At the end of January 1959, a group of nine tourists set off on a hike to the northern Urals to places on the map of our Motherland that were then practically unexplored and poorly studied.
Their path lay through the taiga and tundra past mountain passes to Mount Otorten, which was the most remote point of their route, upon reaching which they had to turn back.
Successfully overcoming the route of the highest difficulty category would certainly have made the guys famous in the tourist environment. And they really did become famous, not only in their hometown, but also throughout the world. Only, alas, not at all as they expected.
On the night of February 1-2, when the tourists spent the night in a tent near Mount Kholat Syakhl, some unforeseen event occurred, forcing nine experienced and physically fit people to hastily leave the tent in the darkness and severe frost. Some of them did not have time to get dressed, some were barefoot. Subsequently, they all died.
According to the official version, the cause of their death was some elemental force that they were unable to overcome. But numerous facts, strange circumstances of the tragedy and testimonies of people who participated in the search for the bodies of the missing tourists cast serious doubt on the official version, which few people take seriously today.
This dark story became known as the “Dyatlov Pass Incident.”
The mass grave of the Dyatlov tour group at the Mikhailovskoye Cemetery
The story of the infamous Dyatlov Pass has undoubtedly become one of the main mysteries of the 20th century. Many researchers and fans of dark tourism have broken their lances in an attempt to solve it or at least partially lift the curtain of its secrecy. I was no exception.
I can’t remember exactly when I first heard the story of the death of the Dyatlov group. I can only assume that it was around 2013. But the fact is that this story has captivated me more than completely and hasn’t let go to this day.
In this article, I will try to describe my personal trip to the pass, which I made in 2015 and my thoughts about the circumstances of the tourists’ death. I am writing it in 2025, that is, exactly 10 years after the trip, the vivid memories of which I continue to carry within me today.
In the early 2010s, fate brought me together with a resident of Yekaterinburg named Alexey. We met on the then just-rising social network VKontakte on the basis of similar musical interests. Later I learned that Alexey’s biography is quite colorful and diverse. In particular, he is a veteran of the Chechen war, is fond of electronic music, videography and even such unusual phenomena as ufology and anomalous tourism. In 2015, without false modesty, I was at the peak of my physical fitness and felt like Indiana Jones in my soul, ready to conquer unknown peaks and mysterious distances. After reading another article with new versions of the death of the Dyatlov tour group, I could not resist and wrote Alexey a message asking him to find out if he knows people in Yekaterinburg who are involved in organizing expeditions to the Dyatlov Pass.
Cemetery of the village of Vizhay
Here, it would probably be appropriate to recall the line from Ostap Bender’s song “And you must admit, what a delight, to instantly hit the bull’s eye, almost without aiming!” Alexey not only said that he knew such people, but also admitted that this summer he himself was going with them on a hike to Dyatlov Pass, hinting that he could join him.
A battle broke out in my chest between a strong desire to immediately answer him with consent and the fear of whether I would be able to withstand this hike. Despite the fact that today this area is quite well known, back then, in 1959, a hike through it was classified as the 3rd, highest category of difficulty, and my experience in extreme tourism left much to be desired. And yet, the thirst for adventure prevailed, and I asked Alexey to intercede for my inclusion in the 2015 expedition. No sooner said than done. Soon Alexey introduced me online to the head of the Dyatlov group memorial fund, Yuri Konstantinovich Kuntsevich, the main organizer and ideological inspirer of this and many other expeditions to the pass.
It is worth mentioning Kuntsevich, this remarkable person, separately. Born in 1947, he, as a 12-year-old teenager, attended the funeral of the Dyatlov group members. He was one of those who personally saw and noted the strange skin color of the tourists lying in the coffins, described by him as something between brick and orange. Atypical for those who died from frostbite, but characteristic of chemical poisoning.
Yuri Kuntsevich devoted a significant part of his life to investigating what happened at the Dyatlov Pass in February 1959. He personally knew and worked a lot with the members of the search group looking for the dead tourists. Among them were Yuri Yudin, a friend of the Dyatlov group who had left the route three days before the tragedy due to injury, Pyotr Bartolomey and Sergey Sogrin, who personally knew many of the Dyatlov group. On the hike, everyone warmly called Kuntsevich “Uncle Yura”, and someone called him YUKKa, almost in Finnish, apparently from the abbreviation of his first, last and patronymic names.
Alas, Yuri Konstantinovich passed away in 2021. “Now he knows the truth,” wrote one of the subscribers of the English-language Facebook group dedicated to the Dyatlov group, under the message about Kuntsevich’s death. I think that’s true.
Zina Kolmogorova’s Notebook
But let’s get back to the 2015 expedition. Having arrived early in the morning on a night flight to Yekaterinburg, I checked my bulky luggage into the storage room at the station, from where we were to depart for Ivdel that same evening. Having freed myself from the ballast for a while, I devoted my time to walking around Yekaterinburg, which, by the way, left a very good impression in my memory of a beautiful and tidy city.
First of all, I visited the Mikhailovskoye Cemetery, located relatively close to the station. Accidentally entering from the wrong entrance, I wandered around the necropolis for half an hour under an unexpected rain, until I found what I was looking for – a mass grave of dead tourists on the opposite edge of the cemetery.
I admit honestly that I have always found a special philosophical meaning in walking through cemeteries. And yet, standing in front of the graves of people whose mysterious death had brought me to this city, I was especially deeply imbued with thoughts about the eternal and how fragile human life can be. In front of me lay 7 people who knew the answer to the mystery that had been tormenting everyone for more than half a century, but took it with them to the grave. At that moment, the TV series “Lost” suddenly came to mind, which was still quite fresh in my memory at the time. I recalled, in particular, one of the secondary characters in the series, who had the ability to establish contact with the dead and read their thoughts, but only if he was in close proximity to their remains. This ability would have been very useful in the case of the death of the Dyatlov group, but let’s leave that for science fiction fans.
I mentioned 7 tourists, but there were 9 of them. The fact is that two of the participants in the hike were buried in the Ivanovskoye Cemetery located in the southwestern part of the city. Today, some conspiracy theorists see this as a hint that Yuri Krivonischenko and especially Semyon Zolotarev buried here were not just tourists, but undercover agents. That is why, they believe, they were buried separately.
There are many strange details in the Dyatlov group case, but I do not consider this one to be so. Everything is much simpler – Krivonischenko’s parents were influential people, and the Ivanovskoye Cemetery was considered more prestigious and honorable in those years, which is why they got a plot there for their son. As for Zolotarev, it seems to me that the fact that he was a front-line soldier who went through almost the entire Great Patriotic War played a role, and they also decided to honor the veteran with a plot in a more respectable cemetery.
Verkh-Neyvinsk station on the way to Ivdel
Having paid tribute to all nine members of the Dyatlov group, I walked to the alma mater of most of them. Today, UPI (Ural Polytechnic Institute) is called UrFU (Ural Federal University) named after the first president of Russia Boris Yeltsin.
Boris Yeltsin was also a graduate of UPI, which he graduated from in 1955, 4 years before the tragedy. Moreover, he studied at the construction department, a little later Yuri Krivonischenko and Nikolai Thibeaux-Brignolle graduated from it. The question of whether Yeltsin personally knew any of the Dyatlovites is debatable. I think that at the very least he could have crossed paths with them in the corridors of the institute. This theory was played out by the creators of the 2020 TV series “Dyatlov Pass”, freely depicting the scene where Boris Yeltsin asks to go on a hike with Igor Dyatlov, but is refused due to the lack of available seats. Most likely, this is nothing more than fiction.
That evening, I picked up my gear from the storage room and prepared to meet the people with whom I was going to share the camp porridge from the common pot for the next 12 days.
As it turned out, 27 people volunteered to take part in the expedition. Someone even joked that it was not 27, but 3 times 9, recalling the number of participants in Dyatlov’s tour group.
The composition of the expedition was very motley and diverse, but consisted of good people who left a very favorable impression.
One of the most vivid acquaintances was my meeting with the English writer Keith McCloskey, who came to the Urals from the distant city of Hungerford. Mr. McCloskey is very interested in such issues as the history of aviation and dark tourism. Having once heard the story of the death of Dyatlov’s tour group, he painstakingly collected various details and facts about this incident. I consider his work to be titanic, because there is very little information about the Dyatlov group in the English blogosphere. Nevertheless, he published a whole book, which revealed the tragic story of the Dyatlov group to many Western readers. Shortly before our trip, he decided to write and publish a second edition of the book, revised and expanded. In order to give his readers the most objective information, he decided to go to Russia to the site of the tourists’ death and see it with his own eyes.
Mr. McCloskey showed himself to be a very polite, good-natured person who stoically endured a difficult hike through the swampy taiga without losing his presence of mind. Considering that I was one of the few participants in the expedition who spoke English at least somehow, we became friends and often talked around the campfire. Upon returning to civilization, I shared with him my photographs from the expedition, some of which he used in his book, including on the cover. Later I learned that Mr. McCloskey had mentioned me very warmly in the text of his new book, for which I was, of course, very grateful.
Also, in our company there were residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tyumen, Novouralsk, but most of course were local Yekaterinburg residents.
Glacier near the site where the bodies of the dead tourists were found
Having boarded the Yekaterinburg-Ivdel train, we spent the evening getting to know each other, having a simple dinner and cheerful conversations, ending with a deep sleep. This was our last sleep in civilization, if you can consider a berth in a reserved seat carriage as such. We will spend the next 11 nights in tents in the middle of the Ural taiga.
Ivdel greeted us with cloudy weather and light fog in the morning, the most suitable atmosphere for the beginning of the journey. A shift bus with increased cross-country ability was waiting for us at the station. In about 7-8 hours, we covered several dozen kilometers on it, making three stops along the way: in the village of Polunochnoye (where I sent my last SMS to my family and friends before disconnecting the cellular connection), in the remains of the burnt-out village of Vizhay and in the small Mansi settlement of Ushme.
The last kilometers of the way we drove along such an overgrown road that the branches of the trees growing along its edges fiercely scraped the windows of our shift bus, like the claws of some invisible animals. However, it was difficult to call it a road, sometimes we were shaken so much that we bounced in our seats, clicking our teeth. Finally, we arrived at the landing site.
Our first slight disappointment was the weather, namely, almost pouring rain. Of course, it was too late to turn around. Having changed into rubber boots and casually thrown a waterproof cover over my backpack, I obediently followed Yuri Kuntsevich’s purple backpack, which became my landmark for the coming days. The rest of the day we walked for a relatively short time, about 2 hours, but our path lay along a completely muddy road and in a decent rain. I was a little despondent.
Soon we set up camp and I spent my first, extremely uncomfortable night in the taiga in the damp sleeping bag of my tent, which I still somehow managed to get wet. However, the real test awaited me tomorrow.
In the morning, the weather, having taken pity on us, dispersed the clouds and showed us the gentle August sun. Over breakfast, which consisted of porridge with stewed meat and tea with cookies, the strict plan was announced. We had to walk through the taiga for at least 30 kilometers in order to spend the next night at the end point of our route – the Labaz camp.
Auspiya River
I won’t over-dramatize, but the day turned out to be long for me personally. With a nearly 40-kilogram load, the 30-kilometer hike through this beautiful but wild land turned out to be a severe test for me. Somewhere in the middle of the route, I scooped up some swamp mud with one boot, and about 5 kilometers before the finish line, I scooped up some with the other. And how many mosquitoes there were! They mercilessly drank our blood, completely ignoring the timid attempts to drive them away with special sprays. Only the smoke from the fire more or less scared them away.
Finally, in the evening, having arrived as the first echelon of fellow travelers stretched out across the taiga along the Auspiya River, I threw the hated backpack on the ground with relief and, groaning like an old man, pitched my tent closer to the fire. The Labaz camp got its name in honor of the fact that it was here that the Dyatlov group spent their last safe night and here they left part of their cargo, organizing a labaz, that is, a cache of things that they were going to take on the way back from Otorten. Alas, but as we know, this did not happen, the labaz was discovered later by the search group. The second night I slept like a log.
To my surprise, in the morning I woke up relatively cheerful and well-rested. During the march on foot, I even managed not to rub my feet even once, although one of my fellow travelers rubbed them almost to the flesh and later fiercely sealed his feet with several layers of plaster.
After breakfast, the first small group of volunteers, including me, began the ascent to the Dyatlov Pass, which was about 3 kilometers away.
Having seen with my own eyes the place where something terrible happened on the night of February 1-2, 1959, which cost the lives of 9 young people, I experienced a whole whirlwind of different emotions. Was the picture that appeared before me the way I imagined it? Probably not.
Over the next few hours, I carefully examined the place where the Dyatlov group’s tent was found, which someone had thoughtfully marked with a red flag. Then we went down exactly the same route that the tourists who had urgently left the tent that night presumably followed. Along the way, we examined the places where the bodies of Zina Kolmogorova, Rustem Slobodin and Igor Dyatlov were found.
The location where the Dyatlov group’s tent was discovered
Soon we came to the famous cedar at the foot of which the bodies of Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko were found. Today it stands a little deeper in the taiga that has grown over more than half a century, but in 1959 the cedar stood on the edge of the forest. It is known that the two Yuris climbed this cedar for some reason on that fateful night, to a height of about 5 meters. In severe frost, half-naked – they probably suffered hardships, but nevertheless for some reason they climbed up, leaving pieces of their own skin on the bark of the tree, which were later found by searchers. Investigators assumed that the two young men were trying to break branches for a fire. However, a number of searchers immediately questioned this version, since there was a lot of dry deadwood on the ground under a layer of snow. I think the version is more interesting, according to which Doroshenko and Krivonischenko were trying to see the tent they had left from above. Why? It’s hard to say. Perhaps they wanted to assess the degree of the threat that had driven them out into the cold a little earlier. It would be appropriate to recall here that a Chinese lantern was found on the roof of the tent, which could have served as a beacon for the subsequent return of the tourists.
The last point of our route was the lowland near the Lozva stream, where the bodies of Lyuda Dubinina, Nikolai Thibault-Brignolle, Alexander Kolevatov and Semyon Zolotarev were found. The girl was kneeling in the stream, as if hugging one of the stones. Thibault-Brignolle was lying separately, and Kolevatov and Zolotarev were hugging “chest to back”. There is an opinion that initially Lyudmila was also lying next to her comrades, but later her body was washed away by the Lozva stream a little lower.
I will not hide the fact that, despite the fact that during our walk we occasionally joked, our laughter was nervous and strained. Maybe it was psychosomatic, but I constantly felt some kind of heavy, unkind feeling. I quite accurately imagined both the tourists trying to save their lives from some kind of disaster, and the searchers looking for their bodies under a layer of deep snow several weeks later.
Taiga forest on the Kholat Syakhl-Otorten section
Over the next few days, I was at the pass several times. One day, we climbed Mount Kholat Syakhl, which in Mansi means “dead mountain” or “mountain of the dead.” The view from the top of this mountain is fantastic, and I have never breathed cleaner air.
Later, I became one of the volunteers in a group of 6 people who decided to reach Mount Otorten. There is a common legend that the name of the mountain is translated from Mansi as “Don’t go there!” Unlike the truly gloomy translation of the name of Mount Kholat Syakhl, in this case, everything is a little simpler. Otorten is a distorted word, whose approximate translation means “mountain of the goose’s nest.” According to Mansi legends, during the Great Flood, it was on the lake near this mountain that the only goose survived, allegedly finding refuge there.
It was not without pleasure that I met a local Mansi hunter named Valera Anyamov. Valera is the son of Nikolai Anyamov, who was interrogated by investigators in 1959 regarding statements about fireballs he had seen over the taiga. Living in a small village in the dense taiga, Valera was remembered by me as an interesting conversationalist with an excellent sense of humor.
What conclusions did I draw during my inspections? Has my position changed regarding the causes of the tourists’ deaths?
First of all, I will say that I did not initially believe in the avalanche, that is, the official version of the death of the Dyatlov tour group. During my ascent of Mount Kholat Syakhl, from which the avalanche allegedly came down, I did not even break a sweat – the mountain is flat and the climb is very smooth. In addition, very strong winds do blow on the pass, which, according to Kuntsevich and other experts, simply do not allow the snow to settle on the mountain slope – it is almost immediately blown into the valley. But the most important thing is that the experienced climbers who participated in the search for the missing group did not find a characteristic avalanche trace in the area of the tent, which they had repeatedly seen in other places before. I have no reason not to believe them.
There is a version according to which it was not an avalanche that hit the tourists, but only a so-called snow slab, formed due to the fact that before setting up the tent in this place, a small undermining was made in the snow. Then the tourists allegedly panicked, deciding that a real avalanche was about to come down and hastily left the tent. Supporters of this version claim that the tourists could have been unlucky twice – first, a small avalanche could have descended on them near the tent, and then a second avalanche could have descended on the last four tourists discovered, caused by their attempts to dig a shelter for themselves in the deep snow. Some even believe that Dubinina, Zolotarev, Thibault-Brignolle and Kolevatov could have fallen into the cavity formed by the Lozva River.
But this version has so many inconsistencies that I do not take it seriously.
Sunset on Mount Otorten
I have studied various materials on this case for quite a long time. In addition, I have had many conversations with Kuntsevich and other experienced tourists who personally studied the criminal case on the death of the Dyatlov group, and also communicated with members of the search group that searched for their bodies.
I will not recount all the details and subtleties of this case, they can easily be found on the Internet. I will only note the most basic theses that seem to me the most remarkable and, if not completely refute, then at least cast strong doubt on the avalanche version:
1. The military was suddenly involved in the search for the dead tourists, and under the command of a person with the rank of lieutenant colonel. People died in hikes before and after the tragedy at Dyatlov Pass, but only this case attracted such unusually close attention from the military.
2. Stories about fireballs over the taiga were recorded from several sources at once, living tens of kilometers apart and not having any contact with each other before the investigation began.
3. The criminal case about the death of the tourists is dated February 6, that is, the date when the relatives and friends of the tourists were absolutely sure that Dyatlov’s tour group, which was supposed to return home only on February 15, was calmly continuing its hike. Skeptics claim that some security officer made a mistake and accidentally wrote “February 6” instead of “March 6”. However, knowledgeable people claim that the security officers could not have made such a gross mistake. The calendar showed 1959 and Stalin’s times, when people were shot for less, were still very fresh in memory.
4. In the archive of investigator Korotayev, who participated in the investigation of the tragedy, there is a letter from prosecutor Tempalov, who subsequently opened a criminal case. In the letter, Tempalov writes that he is going on a business trip and leaves Korotayev with instructions on what to do in his absence. The most important fragments are the following: “I have been summoned to report to the deputy prosecutor of the RSFSR for the criminal case on the death of the tourists and am leaving for the city of Sverdlovsk for 2-3 days, so I ask you to watch here and make sure that everything is in order”, and also “In addition, on the instructions of the regional prosecutor, interrogate the head of the camp department Khakimovan of the village of Vizhay on the issue of whether the head of the tourist group Dyatlov (who died) said that they would return to Vizhay not on 12/2/59, but on 15/2/59. This needs to be done faster.” This letter would not have raised suspicions if it were not for the date next to the signature – 15.02.1959. Based on this, we can conclude that on February 15, when the relatives of the deceased tourists were just beginning to worry, but did not yet suspect their sad fate, the investigation already knew about their deaths. Because it is unthinkable to assume that the Sverdlovsk investigators made mistakes with the dates twice in the course of one case.
5. Investigator Lev Ivanov, who participated in the search for the deceased tourists, was remembered by the other members of the search group as a sociable person who asked detailed questions and talked with the Dyatlov group’s friends, promising to investigate this case. At some point, when the bodies of the first 5 tourists were found, but the rest had not yet been found, a helicopter suddenly flew in for the investigator. According to the recollections of almost all the searchers, Ivanov returned a different person a few days later. Not only did he practically stop asking questions to everyone, but he also seemed to avoid his fellow Dyatlovites, suddenly becoming sullen and withdrawn. There is an assumption that the center told him some important, but secret information that completely changed his understanding of the tragedy that had occurred.
6. Several sources report that the searchers who arrived at the site of the tent’s discovery noted a strange round area on the slope nearby, where there was practically no snow. At first, no attention was paid to this. But when a helicopter was sent for investigator Ivanov, immediately after its departure, many noticed that the helicopter’s landing site had taken the shape of a neat circle formed by the propeller blades that blew away the snow in the landing area. A number of searchers involuntarily noted the fact that this circle was very similar to the one they saw on the day the tent was discovered. As if some helicopter had already been to this place before the tent was officially discovered.
7. In the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the already mentioned Lev Ivanov unexpectedly wrote an article in a newspaper, calling for the investigation into the death of the Dyatlov group to be completed, expressing surprise at why it was necessary to lie to the people. In the same article, he also mentions the fireballs recorded over the northern Urals in the winter of 1959. In addition, Lev Ivanov wrote a letter to Boris Yeltsin, who by that time had already become the first president of Russia. In it, he asked Yeltsin for assistance in investigating the case, but received no response. All of these actions are very strange for a person who personally or on someone else’s orders issued a verdict that the tourists were killed by some “elemental force that they were unable to overcome.”
8. Shortly after the last bodies were found, the area around Dyatlov Pass was closed to visitors for a while. There is no evidence that investigators re-examined the site of the tragedy in the summer, when the completely melted snow should have revealed additional evidence. This does not mean that the site was not examined; most likely, this fact was simply not recorded as inconvenient for the official investigation.
9. Valery Anyamov, whom I mentioned, said that for many years after the tragedy at Dyatlov Pass, Mansi hunters repeatedly found strange metal fragments in the taiga of unknown origin, but obviously man-made. He also confirmed that Mount Kholatchakhlt and its surroundings are not and have never been sacred to the Mansi people.
10. One of the strangest details of this case is the discovery of high levels of radiation on the clothes of some tourists. The most surprising thing is not even the fact that radiation was detected, but the incomprehensible motive of the investigator who sent the tourists’ clothes for radiological testing, despite the version of an accident lobbied from above. The exclusion of data on the radiological test from the official report is also incomprehensible, despite the obviously inflated radiation levels recorded on Kolevatov’s and especially Dubinina’s clothes. And this is despite the fact that the researchers assumed that the radiation level could have been partially washed out by running water and was initially even higher.
11. Deputy Head of the Investigative Department of the Sverdlovsk Region Prosecutor’s Office Yevgeny Okishev, who supervised the investigation into the death of the Dyatlov tour group in 1959, recalled: “… The Deputy Prosecutor of the RSFSR, Comrade Urakov, came to us and ordered that everyone be told that the tourists died as a result of an accident. Urakov simply remained silent to all our direct questions about the weapons testing. That is, he did not deny this version, he simply remained silent.”
12. Members of the search group found a flask of alcohol, military-grade, in the tourists’ abandoned tent. And not far from the cedar where the bodies of Doroshenko and Krivonischenko were found, there was a steel spike from a chipped boot. Yuri Yudin, who went down a few days before the tourists’ deaths, claimed that none of the members of the tour group had these items.
13. The skin color of the tourists lying in the coffins is described by witnesses as brick-colored or even reminiscent of a tangerine peel. Also, traces of bloody foam were found in the corners of the mouths of some of the deceased. These facts are not typical of death from frostbite, but are characteristic of death from chemical poisoning. It is also worth noting the recollections of those who participated in the autopsy of the bodies of the deceased tourists, who for some reason were forced to either generously wipe themselves or almost bathe in barrels of alcohol.
14. The injuries of Lyudmila Dubinina, Nikolai Thibeaux-Brignolle and Semyon Zolotarev were recognized as having occurred during her lifetime and as having been caused by some great force. A blast wave is mentioned as if by chance as an example of such a force. Thibeaux-Brignolle, who had a fractured skull, could not remain conscious after this and lived no more than 3 hours after receiving the injury. Dubinina had the most terrible injuries, with multiple bilateral rib fractures and profuse internal bleeding into the chest cavity. She could live with them for no more than 10-20 minutes, remaining conscious. It is debatable whether the fact that Dubinina’s eyeballs and tongue were missing is the result of postmortem changes to the corpse or whether they were removed earlier. Zolotarev had multiple rib fractures on the right with internal bleeding into the pleural cavity. Researchers found it difficult to say exactly how long a person with such an injury could live.
A camera of one of the tourists
As a photographer, I was also very interested in one fact that has received surprisingly little attention in most studies, namely, the discovery of Zolotarev’s body with a camera suddenly hanging on his chest, which is clearly visible in one of the photographs.
A small digression. Most sources indicate that the Dyatlov group had identical Zorky cameras with 50 mm lenses and a maximum aperture of 3.5. What does an aperture of 3.5 mean? With this aperture value, you can take a technical and well-exposed photo in good lighting conditions, even in cloudy weather. In low-light conditions, for example, at dusk, an aperture of 3.5 may no longer be enough, which would potentially lead to blur or underexposure of the frame.
Is it possible to take a high-quality photo handheld with a maximum aperture of 3.5 in the darkness of the night, when the best light sources are the moon and stars? My answer is definitely no. Then why was there a camera around Zolotarev’s neck? Do I admit the possibility that Zolotarev was an inexperienced photographer and did not understand that he would not be able to take a photo in the dark of night? The answer is again negative, Semyon Zolotarev was an experienced tourist and a seasoned person and, of course, he understood the technical aspects of photography well.
There are two options. Either the fatal incident did not occur at night, as is commonly believed, but, say, on the morning of February 2, when it was already light. Or at the time of the tragedy, there was some unexpected light source for an uninhabited area outside the tourists’ tent, which allowed Zolotarev to assume that the photo might work.
But what could have prompted a person to grab a camera in conditions when some of his comrades did not even have time to put on their shoes? Some, including me, believe that not all 9 tourists were in the tent when the decision was made to immediately evacuate. It is assumed that it was Zolotarev who, for some reason, was the first to slowly leave the tent, most likely to check something. It is likely that Zolotarev could have left alone. Perhaps the tourists heard something or saw reflections of some light.
Rays of light over the pass
To sum up all of the above, which version do I adhere to? Personally, I have almost no doubt that the tourists’ deaths were caused by some man-made factor. Roughly speaking, the guys, unfortunately, found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I don’t think that this place was some kind of secret testing ground. Most likely, some unforeseen event took place, like the fall of a rocket or its stage. Skeptics claim that no rockets were launched over this territory. But, firstly, rocket launches are obviously not the kind of event that is widely covered anywhere. Secondly, in 1959, rockets were still quite primitive by modern standards and certainly during their testing, emergency situations, deviations from course, etc. could have occurred.
In one of the scientific articles, I found a rather interesting description of the consequences of the fall of a spent rocket stage. Its fall is often accompanied by a bright glow, and as a rule, a trail of spent fuel sprayed into the air follows it. This toxic cloud covers the place where the stage fell with some delay, so if we assume that there are random witnesses, they will first be surprised to see a spectacular picture of a fireball descending from the sky, and only a few minutes later they are covered by a fuel cloud. What happens to a person who inhales this substance sprayed into the air? His lungs literally begin to burn with fire. This in turn can provoke panic and one single desire – to run, to get away as quickly as possible from this strange, incomprehensible pain and unbearable burning in the chest. Most likely, we will never know the details of how the last night of the deceased tourists went. Perhaps the tourists set up a tent, had dinner, and went to bed. Suddenly, at night, they felt or saw strange reflections outside. Semyon Zolotarev, having dressed and taken a camera with him, volunteered to check the situation. Coming out of the tent, he saw a strange sight that fascinated him, but did not worry him much yet. In order not to lose his scarf in the dark, Zolotarev puts a Chinese lantern on top as a beacon. It is possible that Yuri Krivonischenko, who stayed with his friends, looked out of a small flap of the tent and tried to take that 34th frame, which from a technical point of view did not work out. Nevertheless, Zolotarev, who had moved away from the tent, increasingly understands that he and his comrades are in great danger. Perhaps the anxiety is growing in the tent itself. Finally, he shouts to let the others know that they must urgently leave this place, and every second counts. Of course, this is only an assumption.
Kholat Syakhl (Mountain of the Dead)
Let’s get back to Zolotarev’s camera. According to the official version, the film from this camera was completely destroyed by snow and melt water. I asked one specialist who worked a lot in the era of film photography, how likely is it that the information from the film could be completely destroyed in such conditions? He admitted that the probability is, of course, quite high. And yet, some of the information could have survived, but only if the found camera quickly fell into the hands of a competent specialist who, at the very least, would not have removed the film from the camera using the classic method of mechanical rewinding. Unfortunately, there is insufficient information on this issue. Perhaps the film really was destroyed.
And one more thing related to this camera – why did Zolotarev continue to wear it on his chest until the last moment? Especially considering that his chest was badly injured, and several ribs were broken. The Zorky camera was not that heavy, but it cannot be called light either. A small, weighty brick. If it were on his chest, it would definitely have caused additional pain and discomfort to the wounded Zolotarev. Why didn’t he take it off?
There is no answer to this question either. Perhaps Zolotarev’s camera was not on him constantly during the last hours of his life. But, feeling the approach of death, he put it back on, because he wanted the camera and its contents to be found. But he did not expect that this search would drag on for more than 2 months.
Let’s go back to 2015. The last days of our stay at Dyatlov Pass were overshadowed by the injury of my English friend Keith McCloskey. His knee began to hurt badly, and later, upon returning to England, he was forced to lie down on the operating table. But at that moment it was necessary to decide how to help him return to civilization, because he would not be able to walk back, more than 30 kilometers, on foot. Luckily for us, on one of the final days of our hike, a group of hunters drove up to the pass in all-terrain vehicles. After listening to us, two of them immediately decided to interrupt their voyage and volunteered to help take Mr. McCloskey to civilization. Later it turned out that they took him not just to Ivdel, but right to the doors of his hotel in Yekaterinburg. Well done guys.
We headed back along the already familiar paths. The return trip was much easier for me. Especially since my backpack became much less heavy due to the food I had eaten. Two days later, we were picked up by the same shift bus, which took us to Ivdel, from where we left for Yekaterinburg that same evening.
Rainbow over the pass
Let me sum it up. Will we ever know the truth about what happened at Dyatlov Pass on that fateful winter night in 1959? It’s hard to say. Many years have passed since the tragedy. There are fewer and fewer eyewitnesses to the events, as well as retired people in uniform who may have known the truth.
But I am still sure of two things. First, the tourists were not killed by an avalanche, which could not have happened in that place, and which has never been observed there since. Second, some unknown people managed to visit the site of the tragedy before the official discovery of the tent on February 26, 1959, but hid it.
“For there is nothing secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and brought to light” – says the Gospel of Luke (8:17). So be it.
