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Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard mclin smith here with Unexplained. On a

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Speaker 1: short break for the holiday season, we'll be dipping back

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Speaker 1: into the archive for the next two weeks. This week's

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Speaker 1: episode takes us back to one Friday in January nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty nine, to where a story began in the foothills

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Speaker 1: of the Ural Mountains, a story that is perhaps the

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Speaker 1: most extraordinary ever featured on the show. Some call it

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Speaker 1: the Diatlov Pass Incident. You might know it as Unexplained,

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Speaker 1: Season two, episode four, when the snow melts. It could

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Speaker 1: be said that the history of life is a history

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Speaker 1: of movement, a vast dance of inexorable entropic change, from

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Speaker 1: the propulsion of the stars and the planets to the

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Speaker 1: vibrating of subatomic particles and of space itself. It's useful

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Speaker 1: to remember sometimes that even the most solid seeming of

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Speaker 1: objects are, in one way or another, in a constant

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Speaker 1: kinetic state, be that the glass in your window, the

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Speaker 1: elements of a diamond, or even the earth under our feet.

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Speaker 1: Let us, then, for a moment, take one singular place

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Speaker 1: and look upon it as an ageless being of omnipotence

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Speaker 1: might observe it. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard

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Speaker 1: mclin Smith. At first, we see a minute speck hanging

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Speaker 1: in the depths of space. Drawing closer, we see it

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Speaker 1: is in fact a nameless planet moving around a nameless star.

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Speaker 1: Drawing closer still, we see on the surface of that planet,

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Speaker 1: two gigantic land masses are set on an imperceptible but

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Speaker 1: devastating collision course, and on the edge of one we

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Speaker 1: find our spot. The movement of the land is generated

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Speaker 1: in part by the heat of the planet's core, a

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Speaker 1: solid ball of iron nickel raging at almost five and

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Speaker 1: a half thousand degrees centigrade that in turn heats a

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Speaker 1: mantle layer below the planet's surface. This outer shell appears

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Speaker 1: to be a static rock composed mainly of silicon, iron, magnesium, oxygen,

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Speaker 1: and aluminium, but of course it is not still. Instead,

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Speaker 1: it bends and creeps, cajoled by the planet's warm belly,

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Speaker 1: expanding and contracting in convective circles as the heat rises

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Speaker 1: and falls through the silicate layers. It is on this

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Speaker 1: sea of rock and waves of heat that the two

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Speaker 1: land masses are being thrown toward each other, and on

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Speaker 1: this planet by our measurements. The days last just over

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Speaker 1: twenty two hours, and oxygen levels in the air are

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Speaker 1: fifty per cent higher than anything we have ever experienced,

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Speaker 1: and there is life in plenty across the continents. Owing

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Speaker 1: to the humid climate, the land is smothered in vast

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Speaker 1: swamps and enormous trees. Amphibious creatures dominate, while giant invertebrate

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Speaker 1: arthropods wiggle and crawl in abundance. Some even fly too,

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Speaker 1: their twitching segmented bodies lifted into the air by gossamer wings.

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Speaker 1: Over half a metre in span, The two continents draw

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Speaker 1: ever closer, until finally they collide to form one giant

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Speaker 1: singular mass. As they merge, our spot is pushed and

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Speaker 1: pulled as vast splinterings of rock rise into the sky

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Speaker 1: to form mountains and rolling hills. Over time, the land

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Speaker 1: beneath continues to move and break apart into many separate pieces,

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Speaker 1: and over the land above, more and different creatures are

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Speaker 1: taking their place, entire species rising and falling, while the

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Speaker 1: planet spirals on through space as it continues to orbit

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Speaker 1: the Nameless Star. A mere three hundred million orbits later,

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Speaker 1: and now, the oxygen levels on the planet have depleted,

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Speaker 1: the days have become longer, and from out of a

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Speaker 1: central place, what was once four legs has become two.

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Speaker 1: In herds, these strange bipedal creatures are dispersed throughout the planet.

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Speaker 1: Eventually they will learn to give themselves names, and names

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Speaker 1: too for the many things around them, including the very

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Speaker 1: planet they walk upon, which will become known as Planeta

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Speaker 1: Zimya Jigu Hensong, or to others, planet Earth, and those

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Speaker 1: creatures will learn to tell story, bringing ever greater potential

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Speaker 1: for change. For now, not only does the material world change,

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Speaker 1: but so too will the world that is mapped onto

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Speaker 1: it in the minds of the creatures who walk upon it.

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Speaker 1: Entire worlds that two can rise and fall in a

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Speaker 1: matter of moments. As for our spot, it will eventually

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Speaker 1: find itself nestled at the foothills of those same mountains

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Speaker 1: formed three hundred million years ago, still surviving today as

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Speaker 1: one of the oldest mountain ranges on the planet. Those

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Speaker 1: mountains will eventually find themselves encased in a country named

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Speaker 1: Rossia and will become known as Uralski Gorri, or as

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Speaker 1: the Ural Mountains. So let us now get closer in

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Speaker 1: time and space to the spot that we have marked.

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Speaker 1: The Ural Mountains form a natural border between Europe and Asia,

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Speaker 1: running two and a half thousand kilometers through western Russia,

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Speaker 1: from the coast of the Kara Sea to the northwest

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Speaker 1: border of Kazakhstan, and just to the east of the

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Speaker 1: central Urals, we will find our region of interest.

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Speaker 2: In seventeen twenty three, Peter, the great leader of the

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Speaker 2: Russian Empire, establishes a town here that will be named

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Speaker 2: Yakitterlinburg after his wife Yiketarina. Due to the abundance of minerals,

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Speaker 2: vast resources of timber, and the deep waters of the

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Speaker 2: Isist River, the location was a place of great natural beauty,

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Speaker 2: but also a prime location for what would become the

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Speaker 2: administrative mining capital of the Russian Empire. Just under two

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Speaker 2: hundred years later, and the city is firmly established as

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Speaker 2: a focal point for the country's growing industrial appetite. And

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Speaker 2: in that time so much has changed, not that we

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Speaker 2: might notice, however, Certainly the surrounding land and even the city,

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Speaker 2: to all intents and purposes, has remained fixed. But even

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Speaker 2: as we look upon it now, invisible changes are taking place.

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Speaker 2: As a primary industrial hub Yecatarlinbourig has found itself a

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Speaker 2: beating heart of a new world that has materialized around it.

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Speaker 2: Having been a town built by royal decree to excavate

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Speaker 2: natural resources that would then be turned into capital and

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Speaker 2: wealth for a fortunate few, it is now a symbol

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Speaker 2: and ode to those that generated the wealth, not through

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Speaker 2: some strange alchemy, but through the blood and sweat of

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Speaker 2: the many hands that scraped it from the earth. And

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Speaker 2: so it is that at the beginning of the century

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Speaker 2: we find in our spot the same furnaces burning, and

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Speaker 2: the same coal brought from the land by the same hands,

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Speaker 2: But the status of those hands has been elevated. Two

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Speaker 2: thousand and two hundred miles away. On April sixteenth, nineteen seventeen,

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Speaker 2: a train will pull into Finland Station in Saint Petersburg,

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Speaker 2: carrying a man whose words, on stepping onto the station

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Speaker 2: platform will bring further winds of change. We watch as

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Speaker 2: they provoke an internal scene war, turning the people of

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Speaker 2: the nation against each other in brutal and devastating ways.

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Speaker 2: Back in Ya Katarinbourg, there is a mansion house belonging

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Speaker 2: to a merchant named Ipatiev. But as we avert our

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Speaker 2: gaze for a moment. A year has passed, and when

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Speaker 2: we look again we see the same bricks and mortar

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Speaker 2: standing in the same place, only now there is no

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Speaker 2: Ipatiev and the mansion has been renamed the House of

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Speaker 2: Special Purpose of the Ural Soviet Committee. A year later,

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Speaker 2: in the spring of nineteen eighteen, seven highly prized prisoners

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Speaker 2: a family will be escorted to Yekaterinbourg and imprisoned in

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Speaker 2: this House of Special Purpose. We see them now in

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Speaker 2: the early hours of July seventeenth, nineteen eighteen, as they

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Speaker 2: are raised from their beds and taken to a small room.

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Speaker 2: They are told to sit and wait for a truck

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Speaker 2: to come and take them away. But the truck never comes,

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Speaker 2: only a hail of bullets and thrusting bayonets that ends

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Speaker 2: with the walls dripping in blood and the prisoners lying

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Speaker 2: dead on the ground. We watch as the bodies are

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Speaker 2: taken to an abandoned mine shaft and one by one

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Speaker 2: are dropped to the bottom of it. It is the

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Speaker 2: last time that Russia will ever know a royal family.

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Speaker 2: Five years later, and the war is over, Yekaterinbourg remains,

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Speaker 2: but now finds itself not in Russia. But the Union

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Speaker 2: of Soviet Socialist Republics, and though the name and rulers

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Speaker 2: have changed, the minerals and ores in the ground are

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Speaker 2: still very much in demand. To that end, a school

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Speaker 2: has been established, named the Ural Polytechnic Institute, to promote

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Speaker 2: better skills in the working classes to aid with increased production.

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Speaker 2: The following year, we return to find the city as

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Speaker 2: it was, only now it has a new name, spurred Lovsk.

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Speaker 2: In the blink of an eye, just over thirty years

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Speaker 2: have passed. It is nineteen fifty nine, and both spurred

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Speaker 2: Losk and the Eural Polytechnic as much as we left it.

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Speaker 2: We see the building's familiar majestic architecture colonnaded at the front,

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Speaker 2: underneath a vast pediment bearing the last much embossed symbol

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Speaker 2: of a hammer and a sickle. But in those thirty years,

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Speaker 2: as ever, so much has changed, and a new ruler

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Speaker 2: has replaced the old, ushering an end to an era

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Speaker 2: of almost unparalleled upheaval. In that time, an old enemy

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Speaker 2: has risen and fallen from the west, and some considered

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Speaker 2: enemies from within have fallen too, And now the deaths

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Speaker 2: of over forty million people haunt the land the mindset

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Speaker 2: of an entire country has been altered, and a new

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Speaker 2: war stalks the people of this vast nation, holodnoye Voyna,

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Speaker 2: or the Cold War, as it will come to be known.

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Speaker 2: The new leader, Nikita Khrushchev, has promised a thawing of

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Speaker 2: the old ways, and a new generation are ready to

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Speaker 2: embrace it, a generation embodied by the bright and enthusiastic

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Speaker 2: students of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. And so it is

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Speaker 2: it is that, on Friday, January twenty third, nineteen fifty nine,

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Speaker 2: finally we arrive at the beginning of one more story

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Speaker 2: to scatter across the foothills of the Ural Mountains, a

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Speaker 2: story that is perhaps the most extraordinary of all the

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Speaker 2: stories featured on the show so far, a chilling and

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Speaker 2: profound mystery that remains to this day unexplained. We begin

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Speaker 2: at the Ural Polytechnic Institute in room five three one.

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Speaker 2: Seven students are crammed inside the spartan dormitory, frantically shoving

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Speaker 2: various bits and pieces into backpacks, cans of meat, followed

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Speaker 2: by packets of oatmeal, survival knights, and even a cooking stove.

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Speaker 2: Nothing is forgotten, but rather than chaos, it is the

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Speaker 2: steady haste of a well oiled team. They are preparing

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Speaker 2: for a difficult mountain hike deep into the urals towards

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Speaker 2: O Tauton Mountain. The journey will involve at least sixteen

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Speaker 2: days of trekking through the Siberian tundra on a path

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Speaker 2: that many consider one of the toughest at this time

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Speaker 2: of year, and it will need to be since all

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Speaker 2: are hoping to achieve their Category three hiking certificate upon completion.

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Speaker 2: It is the highest awarded category in the country and

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Speaker 2: one that will require the team to cover over three

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Speaker 2: hundred kilometres of ground, spending at least eight days in

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Speaker 2: completely uninhabited regions. One boy, Yurikrivonshenko, looks perturbed for a

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Speaker 2: moment as he hunts around the room, his face brightening

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Speaker 2: into a huge grin when he finally finds his leather boots. Yuri,

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Speaker 2: also known as Georgi, is the joker of the group

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Speaker 2: and at twenty three, also one of the oldest. A

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Speaker 2: recent graduate of construction and hydraulic Back in September of

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven, Georgi had been assigned to work at

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Speaker 2: a secret nuclear facility called Cheliabinksk forty when the plutonium

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Speaker 2: plant experienced a catastrophic radioactive leak. Georgi was part of

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Speaker 2: the team who was sent in to clean up the mess.

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Speaker 2: He packs his leather boots away, then makes some space

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Speaker 2: for his much loved mandolin. Do you think I can

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Speaker 2: play it on the train? He asks? Of course, shout

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Speaker 2: the others in warm reply. In the corner of the Dorn,

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Speaker 2: keeping a watchful eye over the preparations is the diligent

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Speaker 2: and methodical Alexander Kolovatov. At twenty four, Alexander is the

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Speaker 2: oldest member of the group. A kind soul with a

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Speaker 2: ponchon for smoking antique pipes. Alexander was a distinguished student

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Speaker 2: in the field of nuclear physics who had also studied

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Speaker 2: in Moscow at a secret institute known as the Ministry

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Speaker 2: of Medium Machine Building before returning to spurred Lovsk to

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Speaker 2: complete his physics major. Who has the salt shouted Zinaida Kolmogorova,

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Speaker 2: or Zena as she is known to her friends. Although

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Speaker 2: only twenty, Zena is in her fourth year of radio

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Speaker 2: engineering and is a tough and experienced hiker, known affectionately

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Speaker 2: as the engine of the university, Zena's magnetic charm rarely

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Speaker 2: went unnoticed, not least by a number of the boys

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Speaker 2: in the team. Where at Doroshenko and eager, she asks, suddenly,

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Speaker 2: let me have fifteen cents to call them. The question

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Speaker 2: is directed at Ludmila Dubanina, the only other woman in

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Speaker 2: the group. Luda is only twenty and the youngest in

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00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:52,200
Speaker 2: the team. A focused and committed communist, the athletic Luda

215
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:56,160
Speaker 2: is practically a poster girl for the party, and like Xena,

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00:15:56,480 --> 00:16:00,320
Speaker 2: is possessed of an inner steel equal, if not superior,

217
00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:04,640
Speaker 2: to any of her male compatriots. On one expedition to

218
00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:08,160
Speaker 2: the Sayan Mountains, she was accidentally shot by a tourist,

219
00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:11,520
Speaker 2: but didn't complain once during her long and painful journey

220
00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:16,800
Speaker 2: back home, except to apologize for troubling the group. Luda

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00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:19,520
Speaker 2: hand seen her the fifteen cents from the pile of

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00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:24,480
Speaker 2: cash she is diligently counting up. Meanwhile, Rustick is teasing

223
00:16:24,520 --> 00:16:27,120
Speaker 2: Collier over who has more will power to survive the

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00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:32,720
Speaker 2: trip without their beloved cigarettes. Rustick is Roostom Slobiden, another

225
00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:37,720
Speaker 2: recent graduate of the institute. Unlike the others, Rustick comes

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00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:41,040
Speaker 2: from a wealthy family of academics, but he carries none

227
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Speaker 2: of the sense of entitlement that such wealth can sometimes entail.

228
00:16:46,200 --> 00:16:49,120
Speaker 2: As perhaps the most popular member of the team, it

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00:16:49,160 --> 00:16:52,080
Speaker 2: would seem that Rustick had lived up to the Tartar

230
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Speaker 2: name that his father had bestowed on him as a

231
00:16:54,960 --> 00:17:00,040
Speaker 2: symbol of international friendship to all men and women. In

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Speaker 2: marked contrast, Nicolai Thibau Brignol's background could not have been

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00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:09,639
Speaker 2: more different. Born in a concentration camp, Collier had been

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00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:12,159
Speaker 2: brought up by his mother on her own after his

235
00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:16,080
Speaker 2: French communist father had been executed as part of Stalin's

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Speaker 2: ruthless purges. Collier had graduated from the Institute in fifty

237
00:17:21,600 --> 00:17:26,080
Speaker 2: eight after majoring in civil engineering, and with a reputation

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Speaker 2: for unselfish behavior. Was a man always looking to help others.

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Speaker 2: Today holds mixed emotions for Collier. He had promised to

240
00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:38,280
Speaker 2: his mother that this trip would be his last, and

241
00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:42,439
Speaker 2: he would miss moments like these the most. The giddy,

242
00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:47,359
Speaker 2: nervous energy of the team. Just before the journey begins,

243
00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:51,399
Speaker 2: someone throws a couple of bags to Yuri Yudin, who

244
00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:54,359
Speaker 2: deposits them outside, ready to load onto the truck that

245
00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:57,920
Speaker 2: will take them to the station. The twenty one year

246
00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:01,800
Speaker 2: old Yuri, a geology student at the institute, had endured

247
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:05,480
Speaker 2: a tough and impoverished upbringing, and also suffered greatly from

248
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Speaker 2: rheumatism in his leg joints, but Yuri had always determined

249
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Speaker 2: never to let his affliction dictate his life. There is

250
00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:19,080
Speaker 2: a great cheer when Yuri Dorishenko finally arrives to join

251
00:18:19,119 --> 00:18:22,760
Speaker 2: the group. The much loved twenty one year old radio

252
00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:27,119
Speaker 2: engineer had a fearsome reputation, having once successfully fended off

253
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Speaker 2: a black bear with nothing but a geologist's hammer. His

254
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:37,040
Speaker 2: entrance is followed shortly after by Eager Diyatlov, a student

255
00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:40,560
Speaker 2: of radio engineering. Twenty three year old Eager was a

256
00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:46,520
Speaker 2: formidable athlete and easily the most experienced hiker in the team. Strong, thoughtful,

257
00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:49,520
Speaker 2: and confident, he was a natural fit as their leader.

258
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:54,760
Speaker 2: He was also prodigiously talented, having designed and assembled a

259
00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:57,359
Speaker 2: radio at the age of twenty that would later be

260
00:18:57,480 --> 00:19:02,679
Speaker 2: used on Class hikes. With the final checks complete, the

261
00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:07,040
Speaker 2: group gather their things and move out. Twenty minutes later,

262
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,199
Speaker 2: after a short tram ride to the city station, the

263
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:13,199
Speaker 2: team are settled into a Class three cabin as the

264
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:18,359
Speaker 2: train pulls away from Sperdlovsky. Such moments are usually caused

265
00:19:18,359 --> 00:19:21,480
Speaker 2: for reflection, to be leaving behind your hometown on a

266
00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:26,000
Speaker 2: treacherous journey into the wilderness. But in this moment they

267
00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:37,480
Speaker 2: are distracted by a stranger in their mist Eager introduces

268
00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:40,840
Speaker 2: his handsome, dark haired friend to the group as Sasha.

269
00:19:42,280 --> 00:19:45,280
Speaker 2: At thirty seven, he is considerably older than the others,

270
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:49,119
Speaker 2: and although not by any means old, he appears as

271
00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:52,479
Speaker 2: if from another age, so the young students might be

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00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:57,000
Speaker 2: forgiven their palpable sense of trepidation. When Sasha reveals a

273
00:19:57,040 --> 00:20:00,479
Speaker 2: mouth full of gold teeth from under nat beneath his

274
00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:04,879
Speaker 2: wolfish smile. Their sense of unease is not helped by

275
00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:07,959
Speaker 2: the sight of a number of tattoos dotted about his body,

276
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:12,440
Speaker 2: but their unease is not out of rudeness, more from

277
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:15,520
Speaker 2: the tacit awareness that they are in the presence of

278
00:20:15,560 --> 00:20:20,960
Speaker 2: a ghost. At thirty seven years old, Sasha is part

279
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:25,080
Speaker 2: of a generation of which only three percent remain, having

280
00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:28,720
Speaker 2: been decimated by the brutality of the Great Patriotic War.

281
00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:32,800
Speaker 2: Though it is unlikely he would have forgotten much from

282
00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:35,679
Speaker 2: the five years he served from nineteen forty one to

283
00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:39,960
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six. Sasha bears a constant reminder of those

284
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:44,399
Speaker 2: he had lost, three initials inked onto his skin, followed

285
00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:49,480
Speaker 2: by an equal sign and the symbol for friendship. Semyon

286
00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:53,080
Speaker 2: Zolatatov to give him his full name, has been working

287
00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:56,119
Speaker 2: as a tour guide in South Siberia, and like the others,

288
00:20:56,280 --> 00:21:00,840
Speaker 2: is desperate to achieve his Grade three certificate. Before the

289
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:04,240
Speaker 2: team recognize a kindred spirit and any initial sense of

290
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:07,760
Speaker 2: unease is quickly banished by the sound of Georgi's mandolin

291
00:21:08,080 --> 00:21:12,320
Speaker 2: as he strikes up to play together. As the train

292
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 2: speeds on through the ural countryside, they sing all the

293
00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:20,160
Speaker 2: songs that they know while behind them verd Lovsk recedes

294
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:24,160
Speaker 2: further and further until it has entirely disappeared from view.

295
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 2: Ten hours later, and the train finally pulls into Serov,

296
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:33,840
Speaker 2: a small town three hundred and fifty kilometers due north

297
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:37,960
Speaker 2: of Sverdlovsk. With their next train not due to leave

298
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 2: until six thirty pm. The exhausted team are hoping to

299
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,399
Speaker 2: escape the cold and maybe get some sleep in the

300
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:47,840
Speaker 2: station waiting room, but are disappointed to find it locked

301
00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:52,080
Speaker 2: for the day. Georgi attempts to cheer up his friends

302
00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:56,080
Speaker 2: with a comical busking routine, but his singing has attracted

303
00:21:56,119 --> 00:22:00,359
Speaker 2: the attention of two guards, a sign perhaps they have

304
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:03,440
Speaker 2: already entered a different world to the one encased within

305
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:08,320
Speaker 2: their dormitory walls. The guards grab Georgi from the platform

306
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 2: and push him into their office. A short time later,

307
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:15,880
Speaker 2: and a somewhat stunned Georgi is returned to the platform

308
00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 2: after being let off with a stern warning for contravening

309
00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:24,440
Speaker 2: Article two point three of the Internal Order at Railway stations.

310
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:29,119
Speaker 2: Not wanting to hang around, the team head off in

311
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 2: search of shelter. When they come across an empty school hall.

312
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:35,760
Speaker 2: After knocking on the door, they are met by the

313
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:39,880
Speaker 2: kind face of the school's janitor. Much to their relief,

314
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 2: she takes pity on the young hikers and invites them

315
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:46,360
Speaker 2: inside to rest and warm themselves, but there is one

316
00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:50,199
Speaker 2: condition in return. They must give a talk to the

317
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:54,639
Speaker 2: school children before they leave. A few hours later, and

318
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:57,639
Speaker 2: Zena and Sasha have the children hanging on their every

319
00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:00,800
Speaker 2: word as they listen wide eyed and at atentively to

320
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 2: their tales of adventure. When it is finally time to go,

321
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:08,160
Speaker 2: the children have to be peeled sobbing and crying from

322
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:12,199
Speaker 2: Zena before finally accepting her promise to one day return.

323
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 2: The children wave and shout goodbye to their ten new

324
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 2: favorite heroes as they watch them head back to the

325
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 2: train station. Finally, the team are on the move again,

326
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:28,879
Speaker 2: and by midnight they have arrived in the small town

327
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 2: of Evedel. Since leaving spurred Lovsk, the gang had been

328
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 2: shadowed by another team of hikers from the institute, led

329
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:48,120
Speaker 2: by their good friend Yuri Blinoff. That night of January

330
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 2: twenty fourth, they all sleep huddle together in the Evedale

331
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 2: station waiting room until the following morning, when they catch

332
00:23:56,080 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 2: the first tram to Evedel town center. The town is

333
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,679
Speaker 2: built on the confluence of the Evedel River and the

334
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 2: Losva River, and like most towns in the region, Evedel

335
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 2: had been established as a mining colony, in this case

336
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:15,359
Speaker 2: for gold, but in nineteen thirty seven the town had

337
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:20,400
Speaker 2: taken on a second purpose, becoming the location of Evedeleg Gulag.

338
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 2: The term is an acronym that translates to Maine Administration

339
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 2: of Corrective labor camps. The camps had been set up

340
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 2: during Stalin's time, partly as corrective facilities for criminals, but

341
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 2: were often also used to dispense with political prisoners, a

342
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 2: fact that would no doubt have crossed Collier's mind at

343
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 2: least as the hikers made their way into the town's center,

344
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 2: with some consideration perhaps for the desperate souls hidden away

345
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 2: somewhere beyond the snow topped roofs of the town's outskirts.

346
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 2: They don't have to wait long before their bus arrives,

347
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 2: and soon after the team are moving through the white

348
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 2: blanketed countryside. As the bus forges ahead towards Vizy, the

349
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 2: next stop on their journey. But there is something wrong.

350
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 2: Alexander is missing. They must have left him behind at

351
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 2: the last toilet break. The team yelled to the bus

352
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 2: driver to pull over. A quick head count confirms their fears.

353
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 2: Alexander is indeed missing, but there is nothing that can

354
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 2: be done. With the bus on a tight schedule, the

355
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 2: driver has no choice but to continue the journey. But wait,

356
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:38,959
Speaker 2: says Yuri. As far off, a small shape, steadily growing larger,

357
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 2: reveals itself to be a fully laiden Alexander sprinting with

358
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 2: all his strength toward them. I thought you'd left, He

359
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 2: sputters between gasps for breath, never say the others as

360
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 2: they haul his exhausted body back onto the bus. Just

361
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 2: after two p m. They arrive at Vizay and the

362
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 2: hikers disembark. The town is a wood cutting settlement that

363
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 2: served as a central hub from which further outposts could

364
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 2: be reached. From here, the two teams will go their

365
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 2: separate ways. For Blinoff and his team, a bus heading

366
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 2: their way to Sector one oh five is due to

367
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 2: leave later in the afternoon. For Eagers group, however, they

368
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 2: will have to stop here for the night. That afternoon,

369
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:35,679
Speaker 2: the team's many cameras, vital for recording evidence for their

370
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 2: Category three certificates, are whipped out as they say their

371
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 2: final goodbyes to Blinov and his team. Despite the minus

372
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:48,160
Speaker 2: seventeen degree temperature, the classmates smile and fool around as

373
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 2: they pose for one final picture. Moments later, Yuri and

374
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 2: his team scramble into the back of a flatbed truck

375
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 2: and wave a fond goodbye to their friends as they

376
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 2: put away and out of the camp. For Eager's team,

377
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 2: it will be one last night of domesticity before heading

378
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 2: off into the wilderness. The team are especially excited to

379
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 2: hear of a nearby screening room and will pile in

380
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 2: later that evening to watch a film called Symphony in Gold.

381
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 2: Brustik finds time to write a postcard to his mother,

382
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 2: and Doroshenko and Alexander make a number of final checks

383
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 2: and adjustments to the equipment. That night, With two crammed

384
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 2: to a bed and Georgi and Sasha taking positions on

385
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 2: the floor, the team sleep soundly. The next morning, they

386
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 2: are up and dressed early, eager to get on the

387
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 2: road again. But something is bugging Yuri. A pain in

388
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 2: his legs that had been steadily growing was threatening to

389
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 2: become unbearable. Despite his misgivings, he was determined not to

390
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 2: let the others down and decided to ignore it for now.

391
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: But there is also something else. The previous afternoon, an

392
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 2: experienced forester had expressed concern about the group's trip, thinking

393
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 2: it too dangerous for them at this time of year.

394
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 2: Eager had laughed it off in typically bullish style. After all,

395
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 2: wasn't that precisely the reason that they were taking the

396
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 2: trip in the first place. Yuri had laughed too, but

397
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 2: as he prepared to board the truck for their ride

398
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 2: out of Vizzy, it was with the old man's words

399
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 2: still ringing in his ears. The journey didn't help much either.

400
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 2: Sitting at the back of the rickety open air truck,

401
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 2: the team struggled for warmth and comfort, But as any

402
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 2: traveler knows, it is from such experiences that true bonds

403
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 2: are made, and before long the gang were once again

404
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:53,719
Speaker 2: singing songs and speaking of love and friendship as they

405
00:28:53,760 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 2: traveled ever higher into the frostbitten ural Mountains. Sector forty

406
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 2: one was a worker's outpost occupied by roughly fifty woodsmen

407
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 2: stationed on long term contracts, many of whom had gone

408
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 2: months cut off from the world. So it was with

409
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 2: no little excitement that the new faces of the young

410
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 2: students were welcomed into the workers homes that evening. As

411
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: for Dyatlov and his team, they were treated to a

412
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 2: glimpse of another world revealed through the songs and poems

413
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 2: shared by the workers that night, many of them illegal

414
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 2: and punishable under Article fifty eight of counter revolutionary crimes,

415
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 2: but even for the committed communist Luda, it was a

416
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 2: night to remember. The next morning, on January twenty seventh,

417
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 2: the team awake to find a beautiful, clear blue sky

418
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 2: waiting for them. After eight hundred and fifty kilometers, finally

419
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 2: the time has come to put on their skis and

420
00:29:55,880 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 2: begin the trek to otaut and Mountain. A local man

421
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 2: named Slava offers to lend them his sled and horse

422
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 2: to help carry their heavy equipment to their next stop,

423
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 2: a settlement known as North two. The settlement is an

424
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 2: old geological research site just twenty four kilometers to the north,

425
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 2: now abandoned and home to little more than two thousand

426
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 2: dilapidated cabins. It is late in the afternoon when Slava

427
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 2: returns with his sled, but after securing the luggage and

428
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 2: fastening their skis, the team are finally en route towards

429
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 2: North Two. The journey takes them over the frozen waters

430
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 2: of the Ushma River, deeper and deeper into the forest,

431
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 2: but the thin ice is proving tricky for the horse

432
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 2: to negotiate. After two hours, the team have only made

433
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 2: it a third of the way, but as the winter

434
00:30:56,520 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 2: sun drops down behind a distant ridge, the team continue

435
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 2: on unperturbed. Another four hours later, and Eager spots something ahead.

436
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 2: Under the soft light of the moon, they can just

437
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 2: make out the shape of a hut against the tree

438
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 2: line as their eyes are just suddenly a sprawling pastoral

439
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 2: ghost town has appeared before them. They have reached the

440
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 2: north to settlement. The woodsmen had recommended one hut in

441
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 2: particular that was still habitable, and somehow, after a short

442
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 2: time stumbling around in the dark, they managed to find

443
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 2: it that night. Approaching the log cabin on the edge

444
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 2: of the forest under the moonlight, it is as if

445
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 2: they have crossed some kind of threshold and stepped right

446
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 2: into a fairy tale. Old Slavic folk stories tell of

447
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 2: a grotesque witch with fearsome iron teeth by the name

448
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 2: of Baba Yaga, who lives in an hut deep in

449
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 2: the heart of the forest. She is a complex creature

450
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 2: that is sometimes good, but at other times utterly monstrous,

451
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 2: given to eating her victims without a moment's hesitation. It

452
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 2: is said that she travels in a large pestle and

453
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 2: mortar that flies through the trees with a sickening, grinding screech,

454
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 2: and that her hut stands atop of a pair of

455
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 2: chickens feet, But there are no such feet under the

456
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 2: cabin that night, and the air remains silent, with the

457
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 2: eerie quietude that only an abandoned village can conjure up.

458
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 2: Before long, there is life once again in Sector North too,

459
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 2: as the darkness of the cabin is illuminated by the

460
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,479
Speaker 2: sound of young voices, filled with the relief of finding

461
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 2: shelter for the night, and then shortly after by the

462
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 2: flickering glow of lamp light. A few of the boys

463
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 2: volunteer to find firewood from outside by pulling up wood

464
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 2: from some of the more dilapidated cabins. At one point,

465
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 2: Rustick grabs at one, only to pull away in pain.

466
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 2: He looks closely at his hand and sees a small

467
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 2: pinprick from an old nail hidden in the dark. He

468
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 2: watches for a moment as the prick becomes a drop

469
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 2: of blood on the surface of his skin. A short

470
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 2: time later, and the fire is roaring and filling the

471
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 2: room with the comforting, sweet smelling smoke of the hearth.

472
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 2: The following morning and yuri Udin's legs have finally given

473
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 2: in after struggling even to stand. It is clear that

474
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 2: he is at the point of no return with Slava

475
00:33:56,760 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 2: due to head back to Sector forty one that day.

476
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 2: He has little option but to join him with sincere disappointment,

477
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 2: he breaks the news to the rest of the group,

478
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 2: who are all equally devastated to be saying goodbye so

479
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 2: early to their friend. As a keen geologist, Yuri is

480
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:19,280
Speaker 2: determined not to return empty handed and manages to corral

481
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 2: a small team to join him on the hunt for

482
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 2: some interesting samples to take back home. But despite the

483
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 2: area's abundance of precious stones and minerals, Yuri is saddened

484
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 2: only to find quartz and fools gold hidden under the snow.

485
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 2: With Slava eager to get going, Yuri loads his pack

486
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 2: onto the back of the sled and gingerly steps into

487
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 2: his skis. The team say their final goodbyes and take

488
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 2: one last picture of their friend before he leaves. And

489
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 2: so it is that, on the morning of Wednesday, January

490
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 2: twenty eighth, that the ten strong team led by eager

491
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 2: Dyatlov comes nine before he is out of sight, Yuri

492
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 2: turns one last time to wave a final goodbye to

493
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:12,799
Speaker 2: the team. He couldn't possibly have known then that it

494
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 2: will be the last time his friends will ever be

495
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 2: seen alive again. Knee deep in snow by the banks

496
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:33,239
Speaker 2: of the Losva River, boris slopsof pulled the hood up

497
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 2: over his head and tied the flaps of his hat

498
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 2: down tightly below his chin. It was all he could

499
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 2: do to stop the incessant pelting of his face by

500
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 2: the flex of snow being whipped up relentlessly by the wind.

501
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 2: In the distance, he can hear the repetitive, dull chop

502
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:54,760
Speaker 2: of helicopter blades. The sound gets closer and closer, until

503
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 2: eventually the olive green Mi I four finally comes into view.

504
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,879
Speaker 2: Squinting now into the sun, he watches as it makes

505
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 2: a slow, lumbering turn across the sky before settling over

506
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 2: the Losva and forging a path straight towards him. And then,

507
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,319
Speaker 2: just as it's about to fly above his head, it

508
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 2: makes a sharp bank to the right. Boris is close

509
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 2: enough to see the co pilot wave before throwing something

510
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 2: out of the cockpit. Boris watches as the object drops

511
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 2: from the sky, its red ribbon flapping manically as it falls,

512
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 2: before nestling in the snow meets away from Boris's feet.

513
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 2: He hurries over and pulls the canister free, unscrewing the

514
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 2: cap to find a message for his team lodged inside.

515
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:50,240
Speaker 2: It tells them to head towards the Auspier River, roughly

516
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 2: three kilometers to the south. It is Wednesday, February the

517
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 2: twenty fifth, exactly four weeks since Yuri Yudin was forced

518
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 2: to abandon an eager Dyatlov and the eight other friends

519
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 2: he had been accompanying as part of an expedition towards

520
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 2: Otauton Mountain in the Russian URLs. It had been a

521
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 2: painful decision for Yuri, but one perhaps not quite as

522
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,920
Speaker 2: painful as the crippling effects of rheumatism that had plagued

523
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 2: him throughout the journey and in the end left him

524
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:25,800
Speaker 2: with little choice but to turn back. Yuri had last

525
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 2: been with the group in the north to settlement an old,

526
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 2: abandoned geological site from which they were due to strike

527
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:36,279
Speaker 2: out towards Otauton Mountain a short time after they had

528
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 2: said their goodbys. The team had been expected to arrive

529
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 2: back in their hometown of spurred Lovsk on February the thirteenth,

530
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 2: almost two weeks ago, but the team had never returned.

531
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 2: Twenty two year old Boris Slotsov is, a friend of

532
00:37:55,560 --> 00:38:00,399
Speaker 2: eagers and a member of the same hiking club V two,

533
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,760
Speaker 2: had planned to one day make the hike to Otautan Mountain,

534
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 2: but never could he have imagined it would be under

535
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 2: circumstances such as these. Boris had been one of the

536
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 2: first to volunteer to help find the team, after concerns

537
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 2: had been voiced about their whereabouts. The alarm had been

538
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 2: raised by anxious parents on the thirteenth, but it would

539
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 2: be almost another week before hiking club officials deem it

540
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 2: a serious concern worthy of a formal search and rescue operation.

541
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 2: It was, after all, not uncommon for such lengthy hikes

542
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 2: to suffer the odd one or two day's delay, but

543
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 2: when a whole week later there is still no word

544
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,879
Speaker 2: from the team, it is clear that something has gone

545
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:57,320
Speaker 2: drastically wrong. The Ural Polytechnic's first response is to dispatch

546
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 2: hiking club director Lev Gordo and young Yuriblinov, who had

547
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 2: traveled part way with the Dyatlov team prior to their disappearance,

548
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 2: to undertake a quick air surveillance of the team's probable route. Meanwhile,

549
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 2: in Ifdale, the town closest to where the team was

550
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 2: last seen, a criminal investigation is opened up, led by

551
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:26,319
Speaker 2: local prosecutor Vasili Templov. A three pronged attack is established

552
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 2: when experienced hiker Yevgeny Maslenikov is also enlisted to help

553
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 2: run things on the ground. Yevgeny, who was well aware

554
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 2: of Eager and his compatriots, having initially helped them to

555
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 2: plan their route, wastes little time in joining the search.

556
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,400
Speaker 2: On the twenty fourth, Tempulov agrees to open up the

557
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 2: search to include all possible routes taken by Dyatlov's team,

558
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 2: and by now, with news of the team's disappearance spreading

559
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,919
Speaker 2: throughout the region, many volunteers have come forward to offer

560
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 2: their help, including members of the family, fellow students, and

561
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 2: workers from the local camps. The search is given an

562
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 2: early boost when Gordo and Blinov pick up a trail

563
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,439
Speaker 2: that leads them to a Mansi village called bartier Rova.

564
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 2: The Mansi are an indigenous people of western Siberia, an

565
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 2: area running roughly fifteen hundred kilometers from the Ural Mountains

566
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,240
Speaker 2: to the Great Yenise River in the east. This vast

567
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 2: stretch of land is sometimes referred to as Ugra Land,

568
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:40,280
Speaker 2: but is now commonly known as the Kanti Mansiysk Autonomous District.

569
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 2: It is believed that Mancy have populated the region since

570
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 2: the Mesolithic Age, sharing ancestors with both the people of

571
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:54,879
Speaker 2: Hungary and Finland. They are historically known for their proficiency

572
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 2: in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding, but they are also

573
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 2: a sous postitious people, steeped in a rich culture and

574
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 2: folklore unique to themselves but also to this region, although

575
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 2: some have claimed an ancient lineage that goes back to

576
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:16,319
Speaker 2: the Sumerians, whom many consider to be the first great civilization.

577
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 2: To look upon the Ural Mountains through the eyes of

578
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 2: the Mansi is to see another world hidden from the

579
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 2: view of most. It is a sacred place, home to

580
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 2: spirits and gods, and many an unsolved ancient mystery. Although

581
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 2: for Gordo and Blinoff the trail goes cold in Barti Rova,

582
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: their efforts have caught the attention of several Mansi tribesmen, who,

583
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 2: like everybody else, are deeply moved by the plight of

584
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 2: the missing students. The offer to lend their unparalleled local

585
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 2: knowledge and tracking skills to the search is gratefully accepted.

586
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 2: The Manse team is led by Stepan Kurikov, a warm

587
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 2: hearted and hulking presence, as well as being one of

588
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:15,839
Speaker 2: the most respected of the tribal elders. A few days later,

589
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 2: the helicopter search team picks up ski tracks heading north

590
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,280
Speaker 2: from the Auspier River at the bottom of a mountain

591
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 2: known as kolat Seekeel, but searches on the ground are

592
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 2: unable to establish any clear route before bad weather brings

593
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 2: the day's search to an end. It is the following

594
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:37,720
Speaker 2: day when Boris Slobsov and his team received their message

595
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 2: to search the corresponding area. Later that afternoon, a breakthrough

596
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 2: discovery is made when Boris locates one of the Dyatlov

597
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:50,000
Speaker 2: team's camp sites on the banks of the river, just

598
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 2: to the edge of a forest. It is clear that

599
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 2: Diatlov's team would most likely have struck out from here

600
00:42:56,440 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 2: and headed straight towards Otaortum Mountain over the exposed of

601
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:05,800
Speaker 2: kolat Siakle, But with night fast approaching and the weather

602
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:10,280
Speaker 2: becoming increasingly volatile, Slobsov's team are unable to follow suit

603
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 2: and are forced to retreat into the tree line and

604
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 2: make camp for the night. That evening, as the dark

605
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 2: closed in around them, with yet another day gone, Slobsov

606
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 2: can't help but think upon the fate of his friends

607
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 2: and to just what exactly might be lying in wait,

608
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 2: buried under the snow. It hasn't escaped his attention either.

609
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 2: That the name cooleet Siakle translates as dead Mountain. The

610
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 2: next day, February the twenty sixth, Slobsov suggests that the

611
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 2: team break into pairs to widen the search area. Boris

612
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 2: joins up with fellow hiking team member Mikhail Sharavin, and

613
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 2: together they head off in the direction of O'tauton across

614
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 2: the eastern slope of colat Siakle that afternoon, as the

615
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:07,320
Speaker 2: two hikers battle raging winds and minus twenty degree temperatures,

616
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 2: the hikers are three hundred meters from the top of

617
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 2: the mountain when Mikhail spots something up ahead sticking out

618
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 2: of the snow. It looks like a tent. Getting nearer,

619
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 2: the thing starts to reveal itself. They can now clearly

620
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 2: see the poles sticking out from underneath and the south

621
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 2: facing entrance that remains intact while the entire back half

622
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:35,839
Speaker 2: has collapsed under the weight of snowfall. Boris calls out

623
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:40,959
Speaker 2: hopefully for his friends, but hears nothing in reply save

624
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 2: for the fierce whistling of the wind. He steps toward

625
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:49,240
Speaker 2: the entrance, takes a deep breath and pulls back the flap.

626
00:44:56,800 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 2: It is with an odd mix of relief and disappointment

627
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:04,359
Speaker 2: that Boris finds the tent completely deserted, the relief being

628
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,280
Speaker 2: tempered by the fact that almost everything that the hikers

629
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 2: had been traveling with appeared to have been left behind inside,

630
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:13,919
Speaker 2: as if the team had just vanished into thin air.

631
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 2: But for Boris, their absence provides a glimmer of hope

632
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:23,439
Speaker 2: that his friends might actually still be alive. Pushing back

633
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 2: on the heavy canvas, Boris and Mikhail managed to write

634
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 2: the tent enough to take a proper look inside. On

635
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 2: the floor, they find the nine backpacks belonging to each

636
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:39,280
Speaker 2: team member, as well as each of their skis. Perhaps

637
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 2: most curiously, they find a jacket left on the ground

638
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 2: outside the tent. Boris pulls it from the snow and

639
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 2: scours the surrounding area, hoping to spot footprints or any

640
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,760
Speaker 2: other sign of his friends, but sees only the vast

641
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 2: white emptiness, and with dark clouds beginning to roll in,

642
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 2: Boris and Mikhaiel only have a few minutes to gather

643
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:07,320
Speaker 2: what they can before reluctantly being forced back to their camp.

644
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:12,040
Speaker 2: On their return, Boris is able to send word back

645
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 2: to Evedale suggesting all search efforts be concentrated on the

646
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 2: surrounding area. A reply comes back to dig out a

647
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 2: helicopter landing site in preparation for over fifty people who

648
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:28,400
Speaker 2: will be arriving the next day. It is another anxious

649
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 2: night for Boris and his team, and their attention is

650
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 2: constantly drawn to the items brought back from the abandoned tent.

651
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 2: The presence of the items in Boris's tent seems only

652
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:43,880
Speaker 2: to bring the absence of their owners closer, as if

653
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 2: they had merely stepped outside for a moment before returning

654
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 2: to collect their things. Boris picks up the jacket and

655
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 2: examines the pockets, hoping for any clue as to the

656
00:46:55,480 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 2: team's whereabouts. Inside, he discovers a notebook suggesting the jacket

657
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 2: was eager Dyatlovs. Flicking through the pages, Boris discovers a photograph.

658
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 2: It is a portrait of Xena. The following day, Friday,

659
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 2: the twenty seventh, the search teams converge on the newly

660
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 2: discovered campsite, including police equipped with search dogs. The ensuing

661
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 2: chaos threatens to undermine any hope of finding tracks under

662
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 2: the snow, But remarkably, one of the team finds some

663
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,760
Speaker 2: twenty meters or so from the tent, under a patch

664
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 2: of freshly fallen snow. They see them clearly now, veering

665
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 2: off down the side of the hill towards the Losva

666
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 2: River valley. But there is something very odd. Some of

667
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 2: the prints seem bizarrely small, almost as if whoever had

668
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 2: made them had not been wearing any shoes. And there

669
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 2: is another vital discovery, a team diary kept by all

670
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 2: the members of the group to document their expedition. The

671
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:06,319
Speaker 2: entries had been meticulously kept since the first day, but

672
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 2: had ended abruptly on January the thirty first, suggesting whatever

673
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:16,279
Speaker 2: happened likely occurred around February first, meaning the group has

674
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 2: now been missing for four weeks. Slobsov's team, who are

675
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 2: that morning searching the banks of the Losva River, are

676
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:34,720
Speaker 2: informed of the tracks found leading towards their location. Boris

677
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 2: plays out the scenario in his head until he is

678
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 2: transported back to the night the team left the tent.

679
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 2: He sees them now, their movements echoing through time as

680
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 2: they descend down the mountain and head for the shelter

681
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 2: of the same trees that he is walking among. A

682
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 2: short time later, and Mikhail finds something strange at the

683
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 2: base of a cedar tree. Poking through the snow, he

684
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 2: finds the charred remains of a makeshift fire that had

685
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 2: clearly been hastily put together. He notices also that a

686
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:09,879
Speaker 2: number of the tree's branches have been recently snapped off.

687
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 2: And then just north of the tree, there is something

688
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 2: else sticking out of the snow. Something wants soft but

689
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 2: now as rigid and hard as the cedar. It is

690
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:29,319
Speaker 2: a human leg. For Boris and his team, it is

691
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:33,440
Speaker 2: a devastating discovery, and one that will extinguish any remaining

692
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 2: hope of finding his friends alive. But for us it

693
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:42,160
Speaker 2: merely marks another beginning to this strange and bizarre tale,

694
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 2: for it is about to get very weird. Indeed, after

695
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 2: Mikhail's gruesome discovery, Boris alerts Maslenikov's team, and together they

696
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 2: carefully begin to excavate the body from the snow. But

697
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:02,360
Speaker 2: as they dig further, they discover not one body, but

698
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:06,840
Speaker 2: two lying side by side together, with one face down

699
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 2: and the other face up. As the last of the

700
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:13,880
Speaker 2: snow is pushed from one of the faces, Boris recoils

701
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 2: in horror. The mouth, nose, and eyes appear to have

702
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 2: been completely removed. Despite the apparent mutilation, Boris recognizes the

703
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:31,719
Speaker 2: face instantly as Giorgi Krivonishenko. The other body is soon

704
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 2: revealed to be that of Yuri Doroshenko, but it's not

705
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 2: until the full horror of the discovery has sunk in

706
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 2: that they notice something peculiar about the clothes on the bodies,

707
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:50,319
Speaker 2: or rather the lack of them. Georgi appears not to

708
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 2: be wearing a jacket or trousers, just one checkered shirt

709
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 2: and some swimming trunks under long underwear. Even More bizarrely,

710
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 2: the left flo leg of the underwear has been ripped

711
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 2: off and his feet are completely bare. Doroshenko appears somewhat

712
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 2: better dressed, with an undershirt, check top, long underwear and socks,

713
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 2: but no shoes. His clothes also appear to have been

714
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:23,760
Speaker 2: bizarrely shredded. After the discovery of the bodies, the focus

715
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:27,840
Speaker 2: of the search switches quickly to the valley Nancy elder

716
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:32,879
Speaker 2: Stepan Kurikov leads the search along with his German shepherd snifferdog,

717
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 2: another experienced hiker Vladislav Corelln has also joined the search.

718
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 2: Vladislav was a medical engineer who had crossed paths with

719
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 2: Dyatlov's team as they made their way towards Otaorten. Having

720
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 2: located the first two bodies, it isn't long before the

721
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 2: German shepherd picks up another ominous scent. Pulling hard on

722
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,520
Speaker 2: the leash, he drags his owner across to a spot

723
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:03,880
Speaker 2: where Stepan recognizes something unnatural about the way the birch

724
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:08,399
Speaker 2: tree shoots are sticking out from the snow. The dog

725
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:12,160
Speaker 2: sniffs heavily at the spot, and soon they have made

726
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 2: another gruesome discovery, as just below the surface they find

727
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 2: an arm that appears still to be pulling in desperation

728
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 2: at the shoots. This body is better dressed than the

729
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 2: other two, complete with a sweater, fur vest and ski trousers,

730
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:33,840
Speaker 2: but again extraordinarily, there are no gloves and no shoes.

731
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:43,479
Speaker 2: Vladislav Correllin recognizes the face of Eager Dyatlov. Moments later,

732
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 2: Evedale policeman Lieutenant Nikolay Mousyev and his dog Alma are

733
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 2: heading back from the trees towards the team's tent. When

734
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 2: Alma gets suddenly anxious and begins to dig manically. It

735
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 2: is yet another body, lying fair down with their knees bent,

736
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 2: as if making a final desperate bid to crawl back

737
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 2: to the safety of the tent. Moisiev turns the body

738
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 2: over and is surprised to find dried blood smeared across

739
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 2: the faith. The body will later be identified as that

740
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 2: of Xena Kolmogorova. Yevgeny Maslenikov, who by now has been

741
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:35,200
Speaker 2: made head of the entire ground search operation, orders the

742
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 2: bodies to be wrapped in tarpaulin and taken to Boot

743
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:42,240
Speaker 2: Rock on the bank of kolat Seakle while they await

744
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:48,279
Speaker 2: evacuation and formal autopsy. Watching as the bodies are laid

745
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:51,479
Speaker 2: out at the base of the rock, Maslenikov can't help

746
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 2: but begin to formulate his own theories about just what

747
00:53:55,040 --> 00:54:00,840
Speaker 2: might have taken place. For Maslenikov, it appears simple case

748
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 2: of being caught out by the weather. Perhaps one of

749
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 2: the team stepped out of the tent only to be

750
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:10,359
Speaker 2: swept away by the wind, prompting his friends to make

751
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:14,200
Speaker 2: a fatal rescue attempt. Or perhaps it was an avalanche

752
00:54:14,560 --> 00:54:16,960
Speaker 2: that scared them from the safety of their tent and

753
00:54:17,080 --> 00:54:22,759
Speaker 2: left them catastrophically disorientated. Only if the wind or avalanche

754
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 2: had been so strong as to push the hikers down

755
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 2: the valley, why was the tent still clinging so firmly

756
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:32,280
Speaker 2: to the side of the mountain, its poles still standing

757
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 2: as they would have been the day they were pitched.

758
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 2: The day after the four bodies are discovered, Prosecutor Vasili

759
00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:43,879
Speaker 2: Temploff finally arrives on the scene to make his own

760
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 2: assessment of the evidence. He makes a note of the

761
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:51,319
Speaker 2: various items found at the campsite, but also he is

762
00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 2: the first person to notice something odd about the tent itself.

763
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:58,919
Speaker 2: It may have still been standing, but what no one

764
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 2: had seemed to notice before was that one side of

765
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:08,520
Speaker 2: it had been completely and unnaturally slashed to pieces. But

766
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:12,040
Speaker 2: before Tempulov can get his teeth into the investigation, he

767
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 2: is told to step down from the operation. On the

768
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:20,120
Speaker 2: morning of Sunday, March first, yet another helicopter arrives at

769
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 2: the search headquarters at the foot of kolat Seakle. The

770
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:29,640
Speaker 2: door is opened and outsteps the determined figure of lev Ivanov,

771
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 2: Junior Council of Justice and now lead investigator on the case.

772
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 2: He adjusts his glasses and pulls his jacket tighter, before

773
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:43,760
Speaker 2: being led away from the chopper and straight into the fray.

774
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:48,760
Speaker 2: Moments later, he is casting his eyes over the makeshift

775
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 2: fire at the base of the cedar tree. Suddenly, with

776
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:57,080
Speaker 2: Ivanov on the scene, the investigation seems to have taken

777
00:55:57,120 --> 00:56:01,320
Speaker 2: on another guise, like something from a classic detective novel.

778
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:04,239
Speaker 2: There is more than the touch of the brooding, enigmatic

779
00:56:04,280 --> 00:56:09,400
Speaker 2: hero about Ivanov, his thick, black rimmed glasses lending a

780
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 2: cerebral air to this intense veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Immediately,

781
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 2: he makes note of a number of branches snapped from

782
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:21,919
Speaker 2: up high in the tree. Perhaps one of the team

783
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 2: climbed the tree in an attempt to call the others,

784
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 2: or maybe he had been trying to escape from something.

785
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:33,280
Speaker 2: He also notices another pair of footprints in the snow,

786
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:37,640
Speaker 2: suggesting that Georgi and Yuri weren't alone when they died.

787
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:41,480
Speaker 2: He begins to ponder as to just why they let

788
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:44,440
Speaker 2: the fire burn out if there was plenty of firewood

789
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 2: around to be used. Meanwhile, Maslenikov is overseeing a team

790
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:54,839
Speaker 2: of thirty men lined up shoulder to shoulder as they

791
00:56:54,880 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 2: probe the ground with steel avalanche poles. That day, they

792
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:04,680
Speaker 2: cover a region of roughly thirty thousand square yards, but

793
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:11,080
Speaker 2: the search yields nothing more. Later, Ivanof and Maslenikov will

794
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:15,640
Speaker 2: together analyze the abandoned tent, leaving Ivanov convinced more than

795
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 2: ever that whatever killed Dyatlov's team members, it wasn't the

796
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 2: wind and it wasn't heavy snowfall. On March, the second

797
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 2: one of the search teams comes across a storage shelter

798
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 2: perched high up in the trees, laden with various supplies.

799
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:36,800
Speaker 2: It is a common practice for hiking teams to unburden

800
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 2: themselves before venturing out on the most grueling part of

801
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,400
Speaker 2: a journey. This appears to have been the case with

802
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 2: Dyatlov's team. The search party are moved to find Georgi's

803
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:51,480
Speaker 2: mandolin amongst the items of food. It is a stark

804
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 2: and sudden reminder of a time before. Later that day,

805
00:57:57,360 --> 00:57:59,480
Speaker 2: after the news of the store camp is passed up

806
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,080
Speaker 2: the chain, something a little more peculiar comes to light

807
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 2: when Maslenikov is approached by one of the searches. It

808
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 2: is Vladislav Karelin, the mountaineer who found Eager's body the

809
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:15,160
Speaker 2: previous week, and he has had something on his mind

810
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 2: ever since. On the night of February seventeenth, Karelin was

811
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:28,840
Speaker 2: hiking with his own team close to the trail that

812
00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:32,440
Speaker 2: Dayatlov and his team had been taking when they witnessed

813
00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 2: something strange in the sky. A member of his group,

814
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:40,840
Speaker 2: Georgi at Monaki, had woken early to make breakfast when

815
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:44,000
Speaker 2: he noticed a large, bright white spot in the distance

816
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 2: above them. He points it out to his friend Vladimir Shavkunov,

817
00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:54,160
Speaker 2: believing it to be an especially bright moon, but Shavkunov

818
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 2: was concerned there was no moon that morning, and in

819
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 2: any case, if there had been, it would have been

820
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:05,320
Speaker 2: on the other side of the sky. Then suddenly, a

821
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:08,280
Speaker 2: spark lit in the center of the spot that seemed

822
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:11,600
Speaker 2: to burn brighter, getting bigger in sides, before flying off

823
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:15,760
Speaker 2: quickly to the west. The light would eventually get so

824
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 2: big that they believed it was going to collide with

825
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 2: the earth and kill them all. And they weren't the

826
00:59:22,880 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 2: only ones to see it, as many local villages would

827
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 2: later come forward attesting to the bizarre sighting. Maslenikov agrees

828
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:35,200
Speaker 2: it is certainly something to think about, but as he

829
00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:39,720
Speaker 2: reminds Karelin, Dyatlov's team most likely died around the turn

830
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 2: of the month, a good two weeks prior to the

831
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:48,120
Speaker 2: appearance of the strange light. But when the news reaches Ivanov,

832
00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:53,240
Speaker 2: he finds it a little harder to shake. Later that afternoon,

833
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 2: as he watches the bodies of eager Yuri, Gyorgi, and

834
00:59:57,520 --> 01:00:01,600
Speaker 2: Zina being loaded into the helicopter, talk of the strange

835
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 2: lights and fire in the sky weighs heavily on his mind.

836
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 2: It certainly wouldn't be the first time that something unknown

837
01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 2: had occurred in this nation, something perhaps carried out in

838
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:18,960
Speaker 2: secret and kept hidden from view. As he climbs in

839
01:00:19,080 --> 01:00:22,479
Speaker 2: after the bodies, Maslenikov is there to see him off

840
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:25,160
Speaker 2: as the chopper lifts up into the air and flies

841
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:29,680
Speaker 2: away on its journey back to Evedel. The following day,

842
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:34,480
Speaker 2: with the search now starting to deliver results, Yuriblinoff, one

843
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 2: of the last people to see his friends alive and

844
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 2: who had worked so tirelessly over the past seven days

845
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:43,959
Speaker 2: to help find them, decides it is time to return home.

846
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:54,120
Speaker 2: The bodies are taken to the hospital of Labor Camp

847
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:57,600
Speaker 2: H two forty in evedel and left to thor out

848
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:02,720
Speaker 2: before the formal autopsy can begin. On March fourth, the

849
01:01:02,760 --> 01:01:08,240
Speaker 2: Regional Bureau forensic pathologist Boris Alexeyevitch vozrosj Denay and the

850
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:15,160
Speaker 2: city medical examiner Ivan Ivanovitch Laptev begin the procedure. Both

851
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:18,080
Speaker 2: Yury and Gyorgy display signs of burns to the side

852
01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:21,320
Speaker 2: of their heads, consistent perhaps with the fact that they

853
01:01:21,320 --> 01:01:25,600
Speaker 2: had fallen so close to the makeshift fire. As for

854
01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:29,120
Speaker 2: Gyorgy's missing features, they are deemed likely to have been

855
01:01:29,160 --> 01:01:35,400
Speaker 2: eaten by ravenous animals. Post mortem. The litany of abrasions

856
01:01:35,440 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 2: and spots of dried blood found on all of the

857
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:41,800
Speaker 2: bodies suggest final moments of wild panic, but are not

858
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:46,840
Speaker 2: thought to be particularly suspicious given the location of where

859
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:49,920
Speaker 2: the bodies were found and the time of year. It

860
01:01:50,000 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 2: is perhaps unsurprising when a verdict of death by hypothermia

861
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:58,000
Speaker 2: is returned on all four of the victims, and yet

862
01:01:58,600 --> 01:02:02,160
Speaker 2: looking closer at the autopsy report reveals a number of

863
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 2: peculiar findings. Skin from one of Georgy's right knuckles is

864
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:11,160
Speaker 2: found in his mouth, suggesting he must have bitten it

865
01:02:11,200 --> 01:02:15,480
Speaker 2: off himself, perhaps to force his hands to move or,

866
01:02:15,520 --> 01:02:21,440
Speaker 2: as some have suggested, maybe to stifle a cry. Eager's

867
01:02:21,440 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 2: body shows signs of vomiting blood, with Yuri's autopsy noting

868
01:02:25,960 --> 01:02:29,120
Speaker 2: signs of fluid in the lungs as well as bruises

869
01:02:29,160 --> 01:02:33,640
Speaker 2: sustained by some kind of blunt trauma, and something found

870
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:37,800
Speaker 2: on Zena's back also catches the eye, a long, bright

871
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:42,080
Speaker 2: red bruise, the sort you might sustain, perhaps after being

872
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:47,760
Speaker 2: clubbed by a heavy object. Meanwhile, in a room not

873
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:52,120
Speaker 2: far away, Yuri Yudin has been summoned by lead investigator

874
01:02:52,360 --> 01:02:57,160
Speaker 2: lev Ivanov. Incredibly, Udin had been one of the last

875
01:02:57,200 --> 01:03:01,240
Speaker 2: to learn of the rescue operation to find Diatlos's, having

876
01:03:01,240 --> 01:03:05,760
Speaker 2: decided to recuperate in his hometown of Emilyshevka before returning

877
01:03:05,800 --> 01:03:10,080
Speaker 2: to spurred Lovsk, and now he was being given the

878
01:03:10,120 --> 01:03:14,000
Speaker 2: somber task of sorting through all the team's personal belongings

879
01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:18,560
Speaker 2: in order to assign them to their correct owner. He

880
01:03:18,640 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 2: too finds the picture of Xena in Eager's notebook, and

881
01:03:22,760 --> 01:03:25,360
Speaker 2: manages a rise smile when he finds a packet of

882
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:33,640
Speaker 2: cigarettes secretly stashed away in Alexander Kolovatov's bag. But back

883
01:03:33,680 --> 01:03:38,440
Speaker 2: on Kolatsiakl. The search continues, and on March fifth, another

884
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 2: body is discovered. Corellin had been searching a region in

885
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:47,200
Speaker 2: between where Eager and Zena were found when he hit

886
01:03:47,320 --> 01:03:51,480
Speaker 2: something solid just below the surface. Once the snow had

887
01:03:51,480 --> 01:03:55,120
Speaker 2: been cleared, Corellin recognizes the body as that of the

888
01:03:55,200 --> 01:04:01,440
Speaker 2: much loved Rustic Slovodin. Unlike the others, Rustick seems almost

889
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:07,760
Speaker 2: properly dressed, but something else immediately catches Kurellin's attention. There

890
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:10,520
Speaker 2: is a severe discoloring on the front of his head,

891
01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:14,040
Speaker 2: while a patch of ice close to his mouth suggests

892
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 2: that he had been alive for some time after he fell.

893
01:04:20,120 --> 01:04:23,680
Speaker 2: Rustick's injuries were confirmed by the pathologist in an autopsy

894
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:28,200
Speaker 2: three days later as being potentially consistent with damage sustained

895
01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 2: from a blunt object. The frontal bone of his skull

896
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,720
Speaker 2: is found to be fractured, with severe hemorrhaging in the

897
01:04:35,760 --> 01:04:39,400
Speaker 2: temple region, as if he had repeatedly been forced down

898
01:04:39,480 --> 01:04:45,120
Speaker 2: on to his face. Rustis is the fifth body to

899
01:04:45,160 --> 01:04:50,760
Speaker 2: be recovered, while four of Diatlov's team remain missing and

900
01:04:50,840 --> 01:05:07,280
Speaker 2: the investigation has only just begun. Alexei could not believe

901
01:05:07,360 --> 01:05:11,160
Speaker 2: what he was hearing. As he sat unfounded in the

902
01:05:11,200 --> 01:05:14,440
Speaker 2: cold and sterile office in front of three stone faced

903
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:19,960
Speaker 2: party officials, he begged them to reconsider. It had been

904
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:22,200
Speaker 2: a week since the body of his twenty three year

905
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:27,160
Speaker 2: old son, Georgi had been discovered, and although Alexi had

906
01:05:27,160 --> 01:05:29,640
Speaker 2: long since given up hope that his son might be

907
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:32,840
Speaker 2: found alive, he had not been prepared for the grief

908
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:38,400
Speaker 2: of finally knowing. Now having made the trip to Evedel.

909
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:41,000
Speaker 2: He was at the very least hoping to take his

910
01:05:41,080 --> 01:05:44,800
Speaker 2: son's body back home with him to sverurt Lothsk. But

911
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:49,480
Speaker 2: the party officials had other ideas. A decision had been

912
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:51,960
Speaker 2: made that all of the bodies would be buried together

913
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:56,600
Speaker 2: in Evedell in a mass grave. The families were invited

914
01:05:56,600 --> 01:05:59,880
Speaker 2: to attend, but there would be no public announcement and

915
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:04,720
Speaker 2: only a small obelisk to mark the spot. But Sperdlovsk

916
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:08,240
Speaker 2: is his home, implored Alexei. That is where he lived,

917
01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:12,000
Speaker 2: where he made friends. And did we bury him an Evedell?

918
01:06:12,560 --> 01:06:16,280
Speaker 2: How are we to visit him? But the decision was final,

919
01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:20,800
Speaker 2: and besides, they said, all the other families had agreed

920
01:06:20,840 --> 01:06:26,280
Speaker 2: to it. Two by two, the parents of Eager Zena,

921
01:06:26,600 --> 01:06:29,760
Speaker 2: Yuri and Rustic were called in to face the hastily

922
01:06:29,800 --> 01:06:34,480
Speaker 2: assembled committee and given the exact same distressing news, each

923
01:06:34,560 --> 01:06:38,800
Speaker 2: being informed that the others had consented to it. The

924
01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:42,680
Speaker 2: parents struggled to process what they were being told. Not

925
01:06:42,720 --> 01:06:45,000
Speaker 2: only did it seem the authorities were trying to cover

926
01:06:45,080 --> 01:06:48,320
Speaker 2: the whole instant up, but they were asking the parents

927
01:06:48,440 --> 01:06:52,520
Speaker 2: to become complicit in it too. The Party was in

928
01:06:52,560 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 2: effect asking for nothing less than their cooperation in erasing

929
01:06:56,720 --> 01:07:06,760
Speaker 2: the history of their children's lives. Like most people in

930
01:07:06,760 --> 01:07:10,160
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, the parents were well aware of the

931
01:07:10,240 --> 01:07:13,880
Speaker 2: lengths the state would go to preserve their methods, but

932
01:07:13,960 --> 01:07:18,200
Speaker 2: not to them, not this time, and it was of

933
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:21,760
Speaker 2: course a lie. Not one of the sets of parents

934
01:07:21,800 --> 01:07:26,800
Speaker 2: had agreed to their plan. On realizing the deception, the

935
01:07:26,840 --> 01:07:31,600
Speaker 2: parents fought back and eventually the party relented, but only

936
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:35,720
Speaker 2: on one condition. The students could be buried in spurred Lovsk,

937
01:07:36,320 --> 01:07:39,400
Speaker 2: but the funerals were to be held together to minimize

938
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:43,120
Speaker 2: the attention. With the exception of Georgy's, who was a

939
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:46,080
Speaker 2: Russian Orthodox would be granted a separate funeral at an

940
01:07:46,120 --> 01:07:52,240
Speaker 2: appropriate location. The funeral procession would also be strictly controlled

941
01:07:52,760 --> 01:07:55,880
Speaker 2: with the coffins being taken directly from the morgue to

942
01:07:55,920 --> 01:08:00,200
Speaker 2: the cemetery. The parents had requested that the bodies be

943
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:06,960
Speaker 2: taken past the Oral Polytechnic Institute campus, but permission was refused. However,

944
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:11,000
Speaker 2: attempts to minimize the publicity of the event would ultimately

945
01:08:11,360 --> 01:08:15,520
Speaker 2: prove futile in a rare moment of public defiance over

946
01:08:15,560 --> 01:08:20,040
Speaker 2: state control. On Monday, the ninth of March nineteen fifty nine,

947
01:08:20,760 --> 01:08:23,519
Speaker 2: over a thousand mourners, touched by the death of the

948
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:28,240
Speaker 2: young hikers, took to the streets to join the procession. Together,

949
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:30,960
Speaker 2: they marched with the families as they made their way

950
01:08:31,120 --> 01:08:35,759
Speaker 2: to Mikhailovskoy's Cemetery, behind two trucks laden with the bodies

951
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:42,200
Speaker 2: of Yuri, Brustic Xena and eager. Twelve year old Yuri

952
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:45,040
Speaker 2: Konsavich lived with his parents in the east of the

953
01:08:45,040 --> 01:08:49,919
Speaker 2: city centre, just opposite the cemetery. He watched in silence

954
01:08:50,000 --> 01:08:53,599
Speaker 2: from his apartment window as the mourners slowly drifted into view.

955
01:08:55,439 --> 01:08:58,600
Speaker 2: Yuri didn't know then just how exactly the tragedy of

956
01:08:58,640 --> 01:09:02,400
Speaker 2: what happened to the Diatlovtia would shape his life, But

957
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:06,320
Speaker 2: on this morning, what preoccupied Yuri was not the bodies

958
01:09:06,360 --> 01:09:10,000
Speaker 2: of the students laid out in their open caskets, or

959
01:09:10,040 --> 01:09:13,840
Speaker 2: the sheer number of people attending their funeral, but rather

960
01:09:14,280 --> 01:09:17,799
Speaker 2: a handful of suspicious looking men dotted about the crowd.

961
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:22,360
Speaker 2: Unlike the rest of the crowd, these men, dressed in

962
01:09:22,360 --> 01:09:25,960
Speaker 2: civilian clothes, seemed to pay little attention to the bodies

963
01:09:26,400 --> 01:09:30,920
Speaker 2: or the eventual service that took place. Instead, they seemed

964
01:09:30,960 --> 01:09:34,840
Speaker 2: to be watching the people. Yuri could have sworn they

965
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:38,920
Speaker 2: were KGB, members of the secret Soviet police sent to

966
01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:44,439
Speaker 2: keep a close eye on the proceedings. After the bodies

967
01:09:44,439 --> 01:09:47,680
Speaker 2: were finally laid to rest, with Georgi's being buried the

968
01:09:47,680 --> 01:09:52,200
Speaker 2: following day. Ordinarily, the families might now finally be able

969
01:09:52,240 --> 01:09:58,760
Speaker 2: to grieve, but there was something glaringly absent. Despite the

970
01:09:58,840 --> 01:10:02,639
Speaker 2: bodies having been discovered ten days previously, there was still

971
01:10:02,760 --> 01:10:06,280
Speaker 2: no hint of an explanation from the authorities as to

972
01:10:06,320 --> 01:10:11,719
Speaker 2: just how exactly the students had died. What could possibly

973
01:10:11,840 --> 01:10:15,200
Speaker 2: have driven nine experienced and strong hikers from the shelter

974
01:10:15,280 --> 01:10:18,719
Speaker 2: and warmth of their tent to meet their deaths amidst

975
01:10:18,720 --> 01:10:24,280
Speaker 2: the driving snow and sub sero temperatures outside and lest

976
01:10:24,280 --> 01:10:28,679
Speaker 2: it be forgotten, there were still four people unaccounted for.

977
01:10:35,520 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 2: The day after Georgi's funeral, friends and family gathered together

978
01:10:39,640 --> 01:10:44,120
Speaker 2: at the Krivonishenko home for Giorgi's wake. It was, of

979
01:10:44,160 --> 01:10:49,320
Speaker 2: course a somber affair, but one also unsurprisingly dominated with

980
01:10:49,439 --> 01:10:53,920
Speaker 2: the mystery of his death. Despite the secrecy of the

981
01:10:53,920 --> 01:10:58,040
Speaker 2: police investigation, due to the large number of volunteers involved,

982
01:10:58,680 --> 01:11:04,599
Speaker 2: rumours had inevitably begun to circulate. Time and again, attention

983
01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:08,120
Speaker 2: seemed to turn to the mysterious lights and orbs witnessed

984
01:11:08,120 --> 01:11:13,360
Speaker 2: in the surrounding area. But Georgi's father, Alexei had grown

985
01:11:13,400 --> 01:11:17,200
Speaker 2: weary of such talk, deeming it irrelevant since the lights

986
01:11:17,200 --> 01:11:20,120
Speaker 2: had been seen two weeks after the students were thought

987
01:11:20,120 --> 01:11:24,120
Speaker 2: to have died, and so it was with little patience

988
01:11:24,439 --> 01:11:27,800
Speaker 2: that he received two more students that night, eager to

989
01:11:27,840 --> 01:11:31,400
Speaker 2: share their story of strange lights spotted in the night sky.

990
01:11:33,120 --> 01:11:36,439
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear it, said Alexei. But no,

991
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:41,320
Speaker 2: they said, you don't understand. We saw the lights on

992
01:11:41,400 --> 01:11:46,000
Speaker 2: February the first, the same night that Tdyatlov's team left

993
01:11:46,080 --> 01:11:50,559
Speaker 2: their tent. The two students had been part of another

994
01:11:50,600 --> 01:11:56,599
Speaker 2: team led by Upi teacher Anatoly Shumkov. The team had

995
01:11:56,640 --> 01:12:00,040
Speaker 2: been climbing Kisstop Mountain, roughly twenty five miles to the

996
01:11:59,880 --> 01:12:03,479
Speaker 2: south of where Dyatlov's team had camped on kolat Siakle

997
01:12:03,920 --> 01:12:07,840
Speaker 2: when they saw it. With the mercury dropping to as

998
01:12:07,880 --> 01:12:11,640
Speaker 2: low as minus thirty degrees centigrade, the team were just

999
01:12:11,680 --> 01:12:14,240
Speaker 2: about to begin their descent when there was a sudden

1000
01:12:14,240 --> 01:12:17,719
Speaker 2: flash of silver in the sky, followed by a white

1001
01:12:17,760 --> 01:12:22,280
Speaker 2: spark that was seen flying upwards from the Otautan Valley.

1002
01:12:22,640 --> 01:12:26,599
Speaker 2: Moments later, an eerie sound of thunder rumbled across the mountain.

1003
01:12:28,040 --> 01:12:32,799
Speaker 2: As Schumkov later recounted, this thing flew silently and slowly

1004
01:12:33,040 --> 01:12:35,720
Speaker 2: from the south to the north over the ridge of

1005
01:12:35,760 --> 01:12:40,280
Speaker 2: the Urals. It was glowing quite brightly the way it

1006
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:43,759
Speaker 2: illuminated the hovering clouds at the height of two point

1007
01:12:43,760 --> 01:12:49,519
Speaker 2: five to three kilometers, it was very strange. For Alexei

1008
01:12:49,680 --> 01:12:52,600
Speaker 2: and many others, it was hard to resist the increasingly

1009
01:12:52,640 --> 01:12:56,479
Speaker 2: popular theory that the students had unwittingly strayed into the

1010
01:12:56,520 --> 01:13:06,960
Speaker 2: path of some kind of secret weapons test. In nineteen

1011
01:13:07,000 --> 01:13:10,960
Speaker 2: forty five, unbeknownst to most of the planet, a new

1012
01:13:11,000 --> 01:13:16,320
Speaker 2: world was about to emerge. It began at five twenty

1013
01:13:16,400 --> 01:13:20,200
Speaker 2: nine a m. On July sixteenth, with the detonation of

1014
01:13:20,240 --> 01:13:23,280
Speaker 2: a bomb in the middle of the Hornada del Muerto

1015
01:13:23,439 --> 01:13:28,479
Speaker 2: Desert in New Mexico. The bomb was named Trinity, and

1016
01:13:28,600 --> 01:13:32,840
Speaker 2: its subsequent explosion marked the first successful deployment of the

1017
01:13:32,880 --> 01:13:38,519
Speaker 2: atomic bomb. Later that year, the atomic age would formally

1018
01:13:38,560 --> 01:13:41,839
Speaker 2: announce itself in a mushroom cloud of death and destruction

1019
01:13:42,360 --> 01:13:45,920
Speaker 2: when Little Boy and Fat Man were detonated over the

1020
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:51,640
Speaker 2: Japanese towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs would go

1021
01:13:51,720 --> 01:13:54,559
Speaker 2: some way to ushering an end to the largest scale

1022
01:13:54,600 --> 01:13:58,320
Speaker 2: global conflict the human race had ever known, but it

1023
01:13:58,360 --> 01:14:01,439
Speaker 2: would also mark the beginning of a seemingly endless arms

1024
01:14:01,520 --> 01:14:05,280
Speaker 2: rate that to this day continues to haunt every militant

1025
01:14:05,360 --> 01:14:12,200
Speaker 2: aspect of major foreign diplomacy. For Stalin's government in the USSR,

1026
01:14:12,600 --> 01:14:16,400
Speaker 2: the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made it clear just

1027
01:14:16,479 --> 01:14:20,280
Speaker 2: how far they lagged behind the military might and ingenuity

1028
01:14:20,400 --> 01:14:24,519
Speaker 2: of the United States. What followed was an intense and

1029
01:14:24,640 --> 01:14:29,880
Speaker 2: accelerated program of nuclear development, but also an intense culture

1030
01:14:29,920 --> 01:14:34,280
Speaker 2: of military secrecy in competition with the US, fueled by

1031
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:38,960
Speaker 2: the mutual distrust of each other's ideologies. It was a

1032
01:14:39,000 --> 01:14:42,639
Speaker 2: program that, in its eagerness to establish itself, would result

1033
01:14:42,720 --> 01:14:46,559
Speaker 2: in a number of catastrophic nuclear disasters, such as the

1034
01:14:46,640 --> 01:14:51,080
Speaker 2: Kishtim disaster that Georgi, only two years previously, had helped

1035
01:14:51,120 --> 01:14:55,519
Speaker 2: to clean up. Could it be that the students had

1036
01:14:55,520 --> 01:15:00,439
Speaker 2: found themselves pitching their tent under a secret weapons testing zone.

1037
01:15:01,120 --> 01:15:03,760
Speaker 2: It was a theory making increasing sense to those who

1038
01:15:03,760 --> 01:15:08,080
Speaker 2: had little information to go on. However, for lead investigator

1039
01:15:08,280 --> 01:15:11,960
Speaker 2: lev Ivanov, who was in full possession of all available evidence,

1040
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:15,639
Speaker 2: what puzzled him the most was that although the multiple

1041
01:15:15,680 --> 01:15:19,759
Speaker 2: sightings of strange lights may have been consistent with ballistic weapons,

1042
01:15:20,320 --> 01:15:24,719
Speaker 2: the injuries to the bodies weren't. It's possible, of course,

1043
01:15:25,160 --> 01:15:28,760
Speaker 2: that the sound of such weapons detonating nearby might have

1044
01:15:28,800 --> 01:15:30,839
Speaker 2: caused the team to flee the tent in a panic.

1045
01:15:31,800 --> 01:15:35,320
Speaker 2: But might the strange lights have been something else entirely,

1046
01:15:36,280 --> 01:15:42,479
Speaker 2: something perhaps a little more other worldly. Nikolay Animov was

1047
01:15:42,520 --> 01:15:45,240
Speaker 2: a local Mancy tribesman who had been part of the

1048
01:15:45,320 --> 01:15:49,639
Speaker 2: team that first examined the hiker's tent. Like everyone else,

1049
01:15:50,200 --> 01:15:53,800
Speaker 2: he had been deeply troubled by the student's disappearance, but

1050
01:15:53,920 --> 01:15:58,439
Speaker 2: the real fear he harbored would remain unspoken. That was

1051
01:15:58,560 --> 01:16:01,840
Speaker 2: until the first mention of the orbs in the sky.

1052
01:16:02,760 --> 01:16:05,679
Speaker 2: For the Mansi. All around the region where the bodies

1053
01:16:05,680 --> 01:16:10,280
Speaker 2: were discovered, they talk of gateways to another world. Perhaps

1054
01:16:10,320 --> 01:16:13,919
Speaker 2: the students had upset the spirits and this was their revenge,

1055
01:16:14,120 --> 01:16:23,880
Speaker 2: he thought. It is said that somewhere deep in the

1056
01:16:24,040 --> 01:16:28,920
Speaker 2: URLs lies a sacred daethic idol known as Zolataire Barber

1057
01:16:29,880 --> 01:16:34,680
Speaker 2: or the Golden Woman. Made entirely from gold. It is

1058
01:16:34,680 --> 01:16:37,200
Speaker 2: thought to have been hidden somewhere deep in the forest,

1059
01:16:37,840 --> 01:16:42,200
Speaker 2: perhaps in a cave, surrounded by other worldly treasures. In

1060
01:16:42,280 --> 01:16:46,840
Speaker 2: ancient times, soldiers dressed in scarlet robes would fiercely guard

1061
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:49,599
Speaker 2: the path to the idol, and no one else had

1062
01:16:49,600 --> 01:16:52,840
Speaker 2: the right to see her or go anywhere near the cave.

1063
01:16:55,120 --> 01:16:58,880
Speaker 2: The origins of the idol are shrouded in mystery. Some

1064
01:16:59,080 --> 01:17:01,519
Speaker 2: believe it to have been to the region by ob

1065
01:17:01,640 --> 01:17:05,760
Speaker 2: Ugrian warriors as far back as the fifth century. The

1066
01:17:05,800 --> 01:17:09,799
Speaker 2: ob Ugrians were ancestors of the Mansi, who, alongside Alaric,

1067
01:17:10,160 --> 01:17:13,679
Speaker 2: the king of the Visigoths, conquered Rome in four hundred

1068
01:17:13,720 --> 01:17:18,160
Speaker 2: and ten. Some say that after their victory the ob

1069
01:17:18,280 --> 01:17:21,920
Speaker 2: Ugrians forged the sacred idol, then carried it back to

1070
01:17:21,960 --> 01:17:26,200
Speaker 2: their lands to be worshiped as a goddess, though some

1071
01:17:26,360 --> 01:17:29,400
Speaker 2: others believe it may have originated from as far away

1072
01:17:29,439 --> 01:17:34,880
Speaker 2: as India or even Sumaria. There is further dispute as

1073
01:17:34,920 --> 01:17:38,040
Speaker 2: to just which god exactly was thought to be embodied

1074
01:17:38,160 --> 01:17:41,479
Speaker 2: by the idol, with some linking it to the Mansi

1075
01:17:41,520 --> 01:17:45,720
Speaker 2: goddess chores nigh Anki, known as the mother of celestial

1076
01:17:45,800 --> 01:17:50,880
Speaker 2: fire and everything living, with others believing it instead to

1077
01:17:50,920 --> 01:17:57,479
Speaker 2: be the goddess caltesh Anki, or Mother Earth. Caltesh Anki

1078
01:17:57,760 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 2: is the wife of Numiturum, the the ultimate supreme being,

1079
01:18:01,960 --> 01:18:04,160
Speaker 2: and is known to be responsible for the length of

1080
01:18:04,240 --> 01:18:10,439
Speaker 2: human lives. Once kaltesh Anki asked Numuturum to strengthen the

1081
01:18:10,479 --> 01:18:13,439
Speaker 2: earth with an iron belt, and he answered the request

1082
01:18:13,800 --> 01:18:18,880
Speaker 2: by creating the Ural mountains. In nineteen o four, the

1083
01:18:18,960 --> 01:18:22,880
Speaker 2: explorer Konstantin Nossilov wrote of meeting an old man on

1084
01:18:22,960 --> 01:18:27,439
Speaker 2: his travels named Sava. The man claimed to have been

1085
01:18:27,439 --> 01:18:31,600
Speaker 2: blinded after mistakenly coming across the golden idol, whom he

1086
01:18:31,680 --> 01:18:35,400
Speaker 2: maintained appeared to him as an ordinary naked woman sitting

1087
01:18:35,439 --> 01:18:40,360
Speaker 2: down holding a golden plate in her hands. Some say

1088
01:18:40,360 --> 01:18:43,760
Speaker 2: the Golden Woman isn't golden at all, but is in

1089
01:18:43,760 --> 01:18:49,800
Speaker 2: fact luminous, as if made purely from light. Had the

1090
01:18:49,880 --> 01:18:54,200
Speaker 2: hikers stumbled into this sacred land and been mercilessly punished

1091
01:18:54,240 --> 01:18:58,759
Speaker 2: as a result, it might account for the strange lights perhaps,

1092
01:18:59,200 --> 01:19:02,720
Speaker 2: but not such an experienced team would be drawn out

1093
01:19:02,760 --> 01:19:05,320
Speaker 2: from the safety of their camp into the freezing wild

1094
01:19:05,479 --> 01:19:12,200
Speaker 2: of the exposed mountain. But for this Nikolai had another theory.

1095
01:19:12,960 --> 01:19:16,479
Speaker 2: It is said that caltesh Anki, worried about how she

1096
01:19:16,600 --> 01:19:20,840
Speaker 2: might defend herself from enemies, asked Numiturum to find a

1097
01:19:20,840 --> 01:19:25,719
Speaker 2: way to protect her. In return, he created the Menvi,

1098
01:19:27,040 --> 01:19:31,400
Speaker 2: a race of monstrous creatures sometimes described as werewolves, but

1099
01:19:31,520 --> 01:19:35,880
Speaker 2: other times just as giants. It is said that these

1100
01:19:35,920 --> 01:19:41,000
Speaker 2: Menvi or menk also known as Compolan, continue to guard

1101
01:19:41,040 --> 01:19:46,720
Speaker 2: the Golden Woman to this day. Nancy author Olga Koshmanova

1102
01:19:47,120 --> 01:19:50,440
Speaker 2: has spent over thirty years collecting evidence of the Compolan.

1103
01:19:51,560 --> 01:19:54,639
Speaker 2: She believes that many of the Manci culture's rules were

1104
01:19:54,720 --> 01:19:58,840
Speaker 2: formed due to their contact with these terrifying creatures, such

1105
01:19:58,880 --> 01:20:02,000
Speaker 2: as its being forbidden to break wood when it wasn't needed,

1106
01:20:02,840 --> 01:20:05,080
Speaker 2: or the need to be silent when in the forest,

1107
01:20:05,720 --> 01:20:08,960
Speaker 2: and it being especially forbidden to sing loud songs or

1108
01:20:09,000 --> 01:20:12,160
Speaker 2: spoil the forest, and when in the woods at night,

1109
01:20:12,720 --> 01:20:18,840
Speaker 2: one must always keep the fire burning. Writing in a

1110
01:20:18,880 --> 01:20:22,320
Speaker 2: book titled A Look from Behind, a reference to the

1111
01:20:22,320 --> 01:20:26,320
Speaker 2: strange sensation a person feels when they unknowingly step into

1112
01:20:26,320 --> 01:20:30,759
Speaker 2: the territory of the compollin, Olga writes at that fateful

1113
01:20:30,880 --> 01:20:35,960
Speaker 2: night of February nineteen fifty nine, however, she is not

1114
01:20:36,000 --> 01:20:39,920
Speaker 2: writing about the diattle of team, but a night when

1115
01:20:39,960 --> 01:20:42,800
Speaker 2: she claims to have come into contact with a compollent.

1116
01:20:44,600 --> 01:20:48,839
Speaker 2: Koshmanova also writes that once travelers have entered the forbidden territory,

1117
01:20:49,560 --> 01:20:54,160
Speaker 2: they begin to hear things strange, terrifying noises, like whistling

1118
01:20:54,479 --> 01:20:58,479
Speaker 2: or the thumping of feet. The sound reverberates so as

1119
01:20:58,520 --> 01:21:03,400
Speaker 2: to cause a visceral reaction that induces terror and nausea.

1120
01:21:04,000 --> 01:21:07,040
Speaker 2: Had the team been scared from the tent perhaps by

1121
01:21:07,080 --> 01:21:10,760
Speaker 2: such a sound, could it have been a compolan that

1122
01:21:10,880 --> 01:21:16,160
Speaker 2: smashed rustic skull and battered Zena to the ground. It

1123
01:21:16,240 --> 01:21:19,040
Speaker 2: certainly wouldn't be the first time a compolan had been

1124
01:21:19,040 --> 01:21:24,880
Speaker 2: held responsible for murder. Koshmanovna cites at least two incidences

1125
01:21:25,240 --> 01:21:29,200
Speaker 2: where the forest giant had been held accountable, once in

1126
01:21:29,280 --> 01:21:32,839
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six in the village of Shamya, a child

1127
01:21:32,960 --> 01:21:35,720
Speaker 2: had been ripped to shreds with his head put on

1128
01:21:35,760 --> 01:21:39,160
Speaker 2: a stake, and another time where a woman had been

1129
01:21:39,160 --> 01:21:42,160
Speaker 2: found with her jaw ripped completely off.

1130
01:21:44,160 --> 01:21:44,640
Speaker 1: But with the.

1131
01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:48,360
Speaker 2: Whereabouts of four of the students still unknown, and without

1132
01:21:48,360 --> 01:21:51,640
Speaker 2: all the bodies to examine, it would be impossible to

1133
01:21:51,680 --> 01:21:55,160
Speaker 2: formulate a comprehensive theory of just what had taken place.

1134
01:21:56,720 --> 01:22:00,360
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for the search teams, the weather was about to

1135
01:22:00,400 --> 01:22:04,879
Speaker 2: take a severe turn for the worst. Many of the searches,

1136
01:22:05,280 --> 01:22:08,240
Speaker 2: saddened by the discovery of the first five bodies, had

1137
01:22:08,320 --> 01:22:13,560
Speaker 2: become exhausted and demoralized. Maslenikov, who had been leading the

1138
01:22:13,600 --> 01:22:17,120
Speaker 2: search team on the ground, requested that the search be suspended,

1139
01:22:17,560 --> 01:22:21,599
Speaker 2: but the commission refused to call it off, deciding instead

1140
01:22:21,760 --> 01:22:25,960
Speaker 2: that a new team was needed. Maslenikov would at first

1141
01:22:26,040 --> 01:22:30,439
Speaker 2: be replaced by Abram Kikoyn and then later by Colonel

1142
01:22:30,640 --> 01:22:36,600
Speaker 2: Georgi Ortyakov. The search for the missing bodies would continue

1143
01:22:36,640 --> 01:22:40,960
Speaker 2: to little avail, but something remarkable was about to come

1144
01:22:40,960 --> 01:22:44,920
Speaker 2: to light, something that had been hidden in plain sight.

1145
01:22:52,040 --> 01:22:55,879
Speaker 2: It was Templov, the original investigator, who noticed it first,

1146
01:22:57,080 --> 01:22:59,280
Speaker 2: something about the rips at the back of the team's

1147
01:22:59,280 --> 01:23:03,000
Speaker 2: tent that hadn't seemed consistent with wear and tear or

1148
01:23:03,040 --> 01:23:06,680
Speaker 2: weather damage, But it wasn't until weeks later that his

1149
01:23:06,800 --> 01:23:10,559
Speaker 2: concerns would be taken into consideration thanks to the eagle

1150
01:23:10,600 --> 01:23:16,320
Speaker 2: eye of a seamstress. After Boris Slobsov had discovered the tent,

1151
01:23:17,080 --> 01:23:19,439
Speaker 2: it had been gathered up and taken, along with the

1152
01:23:19,479 --> 01:23:22,479
Speaker 2: items at the camp, to the Evedell Department of Internal

1153
01:23:22,520 --> 01:23:28,840
Speaker 2: Affairs for further examination. Vladimir Koyatiev, a young investigator on

1154
01:23:28,920 --> 01:23:32,800
Speaker 2: the case, was having his uniform mended when the seamstress

1155
01:23:32,880 --> 01:23:36,320
Speaker 2: took one look at the tent and concluded also that

1156
01:23:36,360 --> 01:23:39,479
Speaker 2: the ribs were not rips at all, but rather cut

1157
01:23:39,680 --> 01:23:44,200
Speaker 2: made deliberately by something very sharp. It was clear to

1158
01:23:44,280 --> 01:23:48,559
Speaker 2: her that someone or something had cut open the tent

1159
01:23:48,840 --> 01:23:53,120
Speaker 2: on the night that the students died. The tent was

1160
01:23:53,120 --> 01:23:57,639
Speaker 2: immediately taken to Sperdlovsk Forensic Lab for closer inspection by

1161
01:23:57,720 --> 01:24:03,120
Speaker 2: senior forensic expert Henrietta Churkeina. If the cuts had indeed

1162
01:24:03,200 --> 01:24:06,240
Speaker 2: been made, it would add fuel to the burgeoning theory

1163
01:24:06,360 --> 01:24:09,160
Speaker 2: that the team had most likely been attacked by someone

1164
01:24:09,720 --> 01:24:12,920
Speaker 2: or something in the middle of the night and chased

1165
01:24:12,960 --> 01:24:17,840
Speaker 2: from the tent, left to die in the snow. It

1166
01:24:17,880 --> 01:24:22,280
Speaker 2: didn't take Churkeina very long to reach her conclusion. The

1167
01:24:22,360 --> 01:24:26,120
Speaker 2: cuts had indeed been made by a sharp object, but

1168
01:24:26,240 --> 01:24:29,800
Speaker 2: they hadn't been made from outside the tent. They had

1169
01:24:29,880 --> 01:24:34,639
Speaker 2: come from the inside. The revelation did little to help

1170
01:24:34,720 --> 01:24:38,080
Speaker 2: uncover the mystery of what led the team to their deaths,

1171
01:24:38,479 --> 01:24:41,360
Speaker 2: but what was clear was that whatever had caused such

1172
01:24:41,400 --> 01:24:44,960
Speaker 2: a panic that an experienced team would rip open their

1173
01:24:44,960 --> 01:24:47,759
Speaker 2: own tent just to be able to escape into minus

1174
01:24:47,800 --> 01:24:55,800
Speaker 2: twenty degree temperatures must have been utterly terrifying. It was

1175
01:24:55,840 --> 01:24:58,880
Speaker 2: further evidence that the students were forced from their tent,

1176
01:24:59,439 --> 01:25:03,120
Speaker 2: whether by a perceived fear or by something with agency.

1177
01:25:04,200 --> 01:25:10,240
Speaker 2: And then a further discovery comes to light. When investigators

1178
01:25:10,240 --> 01:25:13,760
Speaker 2: examined the team's belongings, they came across the three expedition

1179
01:25:13,880 --> 01:25:19,040
Speaker 2: cameras of Eager, Rustic, and Georgy. When the photos were developed,

1180
01:25:19,360 --> 01:25:24,880
Speaker 2: there seemed nothing untoward at first. The photos eighty eight

1181
01:25:24,920 --> 01:25:28,080
Speaker 2: in all, taken over the nine day period reveal a

1182
01:25:28,120 --> 01:25:31,880
Speaker 2: touching account of the team's journey, culminating in some final

1183
01:25:31,920 --> 01:25:34,559
Speaker 2: shots that are believed to show the team setting up

1184
01:25:34,600 --> 01:25:39,280
Speaker 2: camp on their final fateful day. And then there was

1185
01:25:39,320 --> 01:25:45,679
Speaker 2: the final exposure on Georgy's camera. As the photographic paper

1186
01:25:46,080 --> 01:25:49,800
Speaker 2: swished around in the developing tray, a strange image was

1187
01:25:49,840 --> 01:25:54,760
Speaker 2: beginning to emerge. The whole frame seemed to be in darkness,

1188
01:25:54,920 --> 01:25:57,920
Speaker 2: as if taken at night, but in the top left

1189
01:25:57,920 --> 01:26:01,320
Speaker 2: hand corner a trail of light seems to be descending

1190
01:26:01,400 --> 01:26:06,760
Speaker 2: from the sky. The discovery of the photograph has Ivanov

1191
01:26:06,920 --> 01:26:11,000
Speaker 2: turning once again to the reports of mysterious lights. But

1192
01:26:11,080 --> 01:26:17,720
Speaker 2: then suddenly everything changed. One morning in mid March, Ivanov

1193
01:26:17,760 --> 01:26:20,879
Speaker 2: announced to his team that he would be leaving for Moscow,

1194
01:26:22,160 --> 01:26:26,240
Speaker 2: without giving any further information, Ivanov packed up his things

1195
01:26:26,520 --> 01:26:30,360
Speaker 2: and left. When he returned a few days later, it

1196
01:26:30,439 --> 01:26:32,599
Speaker 2: was as if he had been replaced by a completely

1197
01:26:32,680 --> 01:26:37,120
Speaker 2: different person. Gone was any talk of the orbs or

1198
01:26:37,200 --> 01:26:42,920
Speaker 2: strange lights in the sky. In April, Valdoslav Karelen was

1199
01:26:43,000 --> 01:26:46,040
Speaker 2: called back in for questioning, at which point he was

1200
01:26:46,080 --> 01:26:49,240
Speaker 2: advised by Ivanov to hold his tongue on any theories

1201
01:26:49,479 --> 01:26:59,439
Speaker 2: relating to the mysterious lights. It has been over two

1202
01:26:59,479 --> 01:27:03,040
Speaker 2: months since the last body was discovered. When on May

1203
01:27:03,080 --> 01:27:07,439
Speaker 2: the third, Nancy tribesmen Stepan Kurikov is searching an area

1204
01:27:07,520 --> 01:27:10,360
Speaker 2: not far from where Yuri and Georgi's bodies were found

1205
01:27:11,000 --> 01:27:15,559
Speaker 2: when he once again spots something irregular. Some branches of

1206
01:27:15,600 --> 01:27:18,320
Speaker 2: a tree seem to have been removed with a knife.

1207
01:27:19,680 --> 01:27:24,360
Speaker 2: Newly appointed search leader, Colonel Georgi Utiakov, orders a team

1208
01:27:24,400 --> 01:27:28,880
Speaker 2: of men to search the area immediately. As they probe

1209
01:27:28,960 --> 01:27:32,519
Speaker 2: with their avalanche poles, one of the team hits something.

1210
01:27:33,680 --> 01:27:35,680
Speaker 2: When he removes the pole, there is a piece of

1211
01:27:35,720 --> 01:27:39,160
Speaker 2: clothing attached to it. It must have come from at

1212
01:27:39,240 --> 01:27:44,160
Speaker 2: least six feet below the surface. Urgently, the men begin

1213
01:27:44,240 --> 01:27:48,000
Speaker 2: to dig, one after the other. The shovels come down

1214
01:27:48,080 --> 01:27:51,080
Speaker 2: onto the snow above what is later revealed to be

1215
01:27:51,160 --> 01:27:55,200
Speaker 2: a creek bed. Eventually they will carve out a block

1216
01:27:55,400 --> 01:27:58,479
Speaker 2: of over eight feet in depth, covering an area of

1217
01:27:58,520 --> 01:28:01,640
Speaker 2: one hundred square feet, But by the end of the

1218
01:28:01,680 --> 01:28:06,200
Speaker 2: first day, the team find only more clothing, including bizarrely,

1219
01:28:06,720 --> 01:28:12,120
Speaker 2: one solitary trouser leg. The following day, May the fourth,

1220
01:28:12,520 --> 01:28:14,719
Speaker 2: the search team have made it down to the slushy

1221
01:28:14,720 --> 01:28:17,679
Speaker 2: ice and water of the creek, when they discover more

1222
01:28:17,680 --> 01:28:21,960
Speaker 2: shredded clothing, including another trouser leg and half a brown

1223
01:28:22,120 --> 01:28:27,240
Speaker 2: woolen sweater. And then they find something a little harder.

1224
01:28:28,520 --> 01:28:31,679
Speaker 2: It is another body lying face down in the water.

1225
01:28:33,720 --> 01:28:37,240
Speaker 2: A short time later and three other bodies have been discovered.

1226
01:28:38,760 --> 01:28:41,559
Speaker 2: Two of them are found huddled together in an embrace,

1227
01:28:42,400 --> 01:28:48,000
Speaker 2: no doubt a last desperate attempt of survival. The decomposition

1228
01:28:48,040 --> 01:28:51,240
Speaker 2: of the bodies is so much that only Leuda can

1229
01:28:51,280 --> 01:28:56,519
Speaker 2: be identified at this stage. With the bodies wrapped in

1230
01:28:56,560 --> 01:29:00,640
Speaker 2: tarpaulin to preserve any further decay, leave even is on

1231
01:29:00,720 --> 01:29:04,280
Speaker 2: the scene the following morning. It is clear from the

1232
01:29:04,280 --> 01:29:07,160
Speaker 2: state of the corpses that time is fast running out

1233
01:29:07,280 --> 01:29:11,080
Speaker 2: for any hope of a meaningful autopsy, but Ivanov is

1234
01:29:11,120 --> 01:29:14,439
Speaker 2: stunned when the chopper arrives to take them away, only

1235
01:29:14,439 --> 01:29:17,040
Speaker 2: for the pilot to refuse the use of his helicopter.

1236
01:29:19,680 --> 01:29:23,240
Speaker 2: It would seem that, despite the Investigative Commission's best efforts

1237
01:29:23,400 --> 01:29:26,439
Speaker 2: to quash some of the more fanciful rumors surrounding the case,

1238
01:29:27,439 --> 01:29:31,000
Speaker 2: an idea, once born, is not so easy to destroy,

1239
01:29:32,280 --> 01:29:36,640
Speaker 2: and what pilot Captain Gatesenko is most concerned about is

1240
01:29:36,760 --> 01:29:42,799
Speaker 2: radioactive contamination. The pilot eventually agrees to take the bodies,

1241
01:29:43,000 --> 01:29:46,160
Speaker 2: but only when Ivanov has them placed in four zink

1242
01:29:46,280 --> 01:29:52,240
Speaker 2: lined coffins that take days to arrive. It isn't until

1243
01:29:52,280 --> 01:29:55,120
Speaker 2: May the eighth that the bodies are finally lifted from

1244
01:29:55,160 --> 01:30:04,200
Speaker 2: the mountain and flown to Eve del Morge for the autopsy.

1245
01:30:05,640 --> 01:30:09,400
Speaker 2: When the bodies had finally thawed out, pathologist Boris voz

1246
01:30:09,479 --> 01:30:13,000
Speaker 2: Rosdeni was once again summoned to perform the somber task

1247
01:30:13,520 --> 01:30:17,800
Speaker 2: of first identifying each victim and then the cause of

1248
01:30:17,880 --> 01:30:23,040
Speaker 2: their death. Despite the many rumors surrounding the case, even

1249
01:30:23,080 --> 01:30:27,280
Speaker 2: taking into account the suspicious fracture of Rustic's skull, foz

1250
01:30:27,360 --> 01:30:30,560
Speaker 2: Rosdeni was very much of the opinion that the students,

1251
01:30:30,640 --> 01:30:36,200
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, had succumbed through simple hypothermia. But what

1252
01:30:36,320 --> 01:30:42,720
Speaker 2: he uncovers next will change everything. Voz Rosdeny hovers over

1253
01:30:42,800 --> 01:30:46,519
Speaker 2: the first body, one of the two found in an embrace.

1254
01:30:47,920 --> 01:30:50,599
Speaker 2: He will later be identified as twenty four year old

1255
01:30:50,760 --> 01:30:56,280
Speaker 2: Alexander Kolovatov. He notes the now familiar lack of adequate footwear,

1256
01:30:56,640 --> 01:31:00,720
Speaker 2: but otherwise the amount of clothing appears normal. There is

1257
01:31:00,760 --> 01:31:03,839
Speaker 2: a bandage on the ankle, presumably from an injury received

1258
01:31:03,880 --> 01:31:07,120
Speaker 2: prior to the trip. There is a small open wound

1259
01:31:07,200 --> 01:31:11,920
Speaker 2: behind the ear, which voz Rosdeni deems insignificant, being most

1260
01:31:12,080 --> 01:31:16,120
Speaker 2: likely merely a result of exposure to the elements. He

1261
01:31:16,200 --> 01:31:23,040
Speaker 2: returns by now the usual verdict death by hypothermia. Expecting

1262
01:31:23,080 --> 01:31:25,600
Speaker 2: more of the same, he turns its attention to the

1263
01:31:25,680 --> 01:31:29,519
Speaker 2: second body. It is clear from the tattoos alone that

1264
01:31:29,560 --> 01:31:32,599
Speaker 2: this is the body of thirty seven year old Sasha

1265
01:31:32,960 --> 01:31:39,320
Speaker 2: solitariof At first, voz Rosdini finds much of the same. Again,

1266
01:31:39,479 --> 01:31:43,040
Speaker 2: there are no shoes, and the general decay and superficial

1267
01:31:43,040 --> 01:31:47,880
Speaker 2: injuries are consistent with a struggle for survival. But when

1268
01:31:48,000 --> 01:31:51,559
Speaker 2: vos Rosdieni moves his attention to the chest region, he

1269
01:31:51,640 --> 01:31:56,680
Speaker 2: finds something completely unexpected. Five of Sasha's ribs on his

1270
01:31:56,800 --> 01:32:00,799
Speaker 2: right side have been fractured, causing severe in eternal bleeding.

1271
01:32:02,000 --> 01:32:05,920
Speaker 2: It would take some four to fracture five ribs, and clearly,

1272
01:32:06,000 --> 01:32:08,840
Speaker 2: from the nature of the bleeding it had occurred when

1273
01:32:08,920 --> 01:32:14,040
Speaker 2: Sasha was still alive. The pathologist concludes that it was

1274
01:32:14,080 --> 01:32:19,880
Speaker 2: clearly caused by some kind of large force Turning his

1275
01:32:19,960 --> 01:32:24,160
Speaker 2: attention now to twenty three year old Collier Thibeau Brignols,

1276
01:32:24,800 --> 01:32:29,040
Speaker 2: Vosrojsdini is shocked to find injuries similar to those sustained

1277
01:32:29,040 --> 01:32:33,920
Speaker 2: by Sasha, only this time it is to his head.

1278
01:32:34,080 --> 01:32:38,200
Speaker 2: Vos Rojsdini concludes that Collier had died after sustaining a

1279
01:32:38,200 --> 01:32:41,920
Speaker 2: catastrophic fracture to the right side of his skull, followed

1280
01:32:41,920 --> 01:32:47,040
Speaker 2: by bleeding, again the result of a large force, and

1281
01:32:47,120 --> 01:32:52,080
Speaker 2: the worst was yet to come. Liuda's body had been

1282
01:32:52,120 --> 01:32:55,040
Speaker 2: found on her knees, leant against a small drop in

1283
01:32:55,040 --> 01:32:58,519
Speaker 2: the ravine, with her face pressed to the rocks and

1284
01:32:58,600 --> 01:33:03,200
Speaker 2: her clothes soaked through with water from the stream. Wrapped

1285
01:33:03,200 --> 01:33:05,479
Speaker 2: around her left foot was the other half of the

1286
01:33:05,479 --> 01:33:11,520
Speaker 2: brown sweater, a last ditch effort to stave off frostbite.

1287
01:33:11,760 --> 01:33:15,759
Speaker 2: Now lying in the morgue, voz Rosdeny can clearly see

1288
01:33:16,080 --> 01:33:19,200
Speaker 2: the telltale signs of a severe trauma to her chest

1289
01:33:19,439 --> 01:33:23,720
Speaker 2: that had resulted in nine fractured ribs and massive hemorrhaging

1290
01:33:24,080 --> 01:33:27,360
Speaker 2: in the right ventricle of her heart, And when he

1291
01:33:27,439 --> 01:33:31,679
Speaker 2: examined inside the mouth, voz Rosdeny drew back in alarm.

1292
01:33:32,960 --> 01:33:37,640
Speaker 2: Her tongue was completely missing. And then there are a

1293
01:33:37,680 --> 01:33:40,519
Speaker 2: number of curious findings from the site of where the

1294
01:33:40,560 --> 01:33:44,240
Speaker 2: bodies are discovered. They seemed to have been located in

1295
01:33:44,280 --> 01:33:47,960
Speaker 2: a makeshift den, complete with a blanket of branches laid

1296
01:33:47,960 --> 01:33:51,200
Speaker 2: out on the floor to provide some protection from the cold.

1297
01:33:51,920 --> 01:33:55,960
Speaker 2: Had they, in fact, drawing on Sasha's military survival skills,

1298
01:33:56,000 --> 01:34:00,680
Speaker 2: managed to stabilize the situation before succumbing to injuries sustained

1299
01:34:00,880 --> 01:34:04,920
Speaker 2: some time later. And what were they to make of

1300
01:34:04,960 --> 01:34:10,040
Speaker 2: the camera found around Sasha's neck? For a start, according

1301
01:34:10,040 --> 01:34:14,400
Speaker 2: to Yuri Yudin, the students only had three cameras between them,

1302
01:34:14,680 --> 01:34:19,320
Speaker 2: all of which had already been recovered. But perhaps more pertinently,

1303
01:34:20,120 --> 01:34:22,920
Speaker 2: what could possibly have provoked Sasha, in the panic of

1304
01:34:23,000 --> 01:34:27,000
Speaker 2: leaving the tent to remember to take his camera, Or

1305
01:34:27,000 --> 01:34:30,360
Speaker 2: had he, in fact, as some believe, already been standing

1306
01:34:30,400 --> 01:34:35,240
Speaker 2: outside the tent trying to capture something before the chaos.

1307
01:34:36,439 --> 01:34:40,360
Speaker 2: Whatever it was, we will never know, since the film

1308
01:34:40,439 --> 01:34:50,920
Speaker 2: was too damaged to be processed. Two weeks later, the

1309
01:34:50,960 --> 01:34:56,320
Speaker 2: families of Liuda, Sasha, Alexander, and Collia gathered together on

1310
01:34:56,400 --> 01:35:00,559
Speaker 2: May twenty second at the Sperdlovsk Military Hospital to watch

1311
01:35:00,600 --> 01:35:05,360
Speaker 2: their children being finally laid to rest. There would be

1312
01:35:05,400 --> 01:35:08,840
Speaker 2: no repeat of the public procession given to the other students,

1313
01:35:09,360 --> 01:35:14,559
Speaker 2: and only the family were granted permission to attend. For

1314
01:35:14,640 --> 01:35:19,360
Speaker 2: lead investigator lev Ivanov, the recent autopsies had only succeeded

1315
01:35:19,400 --> 01:35:22,840
Speaker 2: in generating yet more questions when he and all the

1316
01:35:22,880 --> 01:35:27,799
Speaker 2: families of the deceased needed answers. Despite pressure from above

1317
01:35:28,000 --> 01:35:31,120
Speaker 2: to bring the case to a swift and uncontroversial resolution,

1318
01:35:32,040 --> 01:35:36,320
Speaker 2: the revelation of Liuda, Collier and Sasha's injuries could not

1319
01:35:36,600 --> 01:35:41,160
Speaker 2: be ignored. To that end. With his superiors breathing down

1320
01:35:41,160 --> 01:35:45,799
Speaker 2: his neck, he would try one last thing. Just prior

1321
01:35:45,800 --> 01:35:49,519
Speaker 2: to the funerals. Ivanov had organs and items of clothing

1322
01:35:50,000 --> 01:35:52,639
Speaker 2: sent off to be examined for any sign of radiation,

1323
01:35:53,520 --> 01:35:56,840
Speaker 2: but it would be too late before he could receive

1324
01:35:56,880 --> 01:36:01,160
Speaker 2: the results. Ivanov was ordered to shut the case down immediately,

1325
01:36:03,080 --> 01:36:06,719
Speaker 2: and so it was on Thursday May twenty eighth, nineteen

1326
01:36:06,760 --> 01:36:10,000
Speaker 2: fifty nine, that the case of the mysterious death in

1327
01:36:10,040 --> 01:36:14,760
Speaker 2: the Ural Mountains of nine hikers, led by student Igor Dyatlov,

1328
01:36:15,240 --> 01:36:20,519
Speaker 2: was brought to an abrupt and inconclusive end. For iven Off,

1329
01:36:20,560 --> 01:36:23,759
Speaker 2: it was a bitter and frustrating conclusion to a case

1330
01:36:23,800 --> 01:36:26,479
Speaker 2: that would haunt him and everyone else involved in it

1331
01:36:26,920 --> 01:36:31,400
Speaker 2: for the rest of their lives. For the families of

1332
01:36:31,439 --> 01:36:34,800
Speaker 2: the victims, it was a cruel and brutal end, which was,

1333
01:36:34,840 --> 01:36:40,519
Speaker 2: of course no kind of end at all. To this day,

1334
01:36:40,840 --> 01:36:43,960
Speaker 2: families of the victims continued to seek the truth about

1335
01:36:44,000 --> 01:36:49,880
Speaker 2: what exactly had taken place. Yuri Kansavich, who as a

1336
01:36:49,920 --> 01:36:53,080
Speaker 2: twelve year old boy had watched the funeral procession from

1337
01:36:53,080 --> 01:36:56,759
Speaker 2: his parents apartment window, would later go on to establish

1338
01:36:56,760 --> 01:37:01,200
Speaker 2: the Dyatlov Foundation, dedicating his life to helping the families

1339
01:37:01,280 --> 01:37:05,320
Speaker 2: unravel the mystery and to hopefully, one day uncover the truth.

1340
01:37:12,320 --> 01:37:15,680
Speaker 2: The day after the case is closed and exhausted, Ivanoff

1341
01:37:16,000 --> 01:37:18,320
Speaker 2: arrives at his office to find the results of the

1342
01:37:18,360 --> 01:37:23,200
Speaker 2: toxicology test waiting for him on his desk. The report

1343
01:37:23,280 --> 01:37:27,080
Speaker 2: concludes that not only as some form of radioactive substance

1344
01:37:27,280 --> 01:37:31,839
Speaker 2: contaminated the clothes, but the level of contamination far exceeds

1345
01:37:31,880 --> 01:37:37,080
Speaker 2: anything they could ever have thought possible. The report will

1346
01:37:37,120 --> 01:37:40,840
Speaker 2: remain classified for the next thirty years, along with a

1347
01:37:40,920 --> 01:37:45,559
Speaker 2: raft of other materials collected by Ivanov, including one report

1348
01:37:45,760 --> 01:37:51,080
Speaker 2: he had been expressly urged to suppress. It was compiled

1349
01:37:51,160 --> 01:37:56,840
Speaker 2: after Ivanov's final trip to colat Seacle Mountain. The investigator

1350
01:37:57,000 --> 01:37:59,840
Speaker 2: had just finished inspecting the site where the last four

1351
01:37:59,840 --> 01:38:03,360
Speaker 2: bodies were discovered when he found himself staring at a

1352
01:38:03,400 --> 01:38:05,519
Speaker 2: line of pine trees on the edge of the forest.

1353
01:38:06,360 --> 01:38:11,120
Speaker 2: Something about them seemed off, and then he saw it,

1354
01:38:12,439 --> 01:38:16,840
Speaker 2: a series of burnmarks with no concentric form and no epicenter,

1355
01:38:17,400 --> 01:38:22,439
Speaker 2: such as one might expect from a ballistic explosion. For

1356
01:38:22,520 --> 01:38:25,120
Speaker 2: a moment, he wondered if they could have been made

1357
01:38:25,240 --> 01:38:28,040
Speaker 2: as a result of the fire hastily built by Georgi

1358
01:38:28,240 --> 01:38:32,559
Speaker 2: and Yurie. But then he realizes whatever had made the

1359
01:38:32,560 --> 01:38:36,880
Speaker 2: burnmarks had not come from the ground, It had come

1360
01:38:37,360 --> 01:38:55,360
Speaker 2: from the sky. Thank you, as ever for listening.

1361
01:38:55,800 --> 01:38:59,880
Speaker 1: Unexplained as an Avy Club production podcast created by Richard McLain.

1362
01:39:00,960 --> 01:39:04,200
Speaker 1: All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are

1363
01:39:04,240 --> 01:39:08,639
Speaker 1: also produced by me Richard McLain Smith Unexplained. The book

1364
01:39:08,680 --> 01:39:12,599
Speaker 1: and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can

1365
01:39:12,640 --> 01:39:17,120
Speaker 1: purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores.

1366
01:39:17,680 --> 01:39:20,400
Speaker 1: Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get

1367
01:39:20,439 --> 01:39:23,240
Speaker 1: your podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with

1368
01:39:23,280 --> 01:39:26,320
Speaker 1: any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on

1369
01:39:26,400 --> 01:39:29,519
Speaker 1: the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or a story

1370
01:39:29,520 --> 01:39:30,880
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share.

1371
01:39:31,439 --> 01:39:34,520
Speaker 2: You can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com

1372
01:39:34,560 --> 01:39:38,320
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1373
01:39:38,360 --> 01:39:43,480
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1374
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