toxic propellant components.

There was one more fact in favor of the rocket hypothesis - south of the Mountain, already modern tourists stumbled upon several deep craters "obviously from rockets." With great difficulty, in the remote taiga, the Kosmopoisk group found two of them. They obviously did not pull under the rocket explosion of the 59th, a 55-year-old birch tree grew in the funnel (counted by rings), that is, the explosion thundered in the remote taiga rear no later than 1944. Remembering what year it was, one could attribute everything to training bombing or something like that, but ... the funnel was very bright. Radioactive bombs in 1944?

One of the assumptions is that the guys went to the area where secret tests of "vacuum weapons" were carried out. From it, the dead had a (supposedly existing) strange reddish skin tone, the presence of internal injuries and bleeding. The same symptoms should be observed when hit by a "vacuum bomb", which creates a strong air discharge over a large area. On the periphery of such a zone, a person’s blood vessels burst from internal pressure, and in the epicenter the body is torn to pieces. However, the development of "vacuum" weapons, more correctly - volumetric explosion ammunition, began in our country in the late 60s, and therefore it cannot have anything to do with the tragedy of 1959.

In 1960-61, in the ill-fated region, one after another, a total of 9 pilots and geologists perished in three air crashes. One of the planes was piloted by Patrushev. On the found wreckage of the aircraft piloted by Patrushev, traces of radiation were found. So why did Patrushev voluntarily take a course towards the Mountain?

Valeria Patrusheva: “When he flew away for the last time, we both knew that this was the last time. He began to be afraid to fly, but every time - if there was enough fuel - he stubbornly flew to the Mountain of the Dead. I wanted to find a clue ... He said that something seemed to beckon him. I often met luminous balls in the air, and then the plane began to shake, the instruments danced like crazy, and my head just cracked. Then he turned away. Then he flew again. He told me that he was not afraid of stopping the engine, if something would land the car even on a pole "...

According to the official version, pilot G. Patrushev died 65 km north of Ivdel when he went for an emergency landing ...

In February 1961, in the area of ​​the same Mountain of the Dead, in an anomalous place and again under similar more than strange circumstances, another group of tourists-researchers from Leningrad died. And again, allegedly, there were the same signs of incomprehensible fear: tents cut from the inside, thrown things, people running to the sides, and again all 9 dead with grimaces of horror on their faces, only this time the corpses lie in a neat circle in the center of which the tent ... However, it says so Rumor, but there was no official confirmation. After some time, a group of three people died ...

However, other dead under strange circumstances were here. Local authorities remember how long they searched in the 1970s and did not find a missing young geologist. But since he was the son of an important ministerial rank, they were looking for him with special predilection. Although it would be possible not to do this - he generally disappeared almost in front of his colleagues, literally out of the blue ...

Many have since gone missing.

MOSCOW, January 11 - RIA Novosti. The recent tragic event in the area of ​​the Dyatlov Pass again drew everyone's attention to this harsh and mysterious land.

Experts called the version of the death of a man on the Dyatlov PassAs soon as weather conditions allow, rescuers will go to the area of ​​the Dyatlov Pass in the Sverdlovsk Region to study in detail the circumstances of the death of a 50-year-old man discovered by Perm tourists.

On January 8, 2016, a group of tourists reported to the police of the city of Ivdel, Sverdlovsk region, that the men were about 50 years old. Investigators intend to go to the place of discovery of the body, however, not earlier than January 12 due to strong wind and snow.

The pass itself gained notoriety after the 1959 incident. Then, under circumstances still unclear, a group of tourists died there under the guidance of a fifth-year student of the radio engineering faculty of the Ural Polytechnic Institute (UPI) Igor Dyatlov.

After this incident, many versions appeared about what really happened there. Some of them seem quite logical, while others are striking in their fantasticness.

The death of the Dyatlov group: what is known

A group of nine tourists led by Dyatlov went on a ski trip in the mountains on January 23, 1959. The campaign was dedicated to the 21st Congress of the CPSU. According to the classification of sports hikes adopted in 1949, it belonged to the 3rd - the highest - category of complexity. The path of tourists lay on the North Ural mountains Otorten and Kholatchakhl. One of the tourists, Yuri Yudin, fell ill just before the start of the most active part of the trip, and he had to return to Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). As a result, he is the only one from the group who then survived (died in 2013).

On the morning of January 27, getting up on skis, she continued the route lightly. Light - since the head of the forest site allocated to the Dyatlovites an unescorted prisoner with a horse - they put their heavy backpacks in a sled. So the group got to the Second Northern mine, already uninhabited by that time, the village, which was once part of Ivdellag. Here the Dyatlovites spent the night in one of the surviving huts. On the morning of January 28, it was decided that Yudin, who was blown out in the back of a truck, would return on horseback, and the group would continue the route without him. He said goodbye to the group and returned back. Then the tourists continued their way nine.

The events that took place in the future can only be judged by the diary entries of tourists from the Dyatlov group and photographs.

For 16 days, tourists had to ski more than 300 kilometers, make two radial ascents - to Otorten and Oiko-Chakur (Oika-Syakhyl) - and return to Vizhay by February 12. From there, Dyatlov was going to send a telegram about the end of the campaign. However, already at parting with Yudin, Dyatlov doubted that he would meet the deadlines, and asked Yuri to warn the tourist club that they could be delayed on the route until February 14.

On February 12, the group did not show up at the end point of the route and did not get in touch in the following days.

Group discovery and consequence

On February 22, at UPI, three search groups were formed from tourist students (headed by Boris Slobtsov, Oleg Grebennik and Moses Axelrod), which were thrown to different sections of the Dyatlov route. The military, operatives with search dogs, geologists and Mansi hunters were involved in the search.

The hunters reported that they saw traces of skis in the area of ​​the Auspiya River. On February 26, Slobtsov's group discovered a tent cut from the inside on the slope of Mount Holotsakhl. According to the protocol of the location of the discovery of the parking lot from the criminal case, nine backpacks with personal belongings, clothes and other things, including a route plan and notebooks, as well as food were found in it.

The next day, on the descent towards the Lozva River, 1.5 kilometers from the tent, they found the first dead - Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko. Both were in the same underwear. Later, about 300 meters from them, the dead Dyatlov was found, then, 330 meters from him, the dead Zina Kolmogorova. Unlike Doroshenko and Krivonischenko, she was in warm clothes, but barefoot.

In March, Rustem Slobodin's body was found under a layer of snow 180 meters from Kolmogorovaya.

The rest of the group was found only in May, when the snow began to melt. The thawed pieces of clothing led to the hollow of the stream. With the help of probes under the snow, they groped and unearthed a flooring of 15 thin trees, but there were no people on it. They were found even lower, almost at the very creek. A forensic medical examination subsequently established that they died from hypothermia, but Lyuda Dubinina and Semyon Zolotarev had broken ribs, and Thibaut Brignol had a skull fracture. On their bodies, as well as next to them, clothes of Krivonischenko and Doroshenko were found, which, apparently, had already been removed from the corpses.

The funeral of the deceased group in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) took place from March to May. On May 28, the criminal case was closed with the wording: "It should be considered that the cause of their death was an elemental force, which people were not able to overcome."

Version of death: mistakes of the Dyatlov group

Much of this story was and remains unanswered. Why, for example, did tourists cut open a tent, get out into the cold (according to reports, in those days it was about -30 degrees in this area), leave their backpacks in a tent, and move down the mountainside down to the forest?

Investigators suggested that an avalanche was to blame for the tragedy, subsequently they blamed wild animals, runaway prisoners from the surrounding colonies, soldiers who mistook tourists for runaway prisoners, local residents from the Mansi tribe, for whom Kholatchakhl has a ritual significance, military men who allegedly tested in a remote area some new weapons, and even space aliens.

The death of the Dyatlovites tried to uncover the St. Petersburg scientist and master of sports in tourism Evgeny Buyanov. His study "The Secret of the Death of the Dyatlov Group" was published in Yekaterinburg. In 2013, Buyanov shot a documentary film "Unfinished Route" based on his book.

The essence of Buyanov's theory lies in the fact that not some external "fantastic" or "criminal" factors led to the death of the Dyatlov group, but the mistakes of the group, in which only Dyatlov had experience of about 10 campaigns, the rest had only five six non-winter hikes. The strategic mistake of the group was the decision to organize an overnight stay on the mountainside - tourists always try to spend the night in the forest zone, where there is protection from the wind and firewood.

The main tactical mistake was setting up a tent on a mountainside, which is a multilayer "board" - during the day the snow melts in the sun, at night it freezes, turning into ice, then fresh snow falls from above. If such a board is at an angle, then it does not move out just because its upper edge rests on the lower one. External factors (strong wind, impact) can cause snow to melt on the slope, and the steeper it is, the higher the avalanche danger.

Aligning the place under the tent (it was set up in a stormy way - with deepening in the snow), the Dyatlovites cut the base of the formation and themselves created an emergency situation - they provoked a mini-avalanche. The avalanche crushed the tent and caused characteristic injuries - fractures of the ribs due to compression. It was necessary to get free before anyone suffocated from the weight that had piled on, so the tent was cut from the inside. The wounded were taken out through the holes: Thibault, Dubinin and Zolotarev.

The group ended up on a mountainside open to a hurricane wind, above a tent pressed down with a layer of dense snow, in a burning frost, but it turned out to be impossible to quickly dig out the tent with bare hands and extract things - such snow is denser than usual and not easy even with a shovel.

Dyatlov, most likely, understood the critical situation the group was in: an urgent retreat to the forest was necessary for salvation, but it was fatal to be left without warm clothes and the necessary tourist equipment. It was a choice between the worst and even worse, but it was impossible to hesitate - people were freezing. The calculation was as follows: to lower the wounded, cover them, and then return for warm clothes. In the first place put the rescue of the wounded, who could lose the ability to move and freeze. The group went downhill, leading Dubinina and Zolotarev under the arms, Thibaut was carried by two guys with his hands on his shoulders (the group's organized retreat into the forest is "confirmed" by 8-9 pairs of tracks found by the search engines).

At a large cedar, the wind was weaker and firewood could be found, and it made no sense to go down further because of the deep snow. The lower branches were broken by joint efforts. They kindled a fire, dug a snow shelter on the slope of the hollow of the stream with a flooring of cut fir branches for Dubinina, Thibault and Zolotarev. Realizing that one cannot survive without clothes and shoes, the group decided to return to the tent with the help of three participants (Dyatlov, Kolmogorova and Slobodin). Doroshenko, Kolevatov and Krivonischenko remained with the wounded.

Under the onslaught of a hurricane wind, cold and fatigue, the departed froze on the slope. At the cedar, the accident turned into a phase of agony, when cold-stricken people tried to keep warm, getting burns on their hands and feet. While waiting for their comrades, they also gradually fell asleep in the cold.

Other versions

In addition to the version of the avalanche, there are many other versions, many of them are on the verge of fantasy.

Among them are the following: infrasonic version - remnant rocks in a strong wind can generate low-frequency sound that drives people crazy, ball lightning, magnetic anomalies, and more.

The most popular is the “military version”: Igor Dyatlov’s group became an accidental victim of secret weapons tests, among the options are vacuum bombs and poisonous substances, nuclear tests and the fall of tactical and strategic missiles.

The version of the "control delivery" of the writer Alexei Rakitin suggests that the Dyatlov team was destroyed by a group of Western spies abandoned in the Northern Urals. Under the guise of tourists, they were supposed to meet with the Dyatlov group, which included several employees of the State Security Service, who were supposed to hand over to the Western resident clothes with sprayed weapons-grade plutonium (hence the radioactive trace on some things).

Books have been written about the death of the Dyatlov group, at least a dozen documentaries have been created.

In 2013, the famous Hollywood director Renny Harlin shot the thriller "The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass".

In the same year, the First Channel premiered the documentary "Dyatlov Pass. Expelled on the occasion of death."

On the border of the Komi Republic and the Sverdlovsk region, in the north of the Urals, tragedies often occur that are difficult to explain, or rather, it happens on Mount 1079, or as it is also called Mount Kholat Syakhyl.

Until 1959, the name of the mountain was translated from Mansi as “Dead Peak”, but in modern publications, including scientific ones, the translation option “Mountain of the Dead” prevails.

Quite a few people died here and all died under inexplicable and mystical circumstances. Mansi legends say that once in ancient times, the blood of nine Mansi was shed on this mountain.

But the most famous death happened on the first of February 1959.

Igor Dyatlov and two students from the tour group: Zina Kolmogorova, Lyudmila Dubinina

On this winter day, the weather was quite sunny, ten tourists from Sverdlovsk were going to climb this mountain.

The group was led by Igor Dyatlov, all the tourists had quite a lot of experience in climbing the mountains of the subpolar Urals, even though they were students. One of them could not start the ascent, because his legs hurt terribly, and Yura Yudin, having started the ascent with the group, returned due to the fact that he simply could not walk.

Students set off from the Vizhay village in the amount of nine people, namely: Alexander Kolevatov, Igor Dyatlov, Alexander Zolotarev, Zina Kolmogorova, Lyudmila Dubinina, Rustem Slobodin, Nikolay Thibault-Brignolles, Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko. They did not manage to ascend before dark, and they had to lay out a parking lot on the side of the mountain.

A large tent of the Dyatlov group, sewn from several small ones. Inside was a portable stove designed by Dyatlov.

As the tourist and mountaineering rules say, before putting up a tent, you need to put your skis on the snow, the students did just that. After dinner, the children went to bed. The criminal case instituted after that stated that neither the slope, the angle of which was only fifteen degrees, nor the reliability of the fastenings of the installed tent, threatened the lives of the students.

Photographs found later helped investigators to conclude that the tent was already up by six in the evening. And at night something terrible and mystical happened, and all nine guys died, under unclear circumstances. The guys were searched for more than two weeks, and only after this period the pilot Gennady Patrushev saw the bodies of the tourist group from the plane and informed the rescue group about this.

The pilot was familiar with the guys during their lifetime, because before climbing the mountain they stopped at a village hotel, where they met him. The fact is that Gennady was fond of collecting legends and tales of this region, and therefore he knew a lot about the history of these places.

Before the fatal ascent, he tried to dissuade students from this enterprise in every possible way, offering them many mountains, with which the Subpolar Urals is endowed in abundance. Patrushev also told the Dyatlov group the legend of the mountain of the dead and how its name is deciphered in the Mansi language, and about the death of nine Mansi on the slope of this mountain. But the guys did not believe in mysticism, relied on their experience and motivated this by the fact that there were nine Mansi people, and ten of them will ascend.

Igor Dyatlov's group on the eve of the tragedy

Most of all, Igor Dyatlov persisted, who denied the existence of any mysticism and did not want to change the ascent route for anything. The rescuers who arrived at the scene of the tragedy saw a terrible picture, two dead students lay near the entrance to the tent and another one in the tent itself, which was cut from the inside. Apparently, the tourists cut the tent with a knife and, driven by horror, ran down the slope, and they were practically naked.

The strangest thing is the footprints that came from the feet of the students, they twisted in strange zigzags, but then converged again, as if an unknown force drove people trying to run away together. There were no traces of anyone else's presence, and no stranger approached the tent. There was also no tornado, hurricane or avalanche at that time. The footprints disappeared at the border with the forest, after they were covered with snow, two dead students found their last resting place by a barely made fire, they were also in their underwear. Apparently, their death was the result of frostbite.

Traces discovered during the search for the Dyatlov group. Photo: Dyatlov Pass

Not far from them lay the leader of the group - Igor Dyatlov, who was also dead, Igor's petrified gaze was turned to the tent, most likely he was crawling towards it, but he did not have enough strength. There were no injuries on the body of most of the students and, as the examination showed, they died from the cold, but three of the unfortunate people died from the fact that someone or something caused them terrible injuries, they had numerous hemorrhages. Their heads were pierced, and their ribs were broken, and one of the girls was without a tongue, which was mercilessly torn out of her. But there was not a single bruise or abrasion on any of the bodies.

An autopsy showed a crack on the skull of one guy, but the skin on the head was not damaged at all in that place, which is impossible for such an injury. How could such damage be done inside the body without touching the skin at all?

Forensic prosecutors who studied this case went to the crime scene in May and noticed some oddities there, for example, that young spruce trees standing on the outskirts of the forest had a burnt mark, and this fire had no epicenter, as well as a system for its distribution. . The state of the fir trees that they saw once again said that a kind of heat beam was directed at them, or some kind of energy unknown to mankind was produced, which causes damage rather selectively, since the trees were not damaged, and the snow did not melt.

The overall picture gave the impression that after the tourists walked naked, barefoot for more than 500 meters going down the mountain, at that moment someone dealt with them in this way.

During the investigation of this criminal case, samples of the internal organs and clothes of the dead were taken and checked for the presence of radiation. The results of such a study showed that on the surface of the bodies and in clothes, radioactive substances were found in small quantities, the appearance of which led to beta radiation, and these radioactive substances, when they are washed, are washed away.

Thus, the conclusion suggests itself that they are not caused by the action of a neutron flux, but are the result of radioactive contamination. In simple terms, we can say that this happens when clothes are directly contaminated with radioactive dust, which falls directly from the atmosphere, or can become contaminated during direct work with radioactive substances.

The question is logical: where could this radioactive dust fall on people from? Moreover, at that very time, nowhere on the territory of Russia were nuclear tests conducted, which could pollute the atmosphere. One of the last explosions in this area was a tragedy that occurred on September 25, 1958. Scientists took the Geiger counter to the place where the tourists died, and it is not difficult to predict that it went off scale in those conditions.

Although it is very absurd to assume that the cause of death of these tourists was precisely the presence of radiation in these territories, since no amount of radiation can kill a person in such a short period of time, and even more so make them leave the tent naked.

1.5 kilometers from the tent and 280 m down the slope, near a high cedar, the bodies of Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko were found

Even at that time, investigators considered the version that they associated with the existence of UFOs. At a time when the rescuers were searching for the dead tourists, they watched over their heads as balls of fiery color flew by. None of the rescuers understood the nature of this phenomenon, for this very reason, it seemed terrible and incomprehensible to them.

On March 31, 1959, at 4 o'clock in the morning, local residents could observe a strange picture in the sky for 20 minutes. A large ring of fire moved along it, which then hid behind a mountain, 880 m high. However, before hiding behind it, a star suddenly appeared from the center of this fireball, it gradually increased in size, reached the size of the moon. After that, she began to move down, slowly leaving this ring.

Excerpt from the newspaper "Tagil worker"

This strange phenomenon in the sky, many local residents had the opportunity to observe, who were alerted. They were excited and concerned about what was happening, and asked the local authorities to explain the nature of this phenomenon with the help of scientists. A similar note about this phenomenon was published in the Tagilsky Rabochiy newspaper, and for the publication of this note, the editor of this newspaper was fined, and the regional committee of the party proposed not to develop the topic of the alleged existence of UFOs.

As a result of the investigation, for a certain time, local Mansi were suspected of killing students, for whom there was already a sin of a committed crime in the 30s, when a female geologist was killed, who had the courage to enter the territory that was closed to ordinary people, on the sacred mountain. As a result, many hunters were detained and questioned, but all of them were released due to lack of evidence of their guilt.

Thus, this criminal case was closed, with vague wording about some "natural force that the tourists were not able to overcome."

Then the criminal case was placed in a secret archive for many years. Later it was declassified due to the expiration of time. Be that as it may, but the investigators in 1959 failed to reveal the cause of the death of tourists. The mystery of the death of the Dyatlov group has remained unsolved until now ...

Modern versions

Until our time, despite many attempts to explain what happened and all kinds of put forward versions, the death of students on this mountain has remained a mystery, both for law enforcement agencies and researchers.

Since this story happened, different versions have been put forward. According to some sources, they are inclined to believe that the cause of their death was ball lightning that flew into the tent. Others talk about the man-made nature of this incident. As indicated in the source code of the case, the skin of the dead students was orange or purple, and on their clothes, as mentioned above, the researchers found a radiation background many times higher than normal.

An interesting fact is also that all those who died as a result of that story turned out to be completely gray-haired, which is possible only when a person is experiencing very strong stress.

The pathologist who performed the autopsy on all the bodies noted that indeed there was a frozen expression of horror on their faces, although the skin was like that of ordinary dead people. Then it turns out that those people who painted their faces orange in their stories simply misrepresented this story, inclining it towards rocket fuel poisoning, since it really has an orange color.

However, there is one confirmation regarding the version of the fall of the rocket in this place, after a very strange thirty-centimeter ring was found in this area. It turned out that it belongs to one of the Soviet combat missiles. After that, rumors about secret tests began to spread again, and local residents reinforced them with flying balls seen in the sky, which could be both UFOs and rockets.

According to the materials of the archives, no rocket launches were carried out in the USSR at that time, and the rocket launched on February 17, 1959 was launched in the USA, and its launch could not be seen in Siberia. Some researchers put forward theories that in Plesetsk, starting from the 50s, only test launches of the R-7 could take place, but this rocket is 100% free of any toxic components in its fuel.

Another fact confirming the rocket theory is the rocket craters found later a little south of this mountain. After receiving such information, the Kosmopoisk group conducted its own study, as a result of which, they nevertheless found two of these funnels. But, on the site of these funnels, an explosion could not have occurred in 59, since a 55-year-old birch grew in them, which was calculated by the rings, and accordingly this funnel existed since the 44th year. Although an interesting and doubtful fact is that this funnel had a strong radioactive background.

Was a radioactive bomb detonated in 1944?

There is also an assumption that the students were victims of the "Vacuum Weapon". This version is supported by the reddish tint of the skin and the presence of internal injuries and bleeding, in a word, as a result of the action of a vacuum bomb. People who are on the periphery of such a bomb, as a result of an increase in internal pressure, burst blood vessels, and those who are at the epicenter of its action can easily be torn apart. But the development of vacuum weapons on the territory of our country was carried out only at the end of the 60s, and has nothing to do with our history.

The last frame on the film of the Dyatlov group

P.S.: On the film of the dead tourists, the very last frame was found, which still causes controversy among researchers. Some argue that this shot was taken when the film was removed from the camera. Others claim that this shot was taken by someone from the Dyatlov group when the danger began to approach. However, no more photographs of Igor Dyatlov's tour group were found, and this frame is considered the last ...

Today there are 9 main versions of the death of the Dyatlov group, in a strange way exactly 9 - in terms of the number of deaths:

- Avalanche (Buyanov's version)
- spy version about "controlled delivery" (Rakitin's version)
- man-made disaster or weapon test (versions with methanol, heptyl, etc.)
- the destruction of the group by the military or special services
- the impact of sound (Egorov's version)
- quarrel between tourists
- attack by escaped prisoners
- death at the hands of the Mansi
- paranormal versions

None of these versions can still fully explain all the circumstances of the death of the Dyatlov group. Some versions explain the cause of the injuries well, some consider individual facts and episodes in detail. But in general - the picture does not add up for anyone. Most of the versions expect a special failure at the stage of explaining the motives of the behavior of the tourists themselves or the alleged criminals.

Another thing is strange, why was the “Dyatlov case” kept secret for a long time?

Mystical number 9

Members of the Dyatlov group are not the only ones who died on the slopes of the Mountain of the Dead. In total, over the past 100 years, 27 corpses have been found on Kholatchakhl, despite the fact that this place is one of the most unvisited tourists in Russia. In three plane crashes in 1960-61, 9 geologists died over the Dyatlov Pass.

In February 1961, in the same place, near Kholatchakhl, the bodies of 9 tourists from Leningrad were found. And already in 2003, a helicopter with 9 passengers crashed over the Mountain of the Dead. People survived miraculously.

The Mansi have an ancient legend that has been passed down from generation to generation. She tells about the global flood that covered the earth 13 thousand years ago. The raging waves killed almost the entire Mansi tribe. Only 11 people survived - 10 men and 1 woman.

These people climbed to the top of Holatchakhl, trying to find salvation there. But the water kept rising and rising. Finally, only a small narrow platform was unflooded. Everyone huddled on it, but the pitiless waves took one victim after another. 9 people died, only a woman and a man survived. They hovered on a tiny ledge and were already saying goodbye to each other as the mighty waters began to recede. It was with the surviving couple that the revival of the Mansi tribe began, and Mount Holatchakhl was called the mountain of death.

Undoubtedly, this terrible legend contains some truth. The nine deaths marked the end of an old life and the beginning of a new one. For a global flood that destroyed almost the entire population of the planet, such an end looks more or less prosperous. But nine similar deaths in the winter of 1959 seem unnatural and incredible. Moreover, they happened at a time when the 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was taking place in Moscow. The whole country, with bated breath, listened to the speeches, admired the achievements of the socialist system, and here on you is the disappearance of a group of young tourists, consisting of 9 people ...

mountain of the dead

The mountain ranges of the Northern Urals are covered with mysticism and secrets; among the local peoples of the Mansi, they were considered sacred territory, entry to many peaks was ordered to mere mortals - it was the abode of spirits and the venue for ancient rituals. Some peaks were not worth visiting for other reasons: according to local beliefs, they were considered cursed places that you should not climb under any circumstances, and it’s better to fly around them by air. One of these mountains is the peak of Kholatchakhl, also called Kholat-Syakhyl, which in translation from Mansi means "Mountain of the Dead".

The peak itself does not stand out among other mountains of the Poyasovoy Kamen, stretching in the north of the Sverdlovsk region, its height is only 1079 m, the path to the top is quite easy, so the route belongs to the lowest category of difficulty. What was the reason for such a terrible name of the mountain?

According to the existing legend, in ancient times on this mountain there was a local sanctuary dedicated to the goddess of death, each time the shamans performed a sacrificial ritual on it, killing exactly 9 animals. It could be deer, ducks, any other living creatures. But one day, for unknown reasons, shamans sacrificed 9 young Mansi hunters to the goddess, and the goddess of death liked this sacrifice so much that she began to prefer people to all other victims.

Since then, if you believe the local legend, it is worth going to the mountain with a group of 9 people, as she will surely die. The Mansi themselves perfectly remember the warnings of their ancestors and try to bypass the dead places. Moreover, they strongly advise their Russian friends not to go to the damned peaks, especially since the peak next to the Mountain of the Dead is called Otorten, or "Don't go there."

The Mansi and a group of tourist students led by I. Dyatlov, who arrived to conquer the beautiful and proud peak of Otorten in the winter of 1959, were warned. However, the students of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, brought up in the spirit of Soviet atheism, only laughed at the warnings of the Mansi. Not heeding the warnings not to go at least in a group of 9 people, they joked that there were 10 of them in the group, which means that they had nothing to fear from the curse of Mount Kholat Syahyl, through which their path passed.

On February 1, the students set off along the route. By a strange coincidence, one of them fell ill, and the students went up the mountain as a group of the fatal nine.

Before dark, they moved quite easily, but they did not have time to completely overcome the path, so they decided to wait out the night before the last ascent on a mountain pass. According to all the rules, they set up tents in the evening and went to bed, but at night something happened on the mountain, which forced strong and hardy students to run from the tent as fast as they could to the forest, but not one of them managed to survive. Some were badly beaten, others were without signs of beatings, but without clothes, so they froze from the cold. There were many suggestions as to what made the students run down the mountain - from an atomic explosion to a UFO seen in the sky.

The Dyatlov group, which disappeared during the ascent, was searched for more than one week, they were found only on February 26, 25 days after the mysterious death of the entire group. To the surprise of the search group, all traces, like the bodies of the dead, were intact, as if they had died a few hours ago.

Despite careful repeated investigation, the exact cause of death has not yet been established. It is possible that it was the banal northern lights, which in mountainous conditions leads to confusion and panic fear, but maybe death was caused by an avalanche or some other natural phenomenon, maybe some other natural anomaly.

It is only known that one of the students left the tent at about 2 o'clock in the morning, saw something in the sky, which struck and frightened him to the core, after which he woke up the others, who cut the tent from the other side and left it from both sides at once , after which they ran down to the forest. Later, they tried to return to the tents, where they had warm clothes and gasoline for the fire, but froze to death in the harsh conditions of the northern mountains.

Since then, the pass where the Dyatlov group died has been named after him. However, the group was not the only victim of these mountains, over the 20th century 27 corpses were found on the mountain, and local legends attribute other victims to the mountain, for example, a group of Leningrad explorers who allegedly went to the Dyatlov Pass and died there in a similar way. If you believe the local rumor, this time all 9 people were lying around the tent, and everyone had indescribable horror on their faces, but unlike the Dyatlov group, there is no documentary evidence or clear testimony about the death of this group.

However, it is reliably known that in 1961, 3 aircraft with geologists consistently crashed over the mountain, the total number of victims of scientists and crews amounted to the same fatal number 9. In addition, all those people who engaged in the search for the Dyatlov group. Then the victims of the mountain were a geologist, who was the son of a high-ranking official, who went to the mountain with a group of his colleagues and disappeared almost before their eyes. Shortly thereafter, a married couple disappeared under mysterious circumstances, who were also not found, despite an exhaustive search; both tourists and scientists disappeared, pilots crashed, the mountain fully justified its terrible name. Finally, one of the latest incidents happened in 2003, when a helicopter crashed over it. True, this time there were no casualties, all 9 passengers and crew members survived, but were literally saved by a miracle, thanks to the unsurpassed skill of the pilot, who landed the aircraft in extreme conditions.

However, it still remains unclear what causes aircraft crashes over the mountain and why people die with a fairly simple ascent. But the mountain is in no hurry to reveal its secrets, still harvesting human lives.

This text is an introductory piece.