Mountain of the Dead (13 page)

One much less plausible theory, and a very shaky one at that, which attempts to explain the lack of footprints around the area of the tent and tree line, is that a helicopter hovered close to the tent and ordered members of the group to get in. Possibly part of the group were told to get into the helicopter while the others ran for safety to the tree line. After interrogation, these first three were pushed out of the helicopter into the snow while the helicopter went after the rest of the group at the edge of the forest. Both Krivonischenko and Doroshenko died of hypothermia after trying to build a fire. Kolevatov may have run into the ravine to try and build a good shelter but did not succeed and died. The remaining members of the group (Zolotarev, Dubinina and Thibeaux-Brignolle) were possibly picked up by the helicopter and interrogated. They were then dropped to their deaths from a height, which would explain the massive internal injuries they received , although there were no external marks to account for them.

Whilst this scenario is a physical possibility and explains the lack of other footprints besides the group’s footprints, it fails to explain any reason or motive as to why a military helicopter should pick up members of the Dyatlov group and interrogate them before throwing them to their deaths. It is possible that there was something that the military did not want anyone to see, but even given a state as brutal as the Soviet Union could be at that time, it still seems far-fetched that a party of reasonably well-connected university students should all be murdered to ensure their silence. The group were known to be in the area and were making their trip in honour of the 21st Communist Party Congress in Moscow, so any serious mistreatment of them would be bound to draw attention.

Against these arguments of murder by Soviet special forces, however, is the political theory outlined in Chapter 7.

One theory as to why they left the tent in such a panic is that the stove they were using for cooking caused some kind of a flashfire, which shot right through the tent and alarmed everyone so much that they slashed their way out of the side of the tent, as the stove may have been in the way of their exiting from the front.

Although a flashfire may have been a shock to everyone inside the tent and in their panic they slashed their way out, it would not be expected for the group to have gone so far away from the tent (initially nearly 1 mile (1.6km)), especially in deep snow that would have made the going hard for them. Flashfires are literally just that: over in a flash.

However, the most significant piece of evidence with regard to this theory is that the home-made stove, which was built by Igor Dyatlov, was found to be in the stowed position when the tent was discovered by the search parties. Having said this, the group were estimated to have had their meal not long before they exited the tent, so possibly something in the nature of a flashfire may actually have occurred. Despite the appalling way that the search parties gathered everything up into a jumble, with no attempt to preserve the initial scene as they had found it, there was no mention by anybody or in any part of the written investigation of the appearance of burn or scorch marks on the tent.

Neither does the behaviour of the group after they left the tent support the theory of a flashfire. After having gone down to the tree line, they appeared to have stayed there for some time. It was deduced that at least Krivonischenko and Doroshenko (the first two bodies found) had been climbing the cedar tree to break branches off to burn, but it is also believed that they may have been looking at the tent from the higher part of the cedar tree. By the time they had reached the tree line, any fire would have been long over at the tent and it would have been expected that they would immediately try to make their way back. Whatever had scared them enough to run away from the tent, and stay away from it, must have been far worse than a flashfire.

A variation on the flashfire inside the tent is that, possibly, once the evening meal had been finished and the group settled down to sleep, at some point the stove may have become blocked, and thick choking smoke may have filled the tent rapidly, causing them to slash at the sides of the tent to be able to breathe and also let the smoke escape. Once the group were outside the tent an argument may have broken out as to who was responsible for the blockage being caused, which may have developed into a physical fight with the group splitting into two camps. This would help to explain why the two parties were separate from each other when the search parties discovered the bodies. It does not explain though, as with the flashfire theory, why they were so far from the tent and why they stayed away so long, with a minimum of clothing and footwear. Finally, notwithstanding the burn injuries (caused by the fire at the cedar tree to Doroschenko and Krivonischenko, none of the other injuries are those which would be as a result of a flashfire.

One of the oddest facets of the whole investigation is the presence of radiation on the bodies and some clothes. A theory has been put forward by Alexey Rakitin to explain the presence of radiation. He believes that Semyon Zolotarev, Alexander Kolevatov and George Krivonischenko were undercover KGB agents who, acting as ski tourists, were to meet with foreign intelligence agents on the route they were taking. These foreign agents were also to appear under the cover of another tourist group and, once they met up, they were to perform a ‘controlled transfer’ of radioactive clothes (a transfer of fake samples of radioactive materials in the form of items of clothing contaminated with radioactive dust that was intended to mislead the foreign agents). Rakitin believes that the spies somehow discovered the group’s connections to the KGB, or possibly the ‘outsider’ group made a mistake themselves (gave themselves away by wrong use of a Russian idiom, lack of knowledge of a fact in common knowledge in the USSR, etc). The foreign agents decided to eliminate the evidence and made the tourists undress and leave the tent, using the threat of firearms but without shooting them, so that their deaths would look natural from cold. Rustem Slobodin tried to resist the attackers, he was beaten hard but could walk. As the group was moving away from the tent, he lost consciousness. His absence was noticed after some time and Igor Dyatlov went to look for Slobodin. After he too failed to return, Zina Kolmogorova went to search for them. Eventually all three died of hypothermia. A fire was lit by the surviving members of the group so that the others could find their way back more easily. The foreign agents near the tent saw the fire and that the tourists had somehow managed to organise themselves enough to survive, and it was decided to kill them. By that time the survivors had dispersed, and, as each one was found, the agents used torture and close combat methods to get them to admit to their KGB involvement. They were then liquidated. This accounted for the serious injuries, the missing tongue of Luda Dubinina and the missing eyeballs of others. Also this use of violence would account for the grey foam discharge from Yury Doroshenko’s mouth being caused by something or someone pressing on his chest cavity.

The bodies of the four tourists discovered later in May had been pushed down into the gully in order to make their discovery difficult. The spies searched the tent and the dead bodies and took away any cameras that may have been used to photograph them (the spies) but left others. They also took the tourists’ notes made before their deaths. A slight variation on this theory is that when Krivonischenko was arrested by the police for singing at Serov railway station, this was just a ruse for the KGB to pass the radioactive contaminated clothes to him for the transfer to the foreign agents later on in the mountains. Krivonischenko, of course, had a link to nuclear materials when he worked at the closed city, Chelyabinsk-40, and was involved in the clean-up after the nuclear accident there.

It is also considered odd by most observers that Lev Ivanov, the chief investigator, used a Geiger counter at the scene, as no explanation was given for its use. Another possible explanation for the presence of radiation in the bodies and on some clothes is that the group used a thorium gas mantle lamp. thorium is radioactive and produces a radioactive gas, Radon-220, as one of its decay products. Particles from the ‘fallout’ of a thorium gas mantle lamp occur over a period of time and can be inhaled as well as ingested with food or drink. However, a 1981 study found that by using a gas thorium mantle every weekend for a year a person would be exposed to approximately 0.3–0.6mrem, which is a tiny amount.

Another theory that may have some credence is the possibility of a fight breaking out between two or more of the party. The autopsies showed that Igor Dyatlov and Rustem Slobodin had hand injuries that are common in fights using fists. The possibility is that a fight had broken out in the tent and spilled outside, but it does not adequately explain why the tent was slashed and – had knives been available – why they were not used in the fight. It seems strange that knives would have been used to slash a way out of the tent but then been discarded. Another variation is that a furious argument had broken out within the tent and that the slashing had been done in a fury, with the antagonists going some distance away from the tent to settle their dispute. Equally, another possible variation is that the argument had broken out within the tent with the whole group getting involved and separating into two factions, with possibly George Krivonischenko and Yury Doroshenko leaving the tent in a fury and saying they would make their own camp at the tree line. Realising the folly of this, by going out into the extreme cold without adequate protection, the others may have gone to find them, then almost immediately become lost and disoriented, eventually all of them succumbing to the extreme conditions.

There were two known possibilities of the potential to cause a fight. The first was the male attention towards Zina Kolmogorova. The three males who were involved were Igor Dyatlov, Yury Doroshenko and Semyon Zolotarev. Igor Dyatlov was considered to be her current love interest at the time. At some point on the evening of 1 February, while they were getting ready to bed down for the night, possibly either Zolotarev or Doroshenko may have made some kind of pass at Zina Kolmogorova which enraged Dyatlov and started an immediate fight. As has already been mentioned, Zolotarev had fought in the military during the Second World War and, in addition, his record book from the Minsk Institute of Physical Education showed that he had been trained in unarmed combat, so he would have been quite capable of using physical force if the occasion arose.

The second possibility to have the potential to cause a fight was the antagonism displayed by George Krivonischenko, who had an explosive temper. After being asked to sleep by the stove, his outburst on the night of 28/29 January would certainly have caused at least some members of the group to be wary of him. The tone and demeanour of the group was subdued on the day following his outburst, showing that his behaviour had some effect.

Whilst there is a certain plausibility to these possibilities, it seems hard to believe that the remaining members of the group would have ventured into the darkness without adequate protection and without due care and attention to where they were going so that they could find their way back to the safety of the tent. By this point the tent had been badly damaged but it was not beyond their capabilities to cover the damage. Equally, the shock of having a serious fight break out, along with the serious damage to their dwelling, may have made them far less rational and less aware to the danger they were all in by exposing themselves to the elements in the manner they did. It does go some way, however, to explaining why there were two groups apart from each other with perhaps one group favouring Zina Kolmogorova and Igor Dyatlov, and the other group favouring the rival, who may have been Zolotarev. Yet this scenario does not account for the massive internal injuries suffered by Luda Dubinina, Semyon Zolotarev and Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolle. In addition to the injuries on these three, it is believed that someone or something had been pressing on the chest cavity of Yury Doroshenko. The question also has to be asked would Luda Dubinina have been attacked so violently in a fight between males over another female?

It was said that alcohol had been present in the tent. This is totally denied by Yury Yudin, the surviving member of the group, who says that they had no alcohol. He knows this as, being the group medic, he had wanted some for medical purposes early on in the trip. He also mentioned to Zina Kolmogorova when he left that there was no alcohol, as she took over his position as group medic when he turned back. Yury Yudin did say in 2012 that there was a possibility that Krivonischenko may have had a canister of alcohol in his backpack; he would have been better placed to get it from contacts in the closed city where he had worked as it was more readily available there. Yudin was only referring to ethyl alcohol, not vodka. Ethyl alcohol was very difficult to get hold of at the time but, as he said, it may have been in Krivonischenko’s backpack. Yet there is no evidence to suggest that any alcohol was consumed, or consumed in such a quantity to have either caused a fight to break out or cause members of the group to throw caution to the wind and make their way out of the tent completely unprepared for the elements.

The greatest threat to the group from wild animals would have come from bears and packs of wolves. There are different groups of Russian bears, with some closely related to North American bears, some being the same size as their grizzly cousins in the USA. The most widespread form of brown bear in Eurasia is the ‘common’ brown bear (
ursus arctos arctos
); these bears are regularly encountered in the northern Urals. For the most part they tend to avoid hikers and other humans in the remote Taiga and mountains. They are nevertheless dangerous and on average ten people a year in Russia are killed by them. Bears hibernate in winter from around early autumn to early spring, although they do not hibernate as deeply as other animals and can be woken up.
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Bears that awaken early from hibernation are highly aggressive and dangerous. In most of western, central and southern Siberia, these bears are heavily dependent on Siberian pine (cedar) for their main food source. If this food source fails in any way, bears start killing livestock and attacking people – and do not hibernate when they are in this state. They continue looking for food in the deep snow until they starve to death or kill something to eat. Any unarmed hikers running into a bear at this time would run a high risk of being attacked and killed. These bears are known as ‘
shatun
’ (wanderer) and are responsible for the majority of human fatalities. In periods when there is not enough food for bears, they have been known to raid graveyards for corpses to eat.