Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

by Eichar, Donnie

  Despite the capricious brutality of the Soviet government, Yudin remembers those times fondly. “We were poor, but we could live well because everything was cheap. The government helped us. They gave us money. And when it came to our hiking expeditions, they gave us money as well. . . . Now, under the Putin government, we are plankton. Now money is the authority. Money buys you freedom. I’m spitting on Yeltsin!” What Yudin said next sounded not only strange to my Western ears, but also surprising given his impoverished upbringing under Stalinist rule: “After Stalin’s death, everybody cried, everybody was sad. . . . I think that Stalin did the right thing and that he was a great man.”

  As Yudin was telling me this, I noticed our translator shaking her head in vigorous disagreement. He didn’t appear to notice her stern disapproval, and continued: “That said, I hate Lenin. He was not a good man. . . . Again, this is only my opinion.” Before I could ask why he thought Stalin deserved such praise and not Lenin, Yudin abruptly segued into talk of the Dyatlov group’s leader: “You could almost say that Igor was a totalitarian type of a leader at times. He decided everything.”

  This wasn’t the first time I’d been told of Igor’s dictatorial qualities. On my last trip I’d met with Aleksey Budrin, a friend of Igor’s from UPI, who described how Igor had enforced peculiar rules on hiking trips, including the strictest personal hygiene. “We had to wash our feet every night, even though sometimes we didn’t have a heater and maybe no hot water in winter,” Budrin said. “You have to be quite a strong-willed man to make others do it because some people didn’t want to. . . . It was quite unusual because no other hikers did anything like this, only Dyatlov.”

  There were more stories like this among the diary entries I’d had translated, including one from a 1957 summer excursion Igor had led into the Caucasus—a hiking party that included Zina and Kolya. En route, the group’s westbound train passed through Stalingrad, inspiring Igor to pen a journal entry describing the still battle-scarred city. But beneath Igor’s earnest descriptions of shell holes and Battle of Stalingrad memorials, Zina scribbled a teasing addendum. She described how Igor had intended to leave the group’s backpacks on the train despite protests from the others that someone needed to stand guard. “At first Igor gave his decisive ‘no,’ ” wrote Zina, “but when the guys assaulted him again, he stood and thought for a long time like some Napoleon, and then said quietly, ‘Kolya and you, Zina, will stay.’ ”

  As much as Igor preferred to control the course of the trips he led, the actual route of their final trip to Otorten Mountain had not, in fact, been his idea. “Originally it was the idea of some other hiking students,” Yudin explained, “but they weren’t good organizers and they failed to find people to go. And then our group decided to do it because Igor in particular had tremendous organizing skills.”

  In the years after the tragedy, one of the things that hurt Yudin most was how Igor and the others had been portrayed. Some of the published books, he felt, were merely searching for a lurid angle on the story: “Much has been made of the hikers’ relationships with the opposite sex—that somehow arguments with the girls led to their deaths. This,” he said, “is bullshit.”

  Then what did Yudin believe? In response to my questions, he made it clear that he didn’t think the fate of his friends had anything to do with natural phenomena. “The number one possibility in my mind,” he said, “is that it was people who came with guns because they were in an area they shouldn’t have been in or they saw something they shouldn’t have seen.” He went on to say that the armed men had coerced the hikers into fabricating a scene to throw off investigators. The men forced them to walk into the forest half-naked, and to shred their own clothes before being left to die. “So they were forced to do it, to create this kind of madness.”

  The clue that most convinced Yudin that the hikers had been led by gunpoint was Lyuda’s missing tongue. The reigning skeptic’s interpretation was that nine bodies lying out in the open for days and weeks are going to attract animals, and that, not unlike the bird that damaged Georgy’s face, the soft tissue of Lyuda’s tongue had been a target for rodents. Yudin, however, doubted this explanation. “If it had been a mouse, it would have happened to everyone, to all the bodies.” Instead, he believed someone had singled out Lyuda for punishment, possibly because she had been the most strong-willed and outspoken of the group. “Was it just an animal, or did she talk too much and that was a warning from government officials?”

  In addition, a charm that Lyuda carried with her everywhere, a small stuffed toy in the shape of a hedgehog, had not been found on her body. “She always carried it with her, but it was missing.” He pointed out that the chocolate the hikers had with them was also gone, with no evidence of the wrappers. Did someone whom the hikers encountered in the woods take these items, thinking that no one would notice? If so, who?

  Later that night, as I reviewed the tape of our interview, I couldn’t help but feel slightly deflated that Yudin stood squarely in the company of Dyatlov case conspiracists. Lyuda’s toy was among the objects found at the campsite, and there was no evidence of her tongue being cut out, just missing. For all his connection to the tragedy, he was apparently no different from the many who suspected a government cover-up. In fact, his theory was nearly identical to the one related to me by Kuntsevich, who thought secret government case files would eventually prove him and others like him right.

  Odder still had been Yudin’s expression of his devotion not just to Stalin, but to Communist rule in general. How was Yudin able to reconcile a deep affection for the Soviet era, while carrying around an intense suspicion of its government? How could the same government that had provided for him and his family so well, who had given him a free education, be the same government responsible for, at best, whitewashing what happened the night of February 1—or, at worst, killing and torturing his closest friends? But Yudin’s apparent love-hate relationship with strong rule was certainly not unique to him; one had only to look at his country’s volatile history to see that this kind of ambivalence appeared to be stamped into the Russian genetic code.

  Still, I was enjoying my days with Yudin and looking forward to having him beside me to provide commentary during our upcoming trip. But, as I would soon find out, my face time with the Dyatlov group’s survivor would be limited. The next few days would bring discouraging news to the Kuntsevich house, as well as a surprise visitor from Moscow.

  The Dyatlov hikers depart Vizhay for Sector 41, January 26, 1959.

  12

  JANUARY 25–26, 1959

  THEY HAD BEEN EXPECTING NOTHING MORE THAN HUMBLE accommodations in Vizhay: just a roof over their heads and a floor on which to stretch out. But when Igor introduced himself and his companions to the director of the free workers’ camp, the man took an instant liking to the young adventurers and insisted they spend the night at the camp’s guesthouse. There they would be well taken care of and each provided with his or her own room. Yudin describes it as the most “posh” house in the settlement, a mansion in comparison with what they were used to. “It was very chic for those times,” he says.

  The instant they stepped over the threshold into their well-appointed lodgings, they were conscious of their grimy state. “The linens were spotless,” Yudin remembers. “I was missing a pillowcase and a woman promptly found me a replacement.” He adds, “The cleaning ladies, they were furious because they had to clean the whole place after we left.”

  After unloading their packs and spreading out in their luxurious digs, the hikers lit the wood-burning stove and started dinner. There were other tasks. Zina finished assembling her tarpaulin boot covers and Rustik wrote a postcard to his family. After dinner, there was talk of going into town. As chance would have it, the group’s favorite movie, Symphony in Gold, was playing at the local cinema. The 1956 Austrian musical, which features an attractive cast ice skating its way through a snowy wonderland and effervescent musical numbers, was just then making its rounds in Soviet th
eaters. The hikers had seen Symphony in Gold multiple times and knew many of the songs by heart, even though the lyrics were in German. One particular number, “Dong Dingeldang,” features an idyllic mountain landscape populated by a troop of young skiers buoyantly advancing through the snow. Apart from all the yodeling, and the comic arrival of an ice-skating bull, it’s hard to imagine Igor and his friends not having seen themselves reflected in this scene of winter adventure and joyful song.

  While the others were at the “cinema”—which was likely little more than a community projection room with folding chairs—the ever-sensible Kolevatov, with the help of Doroshenko, stayed behind to clear away the clutter from dinner. Referring to himself in the third person, Kolevatov noted somewhat bitterly in the group’s diary:

  Doroshenko and Kolevatov are left to do housework, while the others go to the cinema and return in “musical mood” after seeing Symphony in Gold.

  THE NEXT MORNING, THE TRAVELERS LEARNED THAT THE truck headed to Sector 41 wouldn’t be leaving until that afternoon. This gave them ample time to pack and secure some breakfast. Georgy’s diary notes:

  We didn’t cook in the morning, firewood is damp, and cooking took 6 hours in the evening. We went to the cafeteria for breakfast and had goulash a-la-cafeteria and tea.

  The goulash didn’t present any particular reason for complaint, but the hikers were disappointed when their tea arrived unheated. Igor, however, took the nuisance in stride. According to Georgy’s diary, he quipped, “If the tea is cold, drink it outside and it will seem warmer.”

  After breakfast and packing, the morning’s main task was to gather some final supplies in town and to get advice from the local forester. “In any settlement, the first visit was paid to foresters,” Yudin explains, “because they knew the roads and could advise visitors on their route.” Vizhay’s resident forester was a man named Ivan Rempel. He was unusual among those in his profession in that he was part of a population known as Russified Germans, transplants from Germany who had embraced Russian culture and were fluent in the language.

  Despite the forester’s convincing assimilation, there was an aspect of his house that had retained the flavor of his home country, something Yudin noticed immediately upon entering. First, the house was exceedingly well kept. But most notably, Rempel had fashioned a section of his house in the likeness of a Wunderkammer or “wonder room”—what the English would call a cabinet of curiosities. The walls were covered in paintings, many of them done by Rempel himself. But most captivating to his visitors were shelves upon shelves of glass jars filled with miniature tableaux. Each jar featured a different shrunken landscape, and many were religious or seasonal in theme—motionless versions of the scenes Yudin and his friends had enjoyed at the cinema the night before. There were depictions of the Nativity, Christmas trees, winter vistas featuring children and sleighs and—the Slavic version of Santa Claus—Father Frost. While Igor and his friends were consulting with Rempel, Yudin couldn’t keep his eyes from the diminutive figures suspended behind glass, and from the tiny Christ child lying in an equally tiny manger. To this day, Yudin can’t understand how the forester managed to construct such tiny wonders. “How he got them in there, nobody could figure out.”

  While Yudin was enraptured by these fantasy snowscapes, the forester warned the rest of the hikers of the real winter conditions outside. After Igor expressed the group’s intention to reach Otorten Mountain, the forester strongly advised against such a trip. “I expressed my opinion that it is dangerous to go over the Ural ridge in winter,” Rempel later said, “as there are large ravines and pits where one can sink, and winds are so strong that people can be blown away.” Rempel told the hikers that although he hadn’t experienced these dangers firsthand, he had heard stories of locals making the mistake of similar trips.

  But whatever argument the forester made, Igor insisted that they were looking for a challenge. “We are prepared, we’re ready, we’re not afraid,” Yudin remembers Igor saying. “The level of preparation for the campaign of the Dyatlov group was much better than that assumed by local residents.”

  Even if Igor had believed that significant danger lay ahead, as the forester was insisting, he wouldn’t have let that discourage his group. Igor was “a fan of extremely dangerous situations—an addict,” Yudin says. “He was deliberately finding and choosing the most dangerous situations and overcoming them.” Perhaps, then, the forester’s warning had the opposite effect to the one intended: It only convinced Igor that he and his friends were on the right path. After Igor copied down one of Rempel’s maps, which was more detailed than the one they were carrying, the friends thanked the forester, cast a last glance at the miniature curios and went on their way.

  It was around this time that Yudin began to have serious doubts about continuing into the mountains. It had nothing to do with the forester’s warnings and everything to do with the increasing pain shooting through his back and legs. Yudin informed the group of his discomfort—stated merely as fact, not as a complaint—but also said he fully intended to push ahead to Sector 41.

  That afternoon, the ten bundled friends piled into the bed of a woodcutters’ truck, one primarily used for shuttling workers to and from the camps. As Yudin would discover during the three-hour truck ride, this form of transportation was not designed for someone combating rheumatism. Aside from the extreme cold, every bump and irregularity in the road seemed to magnify his pain. He could do little about the roughness, but he resorted to unfurling the group’s tent and pulling it over himself like a blanket to keep warm. Georgy noted how the friends tried to make the best of an uncomfortable journey:

  Got pretty cold, as we were riding in the back of a GAZ-63. We were singing all the way, discussing various issues, from love and friendship to cancer diseases and treatment.

  “The wind was blowing in our faces,” Yudin remembers. “The temperature was very low and my clothes were very thin.” Yudin would later catch cold because of this ride, but then a cold was trivial as compared with his lifelong struggles with illness. “It’s a Russian way of thinking. When we are ill, we think, OK, I’m not going to the doctor. I’m not going to lie about it either, but maybe it’ll go away.”

  Though he had told his friends that he intended to push onward, Yudin knew he wouldn’t be able to bear such pain once they were deep in the Urals. There was only so much relief the medicine in his pack could provide. As the truck rattled its way to Sector 41, and Yudin’s bones rattled along with it, he was keenly aware that at some point there would be no turning back. He would have to make a decision soon.

  Stepan Kurikov, head of the Mansi search team, February 1959.

  13

  FEBRUARY 1959

  STEPAN KURIKOV TRUDGES THROUGH A SMALL RAVINE, A lead in his hand and a police dog at the other end of it. Kurikov has come to the search by way of Suyevatpaul, a Mansi village at the Anchucha tributary, where he is one of the respected tribal elders. He is also one of few Mansi tribesmen who has joined the search, and though he is well into his fifties, he is a tireless member of the team. Trailing behind him is Vladislav Karelin, a medical engineering employee and a Grade-II hiker. Karelin was a member of the same hiking group that stopped for tea at the Mansi village of Bahtiyarova earlier in the month—a visit that initially threw off searchers after they confused Karelin’s party with Dyatlov’s.

  As the two weave through the dark claws of dormant birches, Kurikov senses that his dog is anxious, in the way that police dogs get right before they find something. It is late afternoon and Kurikov and Karelin are only a few hundred yards from where the bodies of Yuri Doroshenko and Georgy Krivonishchenko were found several hours earlier. It’s strange that Kurikov should find himself here again, in the same spot that he and another Mansi volunteer had combed just days before with no success. If not for the two searchers stumbling upon the bodies earlier that morning, the teams would still be swarming the eastern slope. But now the focus has shifted to the valley, almost a mile from
the Dyatlov group’s tent.

  The German shepherd tugs at its lead, pulling Kurikov over the powdery snow in the direction of a young birch, whose shoots erupt from the ground at unnatural angles, as if coerced by gravity or wind. The Mansi man watches as the dog sniffs around the sapling, leaving behind a mess of paw prints. As the shepherd grows increasingly anxious, Kurikov calls to his companion. There can be no doubt there is something here, and the men drop to their knees and begin to dig. With gloved hands, they toss the snow behind them in clumps. But they don’t have to dig far because just inches beneath the surface, they hit something hard. They find a patch of dark cloth, and after more snow is cleared away, they can make out the shape of a joint covered in wool—an elbow.

  Like a pair of archaeologists, the men continue to carve away the snow, until something human emerges. First an arm, then hands, and another arm, until it becomes clear that the arms are held across the chest in what appears to be a defensive gesture. But in fact, the arms are clutching the birch, pulling its spindly trunk downward, giving the tree its awkward angle. As the men unearth more of the body, they observe that this hiker is dressed more warmly than Doroshenko and Krivonishchenko had been, though not by much. This man wears a sweater pulled over a checkered shirt, plus a fur vest and ski trousers. Like his companions, he is without hat or gloves. He is also shoeless, with only a pair of mismatched socks pulled over painfully curled feet. On his left wrist is a Zvezda watch—a popular brand manufactured north of Moscow in Uglich. The watch is stopped at 5:31. The position of the body, as it clings to the birch, is one of suspended struggle, as if the victim had been fighting against the elements until his last breath.