Mountain of the Dead (17 page)

Another most significant piece of information arose from the testimony of a navigator of an An-2. This navigator was named Karpushin and if one takes Karpushin’s testimony as the truth, it destroys the basis of the version of the official investigation documents. On 25 February, Karpushin was flying over the area in an An-2. He was observing the ground when he saw from the air a tent with its side cut into what he described as ‘rags’. This fact alone is of paramount importance, since on the morning of 26 February, the leader of the search party that first reached the tent, Slobtsov with his fellow rescuers, saw the same tent with a slashed side, but only after the team had dug the tent from underneath compacted snow. The weather was fine on 25 February: sunshine, no precipitation. Then the very next day there suddenly appeared a layer of compacted snow of 5–7in (15–20cm) thick on the collapsed tent. What made the tent ‘fall’ under snow literally overnight?

Kisilov’s view was that this snow on top of the collapsed tent could have only come from one source and that was from what he described as the ‘fake scene organisers’. In other words, the whole site had been set up to appear as if this was where the group had made their camp and subsequently had met their deaths from this site.

By removing the far prop of the roof ridge, which was some distance from the entrance, they dropped the tent, after having first placed the Dyatlov group’s belongings and equipment inside, and then covered it up with snow. The impression that the tent had been there for three weeks under snow had therefore been successful, since for ten to fifteen years afterwards, many of the DIEs had not even remotely guessed that the tent had appeared on the scene only a couple of days before it was discovered. A further point made by another observer of the photograph taken of the tent immediately after it was discovered is that the supporting skis that held the ridge of the tent in place with a line going from one ski to another, supporting the middle of the tent, was that the skis had been placed at the ends of the tent (i.e. lengthways) whereas for maximum support and to shorten the distance, the skis should have been placed on each side of the tent (i.e. widthways). Earlier pictures taken from the Dyatlov group’s cameras show a picture of the tent taken earlier on the trip, which shows the tent being supported widthways, not lengthways. This is a strong indication that the tent had been put in place by others.

Another item that stood out was the matter of the Chinese-made flashlight, which was found on top of the tent. This puzzled the first rescue party (Slobtsov’s) when they saw it, because the flashlight was found lying on a 1–3.5in (5–10cm) layer of snow, but there was no snow on the torch itself. Kisilov felt that in an attempt to give some kind of authenticity to the scene, the ‘stage-hands’ who were setting the scene were experienced enough to try and concentrate on some detail and had thrown the flashlight onto the collapsed tent, to make it look as though the flashlight had been dropped in haste. The only problem being, of course, that as this had only been done not long before the arrival of the search parties, there had been no time for snow to collect on it, as the previous day had been clear.

There were also a few other inconsistencies: there was a back-prop for the tent that was completely missing; a trace of urine was found near the tent; a damaged ski pole was found lying inside the tent over the personal items of the group. As previously mentioned, Yury Yudin had confirmed that no one in the group had such a pole, which had cuts on the end of it.

Kisilov’s conclusions were that as far as the scene around the tent was concerned, the DIEs had missed many things. Following on from Navigator Karpushin’s statement regarding the tent and bodies he observed on 25 February, a member of a geological party named Titov was flying over the same area the previous day on 24 February and looking for ski tracks, but had not seen a tent (neither a tent corner sticking out from snow nor a standing tent with a visible slashed side). It means there was no tent there at the time Titov flew over. It must be deduced from this that the tent was brought and set up at some point after Titov had flown over, probably on 24 February as Karpushin observed it on the following morning on 25 February. Karpushin was actually flying in the same An-2 as Titov, as it was the only An-2 aircraft in Ivdel.

In addition to seeing the tent, Navigator Karpushin also saw two bodies, male and female, lying on the snow very close to the tent. Although Karpushin had seen the tent and the two bodies from the air on 25 February, in the morning of 26 February there were no bodies there. At least we know that no bodies were reported by Slobtsov’s rescue team when they first arrived on the scene. However, this evidence cannot be totally trusted. It may well be that a dead body was found when they looked inside the tent, since, according to the testimony of George Atmanaki, Slobtsov’s search party was absolutely exhausted and close to incapacitation in the last days of February due to the stresses they had suffered, particularly in the first two days of frantic searching.

Karpushin was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, along with the pilot of the An-2 (named Patrushev) and a number of others. Karpushin said nothing for years but finally gave an interview at the age of 81 in 2004 to the newspaper
AIF-URAL
. This is the only place that Karpushin’s version has appeared and, despite been instructed to sign a non-disclosure agreement, there is no mention of his testimony in the official criminal investigation of the case.

If the sighting of the two bodies near the tent as reported by Karpushin on 25 February is correct, then it would be quite apparent that there was no ‘rush escape from the Mountain of the Dead’
3
as given in the official version of events, but rather to the possibility that the bodies of the Dyatlov group had been transported to the slopes of Kholat Syakhl, rather than they had made their own way there. The possibility could exist that the two bodies seen by Karpushin had met their end at the tent or nearby, but then why move them to where they were eventually found?

Another scenario is that the bodies were brought to two ‘unloading points’: the tent and the cedar tree. A further point made in relation to the possible movement of the bodies is the presence of ‘improvised ropes’
4
of twisted strips of cloth or plaits that were found in the tent but not described in any great detail in the inventory made of the items found. These were not medical tourniquets and Kisilov felt that these were used to assist the movement of the bodies in blankets, using these ‘improvised ropes’.

In relation to the two bodies, everything hinges on Karpushin’s evidence. Despite the potential flaws and lack of confirmation of Karpushin’s testimony, it is not vital to the theory that the bodies were brought to Kholat Syakhl from somewhere else. Equally, the question of the area from where the Dyatlov group’s bodies had been brought from to the slopes of Kholat Syakhl remains open. The criminal investigation was opened on 6 February but it seems (if one agrees with Karpushin’s observations) that the scene was being prepared and the placing of the bodies was being carried out on 25 February, so there would have been a considerable time gap with this scenario. It is known that the approximate place of the catastrophe was in the general area of Mount Otorten, but it seems that the dead and/or half-dead Dyatlov group had been taken away from the site of the tragedy immediately, but where had they been moved to?

The possible answer to this question may be found in the testimony by Yury Yudin. According to him, even before the deaths of the Dyatlov group became known back at the university in Sverdlovsk, the digging for potentially compromising evidence was already under way and a rumour started (by the Trade Union Committee at the university) to circulate that, allegedly, they had tried to escape abroad and had lost their lives in extreme conditions during the attempt. Kisilov’s view was that for this rumour to have some credence, the bodies of the group would not be found on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl but rather two days’ travelling distance away, approximately 25 miles (40km) north of Mount Otorten so as to appear that the whole group was attempting to make some kind of escape out of the Soviet Union. In 1959 it was impossible for a Soviet citizen to just leave the country of their own accord. The possible reasoning for this route is that it would have been easier to escape from the north than from the more heavily guarded and policed areas to the south and west. As unlikely as this scenario might appear, should it have been believed, then their names would have been defamed, the UPI leadership would have been dismissed from their posts and their university friends would have been mentioning their names with disgust. However, the fabricated rumours of the escape attempt were treated with derision and the story basically did not ‘work’. As a little time elapsed for these rumours to start taking effect, it therefore became necessary for another scenario to be developed and developed quickly. The dead bodies were therefore moved to another search scene, which had to be prepared in a very short time prior to the arrival of the search teams.

Kisilov believes that a search scenario and a plan involving the ‘discovery’ of dead bodies were rapidly put together and approved at the headquarters of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) Central Committee and the Oblast Committee (regional administration). This plan was then followed through to its final conclusions, resulting in the eventual Criminal Investigation Report.

The next area that Kisilov concentrated on was the presence of so many senior officials, including both civil and military prior to and during the search. Going back to navigator Karpushin’s testimony, Kisilov found that in addition to mentioning the significant detail regarding the observation of the torn tent and two bodies on 25 February, Karpushin spoke of the presence of a military general in Ivdel who controlled the search operation. On further investigation it appeared there was more than one general in Ivdel during the search and this was mentioned by a number of sources, including: V. Strauch, a student of local history; Investigator Vladimir Korotayev; G.Grigoryev, a special correspondent of the
Uralsky Rabochy
(Urals Worker) newspaper; A. Gushchin, a journalist on the newspaper
Oblastnaya Gazeta
.

Beside the presence of military generals in Ivdel, testimonies examined by Kisilov also uncovered the fact that there were a number of other senior officials there at the same time, including members of the Communist Party Central Committee, the Communist Party Oblast Committee and members of the Extraordinary Commission (see below) and the UPI leadership.

The First Secretary of the Ivdel Communist Party City Committee, I.S. Prodanov, was named as the ‘official’ search supervisor. In reality, however, he was nothing more than a front behind which the real players were hidden. There was one significant inclusion to the group of people organising the search. This was Yevgeny Maslennikov, a Master of Sports in Tourism (a high Soviet sports ranking), who made some radical alterations to the search plan. Maslennikov formulated a plan to land rescue teams along the whole length of the Dyatlov group’s possible route, which on the face of it seemed to be a good idea, but Kisilov’s opinion is that this plan was used to basically turn the whole search campaign into an unco-ordinated mess. Maslennikov died in 1983 and had kept a diary (or collection of diaries) of the events. This diary (or diaries) is now in a private archive, although people who have seen it say that it is exaggerated.

Maslennikov’s proposals to land the rescue teams along the route was approved by the CPSU Oblast Committee. The decision was then made to activate the search teams and they were landed at different points on 26 February. This is despite the fact that the tent had already been seen from the air by Karpushin the previous day, but had not yet been ‘found’ by the team of students led by Slobtsov, which was according to the plan formulated by Maslennikov and the Oblast Committee. At 6 p.m. Moscow time (8 p.m. local time) on 26 February a report came into the search headquarters in Ivdel about the discovery of the tent by Slobtsov’s group, and the following day about 40 rescuers from other points of the Dyatlov group’s route were then directed to where the tent was found on Kholat Syakhl. Without even a preliminary briefing or the correct supervision of a public prosecutor, the result of all these additional searchers descending on the tent at the same time was complete disorder and led to an initial investigation of the scene being carried out by curious and eager but totally incompetent students. The mess at the scene that had been started by Slobtsov’s group was continued by the whole ‘army’ of searchers, which played into the hands of the people behind the scenes. The implication here is that the chaos about to be created at the tent was the intention of the Oblast Communist Party Committee and was carried out with their approval.

The first people connected with the search to appear in Ivdel were Lev Gordo, the head of the UPI tourist club, and Yury Blinov, a UPI student and leader of the tourist group that started on a hike together with the Dyatlov group. The two groups had travelled together as far as the 41st Kvartal before the Yury Blinov group headed off on a route further south to that taken by the Dyatlov group.

At this stage Lev Gordo sensed that a threat of punishment was hanging over him for having missed the target date of the Dyatlov group return, and he had started a rumour that Dyatlov had sent word with Yury Yudin (who returned on account of his illness) that the target date was being moved back to a later date because the group was behind schedule. At best this was an exaggeration and at worst it was an outright lie, because when the Dyatlov group parted with Yudin at the second severny it was actually one day ahead of the schedule planned by Igor Dyatlov. This fact can be easily checked. Given the average rate of progress on the route at 12 miles (20km) per day, the 37 miles (60km) distance from Vizhay (the starting point) to the second severny (the abandoned geologist settlement) could be covered in three days by the group moving on skis. But, by using the passing transport, they saved one day and arrived at the second severny late in the evening of 27 January. So, travelling on skis and following Igor Dyatlov’s original schedule, the group had planned to leave the second severny on 29 January, but actually left the village the day before, on 28 January. Regarding the whole of the original schedule, the group was making excellent progress and was already a total of three days ahead. They were supposed to leave Vizhay on the original start date of 28 January, but on this date they were actually leaving the second severny located at a distance of three days’ passage. This issue of time and progress is relatively minor but is used by Kisilov to show that Lev Gordo was wrong in what he had said; it also serves to highlight an overall impression that the authorities would have been quite happy for everyone to think that the Dyatlov group was hopelessly behind schedule and that blame could not be apportioned for a failure to act sooner in the search for them.