Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard mclin smith here with Unexplained. On a
Speaker 1: short break for the holiday season, we'll be dipping back
Speaker 1: into the archive for the next two weeks. This week's
Speaker 1: episode takes us back to one Friday in January nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, to where a story began in the foothills
Speaker 1: of the Ural Mountains, a story that is perhaps the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary ever featured on the show. Some call it
Speaker 1: the Diatlov Pass Incident. You might know it as Unexplained,
Speaker 1: Season two, episode four, when the snow melts. It could
Speaker 1: be said that the history of life is a history
Speaker 1: of movement, a vast dance of inexorable entropic change, from
Speaker 1: the propulsion of the stars and the planets to the
Speaker 1: vibrating of subatomic particles and of space itself. It's useful
Speaker 1: to remember sometimes that even the most solid seeming of
Speaker 1: objects are, in one way or another, in a constant
Speaker 1: kinetic state, be that the glass in your window, the
Speaker 1: elements of a diamond, or even the earth under our feet.
Speaker 1: Let us, then, for a moment, take one singular place
Speaker 1: and look upon it as an ageless being of omnipotence
Speaker 1: might observe it. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard
Speaker 1: mclin Smith. At first, we see a minute speck hanging
Speaker 1: in the depths of space. Drawing closer, we see it
Speaker 1: is in fact a nameless planet moving around a nameless star.
Speaker 1: Drawing closer still, we see on the surface of that planet,
Speaker 1: two gigantic land masses are set on an imperceptible but
Speaker 1: devastating collision course, and on the edge of one we
Speaker 1: find our spot. The movement of the land is generated
Speaker 1: in part by the heat of the planet's core, a
Speaker 1: solid ball of iron nickel raging at almost five and
Speaker 1: a half thousand degrees centigrade that in turn heats a
Speaker 1: mantle layer below the planet's surface. This outer shell appears
Speaker 1: to be a static rock composed mainly of silicon, iron, magnesium, oxygen,
Speaker 1: and aluminium, but of course it is not still. Instead,
Speaker 1: it bends and creeps, cajoled by the planet's warm belly,
Speaker 1: expanding and contracting in convective circles as the heat rises
Speaker 1: and falls through the silicate layers. It is on this
Speaker 1: sea of rock and waves of heat that the two
Speaker 1: land masses are being thrown toward each other, and on
Speaker 1: this planet by our measurements. The days last just over
Speaker 1: twenty two hours, and oxygen levels in the air are
Speaker 1: fifty per cent higher than anything we have ever experienced,
Speaker 1: and there is life in plenty across the continents. Owing
Speaker 1: to the humid climate, the land is smothered in vast
Speaker 1: swamps and enormous trees. Amphibious creatures dominate, while giant invertebrate
Speaker 1: arthropods wiggle and crawl in abundance. Some even fly too,
Speaker 1: their twitching segmented bodies lifted into the air by gossamer wings.
Speaker 1: Over half a metre in span, The two continents draw
Speaker 1: ever closer, until finally they collide to form one giant
Speaker 1: singular mass. As they merge, our spot is pushed and
Speaker 1: pulled as vast splinterings of rock rise into the sky
Speaker 1: to form mountains and rolling hills. Over time, the land
Speaker 1: beneath continues to move and break apart into many separate pieces,
Speaker 1: and over the land above, more and different creatures are
Speaker 1: taking their place, entire species rising and falling, while the
Speaker 1: planet spirals on through space as it continues to orbit
Speaker 1: the Nameless Star. A mere three hundred million orbits later,
Speaker 1: and now, the oxygen levels on the planet have depleted,
Speaker 1: the days have become longer, and from out of a
Speaker 1: central place, what was once four legs has become two.
Speaker 1: In herds, these strange bipedal creatures are dispersed throughout the planet.
Speaker 1: Eventually they will learn to give themselves names, and names
Speaker 1: too for the many things around them, including the very
Speaker 1: planet they walk upon, which will become known as Planeta
Speaker 1: Zimya Jigu Hensong, or to others, planet Earth, and those
Speaker 1: creatures will learn to tell story, bringing ever greater potential
Speaker 1: for change. For now, not only does the material world change,
Speaker 1: but so too will the world that is mapped onto
Speaker 1: it in the minds of the creatures who walk upon it.
Speaker 1: Entire worlds that two can rise and fall in a
Speaker 1: matter of moments. As for our spot, it will eventually
Speaker 1: find itself nestled at the foothills of those same mountains
Speaker 1: formed three hundred million years ago, still surviving today as
Speaker 1: one of the oldest mountain ranges on the planet. Those
Speaker 1: mountains will eventually find themselves encased in a country named
Speaker 1: Rossia and will become known as Uralski Gorri, or as
Speaker 1: the Ural Mountains. So let us now get closer in
Speaker 1: time and space to the spot that we have marked.
Speaker 1: The Ural Mountains form a natural border between Europe and Asia,
Speaker 1: running two and a half thousand kilometers through western Russia,
Speaker 1: from the coast of the Kara Sea to the northwest
Speaker 1: border of Kazakhstan, and just to the east of the
Speaker 1: central Urals, we will find our region of interest.
Speaker 2: In seventeen twenty three, Peter, the great leader of the
Speaker 2: Russian Empire, establishes a town here that will be named
Speaker 2: Yakitterlinburg after his wife Yiketarina. Due to the abundance of minerals,
Speaker 2: vast resources of timber, and the deep waters of the
Speaker 2: Isist River, the location was a place of great natural beauty,
Speaker 2: but also a prime location for what would become the
Speaker 2: administrative mining capital of the Russian Empire. Just under two
Speaker 2: hundred years later, and the city is firmly established as
Speaker 2: a focal point for the country's growing industrial appetite. And
Speaker 2: in that time so much has changed, not that we
Speaker 2: might notice, however, Certainly the surrounding land and even the city,
Speaker 2: to all intents and purposes, has remained fixed. But even
Speaker 2: as we look upon it now, invisible changes are taking place.
Speaker 2: As a primary industrial hub Yecatarlinbourig has found itself a
Speaker 2: beating heart of a new world that has materialized around it.
Speaker 2: Having been a town built by royal decree to excavate
Speaker 2: natural resources that would then be turned into capital and
Speaker 2: wealth for a fortunate few, it is now a symbol
Speaker 2: and ode to those that generated the wealth, not through
Speaker 2: some strange alchemy, but through the blood and sweat of
Speaker 2: the many hands that scraped it from the earth. And
Speaker 2: so it is that at the beginning of the century
Speaker 2: we find in our spot the same furnaces burning, and
Speaker 2: the same coal brought from the land by the same hands,
Speaker 2: But the status of those hands has been elevated. Two
Speaker 2: thousand and two hundred miles away. On April sixteenth, nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 2: a train will pull into Finland Station in Saint Petersburg,
Speaker 2: carrying a man whose words, on stepping onto the station
Speaker 2: platform will bring further winds of change. We watch as
Speaker 2: they provoke an internal scene war, turning the people of
Speaker 2: the nation against each other in brutal and devastating ways.
Speaker 2: Back in Ya Katarinbourg, there is a mansion house belonging
Speaker 2: to a merchant named Ipatiev. But as we avert our
Speaker 2: gaze for a moment. A year has passed, and when
Speaker 2: we look again we see the same bricks and mortar
Speaker 2: standing in the same place, only now there is no
Speaker 2: Ipatiev and the mansion has been renamed the House of
Speaker 2: Special Purpose of the Ural Soviet Committee. A year later,
Speaker 2: in the spring of nineteen eighteen, seven highly prized prisoners
Speaker 2: a family will be escorted to Yekaterinbourg and imprisoned in
Speaker 2: this House of Special Purpose. We see them now in
Speaker 2: the early hours of July seventeenth, nineteen eighteen, as they
Speaker 2: are raised from their beds and taken to a small room.
Speaker 2: They are told to sit and wait for a truck
Speaker 2: to come and take them away. But the truck never comes,
Speaker 2: only a hail of bullets and thrusting bayonets that ends
Speaker 2: with the walls dripping in blood and the prisoners lying
Speaker 2: dead on the ground. We watch as the bodies are
Speaker 2: taken to an abandoned mine shaft and one by one
Speaker 2: are dropped to the bottom of it. It is the
Speaker 2: last time that Russia will ever know a royal family.
Speaker 2: Five years later, and the war is over, Yekaterinbourg remains,
Speaker 2: but now finds itself not in Russia. But the Union
Speaker 2: of Soviet Socialist Republics, and though the name and rulers
Speaker 2: have changed, the minerals and ores in the ground are
Speaker 2: still very much in demand. To that end, a school
Speaker 2: has been established, named the Ural Polytechnic Institute, to promote
Speaker 2: better skills in the working classes to aid with increased production.
Speaker 2: The following year, we return to find the city as
Speaker 2: it was, only now it has a new name, spurred Lovsk.
Speaker 2: In the blink of an eye, just over thirty years
Speaker 2: have passed. It is nineteen fifty nine, and both spurred
Speaker 2: Losk and the Eural Polytechnic as much as we left it.
Speaker 2: We see the building's familiar majestic architecture colonnaded at the front,
Speaker 2: underneath a vast pediment bearing the last much embossed symbol
Speaker 2: of a hammer and a sickle. But in those thirty years,
Speaker 2: as ever, so much has changed, and a new ruler
Speaker 2: has replaced the old, ushering an end to an era
Speaker 2: of almost unparalleled upheaval. In that time, an old enemy
Speaker 2: has risen and fallen from the west, and some considered
Speaker 2: enemies from within have fallen too, And now the deaths
Speaker 2: of over forty million people haunt the land the mindset
Speaker 2: of an entire country has been altered, and a new
Speaker 2: war stalks the people of this vast nation, holodnoye Voyna,
Speaker 2: or the Cold War, as it will come to be known.
Speaker 2: The new leader, Nikita Khrushchev, has promised a thawing of
Speaker 2: the old ways, and a new generation are ready to
Speaker 2: embrace it, a generation embodied by the bright and enthusiastic
Speaker 2: students of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. And so it is
Speaker 2: it is that, on Friday, January twenty third, nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: finally we arrive at the beginning of one more story
Speaker 2: to scatter across the foothills of the Ural Mountains, a
Speaker 2: story that is perhaps the most extraordinary of all the
Speaker 2: stories featured on the show so far, a chilling and
Speaker 2: profound mystery that remains to this day unexplained. We begin
Speaker 2: at the Ural Polytechnic Institute in room five three one.
Speaker 2: Seven students are crammed inside the spartan dormitory, frantically shoving
Speaker 2: various bits and pieces into backpacks, cans of meat, followed
Speaker 2: by packets of oatmeal, survival knights, and even a cooking stove.
Speaker 2: Nothing is forgotten, but rather than chaos, it is the
Speaker 2: steady haste of a well oiled team. They are preparing
Speaker 2: for a difficult mountain hike deep into the urals towards
Speaker 2: O Tauton Mountain. The journey will involve at least sixteen
Speaker 2: days of trekking through the Siberian tundra on a path
Speaker 2: that many consider one of the toughest at this time
Speaker 2: of year, and it will need to be since all
Speaker 2: are hoping to achieve their Category three hiking certificate upon completion.
Speaker 2: It is the highest awarded category in the country and
Speaker 2: one that will require the team to cover over three
Speaker 2: hundred kilometres of ground, spending at least eight days in
Speaker 2: completely uninhabited regions. One boy, Yurikrivonshenko, looks perturbed for a
Speaker 2: moment as he hunts around the room, his face brightening
Speaker 2: into a huge grin when he finally finds his leather boots. Yuri,
Speaker 2: also known as Georgi, is the joker of the group
Speaker 2: and at twenty three, also one of the oldest. A
Speaker 2: recent graduate of construction and hydraulic Back in September of
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven, Georgi had been assigned to work at
Speaker 2: a secret nuclear facility called Cheliabinksk forty when the plutonium
Speaker 2: plant experienced a catastrophic radioactive leak. Georgi was part of
Speaker 2: the team who was sent in to clean up the mess.
Speaker 2: He packs his leather boots away, then makes some space
Speaker 2: for his much loved mandolin. Do you think I can
Speaker 2: play it on the train? He asks? Of course, shout
Speaker 2: the others in warm reply. In the corner of the Dorn,
Speaker 2: keeping a watchful eye over the preparations is the diligent
Speaker 2: and methodical Alexander Kolovatov. At twenty four, Alexander is the
Speaker 2: oldest member of the group. A kind soul with a
Speaker 2: ponchon for smoking antique pipes. Alexander was a distinguished student
Speaker 2: in the field of nuclear physics who had also studied
Speaker 2: in Moscow at a secret institute known as the Ministry
Speaker 2: of Medium Machine Building before returning to spurred Lovsk to
Speaker 2: complete his physics major. Who has the salt shouted Zinaida Kolmogorova,
Speaker 2: or Zena as she is known to her friends. Although
Speaker 2: only twenty, Zena is in her fourth year of radio
Speaker 2: engineering and is a tough and experienced hiker, known affectionately
Speaker 2: as the engine of the university, Zena's magnetic charm rarely
Speaker 2: went unnoticed, not least by a number of the boys
Speaker 2: in the team. Where at Doroshenko and eager, she asks, suddenly,
Speaker 2: let me have fifteen cents to call them. The question
Speaker 2: is directed at Ludmila Dubanina, the only other woman in
Speaker 2: the group. Luda is only twenty and the youngest in
Speaker 2: the team. A focused and committed communist, the athletic Luda
Speaker 2: is practically a poster girl for the party, and like Xena,
Speaker 2: is possessed of an inner steel equal, if not superior,
Speaker 2: to any of her male compatriots. On one expedition to
Speaker 2: the Sayan Mountains, she was accidentally shot by a tourist,
Speaker 2: but didn't complain once during her long and painful journey
Speaker 2: back home, except to apologize for troubling the group. Luda
Speaker 2: hand seen her the fifteen cents from the pile of
Speaker 2: cash she is diligently counting up. Meanwhile, Rustick is teasing
Speaker 2: Collier over who has more will power to survive the
Speaker 2: trip without their beloved cigarettes. Rustick is Roostom Slobiden, another
Speaker 2: recent graduate of the institute. Unlike the others, Rustick comes
Speaker 2: from a wealthy family of academics, but he carries none
Speaker 2: of the sense of entitlement that such wealth can sometimes entail.
Speaker 2: As perhaps the most popular member of the team, it
Speaker 2: would seem that Rustick had lived up to the Tartar
Speaker 2: name that his father had bestowed on him as a
Speaker 2: symbol of international friendship to all men and women. In
Speaker 2: marked contrast, Nicolai Thibau Brignol's background could not have been
Speaker 2: more different. Born in a concentration camp, Collier had been
Speaker 2: brought up by his mother on her own after his
Speaker 2: French communist father had been executed as part of Stalin's
Speaker 2: ruthless purges. Collier had graduated from the Institute in fifty
Speaker 2: eight after majoring in civil engineering, and with a reputation
Speaker 2: for unselfish behavior. Was a man always looking to help others.
Speaker 2: Today holds mixed emotions for Collier. He had promised to
Speaker 2: his mother that this trip would be his last, and
Speaker 2: he would miss moments like these the most. The giddy,
Speaker 2: nervous energy of the team. Just before the journey begins,
Speaker 2: someone throws a couple of bags to Yuri Yudin, who
Speaker 2: deposits them outside, ready to load onto the truck that
Speaker 2: will take them to the station. The twenty one year
Speaker 2: old Yuri, a geology student at the institute, had endured
Speaker 2: a tough and impoverished upbringing, and also suffered greatly from
Speaker 2: rheumatism in his leg joints, but Yuri had always determined
Speaker 2: never to let his affliction dictate his life. There is
Speaker 2: a great cheer when Yuri Dorishenko finally arrives to join
Speaker 2: the group. The much loved twenty one year old radio
Speaker 2: engineer had a fearsome reputation, having once successfully fended off
Speaker 2: a black bear with nothing but a geologist's hammer. His
Speaker 2: entrance is followed shortly after by Eager Diyatlov, a student
Speaker 2: of radio engineering. Twenty three year old Eager was a
Speaker 2: formidable athlete and easily the most experienced hiker in the team. Strong, thoughtful,
Speaker 2: and confident, he was a natural fit as their leader.
Speaker 2: He was also prodigiously talented, having designed and assembled a
Speaker 2: radio at the age of twenty that would later be
Speaker 2: used on Class hikes. With the final checks complete, the
Speaker 2: group gather their things and move out. Twenty minutes later,
Speaker 2: after a short tram ride to the city station, the
Speaker 2: team are settled into a Class three cabin as the
Speaker 2: train pulls away from Sperdlovsky. Such moments are usually caused
Speaker 2: for reflection, to be leaving behind your hometown on a
Speaker 2: treacherous journey into the wilderness. But in this moment they
Speaker 2: are distracted by a stranger in their mist Eager introduces
Speaker 2: his handsome, dark haired friend to the group as Sasha.
Speaker 2: At thirty seven, he is considerably older than the others,
Speaker 2: and although not by any means old, he appears as
Speaker 2: if from another age, so the young students might be
Speaker 2: forgiven their palpable sense of trepidation. When Sasha reveals a
Speaker 2: mouth full of gold teeth from under nat beneath his
Speaker 2: wolfish smile. Their sense of unease is not helped by
Speaker 2: the sight of a number of tattoos dotted about his body,
Speaker 2: but their unease is not out of rudeness, more from
Speaker 2: the tacit awareness that they are in the presence of
Speaker 2: a ghost. At thirty seven years old, Sasha is part
Speaker 2: of a generation of which only three percent remain, having
Speaker 2: been decimated by the brutality of the Great Patriotic War.
Speaker 2: Though it is unlikely he would have forgotten much from
Speaker 2: the five years he served from nineteen forty one to
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six. Sasha bears a constant reminder of those
Speaker 2: he had lost, three initials inked onto his skin, followed
Speaker 2: by an equal sign and the symbol for friendship. Semyon
Speaker 2: Zolatatov to give him his full name, has been working
Speaker 2: as a tour guide in South Siberia, and like the others,
Speaker 2: is desperate to achieve his Grade three certificate. Before the
Speaker 2: team recognize a kindred spirit and any initial sense of
Speaker 2: unease is quickly banished by the sound of Georgi's mandolin
Speaker 2: as he strikes up to play together. As the train
Speaker 2: speeds on through the ural countryside, they sing all the
Speaker 2: songs that they know while behind them verd Lovsk recedes
Speaker 2: further and further until it has entirely disappeared from view.
Speaker 2: Ten hours later, and the train finally pulls into Serov,
Speaker 2: a small town three hundred and fifty kilometers due north
Speaker 2: of Sverdlovsk. With their next train not due to leave
Speaker 2: until six thirty pm. The exhausted team are hoping to
Speaker 2: escape the cold and maybe get some sleep in the
Speaker 2: station waiting room, but are disappointed to find it locked
Speaker 2: for the day. Georgi attempts to cheer up his friends
Speaker 2: with a comical busking routine, but his singing has attracted
Speaker 2: the attention of two guards, a sign perhaps they have
Speaker 2: already entered a different world to the one encased within
Speaker 2: their dormitory walls. The guards grab Georgi from the platform
Speaker 2: and push him into their office. A short time later,
Speaker 2: and a somewhat stunned Georgi is returned to the platform
Speaker 2: after being let off with a stern warning for contravening
Speaker 2: Article two point three of the Internal Order at Railway stations.
Speaker 2: Not wanting to hang around, the team head off in
Speaker 2: search of shelter. When they come across an empty school hall.
Speaker 2: After knocking on the door, they are met by the
Speaker 2: kind face of the school's janitor. Much to their relief,
Speaker 2: she takes pity on the young hikers and invites them
Speaker 2: inside to rest and warm themselves, but there is one
Speaker 2: condition in return. They must give a talk to the
Speaker 2: school children before they leave. A few hours later, and
Speaker 2: Zena and Sasha have the children hanging on their every
Speaker 2: word as they listen wide eyed and at atentively to
Speaker 2: their tales of adventure. When it is finally time to go,
Speaker 2: the children have to be peeled sobbing and crying from
Speaker 2: Zena before finally accepting her promise to one day return.
Speaker 2: The children wave and shout goodbye to their ten new
Speaker 2: favorite heroes as they watch them head back to the
Speaker 2: train station. Finally, the team are on the move again,
Speaker 2: and by midnight they have arrived in the small town
Speaker 2: of Evedel. Since leaving spurred Lovsk, the gang had been
Speaker 2: shadowed by another team of hikers from the institute, led
Speaker 2: by their good friend Yuri Blinoff. That night of January
Speaker 2: twenty fourth, they all sleep huddle together in the Evedale
Speaker 2: station waiting room until the following morning, when they catch
Speaker 2: the first tram to Evedel town center. The town is
Speaker 2: built on the confluence of the Evedel River and the
Speaker 2: Losva River, and like most towns in the region, Evedel
Speaker 2: had been established as a mining colony, in this case
Speaker 2: for gold, but in nineteen thirty seven the town had
Speaker 2: taken on a second purpose, becoming the location of Evedeleg Gulag.
Speaker 2: The term is an acronym that translates to Maine Administration
Speaker 2: of Corrective labor camps. The camps had been set up
Speaker 2: during Stalin's time, partly as corrective facilities for criminals, but
Speaker 2: were often also used to dispense with political prisoners, a
Speaker 2: fact that would no doubt have crossed Collier's mind at
Speaker 2: least as the hikers made their way into the town's center,
Speaker 2: with some consideration perhaps for the desperate souls hidden away
Speaker 2: somewhere beyond the snow topped roofs of the town's outskirts.
Speaker 2: They don't have to wait long before their bus arrives,
Speaker 2: and soon after the team are moving through the white
Speaker 2: blanketed countryside. As the bus forges ahead towards Vizy, the
Speaker 2: next stop on their journey. But there is something wrong.
Speaker 2: Alexander is missing. They must have left him behind at
Speaker 2: the last toilet break. The team yelled to the bus
Speaker 2: driver to pull over. A quick head count confirms their fears.
Speaker 2: Alexander is indeed missing, but there is nothing that can
Speaker 2: be done. With the bus on a tight schedule, the
Speaker 2: driver has no choice but to continue the journey. But wait,
Speaker 2: says Yuri. As far off, a small shape, steadily growing larger,
Speaker 2: reveals itself to be a fully laiden Alexander sprinting with
Speaker 2: all his strength toward them. I thought you'd left, He
Speaker 2: sputters between gasps for breath, never say the others as
Speaker 2: they haul his exhausted body back onto the bus. Just
Speaker 2: after two p m. They arrive at Vizay and the
Speaker 2: hikers disembark. The town is a wood cutting settlement that
Speaker 2: served as a central hub from which further outposts could
Speaker 2: be reached. From here, the two teams will go their
Speaker 2: separate ways. For Blinoff and his team, a bus heading
Speaker 2: their way to Sector one oh five is due to
Speaker 2: leave later in the afternoon. For Eagers group, however, they
Speaker 2: will have to stop here for the night. That afternoon,
Speaker 2: the team's many cameras, vital for recording evidence for their
Speaker 2: Category three certificates, are whipped out as they say their
Speaker 2: final goodbyes to Blinov and his team. Despite the minus
Speaker 2: seventeen degree temperature, the classmates smile and fool around as
Speaker 2: they pose for one final picture. Moments later, Yuri and
Speaker 2: his team scramble into the back of a flatbed truck
Speaker 2: and wave a fond goodbye to their friends as they
Speaker 2: put away and out of the camp. For Eager's team,
Speaker 2: it will be one last night of domesticity before heading
Speaker 2: off into the wilderness. The team are especially excited to
Speaker 2: hear of a nearby screening room and will pile in
Speaker 2: later that evening to watch a film called Symphony in Gold.
Speaker 2: Brustik finds time to write a postcard to his mother,
Speaker 2: and Doroshenko and Alexander make a number of final checks
Speaker 2: and adjustments to the equipment. That night, With two crammed
Speaker 2: to a bed and Georgi and Sasha taking positions on
Speaker 2: the floor, the team sleep soundly. The next morning, they
Speaker 2: are up and dressed early, eager to get on the
Speaker 2: road again. But something is bugging Yuri. A pain in
Speaker 2: his legs that had been steadily growing was threatening to
Speaker 2: become unbearable. Despite his misgivings, he was determined not to
Speaker 2: let the others down and decided to ignore it for now.
Speaker 2: But there is also something else. The previous afternoon, an
Speaker 2: experienced forester had expressed concern about the group's trip, thinking
Speaker 2: it too dangerous for them at this time of year.
Speaker 2: Eager had laughed it off in typically bullish style. After all,
Speaker 2: wasn't that precisely the reason that they were taking the
Speaker 2: trip in the first place. Yuri had laughed too, but
Speaker 2: as he prepared to board the truck for their ride
Speaker 2: out of Vizzy, it was with the old man's words
Speaker 2: still ringing in his ears. The journey didn't help much either.
Speaker 2: Sitting at the back of the rickety open air truck,
Speaker 2: the team struggled for warmth and comfort, But as any
Speaker 2: traveler knows, it is from such experiences that true bonds
Speaker 2: are made, and before long the gang were once again
Speaker 2: singing songs and speaking of love and friendship as they
Speaker 2: traveled ever higher into the frostbitten ural Mountains. Sector forty
Speaker 2: one was a worker's outpost occupied by roughly fifty woodsmen
Speaker 2: stationed on long term contracts, many of whom had gone
Speaker 2: months cut off from the world. So it was with
Speaker 2: no little excitement that the new faces of the young
Speaker 2: students were welcomed into the workers homes that evening. As
Speaker 2: for Dyatlov and his team, they were treated to a
Speaker 2: glimpse of another world revealed through the songs and poems
Speaker 2: shared by the workers that night, many of them illegal
Speaker 2: and punishable under Article fifty eight of counter revolutionary crimes,
Speaker 2: but even for the committed communist Luda, it was a
Speaker 2: night to remember. The next morning, on January twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: the team awake to find a beautiful, clear blue sky
Speaker 2: waiting for them. After eight hundred and fifty kilometers, finally
Speaker 2: the time has come to put on their skis and
Speaker 2: begin the trek to otaut and Mountain. A local man
Speaker 2: named Slava offers to lend them his sled and horse
Speaker 2: to help carry their heavy equipment to their next stop,
Speaker 2: a settlement known as North two. The settlement is an
Speaker 2: old geological research site just twenty four kilometers to the north,
Speaker 2: now abandoned and home to little more than two thousand
Speaker 2: dilapidated cabins. It is late in the afternoon when Slava
Speaker 2: returns with his sled, but after securing the luggage and
Speaker 2: fastening their skis, the team are finally en route towards
Speaker 2: North Two. The journey takes them over the frozen waters
Speaker 2: of the Ushma River, deeper and deeper into the forest,
Speaker 2: but the thin ice is proving tricky for the horse
Speaker 2: to negotiate. After two hours, the team have only made
Speaker 2: it a third of the way, but as the winter
Speaker 2: sun drops down behind a distant ridge, the team continue
Speaker 2: on unperturbed. Another four hours later, and Eager spots something ahead.
Speaker 2: Under the soft light of the moon, they can just
Speaker 2: make out the shape of a hut against the tree
Speaker 2: line as their eyes are just suddenly a sprawling pastoral
Speaker 2: ghost town has appeared before them. They have reached the
Speaker 2: north to settlement. The woodsmen had recommended one hut in
Speaker 2: particular that was still habitable, and somehow, after a short
Speaker 2: time stumbling around in the dark, they managed to find
Speaker 2: it that night. Approaching the log cabin on the edge
Speaker 2: of the forest under the moonlight, it is as if
Speaker 2: they have crossed some kind of threshold and stepped right
Speaker 2: into a fairy tale. Old Slavic folk stories tell of
Speaker 2: a grotesque witch with fearsome iron teeth by the name
Speaker 2: of Baba Yaga, who lives in an hut deep in
Speaker 2: the heart of the forest. She is a complex creature
Speaker 2: that is sometimes good, but at other times utterly monstrous,
Speaker 2: given to eating her victims without a moment's hesitation. It
Speaker 2: is said that she travels in a large pestle and
Speaker 2: mortar that flies through the trees with a sickening, grinding screech,
Speaker 2: and that her hut stands atop of a pair of
Speaker 2: chickens feet, But there are no such feet under the
Speaker 2: cabin that night, and the air remains silent, with the
Speaker 2: eerie quietude that only an abandoned village can conjure up.
Speaker 2: Before long, there is life once again in Sector North too,
Speaker 2: as the darkness of the cabin is illuminated by the
Speaker 2: sound of young voices, filled with the relief of finding
Speaker 2: shelter for the night, and then shortly after by the
Speaker 2: flickering glow of lamp light. A few of the boys
Speaker 2: volunteer to find firewood from outside by pulling up wood
Speaker 2: from some of the more dilapidated cabins. At one point,
Speaker 2: Rustick grabs at one, only to pull away in pain.
Speaker 2: He looks closely at his hand and sees a small
Speaker 2: pinprick from an old nail hidden in the dark. He
Speaker 2: watches for a moment as the prick becomes a drop
Speaker 2: of blood on the surface of his skin. A short
Speaker 2: time later, and the fire is roaring and filling the
Speaker 2: room with the comforting, sweet smelling smoke of the hearth.
Speaker 2: The following morning and yuri Udin's legs have finally given
Speaker 2: in after struggling even to stand. It is clear that
Speaker 2: he is at the point of no return with Slava
Speaker 2: due to head back to Sector forty one that day.
Speaker 2: He has little option but to join him with sincere disappointment,
Speaker 2: he breaks the news to the rest of the group,
Speaker 2: who are all equally devastated to be saying goodbye so
Speaker 2: early to their friend. As a keen geologist, Yuri is
Speaker 2: determined not to return empty handed and manages to corral
Speaker 2: a small team to join him on the hunt for
Speaker 2: some interesting samples to take back home. But despite the
Speaker 2: area's abundance of precious stones and minerals, Yuri is saddened
Speaker 2: only to find quartz and fools gold hidden under the snow.
Speaker 2: With Slava eager to get going, Yuri loads his pack
Speaker 2: onto the back of the sled and gingerly steps into
Speaker 2: his skis. The team say their final goodbyes and take
Speaker 2: one last picture of their friend before he leaves. And
Speaker 2: so it is that, on the morning of Wednesday, January
Speaker 2: twenty eighth, that the ten strong team led by eager
Speaker 2: Dyatlov comes nine before he is out of sight, Yuri
Speaker 2: turns one last time to wave a final goodbye to
Speaker 2: the team. He couldn't possibly have known then that it
Speaker 2: will be the last time his friends will ever be
Speaker 2: seen alive again. Knee deep in snow by the banks
Speaker 2: of the Losva River, boris slopsof pulled the hood up
Speaker 2: over his head and tied the flaps of his hat
Speaker 2: down tightly below his chin. It was all he could
Speaker 2: do to stop the incessant pelting of his face by
Speaker 2: the flex of snow being whipped up relentlessly by the wind.
Speaker 2: In the distance, he can hear the repetitive, dull chop
Speaker 2: of helicopter blades. The sound gets closer and closer, until
Speaker 2: eventually the olive green Mi I four finally comes into view.
Speaker 2: Squinting now into the sun, he watches as it makes
Speaker 2: a slow, lumbering turn across the sky before settling over
Speaker 2: the Losva and forging a path straight towards him. And then,
Speaker 2: just as it's about to fly above his head, it
Speaker 2: makes a sharp bank to the right. Boris is close
Speaker 2: enough to see the co pilot wave before throwing something
Speaker 2: out of the cockpit. Boris watches as the object drops
Speaker 2: from the sky, its red ribbon flapping manically as it falls,
Speaker 2: before nestling in the snow meets away from Boris's feet.
Speaker 2: He hurries over and pulls the canister free, unscrewing the
Speaker 2: cap to find a message for his team lodged inside.
Speaker 2: It tells them to head towards the Auspier River, roughly
Speaker 2: three kilometers to the south. It is Wednesday, February the
Speaker 2: twenty fifth, exactly four weeks since Yuri Yudin was forced
Speaker 2: to abandon an eager Dyatlov and the eight other friends
Speaker 2: he had been accompanying as part of an expedition towards
Speaker 2: Otauton Mountain in the Russian URLs. It had been a
Speaker 2: painful decision for Yuri, but one perhaps not quite as
Speaker 2: painful as the crippling effects of rheumatism that had plagued
Speaker 2: him throughout the journey and in the end left him
Speaker 2: with little choice but to turn back. Yuri had last
Speaker 2: been with the group in the north to settlement an old,
Speaker 2: abandoned geological site from which they were due to strike
Speaker 2: out towards Otauton Mountain a short time after they had
Speaker 2: said their goodbys. The team had been expected to arrive
Speaker 2: back in their hometown of spurred Lovsk on February the thirteenth,
Speaker 2: almost two weeks ago, but the team had never returned.
Speaker 2: Twenty two year old Boris Slotsov is, a friend of
Speaker 2: eagers and a member of the same hiking club V two,
Speaker 2: had planned to one day make the hike to Otautan Mountain,
Speaker 2: but never could he have imagined it would be under
Speaker 2: circumstances such as these. Boris had been one of the
Speaker 2: first to volunteer to help find the team, after concerns
Speaker 2: had been voiced about their whereabouts. The alarm had been
Speaker 2: raised by anxious parents on the thirteenth, but it would
Speaker 2: be almost another week before hiking club officials deem it
Speaker 2: a serious concern worthy of a formal search and rescue operation.
Speaker 2: It was, after all, not uncommon for such lengthy hikes
Speaker 2: to suffer the odd one or two day's delay, but
Speaker 2: when a whole week later there is still no word
Speaker 2: from the team, it is clear that something has gone
Speaker 2: drastically wrong. The Ural Polytechnic's first response is to dispatch
Speaker 2: hiking club director Lev Gordo and young Yuriblinov, who had
Speaker 2: traveled part way with the Dyatlov team prior to their disappearance,
Speaker 2: to undertake a quick air surveillance of the team's probable route. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: in Ifdale, the town closest to where the team was
Speaker 2: last seen, a criminal investigation is opened up, led by
Speaker 2: local prosecutor Vasili Templov. A three pronged attack is established
Speaker 2: when experienced hiker Yevgeny Maslenikov is also enlisted to help
Speaker 2: run things on the ground. Yevgeny, who was well aware
Speaker 2: of Eager and his compatriots, having initially helped them to
Speaker 2: plan their route, wastes little time in joining the search.
Speaker 2: On the twenty fourth, Tempulov agrees to open up the
Speaker 2: search to include all possible routes taken by Dyatlov's team,
Speaker 2: and by now, with news of the team's disappearance spreading
Speaker 2: throughout the region, many volunteers have come forward to offer
Speaker 2: their help, including members of the family, fellow students, and
Speaker 2: workers from the local camps. The search is given an
Speaker 2: early boost when Gordo and Blinov pick up a trail
Speaker 2: that leads them to a Mansi village called bartier Rova.
Speaker 2: The Mansi are an indigenous people of western Siberia, an
Speaker 2: area running roughly fifteen hundred kilometers from the Ural Mountains
Speaker 2: to the Great Yenise River in the east. This vast
Speaker 2: stretch of land is sometimes referred to as Ugra Land,
Speaker 2: but is now commonly known as the Kanti Mansiysk Autonomous District.
Speaker 2: It is believed that Mancy have populated the region since
Speaker 2: the Mesolithic Age, sharing ancestors with both the people of
Speaker 2: Hungary and Finland. They are historically known for their proficiency
Speaker 2: in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding, but they are also
Speaker 2: a sous postitious people, steeped in a rich culture and
Speaker 2: folklore unique to themselves but also to this region, although
Speaker 2: some have claimed an ancient lineage that goes back to
Speaker 2: the Sumerians, whom many consider to be the first great civilization.
Speaker 2: To look upon the Ural Mountains through the eyes of
Speaker 2: the Mansi is to see another world hidden from the
Speaker 2: view of most. It is a sacred place, home to
Speaker 2: spirits and gods, and many an unsolved ancient mystery. Although
Speaker 2: for Gordo and Blinoff the trail goes cold in Barti Rova,
Speaker 2: their efforts have caught the attention of several Mansi tribesmen, who,
Speaker 2: like everybody else, are deeply moved by the plight of
Speaker 2: the missing students. The offer to lend their unparalleled local
Speaker 2: knowledge and tracking skills to the search is gratefully accepted.
Speaker 2: The Manse team is led by Stepan Kurikov, a warm
Speaker 2: hearted and hulking presence, as well as being one of
Speaker 2: the most respected of the tribal elders. A few days later,
Speaker 2: the helicopter search team picks up ski tracks heading north
Speaker 2: from the Auspier River at the bottom of a mountain
Speaker 2: known as kolat Seekeel, but searches on the ground are
Speaker 2: unable to establish any clear route before bad weather brings
Speaker 2: the day's search to an end. It is the following
Speaker 2: day when Boris Slobsov and his team received their message
Speaker 2: to search the corresponding area. Later that afternoon, a breakthrough
Speaker 2: discovery is made when Boris locates one of the Dyatlov
Speaker 2: team's camp sites on the banks of the river, just
Speaker 2: to the edge of a forest. It is clear that
Speaker 2: Diatlov's team would most likely have struck out from here
Speaker 2: and headed straight towards Otaortum Mountain over the exposed of
Speaker 2: kolat Siakle, But with night fast approaching and the weather
Speaker 2: becoming increasingly volatile, Slobsov's team are unable to follow suit
Speaker 2: and are forced to retreat into the tree line and
Speaker 2: make camp for the night. That evening, as the dark
Speaker 2: closed in around them, with yet another day gone, Slobsov
Speaker 2: can't help but think upon the fate of his friends
Speaker 2: and to just what exactly might be lying in wait,
Speaker 2: buried under the snow. It hasn't escaped his attention either.
Speaker 2: That the name cooleet Siakle translates as dead Mountain. The
Speaker 2: next day, February the twenty sixth, Slobsov suggests that the
Speaker 2: team break into pairs to widen the search area. Boris
Speaker 2: joins up with fellow hiking team member Mikhail Sharavin, and
Speaker 2: together they head off in the direction of O'tauton across
Speaker 2: the eastern slope of colat Siakle that afternoon, as the
Speaker 2: two hikers battle raging winds and minus twenty degree temperatures,
Speaker 2: the hikers are three hundred meters from the top of
Speaker 2: the mountain when Mikhail spots something up ahead sticking out
Speaker 2: of the snow. It looks like a tent. Getting nearer,
Speaker 2: the thing starts to reveal itself. They can now clearly
Speaker 2: see the poles sticking out from underneath and the south
Speaker 2: facing entrance that remains intact while the entire back half
Speaker 2: has collapsed under the weight of snowfall. Boris calls out
Speaker 2: hopefully for his friends, but hears nothing in reply save
Speaker 2: for the fierce whistling of the wind. He steps toward
Speaker 2: the entrance, takes a deep breath and pulls back the flap.
Speaker 2: It is with an odd mix of relief and disappointment
Speaker 2: that Boris finds the tent completely deserted, the relief being
Speaker 2: tempered by the fact that almost everything that the hikers
Speaker 2: had been traveling with appeared to have been left behind inside,
Speaker 2: as if the team had just vanished into thin air.
Speaker 2: But for Boris, their absence provides a glimmer of hope
Speaker 2: that his friends might actually still be alive. Pushing back
Speaker 2: on the heavy canvas, Boris and Mikhail managed to write
Speaker 2: the tent enough to take a proper look inside. On
Speaker 2: the floor, they find the nine backpacks belonging to each
Speaker 2: team member, as well as each of their skis. Perhaps
Speaker 2: most curiously, they find a jacket left on the ground
Speaker 2: outside the tent. Boris pulls it from the snow and
Speaker 2: scours the surrounding area, hoping to spot footprints or any
Speaker 2: other sign of his friends, but sees only the vast
Speaker 2: white emptiness, and with dark clouds beginning to roll in,
Speaker 2: Boris and Mikhaiel only have a few minutes to gather
Speaker 2: what they can before reluctantly being forced back to their camp.
Speaker 2: On their return, Boris is able to send word back
Speaker 2: to Evedale suggesting all search efforts be concentrated on the
Speaker 2: surrounding area. A reply comes back to dig out a
Speaker 2: helicopter landing site in preparation for over fifty people who
Speaker 2: will be arriving the next day. It is another anxious
Speaker 2: night for Boris and his team, and their attention is
Speaker 2: constantly drawn to the items brought back from the abandoned tent.
Speaker 2: The presence of the items in Boris's tent seems only
Speaker 2: to bring the absence of their owners closer, as if
Speaker 2: they had merely stepped outside for a moment before returning
Speaker 2: to collect their things. Boris picks up the jacket and
Speaker 2: examines the pockets, hoping for any clue as to the
Speaker 2: team's whereabouts. Inside, he discovers a notebook suggesting the jacket
Speaker 2: was eager Dyatlovs. Flicking through the pages, Boris discovers a photograph.
Speaker 2: It is a portrait of Xena. The following day, Friday,
Speaker 2: the twenty seventh, the search teams converge on the newly
Speaker 2: discovered campsite, including police equipped with search dogs. The ensuing
Speaker 2: chaos threatens to undermine any hope of finding tracks under
Speaker 2: the snow, But remarkably, one of the team finds some
Speaker 2: twenty meters or so from the tent, under a patch
Speaker 2: of freshly fallen snow. They see them clearly now, veering
Speaker 2: off down the side of the hill towards the Losva
Speaker 2: River valley. But there is something very odd. Some of
Speaker 2: the prints seem bizarrely small, almost as if whoever had
Speaker 2: made them had not been wearing any shoes. And there
Speaker 2: is another vital discovery, a team diary kept by all
Speaker 2: the members of the group to document their expedition. The
Speaker 2: entries had been meticulously kept since the first day, but
Speaker 2: had ended abruptly on January the thirty first, suggesting whatever
Speaker 2: happened likely occurred around February first, meaning the group has
Speaker 2: now been missing for four weeks. Slobsov's team, who are
Speaker 2: that morning searching the banks of the Losva River, are
Speaker 2: informed of the tracks found leading towards their location. Boris
Speaker 2: plays out the scenario in his head until he is
Speaker 2: transported back to the night the team left the tent.
Speaker 2: He sees them now, their movements echoing through time as
Speaker 2: they descend down the mountain and head for the shelter
Speaker 2: of the same trees that he is walking among. A
Speaker 2: short time later, and Mikhail finds something strange at the
Speaker 2: base of a cedar tree. Poking through the snow, he
Speaker 2: finds the charred remains of a makeshift fire that had
Speaker 2: clearly been hastily put together. He notices also that a
Speaker 2: number of the tree's branches have been recently snapped off.
Speaker 2: And then just north of the tree, there is something
Speaker 2: else sticking out of the snow. Something wants soft but
Speaker 2: now as rigid and hard as the cedar. It is
Speaker 2: a human leg. For Boris and his team, it is
Speaker 2: a devastating discovery, and one that will extinguish any remaining
Speaker 2: hope of finding his friends alive. But for us it
Speaker 2: merely marks another beginning to this strange and bizarre tale,
Speaker 2: for it is about to get very weird. Indeed, after
Speaker 2: Mikhail's gruesome discovery, Boris alerts Maslenikov's team, and together they
Speaker 2: carefully begin to excavate the body from the snow. But
Speaker 2: as they dig further, they discover not one body, but
Speaker 2: two lying side by side together, with one face down
Speaker 2: and the other face up. As the last of the
Speaker 2: snow is pushed from one of the faces, Boris recoils
Speaker 2: in horror. The mouth, nose, and eyes appear to have
Speaker 2: been completely removed. Despite the apparent mutilation, Boris recognizes the
Speaker 2: face instantly as Giorgi Krivonishenko. The other body is soon
Speaker 2: revealed to be that of Yuri Doroshenko, but it's not
Speaker 2: until the full horror of the discovery has sunk in
Speaker 2: that they notice something peculiar about the clothes on the bodies,
Speaker 2: or rather the lack of them. Georgi appears not to
Speaker 2: be wearing a jacket or trousers, just one checkered shirt
Speaker 2: and some swimming trunks under long underwear. Even More bizarrely,
Speaker 2: the left flo leg of the underwear has been ripped
Speaker 2: off and his feet are completely bare. Doroshenko appears somewhat
Speaker 2: better dressed, with an undershirt, check top, long underwear and socks,
Speaker 2: but no shoes. His clothes also appear to have been
Speaker 2: bizarrely shredded. After the discovery of the bodies, the focus
Speaker 2: of the search switches quickly to the valley Nancy elder
Speaker 2: Stepan Kurikov leads the search along with his German shepherd snifferdog,
Speaker 2: another experienced hiker Vladislav Corelln has also joined the search.
Speaker 2: Vladislav was a medical engineer who had crossed paths with
Speaker 2: Dyatlov's team as they made their way towards Otaorten. Having
Speaker 2: located the first two bodies, it isn't long before the
Speaker 2: German shepherd picks up another ominous scent. Pulling hard on
Speaker 2: the leash, he drags his owner across to a spot
Speaker 2: where Stepan recognizes something unnatural about the way the birch
Speaker 2: tree shoots are sticking out from the snow. The dog
Speaker 2: sniffs heavily at the spot, and soon they have made
Speaker 2: another gruesome discovery, as just below the surface they find
Speaker 2: an arm that appears still to be pulling in desperation
Speaker 2: at the shoots. This body is better dressed than the
Speaker 2: other two, complete with a sweater, fur vest and ski trousers,
Speaker 2: but again extraordinarily, there are no gloves and no shoes.
Speaker 2: Vladislav Correllin recognizes the face of Eager Dyatlov. Moments later,
Speaker 2: Evedale policeman Lieutenant Nikolay Mousyev and his dog Alma are
Speaker 2: heading back from the trees towards the team's tent. When
Speaker 2: Alma gets suddenly anxious and begins to dig manically. It
Speaker 2: is yet another body, lying fair down with their knees bent,
Speaker 2: as if making a final desperate bid to crawl back
Speaker 2: to the safety of the tent. Moisiev turns the body
Speaker 2: over and is surprised to find dried blood smeared across
Speaker 2: the faith. The body will later be identified as that
Speaker 2: of Xena Kolmogorova. Yevgeny Maslenikov, who by now has been
Speaker 2: made head of the entire ground search operation, orders the
Speaker 2: bodies to be wrapped in tarpaulin and taken to Boot
Speaker 2: Rock on the bank of kolat Seakle while they await
Speaker 2: evacuation and formal autopsy. Watching as the bodies are laid
Speaker 2: out at the base of the rock, Maslenikov can't help
Speaker 2: but begin to formulate his own theories about just what
Speaker 2: might have taken place. For Maslenikov, it appears simple case
Speaker 2: of being caught out by the weather. Perhaps one of
Speaker 2: the team stepped out of the tent only to be
Speaker 2: swept away by the wind, prompting his friends to make
Speaker 2: a fatal rescue attempt. Or perhaps it was an avalanche
Speaker 2: that scared them from the safety of their tent and
Speaker 2: left them catastrophically disorientated. Only if the wind or avalanche
Speaker 2: had been so strong as to push the hikers down
Speaker 2: the valley, why was the tent still clinging so firmly
Speaker 2: to the side of the mountain, its poles still standing
Speaker 2: as they would have been the day they were pitched.
Speaker 2: The day after the four bodies are discovered, Prosecutor Vasili
Speaker 2: Temploff finally arrives on the scene to make his own
Speaker 2: assessment of the evidence. He makes a note of the
Speaker 2: various items found at the campsite, but also he is
Speaker 2: the first person to notice something odd about the tent itself.
Speaker 2: It may have still been standing, but what no one
Speaker 2: had seemed to notice before was that one side of
Speaker 2: it had been completely and unnaturally slashed to pieces. But
Speaker 2: before Tempulov can get his teeth into the investigation, he
Speaker 2: is told to step down from the operation. On the
Speaker 2: morning of Sunday, March first, yet another helicopter arrives at
Speaker 2: the search headquarters at the foot of kolat Seakle. The
Speaker 2: door is opened and outsteps the determined figure of lev Ivanov,
Speaker 2: Junior Council of Justice and now lead investigator on the case.
Speaker 2: He adjusts his glasses and pulls his jacket tighter, before
Speaker 2: being led away from the chopper and straight into the fray.
Speaker 2: Moments later, he is casting his eyes over the makeshift
Speaker 2: fire at the base of the cedar tree. Suddenly, with
Speaker 2: Ivanov on the scene, the investigation seems to have taken
Speaker 2: on another guise, like something from a classic detective novel.
Speaker 2: There is more than the touch of the brooding, enigmatic
Speaker 2: hero about Ivanov, his thick, black rimmed glasses lending a
Speaker 2: cerebral air to this intense veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Immediately,
Speaker 2: he makes note of a number of branches snapped from
Speaker 2: up high in the tree. Perhaps one of the team
Speaker 2: climbed the tree in an attempt to call the others,
Speaker 2: or maybe he had been trying to escape from something.
Speaker 2: He also notices another pair of footprints in the snow,
Speaker 2: suggesting that Georgi and Yuri weren't alone when they died.
Speaker 2: He begins to ponder as to just why they let
Speaker 2: the fire burn out if there was plenty of firewood
Speaker 2: around to be used. Meanwhile, Maslenikov is overseeing a team
Speaker 2: of thirty men lined up shoulder to shoulder as they
Speaker 2: probe the ground with steel avalanche poles. That day, they
Speaker 2: cover a region of roughly thirty thousand square yards, but
Speaker 2: the search yields nothing more. Later, Ivanof and Maslenikov will
Speaker 2: together analyze the abandoned tent, leaving Ivanov convinced more than
Speaker 2: ever that whatever killed Dyatlov's team members, it wasn't the
Speaker 2: wind and it wasn't heavy snowfall. On March, the second
Speaker 2: one of the search teams comes across a storage shelter
Speaker 2: perched high up in the trees, laden with various supplies.
Speaker 2: It is a common practice for hiking teams to unburden
Speaker 2: themselves before venturing out on the most grueling part of
Speaker 2: a journey. This appears to have been the case with
Speaker 2: Dyatlov's team. The search party are moved to find Georgi's
Speaker 2: mandolin amongst the items of food. It is a stark
Speaker 2: and sudden reminder of a time before. Later that day,
Speaker 2: after the news of the store camp is passed up
Speaker 2: the chain, something a little more peculiar comes to light
Speaker 2: when Maslenikov is approached by one of the searches. It
Speaker 2: is Vladislav Karelin, the mountaineer who found Eager's body the
Speaker 2: previous week, and he has had something on his mind
Speaker 2: ever since. On the night of February seventeenth, Karelin was
Speaker 2: hiking with his own team close to the trail that
Speaker 2: Dayatlov and his team had been taking when they witnessed
Speaker 2: something strange in the sky. A member of his group,
Speaker 2: Georgi at Monaki, had woken early to make breakfast when
Speaker 2: he noticed a large, bright white spot in the distance
Speaker 2: above them. He points it out to his friend Vladimir Shavkunov,
Speaker 2: believing it to be an especially bright moon, but Shavkunov
Speaker 2: was concerned there was no moon that morning, and in
Speaker 2: any case, if there had been, it would have been
Speaker 2: on the other side of the sky. Then suddenly, a
Speaker 2: spark lit in the center of the spot that seemed
Speaker 2: to burn brighter, getting bigger in sides, before flying off
Speaker 2: quickly to the west. The light would eventually get so
Speaker 2: big that they believed it was going to collide with
Speaker 2: the earth and kill them all. And they weren't the
Speaker 2: only ones to see it, as many local villages would
Speaker 2: later come forward attesting to the bizarre sighting. Maslenikov agrees
Speaker 2: it is certainly something to think about, but as he
Speaker 2: reminds Karelin, Dyatlov's team most likely died around the turn
Speaker 2: of the month, a good two weeks prior to the
Speaker 2: appearance of the strange light. But when the news reaches Ivanov,
Speaker 2: he finds it a little harder to shake. Later that afternoon,
Speaker 2: as he watches the bodies of eager Yuri, Gyorgi, and
Speaker 2: Zina being loaded into the helicopter, talk of the strange
Speaker 2: lights and fire in the sky weighs heavily on his mind.
Speaker 2: It certainly wouldn't be the first time that something unknown
Speaker 2: had occurred in this nation, something perhaps carried out in
Speaker 2: secret and kept hidden from view. As he climbs in
Speaker 2: after the bodies, Maslenikov is there to see him off
Speaker 2: as the chopper lifts up into the air and flies
Speaker 2: away on its journey back to Evedel. The following day,
Speaker 2: with the search now starting to deliver results, Yuriblinoff, one
Speaker 2: of the last people to see his friends alive and
Speaker 2: who had worked so tirelessly over the past seven days
Speaker 2: to help find them, decides it is time to return home.
Speaker 2: The bodies are taken to the hospital of Labor Camp
Speaker 2: H two forty in evedel and left to thor out
Speaker 2: before the formal autopsy can begin. On March fourth, the
Speaker 2: Regional Bureau forensic pathologist Boris Alexeyevitch vozrosj Denay and the
Speaker 2: city medical examiner Ivan Ivanovitch Laptev begin the procedure. Both
Speaker 2: Yury and Gyorgy display signs of burns to the side
Speaker 2: of their heads, consistent perhaps with the fact that they
Speaker 2: had fallen so close to the makeshift fire. As for
Speaker 2: Gyorgy's missing features, they are deemed likely to have been
Speaker 2: eaten by ravenous animals. Post mortem. The litany of abrasions
Speaker 2: and spots of dried blood found on all of the
Speaker 2: bodies suggest final moments of wild panic, but are not
Speaker 2: thought to be particularly suspicious given the location of where
Speaker 2: the bodies were found and the time of year. It
Speaker 2: is perhaps unsurprising when a verdict of death by hypothermia
Speaker 2: is returned on all four of the victims, and yet
Speaker 2: looking closer at the autopsy report reveals a number of
Speaker 2: peculiar findings. Skin from one of Georgy's right knuckles is
Speaker 2: found in his mouth, suggesting he must have bitten it
Speaker 2: off himself, perhaps to force his hands to move or,
Speaker 2: as some have suggested, maybe to stifle a cry. Eager's
Speaker 2: body shows signs of vomiting blood, with Yuri's autopsy noting
Speaker 2: signs of fluid in the lungs as well as bruises
Speaker 2: sustained by some kind of blunt trauma, and something found
Speaker 2: on Zena's back also catches the eye, a long, bright
Speaker 2: red bruise, the sort you might sustain, perhaps after being
Speaker 2: clubbed by a heavy object. Meanwhile, in a room not
Speaker 2: far away, Yuri Yudin has been summoned by lead investigator
Speaker 2: lev Ivanov. Incredibly, Udin had been one of the last
Speaker 2: to learn of the rescue operation to find Diatlos's, having
Speaker 2: decided to recuperate in his hometown of Emilyshevka before returning
Speaker 2: to spurred Lovsk, and now he was being given the
Speaker 2: somber task of sorting through all the team's personal belongings
Speaker 2: in order to assign them to their correct owner. He
Speaker 2: too finds the picture of Xena in Eager's notebook, and
Speaker 2: manages a rise smile when he finds a packet of
Speaker 2: cigarettes secretly stashed away in Alexander Kolovatov's bag. But back
Speaker 2: on Kolatsiakl. The search continues, and on March fifth, another
Speaker 2: body is discovered. Corellin had been searching a region in
Speaker 2: between where Eager and Zena were found when he hit
Speaker 2: something solid just below the surface. Once the snow had
Speaker 2: been cleared, Corellin recognizes the body as that of the
Speaker 2: much loved Rustic Slovodin. Unlike the others, Rustick seems almost
Speaker 2: properly dressed, but something else immediately catches Kurellin's attention. There
Speaker 2: is a severe discoloring on the front of his head,
Speaker 2: while a patch of ice close to his mouth suggests
Speaker 2: that he had been alive for some time after he fell.
Speaker 2: Rustick's injuries were confirmed by the pathologist in an autopsy
Speaker 2: three days later as being potentially consistent with damage sustained
Speaker 2: from a blunt object. The frontal bone of his skull
Speaker 2: is found to be fractured, with severe hemorrhaging in the
Speaker 2: temple region, as if he had repeatedly been forced down
Speaker 2: on to his face. Rustis is the fifth body to
Speaker 2: be recovered, while four of Diatlov's team remain missing and
Speaker 2: the investigation has only just begun. Alexei could not believe
Speaker 2: what he was hearing. As he sat unfounded in the
Speaker 2: cold and sterile office in front of three stone faced
Speaker 2: party officials, he begged them to reconsider. It had been
Speaker 2: a week since the body of his twenty three year
Speaker 2: old son, Georgi had been discovered, and although Alexi had
Speaker 2: long since given up hope that his son might be
Speaker 2: found alive, he had not been prepared for the grief
Speaker 2: of finally knowing. Now having made the trip to Evedel.
Speaker 2: He was at the very least hoping to take his
Speaker 2: son's body back home with him to sverurt Lothsk. But
Speaker 2: the party officials had other ideas. A decision had been
Speaker 2: made that all of the bodies would be buried together
Speaker 2: in Evedell in a mass grave. The families were invited
Speaker 2: to attend, but there would be no public announcement and
Speaker 2: only a small obelisk to mark the spot. But Sperdlovsk
Speaker 2: is his home, implored Alexei. That is where he lived,
Speaker 2: where he made friends. And did we bury him an Evedell?
Speaker 2: How are we to visit him? But the decision was final,
Speaker 2: and besides, they said, all the other families had agreed
Speaker 2: to it. Two by two, the parents of Eager Zena,
Speaker 2: Yuri and Rustic were called in to face the hastily
Speaker 2: assembled committee and given the exact same distressing news, each
Speaker 2: being informed that the others had consented to it. The
Speaker 2: parents struggled to process what they were being told. Not
Speaker 2: only did it seem the authorities were trying to cover
Speaker 2: the whole instant up, but they were asking the parents
Speaker 2: to become complicit in it too. The Party was in
Speaker 2: effect asking for nothing less than their cooperation in erasing
Speaker 2: the history of their children's lives. Like most people in
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, the parents were well aware of the
Speaker 2: lengths the state would go to preserve their methods, but
Speaker 2: not to them, not this time, and it was of
Speaker 2: course a lie. Not one of the sets of parents
Speaker 2: had agreed to their plan. On realizing the deception, the
Speaker 2: parents fought back and eventually the party relented, but only
Speaker 2: on one condition. The students could be buried in spurred Lovsk,
Speaker 2: but the funerals were to be held together to minimize
Speaker 2: the attention. With the exception of Georgy's, who was a
Speaker 2: Russian Orthodox would be granted a separate funeral at an
Speaker 2: appropriate location. The funeral procession would also be strictly controlled
Speaker 2: with the coffins being taken directly from the morgue to
Speaker 2: the cemetery. The parents had requested that the bodies be
Speaker 2: taken past the Oral Polytechnic Institute campus, but permission was refused. However,
Speaker 2: attempts to minimize the publicity of the event would ultimately
Speaker 2: prove futile in a rare moment of public defiance over
Speaker 2: state control. On Monday, the ninth of March nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: over a thousand mourners, touched by the death of the
Speaker 2: young hikers, took to the streets to join the procession. Together,
Speaker 2: they marched with the families as they made their way
Speaker 2: to Mikhailovskoy's Cemetery, behind two trucks laden with the bodies
Speaker 2: of Yuri, Brustic Xena and eager. Twelve year old Yuri
Speaker 2: Konsavich lived with his parents in the east of the
Speaker 2: city centre, just opposite the cemetery. He watched in silence
Speaker 2: from his apartment window as the mourners slowly drifted into view.
Speaker 2: Yuri didn't know then just how exactly the tragedy of
Speaker 2: what happened to the Diatlovtia would shape his life, But
Speaker 2: on this morning, what preoccupied Yuri was not the bodies
Speaker 2: of the students laid out in their open caskets, or
Speaker 2: the sheer number of people attending their funeral, but rather
Speaker 2: a handful of suspicious looking men dotted about the crowd.
Speaker 2: Unlike the rest of the crowd, these men, dressed in
Speaker 2: civilian clothes, seemed to pay little attention to the bodies
Speaker 2: or the eventual service that took place. Instead, they seemed
Speaker 2: to be watching the people. Yuri could have sworn they
Speaker 2: were KGB, members of the secret Soviet police sent to
Speaker 2: keep a close eye on the proceedings. After the bodies
Speaker 2: were finally laid to rest, with Georgi's being buried the
Speaker 2: following day. Ordinarily, the families might now finally be able
Speaker 2: to grieve, but there was something glaringly absent. Despite the
Speaker 2: bodies having been discovered ten days previously, there was still
Speaker 2: no hint of an explanation from the authorities as to
Speaker 2: just how exactly the students had died. What could possibly
Speaker 2: have driven nine experienced and strong hikers from the shelter
Speaker 2: and warmth of their tent to meet their deaths amidst
Speaker 2: the driving snow and sub sero temperatures outside and lest
Speaker 2: it be forgotten, there were still four people unaccounted for.
Speaker 2: The day after Georgi's funeral, friends and family gathered together
Speaker 2: at the Krivonishenko home for Giorgi's wake. It was, of
Speaker 2: course a somber affair, but one also unsurprisingly dominated with
Speaker 2: the mystery of his death. Despite the secrecy of the
Speaker 2: police investigation, due to the large number of volunteers involved,
Speaker 2: rumours had inevitably begun to circulate. Time and again, attention
Speaker 2: seemed to turn to the mysterious lights and orbs witnessed
Speaker 2: in the surrounding area. But Georgi's father, Alexei had grown
Speaker 2: weary of such talk, deeming it irrelevant since the lights
Speaker 2: had been seen two weeks after the students were thought
Speaker 2: to have died, and so it was with little patience
Speaker 2: that he received two more students that night, eager to
Speaker 2: share their story of strange lights spotted in the night sky.
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear it, said Alexei. But no,
Speaker 2: they said, you don't understand. We saw the lights on
Speaker 2: February the first, the same night that Tdyatlov's team left
Speaker 2: their tent. The two students had been part of another
Speaker 2: team led by Upi teacher Anatoly Shumkov. The team had
Speaker 2: been climbing Kisstop Mountain, roughly twenty five miles to the
Speaker 2: south of where Dyatlov's team had camped on kolat Siakle
Speaker 2: when they saw it. With the mercury dropping to as
Speaker 2: low as minus thirty degrees centigrade, the team were just
Speaker 2: about to begin their descent when there was a sudden
Speaker 2: flash of silver in the sky, followed by a white
Speaker 2: spark that was seen flying upwards from the Otautan Valley.
Speaker 2: Moments later, an eerie sound of thunder rumbled across the mountain.
Speaker 2: As Schumkov later recounted, this thing flew silently and slowly
Speaker 2: from the south to the north over the ridge of
Speaker 2: the Urals. It was glowing quite brightly the way it
Speaker 2: illuminated the hovering clouds at the height of two point
Speaker 2: five to three kilometers, it was very strange. For Alexei
Speaker 2: and many others, it was hard to resist the increasingly
Speaker 2: popular theory that the students had unwittingly strayed into the
Speaker 2: path of some kind of secret weapons test. In nineteen
Speaker 2: forty five, unbeknownst to most of the planet, a new
Speaker 2: world was about to emerge. It began at five twenty
Speaker 2: nine a m. On July sixteenth, with the detonation of
Speaker 2: a bomb in the middle of the Hornada del Muerto
Speaker 2: Desert in New Mexico. The bomb was named Trinity, and
Speaker 2: its subsequent explosion marked the first successful deployment of the
Speaker 2: atomic bomb. Later that year, the atomic age would formally
Speaker 2: announce itself in a mushroom cloud of death and destruction
Speaker 2: when Little Boy and Fat Man were detonated over the
Speaker 2: Japanese towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs would go
Speaker 2: some way to ushering an end to the largest scale
Speaker 2: global conflict the human race had ever known, but it
Speaker 2: would also mark the beginning of a seemingly endless arms
Speaker 2: rate that to this day continues to haunt every militant
Speaker 2: aspect of major foreign diplomacy. For Stalin's government in the USSR,
Speaker 2: the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made it clear just
Speaker 2: how far they lagged behind the military might and ingenuity
Speaker 2: of the United States. What followed was an intense and
Speaker 2: accelerated program of nuclear development, but also an intense culture
Speaker 2: of military secrecy in competition with the US, fueled by
Speaker 2: the mutual distrust of each other's ideologies. It was a
Speaker 2: program that, in its eagerness to establish itself, would result
Speaker 2: in a number of catastrophic nuclear disasters, such as the
Speaker 2: Kishtim disaster that Georgi, only two years previously, had helped
Speaker 2: to clean up. Could it be that the students had
Speaker 2: found themselves pitching their tent under a secret weapons testing zone.
Speaker 2: It was a theory making increasing sense to those who
Speaker 2: had little information to go on. However, for lead investigator
Speaker 2: lev Ivanov, who was in full possession of all available evidence,
Speaker 2: what puzzled him the most was that although the multiple
Speaker 2: sightings of strange lights may have been consistent with ballistic weapons,
Speaker 2: the injuries to the bodies weren't. It's possible, of course,
Speaker 2: that the sound of such weapons detonating nearby might have
Speaker 2: caused the team to flee the tent in a panic.
Speaker 2: But might the strange lights have been something else entirely,
Speaker 2: something perhaps a little more other worldly. Nikolay Animov was
Speaker 2: a local Mancy tribesman who had been part of the
Speaker 2: team that first examined the hiker's tent. Like everyone else,
Speaker 2: he had been deeply troubled by the student's disappearance, but
Speaker 2: the real fear he harbored would remain unspoken. That was
Speaker 2: until the first mention of the orbs in the sky.
Speaker 2: For the Mansi. All around the region where the bodies
Speaker 2: were discovered, they talk of gateways to another world. Perhaps
Speaker 2: the students had upset the spirits and this was their revenge,
Speaker 2: he thought. It is said that somewhere deep in the
Speaker 2: URLs lies a sacred daethic idol known as Zolataire Barber
Speaker 2: or the Golden Woman. Made entirely from gold. It is
Speaker 2: thought to have been hidden somewhere deep in the forest,
Speaker 2: perhaps in a cave, surrounded by other worldly treasures. In
Speaker 2: ancient times, soldiers dressed in scarlet robes would fiercely guard
Speaker 2: the path to the idol, and no one else had
Speaker 2: the right to see her or go anywhere near the cave.
Speaker 2: The origins of the idol are shrouded in mystery. Some
Speaker 2: believe it to have been to the region by ob
Speaker 2: Ugrian warriors as far back as the fifth century. The
Speaker 2: ob Ugrians were ancestors of the Mansi, who, alongside Alaric,
Speaker 2: the king of the Visigoths, conquered Rome in four hundred
Speaker 2: and ten. Some say that after their victory the ob
Speaker 2: Ugrians forged the sacred idol, then carried it back to
Speaker 2: their lands to be worshiped as a goddess, though some
Speaker 2: others believe it may have originated from as far away
Speaker 2: as India or even Sumaria. There is further dispute as
Speaker 2: to just which god exactly was thought to be embodied
Speaker 2: by the idol, with some linking it to the Mansi
Speaker 2: goddess chores nigh Anki, known as the mother of celestial
Speaker 2: fire and everything living, with others believing it instead to
Speaker 2: be the goddess caltesh Anki, or Mother Earth. Caltesh Anki
Speaker 2: is the wife of Numiturum, the the ultimate supreme being,
Speaker 2: and is known to be responsible for the length of
Speaker 2: human lives. Once kaltesh Anki asked Numuturum to strengthen the
Speaker 2: earth with an iron belt, and he answered the request
Speaker 2: by creating the Ural mountains. In nineteen o four, the
Speaker 2: explorer Konstantin Nossilov wrote of meeting an old man on
Speaker 2: his travels named Sava. The man claimed to have been
Speaker 2: blinded after mistakenly coming across the golden idol, whom he
Speaker 2: maintained appeared to him as an ordinary naked woman sitting
Speaker 2: down holding a golden plate in her hands. Some say
Speaker 2: the Golden Woman isn't golden at all, but is in
Speaker 2: fact luminous, as if made purely from light. Had the
Speaker 2: hikers stumbled into this sacred land and been mercilessly punished
Speaker 2: as a result, it might account for the strange lights perhaps,
Speaker 2: but not such an experienced team would be drawn out
Speaker 2: from the safety of their camp into the freezing wild
Speaker 2: of the exposed mountain. But for this Nikolai had another theory.
Speaker 2: It is said that caltesh Anki, worried about how she
Speaker 2: might defend herself from enemies, asked Numiturum to find a
Speaker 2: way to protect her. In return, he created the Menvi,
Speaker 2: a race of monstrous creatures sometimes described as werewolves, but
Speaker 2: other times just as giants. It is said that these
Speaker 2: Menvi or menk also known as Compolan, continue to guard
Speaker 2: the Golden Woman to this day. Nancy author Olga Koshmanova
Speaker 2: has spent over thirty years collecting evidence of the Compolan.
Speaker 2: She believes that many of the Manci culture's rules were
Speaker 2: formed due to their contact with these terrifying creatures, such
Speaker 2: as its being forbidden to break wood when it wasn't needed,
Speaker 2: or the need to be silent when in the forest,
Speaker 2: and it being especially forbidden to sing loud songs or
Speaker 2: spoil the forest, and when in the woods at night,
Speaker 2: one must always keep the fire burning. Writing in a
Speaker 2: book titled A Look from Behind, a reference to the
Speaker 2: strange sensation a person feels when they unknowingly step into
Speaker 2: the territory of the compollin, Olga writes at that fateful
Speaker 2: night of February nineteen fifty nine, however, she is not
Speaker 2: writing about the diattle of team, but a night when
Speaker 2: she claims to have come into contact with a compollent.
Speaker 2: Koshmanova also writes that once travelers have entered the forbidden territory,
Speaker 2: they begin to hear things strange, terrifying noises, like whistling
Speaker 2: or the thumping of feet. The sound reverberates so as
Speaker 2: to cause a visceral reaction that induces terror and nausea.
Speaker 2: Had the team been scared from the tent perhaps by
Speaker 2: such a sound, could it have been a compolan that
Speaker 2: smashed rustic skull and battered Zena to the ground. It
Speaker 2: certainly wouldn't be the first time a compolan had been
Speaker 2: held responsible for murder. Koshmanovna cites at least two incidences
Speaker 2: where the forest giant had been held accountable, once in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six in the village of Shamya, a child
Speaker 2: had been ripped to shreds with his head put on
Speaker 2: a stake, and another time where a woman had been
Speaker 2: found with her jaw ripped completely off.
Speaker 1: But with the.
Speaker 2: Whereabouts of four of the students still unknown, and without
Speaker 2: all the bodies to examine, it would be impossible to
Speaker 2: formulate a comprehensive theory of just what had taken place.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for the search teams, the weather was about to
Speaker 2: take a severe turn for the worst. Many of the searches,
Speaker 2: saddened by the discovery of the first five bodies, had
Speaker 2: become exhausted and demoralized. Maslenikov, who had been leading the
Speaker 2: search team on the ground, requested that the search be suspended,
Speaker 2: but the commission refused to call it off, deciding instead
Speaker 2: that a new team was needed. Maslenikov would at first
Speaker 2: be replaced by Abram Kikoyn and then later by Colonel
Speaker 2: Georgi Ortyakov. The search for the missing bodies would continue
Speaker 2: to little avail, but something remarkable was about to come
Speaker 2: to light, something that had been hidden in plain sight.
Speaker 2: It was Templov, the original investigator, who noticed it first,
Speaker 2: something about the rips at the back of the team's
Speaker 2: tent that hadn't seemed consistent with wear and tear or
Speaker 2: weather damage, But it wasn't until weeks later that his
Speaker 2: concerns would be taken into consideration thanks to the eagle
Speaker 2: eye of a seamstress. After Boris Slobsov had discovered the tent,
Speaker 2: it had been gathered up and taken, along with the
Speaker 2: items at the camp, to the Evedell Department of Internal
Speaker 2: Affairs for further examination. Vladimir Koyatiev, a young investigator on
Speaker 2: the case, was having his uniform mended when the seamstress
Speaker 2: took one look at the tent and concluded also that
Speaker 2: the ribs were not rips at all, but rather cut
Speaker 2: made deliberately by something very sharp. It was clear to
Speaker 2: her that someone or something had cut open the tent
Speaker 2: on the night that the students died. The tent was
Speaker 2: immediately taken to Sperdlovsk Forensic Lab for closer inspection by
Speaker 2: senior forensic expert Henrietta Churkeina. If the cuts had indeed
Speaker 2: been made, it would add fuel to the burgeoning theory
Speaker 2: that the team had most likely been attacked by someone
Speaker 2: or something in the middle of the night and chased
Speaker 2: from the tent, left to die in the snow. It
Speaker 2: didn't take Churkeina very long to reach her conclusion. The
Speaker 2: cuts had indeed been made by a sharp object, but
Speaker 2: they hadn't been made from outside the tent. They had
Speaker 2: come from the inside. The revelation did little to help
Speaker 2: uncover the mystery of what led the team to their deaths,
Speaker 2: but what was clear was that whatever had caused such
Speaker 2: a panic that an experienced team would rip open their
Speaker 2: own tent just to be able to escape into minus
Speaker 2: twenty degree temperatures must have been utterly terrifying. It was
Speaker 2: further evidence that the students were forced from their tent,
Speaker 2: whether by a perceived fear or by something with agency.
Speaker 2: And then a further discovery comes to light. When investigators
Speaker 2: examined the team's belongings, they came across the three expedition
Speaker 2: cameras of Eager, Rustic, and Georgy. When the photos were developed,
Speaker 2: there seemed nothing untoward at first. The photos eighty eight
Speaker 2: in all, taken over the nine day period reveal a
Speaker 2: touching account of the team's journey, culminating in some final
Speaker 2: shots that are believed to show the team setting up
Speaker 2: camp on their final fateful day. And then there was
Speaker 2: the final exposure on Georgy's camera. As the photographic paper
Speaker 2: swished around in the developing tray, a strange image was
Speaker 2: beginning to emerge. The whole frame seemed to be in darkness,
Speaker 2: as if taken at night, but in the top left
Speaker 2: hand corner a trail of light seems to be descending
Speaker 2: from the sky. The discovery of the photograph has Ivanov
Speaker 2: turning once again to the reports of mysterious lights. But
Speaker 2: then suddenly everything changed. One morning in mid March, Ivanov
Speaker 2: announced to his team that he would be leaving for Moscow,
Speaker 2: without giving any further information, Ivanov packed up his things
Speaker 2: and left. When he returned a few days later, it
Speaker 2: was as if he had been replaced by a completely
Speaker 2: different person. Gone was any talk of the orbs or
Speaker 2: strange lights in the sky. In April, Valdoslav Karelen was
Speaker 2: called back in for questioning, at which point he was
Speaker 2: advised by Ivanov to hold his tongue on any theories
Speaker 2: relating to the mysterious lights. It has been over two
Speaker 2: months since the last body was discovered. When on May
Speaker 2: the third, Nancy tribesmen Stepan Kurikov is searching an area
Speaker 2: not far from where Yuri and Georgi's bodies were found
Speaker 2: when he once again spots something irregular. Some branches of
Speaker 2: a tree seem to have been removed with a knife.
Speaker 2: Newly appointed search leader, Colonel Georgi Utiakov, orders a team
Speaker 2: of men to search the area immediately. As they probe
Speaker 2: with their avalanche poles, one of the team hits something.
Speaker 2: When he removes the pole, there is a piece of
Speaker 2: clothing attached to it. It must have come from at
Speaker 2: least six feet below the surface. Urgently, the men begin
Speaker 2: to dig, one after the other. The shovels come down
Speaker 2: onto the snow above what is later revealed to be
Speaker 2: a creek bed. Eventually they will carve out a block
Speaker 2: of over eight feet in depth, covering an area of
Speaker 2: one hundred square feet, But by the end of the
Speaker 2: first day, the team find only more clothing, including bizarrely,
Speaker 2: one solitary trouser leg. The following day, May the fourth,
Speaker 2: the search team have made it down to the slushy
Speaker 2: ice and water of the creek, when they discover more
Speaker 2: shredded clothing, including another trouser leg and half a brown
Speaker 2: woolen sweater. And then they find something a little harder.
Speaker 2: It is another body lying face down in the water.
Speaker 2: A short time later and three other bodies have been discovered.
Speaker 2: Two of them are found huddled together in an embrace,
Speaker 2: no doubt a last desperate attempt of survival. The decomposition
Speaker 2: of the bodies is so much that only Leuda can
Speaker 2: be identified at this stage. With the bodies wrapped in
Speaker 2: tarpaulin to preserve any further decay, leave even is on
Speaker 2: the scene the following morning. It is clear from the
Speaker 2: state of the corpses that time is fast running out
Speaker 2: for any hope of a meaningful autopsy, but Ivanov is
Speaker 2: stunned when the chopper arrives to take them away, only
Speaker 2: for the pilot to refuse the use of his helicopter.
Speaker 2: It would seem that, despite the Investigative Commission's best efforts
Speaker 2: to quash some of the more fanciful rumors surrounding the case,
Speaker 2: an idea, once born, is not so easy to destroy,
Speaker 2: and what pilot Captain Gatesenko is most concerned about is
Speaker 2: radioactive contamination. The pilot eventually agrees to take the bodies,
Speaker 2: but only when Ivanov has them placed in four zink
Speaker 2: lined coffins that take days to arrive. It isn't until
Speaker 2: May the eighth that the bodies are finally lifted from
Speaker 2: the mountain and flown to Eve del Morge for the autopsy.
Speaker 2: When the bodies had finally thawed out, pathologist Boris voz
Speaker 2: Rosdeni was once again summoned to perform the somber task
Speaker 2: of first identifying each victim and then the cause of
Speaker 2: their death. Despite the many rumors surrounding the case, even
Speaker 2: taking into account the suspicious fracture of Rustic's skull, foz
Speaker 2: Rosdeni was very much of the opinion that the students,
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, had succumbed through simple hypothermia. But what
Speaker 2: he uncovers next will change everything. Voz Rosdeny hovers over
Speaker 2: the first body, one of the two found in an embrace.
Speaker 2: He will later be identified as twenty four year old
Speaker 2: Alexander Kolovatov. He notes the now familiar lack of adequate footwear,
Speaker 2: but otherwise the amount of clothing appears normal. There is
Speaker 2: a bandage on the ankle, presumably from an injury received
Speaker 2: prior to the trip. There is a small open wound
Speaker 2: behind the ear, which voz Rosdeni deems insignificant, being most
Speaker 2: likely merely a result of exposure to the elements. He
Speaker 2: returns by now the usual verdict death by hypothermia. Expecting
Speaker 2: more of the same, he turns its attention to the
Speaker 2: second body. It is clear from the tattoos alone that
Speaker 2: this is the body of thirty seven year old Sasha
Speaker 2: solitariof At first, voz Rosdini finds much of the same. Again,
Speaker 2: there are no shoes, and the general decay and superficial
Speaker 2: injuries are consistent with a struggle for survival. But when
Speaker 2: vos Rosdieni moves his attention to the chest region, he
Speaker 2: finds something completely unexpected. Five of Sasha's ribs on his
Speaker 2: right side have been fractured, causing severe in eternal bleeding.
Speaker 2: It would take some four to fracture five ribs, and clearly,
Speaker 2: from the nature of the bleeding it had occurred when
Speaker 2: Sasha was still alive. The pathologist concludes that it was
Speaker 2: clearly caused by some kind of large force Turning his
Speaker 2: attention now to twenty three year old Collier Thibeau Brignols,
Speaker 2: Vosrojsdini is shocked to find injuries similar to those sustained
Speaker 2: by Sasha, only this time it is to his head.
Speaker 2: Vos Rojsdini concludes that Collier had died after sustaining a
Speaker 2: catastrophic fracture to the right side of his skull, followed
Speaker 2: by bleeding, again the result of a large force, and
Speaker 2: the worst was yet to come. Liuda's body had been
Speaker 2: found on her knees, leant against a small drop in
Speaker 2: the ravine, with her face pressed to the rocks and
Speaker 2: her clothes soaked through with water from the stream. Wrapped
Speaker 2: around her left foot was the other half of the
Speaker 2: brown sweater, a last ditch effort to stave off frostbite.
Speaker 2: Now lying in the morgue, voz Rosdeny can clearly see
Speaker 2: the telltale signs of a severe trauma to her chest
Speaker 2: that had resulted in nine fractured ribs and massive hemorrhaging
Speaker 2: in the right ventricle of her heart, And when he
Speaker 2: examined inside the mouth, voz Rosdeny drew back in alarm.
Speaker 2: Her tongue was completely missing. And then there are a
Speaker 2: number of curious findings from the site of where the
Speaker 2: bodies are discovered. They seemed to have been located in
Speaker 2: a makeshift den, complete with a blanket of branches laid
Speaker 2: out on the floor to provide some protection from the cold.
Speaker 2: Had they, in fact, drawing on Sasha's military survival skills,
Speaker 2: managed to stabilize the situation before succumbing to injuries sustained
Speaker 2: some time later. And what were they to make of
Speaker 2: the camera found around Sasha's neck? For a start, according
Speaker 2: to Yuri Yudin, the students only had three cameras between them,
Speaker 2: all of which had already been recovered. But perhaps more pertinently,
Speaker 2: what could possibly have provoked Sasha, in the panic of
Speaker 2: leaving the tent to remember to take his camera, Or
Speaker 2: had he, in fact, as some believe, already been standing
Speaker 2: outside the tent trying to capture something before the chaos.
Speaker 2: Whatever it was, we will never know, since the film
Speaker 2: was too damaged to be processed. Two weeks later, the
Speaker 2: families of Liuda, Sasha, Alexander, and Collia gathered together on
Speaker 2: May twenty second at the Sperdlovsk Military Hospital to watch
Speaker 2: their children being finally laid to rest. There would be
Speaker 2: no repeat of the public procession given to the other students,
Speaker 2: and only the family were granted permission to attend. For
Speaker 2: lead investigator lev Ivanov, the recent autopsies had only succeeded
Speaker 2: in generating yet more questions when he and all the
Speaker 2: families of the deceased needed answers. Despite pressure from above
Speaker 2: to bring the case to a swift and uncontroversial resolution,
Speaker 2: the revelation of Liuda, Collier and Sasha's injuries could not
Speaker 2: be ignored. To that end. With his superiors breathing down
Speaker 2: his neck, he would try one last thing. Just prior
Speaker 2: to the funerals. Ivanov had organs and items of clothing
Speaker 2: sent off to be examined for any sign of radiation,
Speaker 2: but it would be too late before he could receive
Speaker 2: the results. Ivanov was ordered to shut the case down immediately,
Speaker 2: and so it was on Thursday May twenty eighth, nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine, that the case of the mysterious death in
Speaker 2: the Ural Mountains of nine hikers, led by student Igor Dyatlov,
Speaker 2: was brought to an abrupt and inconclusive end. For iven Off,
Speaker 2: it was a bitter and frustrating conclusion to a case
Speaker 2: that would haunt him and everyone else involved in it
Speaker 2: for the rest of their lives. For the families of
Speaker 2: the victims, it was a cruel and brutal end, which was,
Speaker 2: of course no kind of end at all. To this day,
Speaker 2: families of the victims continued to seek the truth about
Speaker 2: what exactly had taken place. Yuri Kansavich, who as a
Speaker 2: twelve year old boy had watched the funeral procession from
Speaker 2: his parents apartment window, would later go on to establish
Speaker 2: the Dyatlov Foundation, dedicating his life to helping the families
Speaker 2: unravel the mystery and to hopefully, one day uncover the truth.
Speaker 2: The day after the case is closed and exhausted, Ivanoff
Speaker 2: arrives at his office to find the results of the
Speaker 2: toxicology test waiting for him on his desk. The report
Speaker 2: concludes that not only as some form of radioactive substance
Speaker 2: contaminated the clothes, but the level of contamination far exceeds
Speaker 2: anything they could ever have thought possible. The report will
Speaker 2: remain classified for the next thirty years, along with a
Speaker 2: raft of other materials collected by Ivanov, including one report
Speaker 2: he had been expressly urged to suppress. It was compiled
Speaker 2: after Ivanov's final trip to colat Seacle Mountain. The investigator
Speaker 2: had just finished inspecting the site where the last four
Speaker 2: bodies were discovered when he found himself staring at a
Speaker 2: line of pine trees on the edge of the forest.
Speaker 2: Something about them seemed off, and then he saw it,
Speaker 2: a series of burnmarks with no concentric form and no epicenter,
Speaker 2: such as one might expect from a ballistic explosion. For
Speaker 2: a moment, he wondered if they could have been made
Speaker 2: as a result of the fire hastily built by Georgi
Speaker 2: and Yurie. But then he realizes whatever had made the
Speaker 2: burnmarks had not come from the ground, It had come
Speaker 2: from the sky. Thank you, as ever for listening.
Speaker 1: Unexplained as an Avy Club production podcast created by Richard McLain.
Speaker 1: All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are
Speaker 1: also produced by me Richard McLain Smith Unexplained. The book
Speaker 1: and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can
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Speaker 1: Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get
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