A. N. Dubinin witness testimony

Russian

Sheet 284

Protocol
witness testimony

On 14 April 1959 the prosecutor criminologist of Sverdlovsk region Romanov interrogated as a witness District Prosecution Office, in compliance with Article 162-168 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR

1. Surname, name and middle name: Dubinin Aleksander Nikolaevich
2. Year of birth 1903
3. Place of birth: Yaroslavl Oblast, Bolsheselskiy District, village of Maksimovo
4. Nationality: Russian
5. Political affiliation: member of CPSU since 1930
6. Education (what school graduated from and when): higher
7. Occupation a) currently: Senior Engineer Forest industry Economic Council
   b) at the time to which the testimony refers: the same.
8. Criminal record: no
9. Permanent residence: Dekabristov St 16/18, entr. 44, apt. 379, work phone D-1-39-40
10. Passport: no
11. Relation to the accused:

Warned on the responsibility for the first part of Art. 92 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for refusing to testify and under Art. 95 Criminal Code of the RSFSR for giving knowingly false testimony is forewarned.

In view of the fact that I was not at the site of the death of a group of hikers and I was not informed of my parents' true reason for the death of my daughter, I allow myself to express my personal opinion about the causes and perpetrators of the death that has developed from the following.

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Witness testified:
1. To this day I can not get used to the idea of ​​how we, in the Soviet Union, in this large industrial and cultural center of the country, could have such a criminal disregard for preserving the lives of a whole group of people.

Send people to a life-threatening hike in the mountain-taiga, to an uninhabited area, where in January-March there are strong storms that make fall off their feet (according to local residents - (head of the Vizhay site, - (Pila) - the accountant of the Ivdel administration) not only a person, but also a deer, frequent blockages, without developing or carrying out absolutely no even elementary measures to some extent preventing danger to life, without completely checking the passage of the route and the state of the group without organizing not a single point of control, without providing the group with a radio, and thus completely depriving them of any chance in case of disaster to call for help means sending people for almost 20 days in dangerous conditions to the mercy of fate, which is a big criminal offense.

If the group had a radio transmitter, or a checkpoint was organized along the given route, it can be assumed that some of the members of the group would could have been saved. The far from perfect instruction on tourism provide

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measures to prevent the danger of hikes and the organization of checkpoints when hiking in an uninhabited area when traveling on the road for 4-6 days, and in addition, with the hikes of great difficulty, the leaders who organize the trip are obliged to develop specific measures separately for each hike depending on the time of the hike and from the route, which in no way has been done.

This organization of the expedition, bordering on adventurism and based on reckless risk, and even in connection with the tragic event that took place near the mountain 1079, excluded the possibility of saving someone from the group and taking into account the 18-20 day transition could entail the death of individuals and without this tragic case, since it is not excluded in the hike cliffs, injuries with a skull fracture, severe diseases requiring urgent hospitalization, frostbite of the hands, feet, etc. similar cases.

Despite the obvious facts of criminal, disregard for the preservation of human lives in the organization of this expedition and irresponsible attitude to the work entrusted, for these criminal punishments the leaders of sports organizations - Kurochkin, Ufimtsev and Gordo - are the direct perpetrators of the death of a whole group of people that the prosecutor's office has not brought to criminal responsibility and are still left in their positions, where they are by their actions not only deter the development of

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tourism, but also undermine the authority of the Soviet Union. I, as a parent, demand that they, for their actions, which entailed the death of a whole group of people, be strictly questioned before the Soviet court. These soulless and heartless leaders didn't express any concern for the fate of the group 8 days after the planned return date to Vizhay (12/II) and started looking for the group only after the intervention of the CPSU Regional Committee, namely 21/II. This is proved by the fact that during a telephone conversation with Ufimtsev on 19/II my wife and 20/II myself were told that the group can not disappear and will come out with a delay in one of the settlements on their exit routs and that this is a frequent occurrence in their committee so they telegram the settlements, where the group can eventually come out by their judgement.

After a conversation with Ufimtsev, I had to promptly call Comrade Uskov in the CPSU Central Committee, and ask him to inform the secretary of the CPSU Regional Committee Eshtokin about the inertness to more effective measures to find the group and the complacency of the city sports committee about the fate of the group, and as a result of his intervention Gordo flew out on 21/II in search of the group.

2. Based on heard conversations of UPI students about that panic

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Continuation of Dubinin A.N. testimony

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flight of barely clad hikers from the tent is caused by an explosion and a large radiation, information of the search group from the hiking section of the UPI (Slobtsov) the hikers who were around the fire leaving further from the tent despite the broken branches that were near the fire, and the branches that did not burn at the edges of the fire, severe deformation of faces and the difference between the color of the open body (black and blue) and closed-clothing bodies of the deceased, the administrative department of the Regional Committee of the CPSU, comrade Ermash, made to the sister of the deceased, comrade Kolevatova, that the remaining 4 people who were not found now could have live after the death of the found no more than 1.5-2 hours makes us think that the presumed sudden escape from the tent happened due to the explosion of the projectile and radiation near the mountain 1079, the charge of which forced (there were some of the physical-technical faculty) to flee from it further, and it must be assumed that it affected their vital activity and in particular the eyesight. The flight of projectile shells were visible from the city of Serov at about seven o'clock in the morning on 2/II. They were described by UPI students from a hikers group who was hiking up to Chistop Mountain at that time. I don't think that the alleged projectile was be launched from outside the territory of the USSR, and therefore it surprises me why the hiking routes from Ivdel and from the village of Vizhay were not closed. We should look for

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the culprits whose fault is so many people to die, there is enough territory in the USSR for hiking. And besides, if the projectile deviated and did not hit the planned test site, in my opinion, the agency that issued this projectile should send aerial reconnaissance to the place of its fall and explosion in order to find out what he could have done and to provide needed assistance. If this was not done, then this is from the part of the military personnel also a soulless attitude towards preserving people's lives, whether they are hikers or hunters. If aerial reconnaissance was done, we can assumed that the remaining four people could have been rescued.
I did not share my personal opinion (as in the original, with corrections here), considering it not to be disclosed.

April 18, 1959

(signature)

Interrogated (signature)

Russian