Funerals in May 1959

On May 12 Lyudmila Dubinina, Aleksander Kolevatov and Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle were buried in Mihaylovskoe Cemetery, in a plot designated to UPI. Semyon Zolotaryov's funeral was a few days after May 12. It was delayed so his mother could attend. She had to travel from Krasnodar to Sverdlovsk. Semyon Zolotaryov, since he was not a UPI contingent, was buried in Ivanovskoe cemetery where Yuri Krivonischenko was rested in peace on March 9. Zolotaryov had no relatives or friends in Sverdlovsk, and it was Sogrin who identified his belongings. Before joining Dyatlov group Zolotaryov enlisted in Sogrin group for a trek to Circumpolar Ural that would have lasted 25 days. Zolotaryov needed the title Master of Sports which would have reflected his pay and this trek could have given him the qualification. Sogrin describes him as a very open, outgoing, polite, with good communication skills which is expected for a guide. Semyon explained to Sogrin that he found a shorter trek (15 days) and that Igor Dyatlov accepted him n the group. Semyon apologized for the situation and explained that he has family reason - he wanted to take his mom to Caucasus before the begging of the touristic season when he will be busy.

Zolotaryov’s mother came from Krasnodar to Sverdlovsk to collect his belongings in April, as she had been told to, before her son was found. It’s known she was not in Sverdlovsk in May when the bodies arrived. It’s likely that the authorities guessed the body was that of Zolotaryov by the process of elimination. I have to mention that all the known photographs of Zolotaryov that can be used for superimposition are since 1943 i.e. after the war. Recent exhumation of Zolotaryov's body on 12 April 2018 was preceded by 1 year effort to obtain a permit since there was no record of Semyon Zolotaryov being ever buried in Ivanovskoe cemetery, or anywhere else in Sverdlovsk. So it is hard to say when exactly was his funeral, but witnesses remember that it was a few days after May 12.

This time no one called Yudin to identify the bodies. The secrecy grew tremendously. Yuri Yudin, according to his words, was told 40 years later about the terrible internal injuries some of his friends had. There is a controversy about the non-disclosure. Even if there was a non-disclosure why nobody say anything earlier. On the other hand, there is undercurrent that KGB was warning that bad things are going to happen to people that try.

• Korotaev in a interview says that he and everybody present on the pass had to sign a non-disclosure for 25 years. But the fact is that he was never on the pass. He gave a lot of information that can not be verified.
  Investigator Vladimir Korotaev — non-disclosure
  
• Gushtin book "The price of a Govsecret - 9 lives"

The last 4 bodies found in May were buried in closed coffins, unlike the ones found in February, which were buried in open coffins as is the usual practice in Russia to this day, except for military deaths. Many years later, in the 1990s, Lev Ivanov, the official investigator for the case, apologized for preventing the parents from dealing with their loved ones in a proper way, not even being allowed to see the faces of their children. But the reasons for his decision are not just based in secrecy. In an interview given to a Kazakh newspaper in the 1990s, after his retirement, Lev Ivanov said he had made one exception for Aleksander Nikolaevich, the father of Lyudmila Dubinina. While she was in the coffin in the morgue, he let her father enter, and permitted someone to open the lid so that he could see her. When he saw his daughter’s corpse, he fainted.

Witness testimony of Aleksander Dubinin given on April 14 (Case files pages 284-287). This is before the body of his daughter was found.
"Till the day I still can believe that this could happened in the Soviet Union, that in this large industrial and cultural center of the country, could exist such a criminal disregard for preserving the lives of a whole group of people. ...Those heartless leaders were never concerned that eight days after the planned return date at Vizhay, there was no contact, yet nobody did anything and search was rescue operations started on the 21 February."