Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

by Eichar, Donnie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  8

  2012

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

  Kuntsevich went to the corner and roused his guest from his bed on the couch. Yudin arose sleepily and held out his hand in greeting. He stood at about five-foot-seven and had a full head of spiky gray hair. There was something delicate about the way he moved, even for a man in his mid-seventies, reminding me of his various lifelong ailments. We shook hands before he shuffled into the kitchen to make tea.

  I had worried that it might be difficult for him to talk about the tragedy, and indeed, when Yudin returned to the room, my fears were confirmed. Through our translator, he explicitly laid down the rules for our conversation. The focus of the story should not be about him, he said, and everything about the tragedy had already been told. He then turned his clear, slate-blue eyes toward me: “Do you not have mysteries in your own country that are unsolved?” Of course I did. What could I say? In lieu of an answer, I smiled and suggested we sit down at a table in the center of the room. He picked up my tape recorder and examined it with curiosity. Yudin then told me something that had not occurred to me. Today was February 27, fifty-three years ago to the day that the first bodies of the hikers had been discovered.

  It was Yudin who started with the questions: Which picture do you want to paint? The one rooted in the Revolution, or that of the Iron Curtain? Puzzled, I told him that while the political backdrop of the time certainly interested me, I wasn’t looking for a political angle on the story. But, because he appeared to be expecting me to choose, I stammered something about the Iron Curtain being of interest. This answer appeared to please him and he began.

  Outdoor exploration had been a huge part of young Soviets’ lives in the late ’50s, Yudin said, and hikers like the Dyatlov group had used expeditions to escape the confines of big cities. “After Stalin died,” he said, “things opened up more, and students could go almost anywhere within the country. But we still couldn’t go abroad.” To Yudin and his friends, the next best thing to international travel had been escaping into the wilderness, which held a romance all its own. Yet at the same time, domestic tourists were providing a useful service in helping to map out uncharted regions of the country, particularly Siberia and the Ural Mountains.

  Fraternity, equality and respect were considered the reigning values among Russian hikers. “If someone was not friendly or did not work well within the group, they were not invited back,” Yudin said. Furthermore, women were on equal footing with men. In his view, unlike the culture then prevalent in the United States—where women’s careers hadn’t advanced much beyond their prewar positions as telephone operators, schoolteachers and secretaries—there were fewer limitations on women of the Soviet Union at the time. This equality was reflected in the Dyatlov group, where Zina and Lyuda were considered as capable as their male counterparts. “Within the team there was no gender. We were all equal in everything. We had a strict code of ethics and discipline. At that time, the most important goal was the spirit of being together as a team, and overcoming the distance.”

  Given Yudin’s rheumatism and the accompanying arthritic symptoms that had plagued him since childhood, his decision to join the Dyatlov group may have seemed counterintuitive. But the challenges that came with hiking and mountaineering allowed him to better cope with his chronic condition, both mentally and physically. The very illness that had driven him to the sport, and had potentially put Yudin in harm’s way, had also, in his words, become his “salvation.”

  To my surprise, talk of his illness led Yudin to open up about his poor childhood, which was spent in the town of Emelyashevka, a half-day’s drive outside of Yekaterinburg. During the summers he had walked barefoot outside so that he could preserve his only pair of shoes for the winter months. In instances where he had to wear shoes at his destination, he would tie them to a stick and carry them over his shoulder as he walked. During the Second World War, food rations were the norm. “I tried sugar for the first time when I came to school,” he told me. “I was seven and it was wartime, and nobody had anything. The government was giving us a loaf of bread and a teaspoon of sugar, which we’d spread out on the bread.”

  Yudin’s much older brother served as an aviator during the war and survived. Their father also served, but was not so lucky. His death left Yudin’s illiterate mother to care for him and his older sister. It was a difficult time, Yudin said, but conditions improved for his family when his brother returned from the war and was able to segue into a teaching career.

  The post-Stalinist period came with new opportunities for Yudin’s generation, including wider access to education. After the Dyatlov tragedy, Yudin went on to earn his degree in geology from UPI. After attending graduate school for economics, he moved north to Solikamsk, a mining city in the Perm district, where he settled into a career as an engineer in a magnesium plant. Yudin worked at the same Solikamsk plant his entire life before his retirement from factory life in the late ’90s.

  After the tragedy, Yudin’s rheumatism abated enough for him to continue enjoying the outdoors. Yudin has retained his love of hiking and has continued to organize trips into the Urals. “It’s a university tradition which carries on,” he said proudly. “Hiking has always been my hobby. And of course what happened in 1959 was a horrible thing, but it’s what I do.”

  Talk turned to the upcoming expedition, which was still over a
week away. Kuntsevich interrupted our conversation to inform us that weather conditions in the northern Ural Mountains were going to be very unpredictable. Sudden blizzards and violent winds were a real threat, and a clear sky could lull one into a false sense of security. And once you’re above the tree line, there’s no place to seek cover. I nodded my understanding that I was aware of the dangers. But if his intention was to spook me, he had succeeded. I reluctantly wrapped up my talk with Yudin for the day, and we made a plan to resume the following morning.

  That night after dinner, I slipped out of the apartment in search of a beer to soothe my growing agitation. I found a bar within ten minutes, tucked below street level in the subbasement of a concrete building. The three beers I ended up drinking there were a bad idea, and by the time I left the cigarette-choked bar and was walking home, a strange paranoia overtook me. Kuntsevich had found out earlier in the day that the car hired to pick me up at the airport a few days prior had been deliberately banged up after dropping me off. Kuntsevich theorized that the FSB, the modern equivalent of the KGB, had damaged the hired car as a warning for me to stop looking into the case. I had found Kuntsevich’s Cold War–level of paranoia amusing, endearing even, but as I walked home that night, it seemed that everyone I passed on the street was looking at me a beat too long. What if Kuntsevich was right, and I wasn’t welcome here? I hurried back to the apartment, touched to find that Olga had stayed up past her bedtime to make sure I returned safely.