Vladimir Androsov
25-05-2012
This is a very interesting interview, a must read. Everything about the Mansi and their ways. Vladimir Androsov is a very well liked and respected born, raised and lived in Vizhay his whole life. He knew the Mansi that took part in the search in 1959 and grew up with their kids. Knew the taiga, and the mountain, and the Mansi traditions. I am still trying to wrap my mind around a few moments from this interview because they are going against everything we know.
Boris Slobtsov 2015
06-05-2015
The searchers have been repeating over and over what they remember. And yet, to the very last interview, head-scratchers emerge that make you question everything you knew. So in this last interview Slobtsov says that they talked over the radio in a prearranged time. In the case files we can only read radiograms. A radiogram is a formal written message transmitted by radio. Also known as a radio telegram or radio telegraphic message. So we are missing all the exchanges that did not leave a paper trail. Slobtsov remembers footprints coming from someplace else and merging with the footprints coming from the tent. He also remembers the footprints being 2-3 days old. If left by the hikers they should have been 24 days old. See for yourself, I have highlighted the places that I find interesting.
Boris Slobtsov 2014
17-08-2014
Here is a sensible interview, with many questions that bother the sleuths trying to solve the case. What is evident is that different participants in the events remember different things. Which is normal. But also things that were once spoken about stop being part of later recollections. Important details. Or maybe they are not important, but that's the thing, we do not know the importance of these details. To us in modern times it is a challenge to even figure out what was there. The binoculars, why can't Sharavin remember them, the cut-into-pieces ski pole inside the tent only Sharavin has seen, the notepad that Ortyukov took from Zolotaryov's hand that only Askinadzi remembers, and it goes on. Sometimes it almost feels like they are talking about different cases.
Boris Slobtsov 2013
01-02-2013
Information about the first days of the search for the Dyatlov group straight from the horse's mouth. Boris Slobtsov was the leader of the first shift that found the tent, and the first bodies. Recollections about the tent, footprints, clothes, wounds, poses, color of the skin, Boris Slobtsov even knew some of the dead. The account of the chilling days when the first bodies were found and all hope was lost.
Search and rescue in the Northern Urals February 1959, Dyatlov Pass
31-01-2007
Small details nagging at us throughout the years. The earlier recollections should have more weight, and researchers could also track the sources. Many "memories" of the events are based on hearsay. Slobtsov is the first to say that forester and guide Ivan Pashin didn't feel like going further towards the tent. Was it before or after they noticed something dark in the snow? No one remembers binoculars, only Slobtsov. It is also admirable that Slobtsov is not easily influenced by a theory. It is important to see the boundary between facts and speculations at all times.
The search for the Dyatlov group
22-09-2006
The mood, the atmosphere, the despair, the hopelessness of the whole situation. How can someone die in such a gruesome manner without leaving any clue as to what happened to them? The case will haunt the young students who were not trained to recover bodies, let alone when the dead are so close to home. The searchers were returning from similar hikes, what went wrong, how can they prevent it from happening again if they don't know what it is that snuffed the life from their friends.
Slobtsov interview 2006
01-06-2006
The recollections of the searchers who were first on the scene are very important. Slobtsov was the leader of the first group that found the tent. Note that nobody describes the cause of death, because it was not obvious, nothing that they could even speculate about. The theories came later. In this interview, all the scenarios are suggested by Vladimir Borzenkov who at the time of this conversation was in his "infrasound" phase. Read what Boris Slobtsov remembers, it has no attachment to any theory.
Slobtsov interview 1999
01-03-1999
Slobtsov: "One day, when we were dragging corpses to the pass where a helicopter could land (which is now called the Dyatlov Pass), the wind was so strong that no one would believe it: you take a ski pole by the lanyard, and it hangs almost horizontally. There were many of us, we were dragging on skis, adapted, with ropes - we kept falling, grabbing onto whatever we could find. I fell once and grabbed onto someone's leg, grabbed onto one of the dead."
Letter to a friend
01-01-2013
"A big anxiety ensue from the discovery of the bodies. The insomnia wasn't from some nightmares, it was just that sleep wouldn't come, that's all! And it wasn't just me. Ortyukov didn't sleep, the Kurikovs didn't sleep, and the rest, I think, for the most part, they just lay there, hoping to fall asleep. The relief came only after the bodies were taken away."
Chronology part 1 - The trek
28-04-2025
The chronology of the trek from inception to its tragic end.
Chronology part 2 - First group of bodies
28-04-2025
Finding the first frozen bodies under the cedar and on the slope. Loosing all hope that there are any survivors. Opening an investigation.
Chronology part 3 - Second group of bodies
28-04-2025
The remaining four were found and the mystery deepens. The case is closed. Four funerals and a birthday.
Ivanov letter 1991
08-03-1991
"Dr. Vozrozhdenniy helped me understand the mechanism of the origin of the injuries, and taking into account the case materials and my specialty, he helped to establish exactly in what order did they die and the cause of death... I checked samples from the area for radiation and they did not show radioactivity, but the internal organs, cavity studies gave a significant background, which indicated a directed radiation targeting. The impression is that "they were wiped with a fairly wide beam" causing the internal bodily injuries."
Sogrin S.N.: "I heard about it, but I didn't see it."
30-09-2012
The only unresolved question remained what kind of force of influence was it that made them run even naked. For more than fifty years they could not answer this question. Complete silence. And now a breakthrough in solving the mystery. Kuntsevich drew attention to a frame on the Dyatlov group's film, the last one, which had previously been ignored and was considered a defect in the development of the film. But after studying it, it turned out that this was an intentional frame. A night shot where the fiery object and smoke behind it are clearly visible. Now everything falls into place. And no more documents are required. They simply do not exist and never will.
Once again, about how it all went down
14-12-2010
In this article published in Ural Stalker December 2010 issue Sergey Sogrin is telling his reconstructions of events which he says they did together with the head of the search in 1959 Evgeniy Maslennikov. Even if the group dynamics during the crisis is hard to speculate on, we hear first hand what the tent, terrain, footprints and cedar surroundings looked like. These are recollections that are very valuable coming from a witness.
Is the Dyatlov's accident a mystery after all?
14-11-2010
Sogrin, Sergey Nikolaevich (Согрин Сергей Николаевич) born in Shanghai in 1937. In 1959 he was a 4th year student of the metallurgical faculty at UPI; lived in Sverdlovsk at 18 Kirov St. He took part in the search and rescue works as a member of the Akselrod party in the period Feb 26-28 in the area of Otorten. On March 1-9 he participated in the search in the area of height 1079. He led the UPI search party from Mar 25 to Apr 6. In this article he explains the origin of the theories. This is part 1 of 3 of his recollections.
Yuri Doroshenko's yearly years
08-04-2025
Olga Litvinova collected data about Yuri Doroshenko, his life and studies before entering UPI. There is interesting information about his teachers and his family before entering the institute. Also now the name, patronymic and surname of this girl standing at Yuri's funeral next to his mother and aunt has become known. She is his geography teacher from the school where he studied in 1954, also the head of the hiking club in school №44. She came to Yuri's funeral. She looks so young that till now it was considered possible that she might be his new girlfriend, the one Zina wrote about witnessing them holding hands.
Discrepancies in Stanislav Tipikin's recollections
01-12-2014
Tipikin was on Otorten searching for a note left by the Dyatlov group. On March 1, 1959, his search group was transferred to height 1079. We know by that time the tent and the first 4 bodies were found. Tipikin personally found the body of Slobodin and he says he was so stirred up that he doesn't remember anything else from that day. The problem is that Tipikin was not questioned in 1959. He started talking about the case in 2014, 55 years after the events. The discrepancies in his recollections may seem innocent, but in the light of the conspiracy theories they can be huge. Judge for yourself. He remembers that the day he arrived on the pass there were two bodies dragged up the slope from the ravine. He presumed they were Doroshenko and Krivonischneko, but they were frozen and couldn't tell who they were. He helped with one of the bodies but he is adamant that there was a group carrying up a second body. That's the problem - there was only one body left in the ravine when he arrived. Is there a body we do not know about? The obvious answer is hell no, but then there is a photo in Ivanov's archives without any attached note to it that looks very much like a frozen body, with not enough clothes on. The second inconsistency is that Tipikin remembers poking his head inside the Dyatlov tent and seeing the edges of the loin that were described by other searchers, too. The problem with this recollection is that the tent was already dismantled, sprawled, the items of the dead hikers wrapped in it, and dragged to the helipad for transportation to Ivdel. So Tipikin couldn't have seen the inside of the tent while it was pitched. This is a phenomenon called false memory. How do we draw the line between a false and a true memory?
Stanislav Aleksandrovich Tipikin
08-10-2014
Tipikin was a climber from UPI and knew Igor Dyatlov in person because of an argument at the sports club about equipment. Tipikin participated at the beginning of the search and has seen firsthand how they found the note on Otorten, the bodies under the cedar, dragged the bodies to the outlier for airlifting, finding the labaz and the body of Slobodin. His story varies on some facts from the official one.
Aleksandr Vinogradov about Nikolay Ognev and much more
01-10-2013
Vinogradov is a mining engineer who worked with Nikolay Ognev aka "The Beard" from 1962 to 1966. They even spend a month just the two of them in the middle of the taiga - plenty of time to talk and share. Vinogradov didn't know that Ognev met with the Dyatlov group. Ognev, although talkative on many topics, never mentioned the Dyatlov group. Ognev made an impression with his demeanor and appearance. Zina Kolmogorova even took down his address in her diary on January 27, 1959. It's not clear what for. Vinogradov testifies to the character of Ognev, and that he can't see the lumberjack workers going after the group of hikers for any reason. The recollections of Vinogradov are valuable for describing the prospecting geological activity in the area.
Aleksander Vinogradov
02-02-2000
Aleksander Vinogradov, a mining engineer and geological prospector, who worked in various capacities in expeditions in the North of the Krasnoyarsk region, the Nether-Polar, and Northern Ural explained: “One of the goals of the aeromagnetic survey is the search for the deposits of raw materials. It results in a map of the terrain with indications of the geomagnetic and gamma anomalies. Afterward, ground groups of geophysicists with portable equipment are delivered to those places. They make more accurate measurements of the anomalies and detail their geographical bearings. In case of serious anomalies, mining exploration and drilling works are planned and conducted in such locations.”
Radio operator Vladimir Lyubimov
11-09-2012
In 1959 Vladimir Alekseevich was a radio operator of a geological party in the area of Mount Yaruta. In 1947 he graduated from the Naval Special Forces Communications School, receiving the specialty of a radio technician and international radio operator. When serving in the Navy he had top secret clearance. When the party went out to work in the field, he usually was instructed by the chief of communications of the expedition to trace the broadcast. In February 1959 he listened to search parties' conversations over the radio. In April 1959, the head of the geological party instructed him to examine the slopes of Mt Yaruta for traces of the missing hikers or escaped prisoners. He knew Nevolin and Temnikov from the Dyatlov case.
The secret of the mountain pass (part 1)
27-04-1999
In 2024 one of the journalists from the first generation Dyatlov case researchers passed away. Her ideas were the building blocks for further sleuthing of the greatest mystery of the 20th century. Nowadays we think that we have revelations and suggest this and that but to faster advance into uncharted territories it is wise to fist revisit the pioneers work. They had the advantage to talk directly to the contemporaries of the events in 1959.
The secret of the mountain pass (part 2)
28-05-1999
In 1999 Rimma Pechurkina wrote: "Of course, there is a desire to pave the way through the point of the tragedy of 1959. But the distance and lack of roads can interfere, and Dyatlov Pass, leaning against the Dead Man's Mountain, will remain Terra Incognita for a long time."
Today there are many roads, monuments, even a landing site bringing hikers to the Dyatlov Pass. And yet, we are nowhere closer to solving the mystery.
Excerpts from a conversation between Evgeniy Zinovyev and Egor Nevolin
02-02-1999
Nevolin unwittingly offers a completely different explanation for the broken branches of the cedar. Although he is not saying they were crushing branches, he is mentioning that the signal on the north side of the Dyatlov Pass was weak, and they had to bring the antenna up between two big cedars. These cedars can be seen standing tall to this day. But the branches were broken when the bodies were found. My theory is that they could have been broken by the first party that found the bodies in February for that same purpose, to mount an antenna to report to the Northern Geological Expedition.
Expert glaciologist Victor Popovnin answering questions of the Prosecutor's Office of the Sverdlovsk Region about the Dyatlov Pass
14-05-2019
In 2019 the Prosecutor’s Office of the Sverdlovsk Region revisited the Dyatlov case, undertaking an expedition to the Dyatlov Pass and enlisting experts giving them specific assignments. It was kind of a spoiler alert that he would be looking only into 3 natural disasters: avalanche, snow slab and hurricane. The cornerstones of Kuryakov's conclusion are the findings of Doctor of Geographical Sciences Pigoltsina and glaciologist Popovnin. Kuryakov blames two weird snow slabs. The first one scared the hikers out, they lost the tent from site, went down, dug up a den and there they were hit by a second avalanche. Note that the traumas on Dubinina, Thibeaux-Brignolle and Zolotaryov were caused by the avalanche in the ravine. This is different from Buyanov's, aka Swiss avalanche scenario.
Microclimatic examination of the Kholat Syakhl mountain area for January-February 1959
20-07-2020
Туристы, по мнению Павлова и Хаджийска, поставили палатку рядом с тем самым кедром, где будут позже найдены трупы Кривонищенко и Дорошенко. Место очень удобное, непродуваемое, рядом ручей Лозьвы, есть где взять дрова для печки. Ребята обустроились, поужинали и легли спать. Массивный ствол упал на переднюю часть палатки, сминая находившиеся там котелки и ломая ребра Дубининой и Золотареву. Тибо, Слободин, Кривонищенко и Колеватов, находившиеся дальше от входа, получили удары только толстыми сучками и ветками.
In memory of Igor Olegovich Makushkin
02-02-2024
Igor Olegovich Makushkin is the son of the forensic expert Genrietta Churkina who performed the analysis on the Dyatlov group tent. Makushkin, senior lecturer of the forensic science department of the Ural State Law University, worked in the same laboratory as his mother from 1981 to 1993. He saw first hand the handling of the tent throughout the years till the day it was thrown in the garbage after more than 25 years crumpled in the corner of a basement. It wasn't even considered an evidence anymore. The staff was sitting on it during outdoor meetings.
Dyatlov Pass. Was there an avalanche?
22-02-2025
In all likelihood, there was no avalanche on the slope of Kholat Syakhl on the night of February 1-2, 1959. The endless discussion of this theory in the media only strengthens the suspicion that they want to hide from us the most inconvenient reason for the death of the guys. As the famous researcher of the tragedy, writer Oleg Arkhipov said in one of his recent interviews "Until the state reveals the necessary details, they will always talk about an avalanche."
Only an official investigation can solve the mystery of the death of the Dyatlov group
14-02-2025
No one will ever solve the mystery of the death of Igor Dyatlov's group with a confident end to this problem, despite the confident statements of dozens of authors of versions. And then only echoes of the "game" of the so-called "Dyatlov scholars" under the conditional title "The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass". Unfortunately, many want it to continue forever. Only official structures can solve the mystery in the course of a real, unbiased investigative proceedings. And historical and archival examinations must be fully involved in this.Simply put, the archives that tenaciously guard secret documents must be opened. But for this, the highest circles must come to an understanding of the timeliness of this step. The question is in political will and expediency.
