Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
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THE 1959 INVESTIGATIVE AND SEARCH TEAMS
Georgy Atmanaki: A search and rescue volunteer and a member of the hiking party (along with Shavkunov and Karelin) who witnessed the light orbs in February 1959.
Yuri Blinov: A UPI student, hiking-club member and friend of the Dyatlov group. He was among the first to search for the hikers. Blinov’s own hiking group had shadowed Dyatlov’s for the first portion of their trip. He was among the last to see the group alive.
Vadim Brusnitsyn: A search volunteer and UPI student who was part of Mikhail Sharavin and Boris Slobtsov’s larger search team. His testimony during the investigation helped establish Sharavin and Slobtsov’s discovery of the tent.
Lev Gordo: The then-47-year-old director of the UPI sports club. Along with Yuri Blinov, Gordo was among the first to search for the hikers.
Lev Ivanov: Criminal investigator at the Sverdlovsk regional prosecutor’s office. He replaced Vasily Tempalov as lead investigator on the Dyatlov case.
Vladislav Karelin: A search volunteer and a member of the hiking party (along with Shavkunov and Atmanaki) who witnessed the light orbs in February 1959.
Abram Kikoin: Brother of famous nuclear physicist Isaak Kikoin. He taught physics at UPI and headed the school’s mountaineering club; for that reason, he was assigned to head up a relief search team to look for the missing hikers.
Ivan Laptev: Forensic expert who autopsied the Dyatlov hikers’ bodies.
Levashov: Sverdlovsk’s chief municipal radiologist, who performed radiation tests on the hikers’ clothing and organs at Ivanov’s request.
Yevgeny Maslennikov: One of the most experienced outdoorsmen in Sverdlovsk at the time of the hikers’ deaths. He had been an adviser to the Dyatlov group and was eventually asked to lead a search party.
Nikolay Moiseyev: A police lieutenant who, with his trained dogs, was among those who found the hikers’ bodies.
Colonel George Ortyukov: A lecturer of reserve-officer training at UPI. Heavily involved in the search efforts, he was the first to assemble a formal search party.
Mikhail Sharavin: UPI student and search volunteer. Discovered the hikers’ tent with Boris Slobtsov.
Vladimir Shavkunov: a member of the hiking party (along with Karelin and Atmanaki) who witnessed the light orbs in February 1959.
Boris Slobtsov: A UPI student, search volunteer and a friend of the Dyatlov hikers. Slobtsov discovered the tent along with Mikhail Sharavin.
Vasily Tempalov: The original prosecutor assigned to investigate the case. A junior counselor of justice at the Ivdel prosecutor’s office, he was quickly replaced by Lev Ivanov, who outranked him.
Aleksey Vozrozhdyonny: Forensics expert. Conducted the autopsies of the Dyatlov group together with Ivan Laptev.
THE PRESENT - DAY TEAM
Vladimir Borzenkov: A disaster expert, aviation engineer, investigator and leading authority on the Dyatlov case.
Donnie Eichar: Filmmaker, author.
Olga Kuntsevich: Yuri Kuntsevich’s wife, resident of Yekaterinburg.
Yuri Kuntsevich: President of the Dyatlov Foundation, hiker and Young Pioneer instructor in Yekaterinburg.
Jason Thompson: Author’s producing partner and friend, accompanied him on his first trip to Russia.
Dmitri Voroshchuk: Geologist and translator who participated in the expedition to Dyatlov Pass with the author, Borzenkov and Kuntsevich.
THE HIKERS’ TIMELINE
January 23, 1959
The Dyatlov group boards a train in the city of Sverdlovsk and departs to Serov at 9:05 PM.
January 24, 1959
The hikers arrive in the town of Serov at 7:39 AM. They spend the afternoon entertaining children at School #41. In the evening the hikers depart on the train for Ivdel. They arrive in Ivdel around midnight.
January 25, 1959
The hikers board a 6:00 AM bus to Vizhay. Arriving at around 2:00 PM, they are given luxurious accommodations by the director of the free workers’ camp.
January 26, 1959
While waiting for their next means of transportation, the hikers seek advice from the town’s forester. The hikers then travel by truck to a remote woodcutting settlement in Sector 41 and arrive at 4:30 PM. The hikers spend the night in the workers’ dormitory, singing songs and reciting poetry until early the next morning.
January 27, 1959
They wait until for 4:00 PM for a man with a horse and cart to take them to another northern settlement, an abandoned geological site. The hikers travel late into the night up the frozen Lozva River on their way to the site.
January 28, 1959
After a difficult trek up the frozen Lovza River, the Dyatlov hikers arrive in good spirits at the abandoned geological site in the dark early morning hours. The hikers find an empty house and sleep until daylight. Later that day, Yuri Yudin says his final farewell to his friends and returns back home due to poor health. The rest of the group continues skiing north along the Lozva River.
January 29, 1959
The Dyatlov hikers trek further along the Lozva River and set up camp near the frozen Auspiya River.
January 30, 1959
The hikers continue along the Auspiya River and note in their journals the Mansi symbols on the trees. Deep snow begins to make skiing more difficult.
January 31, 1959
The hikers continue upstream on the Auspiya River and set up camp for the night.
February 1, 1959
In the first half of the day, the hikers construct a temporary storage shelter and leave some supplies inside to lighten their packs for the trip up Otorten Mountain. The group then skis all afternoon, arriving at what would become known as Dyatlov Pass at 3:00 PM. The sun sets at 4:58 PM. They set the tent on the eastern slope of Holatchal mountain at an altitude of 1,079 meters (3,540 feet).
THE INVESTIGATION TIMELINE
February 2, 1959
The tenth hiker, Yuri Yudin, returns home to Emelyashevka.
February 12, 1959
The Dyatlov hikers are expected to return to Vizhay. Yudin, who is still in Emelyashevka, forgets to relay the message to Sverdlovsk that the Dyatlov group will be three days late.
February 15, 1959
Relatives of the hikers are unaware of their expected delay and begin to worry when their loved ones fail to return to Sverdlovsk as planned by February 13.
February 16, 1959
Igor’s sister, Rufina, alerts school administrators that her brother and the rest of the hiking group have not returned home.
February 17, 1959
Between 6:00–7:00 AM, various hikers, hunters and military personnel in the Ural region report seeing light orbs in the sky.
Bowing to pressure from friends and family of the hikers, university officials send an inquiring telegram to Vizhay, the city from which the Dyatlov group would be traveling.
February 18, 1959
A request for a search plane by the families of the Dyatlov hikers is refused by university administrators.
February 19, 1959
A telegram from Vizhay informs university administrators in Sverdlovsk that the Dyatlov group has not arrived.
Colonel Georgy Ortyukov at UPI begins assembling a formal search party to look for the missing hikers. Yuri Blinov, a UPI student whose group had traveled with Dyatlov’s on their first leg of the trip, is among the first to join.
February 20, 1959
A formal search for the nine missing hikers begins. Yuri Blinov and Lev Gordo, president of the sports club of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, fly by helicopter to Ivdel. From Ivdel they take a Yak-12 surveillance plane north to scan the Ural ridge for the missing hikers, but must turn back early due to bad weather.
Yuri Yudin returns to Sverdlovsk from his hometown of Emelyashevka and is informed that his friends have not yet returned.
The Ivdel prosecutor’s office orders a criminal investigation into the case of the missing hikers.
February 21, 1959
Vasily Tempalov, an Ivdel prosecutor, is assigned to head the investigation.
Blinov and Gordo fly to the Mansi village of Bahtiyarova to extract what information they can from the local tribe. They learn that a group of young hikers stopped for tea in the village earlier that month.
February 22, 1959
A search party under the leadership of UPI student Boris Slobtsov heads to Ivdel by plane.
February 23, 1959
The search parties arrive by helicopter on the eastern slope of Otorten Mountain, the hikers’ intended destination.
Two planes survey the mountain area to the east from Otorten Mountain and the Lozva River banks.
February 24, 1959
Boris Slobtsov’s search party surveys the Lozva valley and the Auspiya River. Mountaineering expert Yevgeny Maslennikov arrives from Sverdlosk to join the search. There is an escalation in the search efforts as UPI students, family members, local officials and volunteers from surrounding work camps target various routes to Otorten Mountain.
February 25, 1959
A search helicopter over the Auspiya River picks up ski tracks. Leaflets are dropped from the search plane that instruct Boris Slobtsov’s party to alter its route and follow the recently spotted tracks.
February 26, 1959
Searchers Boris Slobtsov and Michael Sharavin discover the Dyatlov hikers’ tent at an elevation on the east slope of Holatchahl mountain.
After Slobtsov and Sharavin return to camp, radiogram operator Igor Nevolin sends news to Ivdel that the tent has been found.
February 27, 1959
Search groups converge on Holatchahl mountain. Twenty yards below the tent, nine sets of footprints are found leading from the tent toward the valley.
The bodies of Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonishchenko are found by a cedar tree a mile downslope from the tent.
The bodies of Igor Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova are found later that day. Dyatlov is found roughly 1,300 yards from the tent and Kolmogorova about 300 yards from Dyatlov.
February 28, 1959
The search for the remaining hikers continues with no results.
March 1, 1959
Regional criminal investigator Lev Ivanov replaces Tempalov as chief investigator. Ivanov arrives on the scene to begin his investigation of the locations where the bodies were discovered. Ivanov examines the Dyatlov tent site and determines the tent was erected as per hiking regulations.
The first four bodies from the Dyatlov hiking group are taken to Boot Rock and prepared to be flown to Ivdel.
March 2, 1959
The hikers’ storage structure is discovered with food rations and personal items belonging to the hikers.
Ivanov and the bodies of the hikers are flown to Ivdel by helicopter.
March 3, 1959
The search for the remaining hikers continues with no results.
March 4, 1959
Forensic examinations of Igor, Zina, Georgy and Yuri begin in Ivdel.
March 5, 1959
Rustem Slobodin’s body is found under a foot of snow in the 300-yard distance between Igor Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova.
March 6, 1959
Rustem’s body and the tent’s contents are taken to Ivdel by helicopter.
March 7, 1959
Yuri Yudin travels to Ivdel by helicopter to identify the belongings of the Dyatlov group.
March 8, 1959
Yuri Yudin identifies the equipment and personal belongings of the Dyatlov hikers in Ivdel.
March 9–10, 1959
Funerals are held for the first five hikers in Sverdlovsk. Yudin is still in Ivdel and not able to attend the funeral.
March 11, 1959
Forensic examination of Rustem begins in Ivdel as search efforts continue in the Urals.
March 12–16, 1959
Four hikers remain missing: Lyuda Dubinina, Sasha Zolotaryov, Alexander Kolevatov and Kolya Thibault-Brignoles. The search continues.
March 17, 1959
Meteorologists and soldiers in Ivdel report seeing light orbs. A similar phenomenon is observed by search party member Vladislav Karelin as his team was traveling in the northern Urals.
March 18–30, 1959
Forensic examination of Igor, Zina, Georgy, Doroshenko and Rustik conclude that the five hikers had died from hypothermia. The question remains not how they died but under what circumstances.
Search efforts expand to a larger area with no results.
March 31, 1959
Search party members on the Auspiya River report seeing light orbs in the sky of a similar nature to those seen on February 17.
April 1–2, 1959
Harsh weather slows the search effort for the hikers.
April 3–6, 1959
The hikers’ tent is examined at Sverdlovsk criminal research laboratory. It’s established that the tent was cut by someone and the Dyatlov group escaped suddenly. Ivanov believes the issue of the tent being cut is crucial to solving the case.
April 7–May 2, 1959
A professional tailor examines the slashes in the tent and confirms what investigators have already concluded: It is a deliberate slash made with a knife.
Criminal expert G. Churkina later examines the tears in the tent under a microscope and determines the slashes were made from the inside of the tent, not the outside, by a blade or knife. Ivanov no longer considers the theory of an outside attacker.
Search efforts continue as the teams battle with strong winds and deep snow.
May 3, 1959
Mansi searcher Stepan Kurikov discovers loose branches, cut by a knife, under snow in a ravine near a cedar tree. Probing of the area begins and a piece of clothing is discovered. The team digs a large hole above the creek bed and discovers a cache of cut and shredded clothing.
May 4, 1959
Excavation through snow and slush above the creek bed reveals the remaining four hikers (Lyudmila Dubinina, Alexander Zolotaryov, Alexander Kolevatov and Nikolay Thibault-Brignoles) at the bottom of a ravine. The volunteers remove the badly decomposed bodies from the slush in the ravine.
May 5–6, 1959
Ivanov arrives to examine the condition of the bodies pulled from the ravine.
May 7, 1959
Helicopter pilot, Captain Gatezhenko, refuses to transport the hikers’ bodies to Ivdel without zinc-lined coffins to prevent toxic or biological leakage.
May 8, 1959
The remaining four hikers are flown to Ivdel by helicopter in the specified zinc-coated coffins.
May 9, 1959
A forensic examination of the remaining four hikers reveals “violent” injuries to three of the bodies.
May 10–17, 1959
Ivanov interviews more witnesses in an attempt to make sense of the recent autopsy results.
May 18–21, 1959
Ivanov orders radiological analysis for possible radiation contamination.
May 19–21, 1959
Radiological tests are performed on the hikers’ organs and clothing samples.
May 22, 1959
Dubinina, Zolotaryov, Kolevatov and Thibault-Brignoles’ closed-casket funerals are held for family only.
May 28, 1959
The criminal case is discontinued with Lev Ivanov’s conclusion that “an unknown compelling force should be considered the cause of the hikers’ deaths.”
May 29, 1959
Radiological analysis report comes back after the case has been closed. The radiologist determines articles of the hikers’ clothing to contain higher-than-normal levels of radiation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many relatives of the hikers, search participants and key people involved in the Dyatlov case have died without knowing what happened to their friends and loved ones. The spirit of this book is in honor of the nine hikers who died, their family and friends.
This book would have been impossible without the assistance of a great number of people.
Without the wisdom, tireless guidance and e
nduring friendship of Yuri Kuntsevich, Vladimir Borzenkov and Yuri Yudin this book would not exist. I would like to pay special tribute to Yuri Yudin, who passed away before the publication of the book. I hope I’ve made you proud in retelling your story. Rest in peace my friend.
Dmitriy Voroshchuk for accompanying me on the expedition to the Dyatlov Pass. Tatania Dyatlov and family, Piotr Bartolomey, Evgeniy Zinoviyev, Mikhail Sharavin, Vladislav Karelin, Oleg Arkhipov, Aleksey Budrin, Anatoliy Gushchin, Alexsandra Ivanov, Igor Dubinina, Yuri Koptelov, Aleksey Kashin, Sergey Lugovtsov, Sergey Zuberev, Mikhail Terekhanov, Valeriya Gamatina, Nikolay Roman, Stephan Anyamov, Valentin Yakimenko, Evgeniy Koshkarev, Leonid Rokotyan and Milana Borisova for providing essential recollections from interviews. Katya Bushkovskaya, Olga Taranenko and Eugene Alpirn for providing translations. Lev Ivanov for providing the clues contained in your 1959 case investigation. Many thanks to Olga Kuntsevich for taking me in as family into your home. You are a treasure.
To J.C. Gabel and Nova Jacobs. Without your tireless editing, writing and research contributions, the book would not have been possible.
Steve Mockus, my editor at Chronicle Books, for his superb instinct for narrative and for giving me the space to figure out how to tell this story. Emily Dubin for helping visually frame a difficult and complicated story. Beth Steiner, Lia Brown and Courtney Drew at Chronicle for your help.
The wisdom of experts and scholars: Dr. Al Bedard and Valerie Zavorotney at NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory; Dr. Chris Straus, associate professor of radiology at the University of Chicago Medical Center; Dr.
Yuri Yudin and Donnie Eichar, February 2012
Reed Brozen, medical director at Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center’s Advance Response Team; Bruce Tremper, director of forest services at the Utah Avalanche Center; Peter Sherwood, professor of Hungarian Language and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Russian scholars Jonathan Brent and J. Archibald Getty.
Carolyn Kellogg at the L.A. Times for tipping J.C. and me off to Richard Lloyd Parry’s brilliant book, People Who Eat Darkness, which served as an inspiration for Dead Mountain. Paul and Tinti Norton for their friendship, publishing expertise and guidance. Nina Weiner for introducing J.C. and me in the summer of 2011. John Sinclair, Konrad Ribero, Tony Macaluso, Jeremy Rabb, George Hodak, Sybil Perez and Rachel Wiseman, who all read the manuscript with great care. Josh Rogers for hosting a one-night-only salon to help garner additional support for the book.