Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

by Eichar, Donnie

  As soon as we stepped off the plane in San José, with only our maps and a single Spanish phrase book to guide us, we were weightless, living moment to moment. In the following days, we rode flawless waves on secluded beaches, camped out under tranquil moonlight, survived insect infestations, and shared our space with howler monkeys, crocodiles and boa constrictors. Our far-flung adventures created a sense of camaraderie and shared heroism between my dad and me. Though I would hardly compare tropical Central America with subarctic Russia, memories of that time lent to my appreciation of why these young Soviets had repeatedly risked the dangers of the Ural wilderness in exchange for the fellowship that outdoor travel brings.

  There was, of course, the central mystery of the case, with its bewildering set of clues. Why would nine experienced outdoorsmen and -women rush out of their tent, insufficiently clothed, in twenty-five-degrees-below-zero conditions and walk a mile toward certain death? One or two of them might have made the unfathomable mistake of leaving the safety of camp, but all nine? I could find no other case in which the bodies of missing hikers were found, and yet after a criminal investigation and forensic examinations, there was no explanation given for the events leading to their deaths. And while there are cases throughout history of single hikers or mountaineering groups disappearing without a trace, in those instances, the cause of death is quite clear—either they had encountered an avalanche or had fallen into a crevasse. I wondered how, in our globalized world of instant access to an unprecedented amount of data, and our sophisticated means of pooling our efforts, a case like this could remain so stubbornly unsolved.

  My investigative synapses really started to fire when I learned that the single surviving member of the Dyatlov group, Yuri Yudin, was still alive. Yudin had been the tenth member of the hiking group, until he decided to turn back early from the expedition. Though he couldn’t have known it at the time, it was a decision that would save his life. It must also, I imagined, have left him with a chronic case of survivor’s guilt. I calculated that Yudin would now be in his early to mid-seventies. And though he rarely talked to the press, I wondered: Could he be persuaded to come out of his seclusion?

  Although my initial efforts to find Yudin got me nowhere, I was able to make contact with Yuri Kuntsevich, the head of the Dyatlov Foundation in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Kuntsevich explained that the foundation’s mission was both to preserve the memories of the hikers and to uncover the truth of the 1959 tragedy. According to Kuntsevich, not all the files from the Dyatlov case had been made public, and the foundation was hoping to persuade Russian officials to reopen the criminal investigation. Speaking through a translator, he was perfectly cordial and offered that he might have information to help my understanding of the incident. However, my specific queries about the case—including how to reach Yuri Yudin—resulted in only vague or cryptic responses. At last he put the onus on me: “If you seek the truth in this case, you must come to Russia.”

  Kuntsevich had no real idea who I was—I had introduced myself as a filmmaker and we’d spoken for forty-five minutes—yet he had extended an unambiguous invitation. Or was it a summons? I was not Russian. I didn’t speak the language. I had seen snow less than a dozen times in my life. Who was I to go roaming through Russia in the middle of winter to unravel one of the country’s most baffling mysteries?

  As I approached Dyatlov Pass more than two years later, pausing every so often to blow warm air into my gloves, I found myself asking the same question: Why am I here?

  Igor Dyatlov, ca. 1957–1958

  2

  JANUARY 23, 1959

  Let your backpacks be light,

  weather always fine,

  winter not too cold,

  and summer without heat.

  —Georgy Krivonishchenko, excerpt from New Year’s poem, 1959

  IF ONE HAD BEEN ABLE TO GLIMPSE INSIDE DORMITORY 531 on January 23, 1959, one would have seen the very picture of fellowship, youth, and happiness. The room itself was nothing to look at. Like most dorms at Sverdlovsk’s Ural Polytechnic Institute, the furnishings were serviceable at best; and, for half the year, the building rumbled under the toil of a coal-stoked boiler. One might have assumed in observing the room—with its blistered wallpaper, lumpy mattresses and lingering odors from the communal kitchen—that the students residing here must take pleasure in things outside material comforts. They must certainly live for books, art, friends and nature, interests that could carry them beyond this dingy cupboard. And one would be right. On that fourth Friday in January, a month before the school term was to begin, nine friends in their early twenties were engaged in last-minute preparations for a trip that would take them far beyond the confines of dormitory life.

  The front cover and first page of the Dyatlov group’s diary.

  The room that evening was charged with excitement, each member of the group busy with a designated task and each talking over the others in an eagerness to be heard. Their group diary captured snatches of their conversation:

  We’ve forgotten salt!

  Igor! Where are you?

  Where’s Doroshenko, why doesn’t he take 20 packages?

  Will we play mandolin on the train?

  Where are the scales?

  Damn, it does not fit in!

  Who has the knife?

  One of the young men stuffed food into a backpack, trying to find the most space-efficient configuration for multiple bags of oats and cans of meat. Nearby, his friend catalogued medicines. Another searched desperately for mislaid footwear.

  Where are my leather boots?

  The group’s twenty-three-year-old leader, Igor Dyatlov, was overseeing these final preparations with somber concentration. Igor was lean and strong, with a head of closely cropped hair. His mouth was almost feminine, and his eyes wide set. He wasn’t classically handsome, yet there was something arresting about his face, something expressive that spoke of a rich interior life and strong self-possession. He was famous at the school’s hiking club for his technical know-how and the easy command he took over any situation. “Igor had indisputable authority,” remembered his friend and hiking mentor Volodya Poloyanov years later. “Everyone wanted to go on a trip under his leadership, but one had to earn the honor to get in Igor’s group.”

  Igor had been born into a family of engineers and at an early age had shown a finely tuned, scientific mind. He was studying radio engineering at UPI, and despite the official Soviet ban on shortwave radio transmissions during the Cold War, his bedroom at home was outfitted with radio panels, homemade receivers, and a shortwave radio. “Thanks to Igor, we had a handmade radio receiver on our hiking trips,” Poloyanov said. “His technical knowledge was encyclopedic.” Another hiking friend, Moisey Akselrod, recalled of a 1958 trip to the Sayan Mountains in southern Siberia, “Dyatlov’s major contribution was his amazing ultrashortwave transmitters that were used for communications between rafts.”

  Despite Igor’s affection for wireless devices, he would not be packing a radio for this particular trip. Shortwave radios of the time were cumbersome, and hauling them into the Russian wilderness in winter would have been out of the question. Besides, Igor had his hands full ensuring his group packed the essentials. If they were to forget something, there would be no stopping for extra supplies in the middle of the Ural Mountains, and no one wanted to be responsible for neglecting to pack something potentially lifesaving. This was a pivotal trip for Igor and his friends. They were all Grade II hikers, but if this particular excursion went as planned, the group would be awarded Grade III certification upon their return. It was the highest hiking certification in the country at the time, one that required candidates to cover at least 186 miles (300 kilometers) of ground, with a third of those miles in challenging terrain. The minimum duration of the trip was to be sixteen days, with no fewer than eight of those spent in uninhabited regions, and at least six nights spent in a tent. If the hikers met these conditions, their new certification would allow them to teach others their c
raft as Masters of Sport. It was a distinction that Igor and his group badly wanted.

  Nearby, scribbling in her diary, sat one of the two women in the room—Zinaida Kolmogorova. Like Igor, she was a student of radio engineering, though the subject didn’t come as naturally to her as it did him. To her friends, “Zina” was regarded as lively and bright, always ready with an amusing remark or engaging story. But at that moment the pretty tomboy was silent. Having been appointed the diarist for that evening, she felt obliged to record the last moments of preparation for the collective records. Her finely sculpted face and large, brown eyes were tilted toward the page, intent on capturing the mood of departure. How to describe the room? The room is in artistic disorder. . . . Zina was the type of girl who drew admiration wherever she went. In fact, several of her companions had secret crushes on her.

  Lyudmila Dubinina, or “Lyuda,” was the other woman in the room and at twenty years old, the youngest of the group. She was a student of construction-industry economics and was a serious person, a quality evident in her assigned duty that evening: counting the money and rolling it tightly into a waterproof can. Lyuda was strong, and capable of enduring intense pain and discomfort. On a previous hiking trip, she had been shot in the leg after a companion mishandled a hunting rifle. Though she had to be carried out of Siberia’s Eastern Sayan Mountains over 50 miles of rugged terrain, she kept her companions in good spirits the entire journey.

  Lyudmila “Lyuda” Dubinina taken during a summer hiking tour, n.d.

  A previous group hiking tour with Zinaida “Zina” Kolmogorova (fourth from right with round white sunglasses), n.d.

  In addition to Lyuda’s reputation as an outspoken and highly principled student, she was a fervent communist. Had she been wearing a uniform, one might have imagined she’d stepped off a Communist propaganda poster. In fact, there was a name in the USSR for such young women—“the girl in a red kerchief with a gun.”

  On that evening, Yuri Yudin—one of three Yuris in the group—busied himself with packing the medicine kit. With his boyish face and a set of pronounced teeth that erupted from his mouth whenever he smiled, the geology student was the image of ease and good humor. Having suffered lifelong problems with rheumatism, a heart condition, and chronic knee and back pain, Yudin was also the least likely member of the group. He had previously been forced to take a year off from school due to an illness, but hiking had restored his vitality. Given his recurring struggles with his health, his role as the keeper of the medicine was certainly fitting.

  Besides Igor, Zina, Lyuda and Yudin, there were five others: Yuri Doroshenko—“Doroshenko”—studied radio engineering at UPI with Zina and Igor. He was impulsive and brave, and carried an aura of myth about him, maybe because of the time he chased off a bear on a camping trip with nothing more than his nerve and a geologist’s hammer.

  Yuri Krivonishchenko—“Georgy”—was the group’s resident jester and musician, always ready with wisecracks and a mandolin. He had a big personality and a talent for storytelling, prompting one friend to dub him “Zina with pants.” When Georgy wasn’t singing or pulling pranks, he was a student of construction and hydraulics.

  Alexander Kolevatov—“Kolevatov”—was a methodical young man with an imposing physical presence. In his downtime from studying nuclear physics, he loved to puff on his antique pipe. He was also an intensely private person and often reluctant to share his journal entries with his comrades.

  Yuri Doroshenko (top row, far right), Zinaida “Zina” Kolmogorova (second row, far right), and Yuri Blinov (bottom row, center), next to Igor Dyatlov, in striped cap, on a hiking tour, May 1, 1957.

  Rustem Slobodin—“Rustik”—could be called the group’s rich kid. He was the son of affluent university professors, and had already earned a degree in mechanical engineering. Like Georgy, he was musically gifted and enjoyed playing mandolin. Though one might have expected him to possess an elitist air, Rustik was as unpretentious and friendly as they come.

  And, lastly, there was Nikolay Thibault-Brignoles—“Kolya”—distinguished by his foreign name and background. He was the great-grandson of a Frenchman who had immigrated to Russia in the 1880s to work in the Ural factories. Kolya had already earned his degree, in industrial civil construction. Though serious and exceedingly well read, he always looked for the humor in any situation.

  These seven men and two women, stooped under the weight of their packs and in a nervous bundle of excitement, left room 531 and descended the four flights of stairs. After piling out of the building and into the sharp January chill, they headed for the tram that would take them to the train station a few miles from campus. Twenty minutes later, when the tram arrived at the station, the friends realized they were cutting it close to the train’s departure. As the group made an awkward dash for the entrance, there was no time for final departing glances over their dark, sooty town.

  The nine companions found their way to their platzkart, or third-class compartment. Employing a popular scheme of Russian students traveling on a budget, the group had deliberately purchased fewer tickets than they needed. In the event that the conductor passed through their car to punch tickets, a couple of the hikers would hide under their wooden seats. Lyuda was particularly adept at this maneuver, and over the course of the trip, she would take advantage of her compact size to evade the conductor’s watchful eye.

  As the group settled in, they noticed that their numbers had suddenly increased by one. There was a newcomer in their midst—an acquaintance of Igor’s who had asked to tag along at the last minute. As eight pairs of eyes settled on and assessed Alexander Zolotaryov, it was apparent to everyone that he was old. Well, older—thirty-seven, to be exact. Igor introduced him to the others, explaining that Zolotaryov was a local hiking instructor and a valuable addition to the team. Zolotaryov had originally intended to set off with student hiker Sergey Sogrin and his group, who were headed further north into the subpolar Urals, but when Sogrin’s timetable didn’t suit Zolotaryov, Sogrin introduced him to Igor. The timing was perfect, as another hiker, Nikolay Popov, had recently dropped out of Igor’s party.

  “Just call me Sasha,” the newcomer told them with a flash of gold teeth. Besides having a mouth full of metal, Sasha also had several tattoos. The name Gena had been inked on the back of his right hand, and when he pushed up his sleeves, a picture of beets could be glimpsed on his right forearm. Tattoos were relatively unusual for the average Russian citizen in 1959, but they were common among veterans. Sasha had, in fact, seen combat in World War II.

  After the initial surprise of finding a stranger among them subsided, the friends relaxed into their seats and chatted with the hiking groups around them. Igor and the others were happy to discover that one of their hiking-club friends, Yuri Blinov, was seated in their train car. Blinov’s party was taking the same route north to Ivdel, and the two groups would be able to keep each other company over the coming days.

  The Dyatlov group’s departure may not have gone as smoothly as they’d hoped, but as the train pulled out of the station, the friends’ very best selves emerged. It wasn’t long before they embraced the company of the outsider. And when Georgy produced his mandolin, and Sasha began to sing, it was as if he had been one of them all along. The ten friends sang for hours. The group’s favorite was “The Globe,” a song about the joys of travel.

  Our voices will carry on

  Over mountain ridges and peaks,

  Over February blizzards and storms,

  Over vast expanses of snow.

  We will hear each other’s song

  Though hundreds of miles lie between us,

  Though far from each other we roam,

  Friends’ singing will beat the distance.

  Hours later, after they had sung through and committed their new melodies to memory, Zina pulled out her diary and scribbled her final thoughts for the day.

  I wonder what awaits us in this hike? Will anything new happen? Oh yes, the boys have given a sole
mn oath not to smoke through the whole trip. I wonder how strong their willpower is, will they manage without cigarettes? We are going to sleep, and Ural woods loom behind the windows.

  Ural Polytechnic Institute, 1959.

  Igor Dyatlov, at far left, in class, n.d.

  3

  FEBRUARY 1959

  ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE URAL MOUNTAINS, 1,036 miles from Moscow, lies Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city and home of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. It is a gray, industrial settlement positioned at the edge of fertile wetlands; beyond it looms the startling and seemingly endless beauty of the mountains. The city’s population of 779,000 is surrounded on all sides by a thick blanket of evergreen, interrupted by pockets of swampland, ink-black lakes and quiet villages. It is a pristine setting for such a hardened town—one known for its machine and military hardware factories—and the contrast between the surrounding natural beauty and the city’s industrial grime is striking. Yekaterinburg enjoys balmy weather for half of the year, but the other half finds its streets blanketed in discolored snow and its skies darkened with cumulus gusts of factory smoke. At least, this is how the city could be characterized in 1959, when it was known by its Soviet name, Sverdlovsk.

  As part of the Soviets’ drastic renunciation of monarchic rule—and, by association, the country’s Westernization by Peter the Great two centuries earlier—cities such as Yekaterinburg had undergone a kind of rechristening, if an atheistic one. In the mid-1920s, it seemed that every city was getting a new name—most famously, Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) became Leningrad, and the city of Volgograd became Stalingrad. But all the name-changing in Russia couldn’t chase Peter the Great’s heritage from the country or from Yekaterinburg—a city named for the ruler’s wife, Catherine. Peter’s architectural influence can still be seen in the city’s neoclassical buildings and in the intense pride its inhabitants take in their educational institutions. Perhaps the finest of these is the Ural State Technical University, known for much of its life as the Ural Polytechnic Institute, or UPI.