The Deaths of Dyatlov Pass Still A Mystery
By: Meghan Gause
Tags: Life Lessons, Life, History, Death, Russia

The Deaths of Dyatlov Pass Still A Mystery

In 1959, nine Russian hikers were found dead in the snow; one of them missing his eyes and tongue

Photo of the victims (taken off BBC article)

The tent was cut from inside, and their bodies were found barely clothed, bruised, mutilated, and frozen.

Tired and exhausted, we started to prepare for the night. Not enough firewood. Frail, damp spruce. We made a fire on logs, reluctant to dig a hole. Dinner right in the tent. It’s warm. – journal entry –

Kholat Syakhl, which translates to “Dead Mountain” in Mansi (the local mountain people,) Is a mountain in the northern Ural region of Russia.

A team of nine Russian hikers, who were an experienced trekking group, started their journey to the mountain.

Igor Dyatlov was a 23-year-old radio engineering student at the Ural Polytechnical Institute. He gathered a team of nine students to embark on an adventure that would turn out to be one of Russia’s greatest conspiracies.

The team of nine:

Igor Dyatlov (age-23)

Yuri Nikolayevich Doroshenko (age-21)

Lyudmila Alexandrovna Dubinina (age-20)

Georgiy (Yuri)Alexeyevich Krivonischenko (age-23)

Alexander Sergeyevich Kolevatov (age-24)

Zinaida Alekseevna Kolmogorova (age-22)

Rustem Vladimirovich Slobodin (age-23)

Nikolai Vladimirovich Thibeaux-Brignolles (age-23)

Semyon (Alexander)Alekseevich Zolotaryov (age-38)

Yuri Yefimovich Yudin (Left expedition on 28 January due to ailment; died the 27th of April 2013 at the age of 75)

The journey

The group arrived by train at Ivdel, which is a city inside of the northern province of Sverdlovsk Oblast, early morning, January 25th, 1959.

They then took a truck to a nearby city (Vizhai)to rest and gather their energy for their upcoming hike. Upon leaving the city, they landed at the base of their trek, where Yuri Yefimovich Yudin, would soon feel ill and have to abandon the trip.

The first couple of days, they sang and rejoiced, made campsites with lavish fires, meat, and other pleasantries. Judging by their journal entries, they were a group of friends who loved to hike and clearly expressed their expertise in the field.

They wanted to start their climb, so they moved through the pass. ultimately, they lost their location due to intense weather, and decided to make camp in an open area instead.

If they had trekked back down to the base, there would have been a wooded area that would have provided some decent shelter.

The death

That shelter on the hill would prove to be their last night alive.

The team told their families to expect a telegram by the 12th of their arrival back to Vizhai. When it reached the 20th, they decided to start a search.

Upon finding the camp, they noticed nearly all of their belongings were left behind. The tend was ripped open from the inside, and nine sets of footprints set off into the dark unknown.

The bodies

The first two men (Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, ) were found huddled together, in socks and underwear, bruised and bunched. It looked as though they tried to start a small fire.

The next three bodies, (Dyatlov, Kolmogorova, and Slobodin, ) were found over 1,000ft away from the first two, in crawling positions.

The other four, (Dubinina, Zolotaryov, Aleksander Kolevatov, ) were found two months later. With sever skull injuries and chest trauma equivalent to getting hit by a car. One was missing their eyes, one missing their tongue.)

High levels of radiation were found on one victim’s clothing.

Contradictory results were obtained: one of the experts stated that the character of the injuries resembled a person knocked down by a car, and the DNA analysis did not reveal any similarity to the DNA of living relatives. In addition, it turned out that the name Semyon Zolotarev was not on the list of buried at the Ivanovskoye cemetery.

The conspiracies

They reopened the investigation in 2019, yet multiple skeptics and sources say it’s still so unexplainable. Over 100 treks have accrued in the same area to date, and none have reported anything odd.

Some conspiracies include:

Avalanche

Mansi people

Yeti

The military

Natural causes

Aliens

Animals

Domestic dispute

The journal walkthrough

Diaries and cameras found around their last campsite made it possible to track the group’s route up to the day preceding the incident.

Online, they have an interactive journey of the hikers. It starts from day one, and up to their unfortunate deaths.

On the site, ruptly.Tv, you can walkthrough the Russian hiker’s voyage while viewing their diary entries, photographs, and testimonies, and conspiracy theories from the locals.

At the end of the sites interactive journey, it allows you to select which theory of death you support, or you can add your own.

I chose the Mansi people.