Mountain of the Dead (7 page)

  
2.
  Exhortations used by authorities to workers and military personnel to spur them on to greater efforts. The references to Stalin continued for some time after his death.

  
3.
  The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire
www.eki.ee/books/redbook/mansis.shtml
.

  
4.
  Ibid.

  
5.
  See
The Mansi – History and Present Day
, Aado Lintrop, Institute of the Estonian Language
http://folklore.ee/~aado/rahvad/mansingl.htm
.

  
6.
  The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire
www.eki.ee/books/redbook/mansis.shtml
.

  
7.
  Ibid.

The Dyatlov group had been due to arrive back in Sverdlovsk on 14–15 February 1959, and the return of Yury Yudin to Sverdlovsk on 28 January 1959 must have given the impression that things were proceeding as normal.Yudin had retraced his steps and returned to Sverdlovsk via Vizhay and Ivdel. As it was still university vacation time, he went to stay with his parents in the Taborinsky district of Sverdlovsk.

The group did not have a radio and the first indication that all was not well was on 12 February when Igor Dyatlov was meant to send a message by telegram to the university from Vizhay, confirming that the trip was virtually complete and they were in Vizhay on their way back. When the telegram did not arrive, there was no undue alarm, as given the nature of the trip allowances had to be made for the weather affecting the pace of travel. The Yury Blinov group with whom they had left Sverdlovsk and travelled north had returned to Sverdlovsk and reported that there had been a heavy snowstorm in the area of Kholat Syakhl, although at this point it would not have been known that that is where the Dyatlov group was, although it was close to Mount Otorten. This information led officials to believe that in the case of bad weather the group would err on the side of caution and try to take shelter until the weather improved enough for them to resume their journey.

As time passed with no sign of them, nor the receipt of any message, friends, relatives and parents started to get worried. People who knew Igor Dyatlov were particularly worried, as they knew that as group leader he took particular care over procedures and would have been concerned that a message had not been sent. Whilst the worst may not have been feared at this stage, an ominous sense of foreboding grew. Worried parents made calls to the UPI Sports Club and the City Sports Club in Sverdlovsk (later Ekaterinburg), as did other ski tourists who knew Igor Dyatlov, calling for a search party to be organised.

Nonetheless, despite the apparent lack of concern over the delay in the return of the group, the relatives of both Luda Dubinina and Alexander Kolevatov pressed the head of the University Sports Club, Lev Gordo, strongly enough for him to make an unfortunate and untruthful statement to them. On the wrong assumption that the group had been delayed by the weather and they would shortly appear, he told them that he was in receipt of a telegram from Igor Dyatlov informing them of the delay in the group’s return. While he presumably felt he had done this with the best of intentions in order to allay their fears, it only led to a further delay in a search being organised. There was also some confusion, as Yury Blinov’s group who had travelled north with the Dyatlov group had actually sent a telegram back to the university at this time to say that they were on their way back.

More time passed and, with no further news, relatives of the group complained to senior members of the local Communist Party. The Dyatlov group trip had been organised in honour of the 21st Communist Party Congress held in Moscow from 27 January to 5 February 1959 and something had to be done as the negative publicity would not have looked good, even despite the level of censorship in the USSR. Finally, on 20 February it was agreed to take action and a number of search parties were organised with Colonel Georgy Ortyukov in overall charge. Colonel Ortyukov was head of UPI’s Military Department, where members of the Dyatlov group had been well known and had numerous friends who were all by now deeply concerned at the delay in their return.

Once the decision was taken to undertake a search, there is no doubt that a considerable amount of resources was put into the effort, as with each day that passed with no news from the group it was becoming apparent that all was not well. Several rescue parties went north on 21 February. Two of the search parties included members of Yury Blinov’s group who had just returned from the same mountains. Also involved were the Sogrin group, who also knew the members of the Dyatlov party and had also just returned from the area. These particular two search parties were experienced and knew the region well. A group headed by Vaselin Karelin, which was already in the area, also joined in the search. In addition to this, a major boost was given to the search by the use of aircraft and helicopters from Ivdel Airport. The airport itself was very small and used mainly by aircraft connected with the Gulag administration at Ivdel, but it had communications facilities and provided a reasonably close base for the two military helicopters and the civil helicopter provided by Aeroflot (the state airline), which were brought in to assist with the search. A light aircraft normally used to search for forest fires (a Yak 12) and an Aeroflot An-2 biplane were also deployed in the search. Although the An-2 had only a single propeller, it was a rugged workhorse that could operate in and out of rough strips and carry twelve passengers, along with equipment and supplies.

Among the concerned friends of the group at the university, there were enough volunteers to form another three search parties, which eventually came under the leadership of three individuals: Oleg Grebennik, Moses Akselrod and Boris Slobtsov.

On 22 February a search party formed by prison guards from the Ivdel Gulag joined in the search under the command of Captain A.A. Chernischev. This was in addition to a group of seven Ivdel policemen, led by Lieutenant Potapov. There was some irony in the Ivdel Gulag guards joining in the search, as one of the later theories (see Chapter 6) centres on the Dyatlov group being murdered by escaped prisoners from the Ivdel Gulag, which was the nearest prison camp to Kholat Syakhl.

In addition, local Mansi hunters who knew the area well also joined in the search. Although the Mansi had their own lives to get on with, their knowledge of the area surpassed that of any outsiders and, despite the theory that the Mansi may have murdered the group (see Chapter 6), the evidence does not appear to support this. One Mansi family in particular (whose family name was Kurikov) helped considerably by using their dogs in the search.

One of the three parties led by Boris Slobtsov (from UPI) was nominated to start their search near the base of Mount Otorten. Slobtsov was a close friend of Igor Dyatlov and three years previously had assisted him in making the tent that the Dyatlov group were using: they had basically stitched two tents together in order to double the capacity of the interior. It seemed logical to start one search party at the Dyatlov group’s original final destination and then work backwards to look for signs of their return journey. A helicopter dropped Boris Slobtsov and his team off near the base of Mount Otorten on 23 February. It took them until the following day to reach the summit of Mount Otorten. Once they reached the summit, Slobtsov and his party could find no evidence that the Dyatlov group had made it that far. Slobtsov had expected to see either a flag or some marker as evidence that the group had reached their goal. Not only was there no marker but there was no evidence of any tracks. The search party then started to make their way back in the direction in which Slobtsov had expected the Dyatlov group to make their approach to Mount Otorten. At this point it should be remembered that the group had pitched their tent 9 miles (15km) to the south of Mount Otorten on the pass at Kholat Syakhl, which was not necessarily on a direct route to their destination, but the Slobtsov search party was heading down from Mount Otorten back in the direction towards the River Auspia where Slobtsov assumed Dyatlov and his group would have come from. As Slobtsov’s search party made their way the following day (25 February), they came across ski tracks that they quickly identified as belonging to the Dyatlov group.

On 26 February, after following the ski tracks, they came across the Dyatlov group’s abandoned tent at the pass on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl. Although the tent was partially collapsed, Slobtsov recognised it straight away as the tent he had helped put together. The search party also immediately saw that there was no one there and that the tent appeared to have been abandoned.

The tent stood at a distance of less than 1,000ft (300m) from the summit of Kholat Syakhl. The angle of the mountain slope was eighteen to twenty degrees. An initial examination of the tent showed that the location had been selected correctly and provided good shelter. The tent was stretched on skis and ski poles pushed into the snow. Its entrance faced south and the tension ropes on the southern side were intact, but on the northern side they were broken and this part of the tent was partially under snow, brought by the February winter storms.

Part of the problem in trying to piece together what had happened is that no attempt was made to preserve the scene as it was found. No one at this stage thought that anything untoward had happened to the group. While the scene of the abandoned tent must have caused some concern, it was assumed that the group (who were all fit and well experienced in this type of environment) must have had good reasons for leaving the tent. As a result of the initial assessment of the scene, further confusion was caused by removal of articles from inside the tent. Also footsteps and tracks made by the search party added to the tracks that had been made by the group, further adding to the confusion. The actual tracks that were found leading away from the tent unfortunately became very quickly intermingled with the tracks made by the search party. The first assessment was that eight or nine tracks led away from the tent and down the slope of the mountain for a distance of roughly one-third of a mile (500m). These tracks were shown to have been made by people wearing no shoes and had characteristic ‘columns’ of pressed snow around where the indentations had been made by the footprint. What members of the search party deduced was that the eight or nine tracks led down the slope in single file, with a tall man at the back; occasionally a track would wander out from the main file and would then return as if either wandering or looking for something. This would lead to a further question later: if the group felt they were in mortal danger and had slashed their way out of the tent to escape as quickly as possible, then why did they make what appeared to be such an orderly single-file descent down the slope at what appears to have been walking pace? The photos taken of the tracks, whilst not clear, show the paces taken to be fairly close to each other, rather than wild running strides, which would have left more of a scattered footprint.

What was found by Slobtsov’s search party must have added to a growing sense of unease. As has already been mentioned, the side of the tent had been slashed open by knives for the group to get out rather than use the front entrance. There were several slashes on the side of the tent, with two large holes that were big enough for a person to get through. Although the stove that Dyatlov had designed was placed near the entrance, it was in a stowed position and not in use at the time of the group making their exit from the tent. Even if the stove had made it awkward for them to get out, the first main question by anybody observing the scene must have been: what had happened to cause the group to slash their way out of the tent and basically destroy it, in order to make their exit?

The next item to give cause for concern was the fact that inside the tent the search party found warm clothes, weatherproof jackets and pants plus footwear, along with flashlights and other implements such as knives. Some of the clothing was stacked around the edge in preparation for sleeping and other items were strewn on the ground sheet. There were also crumpled blankets, which lay in a frozen heap. Approximately 30–50ft (10–15m) away from the tent were found shoes, socks and Igor Dyatlov’s fur jacket lying in the snow. A weatherproof jacket also lay nearby. All these items would be needed for survival in the harsh Siberian winter. Not to even take sweaters to keep warm must have raised serious questions about what had happened. On top of the tent, Slobtsov found a torch of Chinese make. It was lying on 1–3.5in (5–10cm) of snow but had no snow on it and was in working condition.

Shortly after the tent’s discovery, the personal belongings of the group were removed. These included three cameras, diaries, clothes, shoes, cooking utensils, knives, hatchets and ski equipment, along with some alcohol and a ‘joke’ newspaper that the group had compiled, called the
Evening Otorten
, and which described their adventure. The last date on the
Evening Otorten
was 1 February 1959. This was the last day they were alive, but there is some dispute over this date as no diary entry was made. However, the whereabouts of the newspaper is unknown, so the date cannot be verified.

The removal of the items was done without any attempt at order and methodology, which only added to the questions of what had happened that night. One of the items removed was a ski pole, which has been the subject of controversy as none of the group were known to have a ski pole. The pole had been damaged by having cutting marks made on it. There was no obvious explanation for the pole, i.e. how it had got there, or how and why it was damaged.

After the discovery of the tent, Slobtsov and his party returned as quickly as they could to the base of the mountain, where a camp had been established, to report their find. A radioman named Igor Nevolin had joined the search parties and he radioed back to Sverdlovsk at 6 p.m. on the evening of 26 February to report the discovery of the tent. The response from UPI was that further help would be sent and, accordingly, a larger search party arrived by helicopter, along with two large military tents to provide more accommodation. Arriving with the larger search party was Colonel Georgy Ortyukov from UPI, who was in overall charge. In addition, further Mansi hunters and their dogs arrived to join in the search.