Me and Juri on an expedition in Pamirs

On 14 July 2012 I had a near-fatal incident that left me with flail chest much like Lyudmila Dubinina. I didn't know who she was at the time. While healing after my 3rd or 4th operations (I had 5 so far) I came across the movie Devil's Pass, yet another horror flick that I would have forgotten the moment it ended if my husband (Juri) haven't said - do you know that there is a real event behind it. Then I started reading. My background is: born in Bulgaria, lived for 8 years in Cuba, 10 years in the US, married in Austria. Juri is full-time traveler. I am a web designer. These are catalytic circumstances that lead to the creation of the site.

Motive (part 1): I am (1) a mountaineer, (2) mesmerized by presence of death and (3) weird things happen to me.

1. I will one day go to the Urals ✔ Done Expedition Unknown
2. I was friends with H.R. Giger, Beksinski and I am currently working with Dariusz Zawadzki.
3. Trouble likes me:

• I have been at the top, alone, of an erupting volcano (Semeru, Java, Indonesia) - the orange runing thing on the photo is me. Photo is done 15 mins after the eruption.
• mugged and strangled in Georgia
• avalanche in Skakavcite, Rila mountain, Bulgaria
• in couple of stone falls (one recently in the Alps due to permafrost, another one in Kurdistan, North Iraq)
• 10 m² ceiling fell on top of me while I was sleeping
• near-fatal car crash with truck loaded with construction materials going down a mountain whose brakes failed and we smashed into a rock with 70 km/h.

One time on a flight I was sitting next to a gentlemen who confided that he was occupying seat 14A in the US Airways Flight 1549 that ended in Hudson river on January 15, 2009. I started squeezing John's arm saying how grateful I am that he is sitting next to me because statistically he has already been in a air crash and it is less probable that he is going to be in another one soon. Then I told him about my mishaps and he became very agitated and said my statistics are stronger that his and that he is not sure he wants to sit next to me. The flight attendant brought beer to cheer up the conversation. We were flying US Airways.

When we go rappelling my friends say not to tell my stories to the new people on the way to the mountain. I can tell them on the way back.

Motive (part 2): I would never consider making yet another site about a topic that has been exploited so many years if I didn't have such a difficult time understanding the details of the accident - who was who, found where, injuries, radioactive clothing, knives, cameras, etc. Content, formatting, language, availability. Books, movies and resources on the web were either:

• incomplete, driven by an agenda - putting weight on details that will reinforce their theory and citing out of context
• poorly formatted (hard to read), full of advertising banners and unrelated information using the keywords only to generate traffic
• the best resources are in Russian and so far Rakitin hasn't been translated. i used his online book to translate most of the content on this site. I have listed all the sites that I have sift trough to structure the information as it is on this site in page Dyatlovmania.
• I have clean the sites that go offline every month. Even while I was working on the site I had to make local copy of content that was interesting to me because of the risk not to find it online next time I needed it. I had to use archived copy for some sites when my bookmarks were returning bad host.

Means: My company Visia is doing web development for 25 years now. I have a server and a platform to develop sites. I do not need to get advertising to justify it existence, because it's my server. I am a designer, so its an instinct to keep it legible, clean and responsive. This is my way of organizing the information I come across. for my own benefit. The fact that it is public is beneficiary, but not a goal. It is refreshing to see that it is generating a lot of organic traffic and interest.

Opportunity: As I mentioned I had to undergo 5 surgeries. I had necrotic tissues, couldn't get out, my left arm was messed up. This is the site where I tell the story of this injury distal-humerus.com. I am right handed and this fact left me with lots of time to put this site together. To all of you that stopped by - please enjoy!

Contact: Use this form to contact me.

A response to this very flattering mail

Dear Madam,

I learned of the Dyatlov pass incident a few years ago, but only recently began to study it intensively. My research led me to your website, which I find far and away to be the best researched, best written and best constructed site of any concerning the tragedy. However, unless I missed it somehow, nowhere in the site do you give your name, your credentials, the reason for your interest in the case, etc. I think you should add an "About" section to the site - the usual section that details who is the driving force behind a site.

In any event, I think your site is great, and not only does the mystery deeply intrigue me, it's a mystery as to why more books and films have not been produced about this. I am a writer myself, readying four books about my decade living, working and writing in Vietnam for publication, and I would like very much to see this story get the attention it deserves.

Regards,

Eric Schafer