Excerpts from a conversation between Evgeniy Zinovyev and Egor Nevolin

Z: Well, they were standing right here... among the rocks... here's a gentle peak... 300 meters to the peak

N: They kind of walked a little past the peak itself...

Z: The peak is here, they were standing somewhere here... It's almost to the north...

N: Their path lay like this... the first tent was somewhere here, they had a storage shed here. That's how they went, and stopped here... somewhere in this place, and they were going to Otorten along this spur... so as not to get lost

Z: This is an assumption

N: Well, yes, the route is an official hiking route, as I understood from all this, it was laid out exactly along this stream... it seems they made a mistake in the northern direction... it seems to me they made the right decision - to go through the forest on loose snow...

Z: They had already had enough of loose snow here... the most reasonable way was to go along the top.

N: Go along the top, there is firn there... We skied there for a long time, then we started going without skis... Along the top... The question is - why does Dubinina have broken ribs on both sides? The thing is that even then I saw, when their tracks began to melt, that they were running along the rocks, along the rockfall - it is quite natural to get hit with the back of your head there, and with everything you want... And even more so, there, lower down, the slabs are huge, big... I suppose - I don’t know, of course - I don’t really understand these processes - it seems to me that on 1079 they were also once - sticking out...

Z: Well, they are there now - a couple are standing... tall?

N: No, they are not high... Well, like on stone tents, folded like pillows, and they are at an angle - they are not vertical, like the pyramid stood, but at an angle... Well, it is eroded between the pillows, until they lose their balance, and most likely this pyramid fell there, from this height... That’s exactly what they are got into a rockfall... They ran away, and that's where the injuries came from, I suppose... It's hard to judge now, but as far as I remember, the cedar stood on a stream that originates from under 880, and the one that originates from the pass is larger, and that's where they were and... In short, they gathered almost at the confluence of that stream... At the time when they ran down, there wasn't much snow there yet, only on the surface, well, maybe they trampled it down a little... and these spruce branches, and these dead ones, they carried out there under the cedar... well, that was also generally the right thing they did...

Z: I want to clarify something with you - yesterday I talked to the pilots, to Zbrodin, he says that at one time they brought in a bunch of these paramilitary guys, and they examined everything with counters. In general, he claims this very accurately - for two days, he says, they walked around with meters everywhere, filming this territory. But I don't remember - there were traces of them...

N: I don't remember either... We didn't find any traces of them... You and I walked around the area, especially along the eastern spur - were there any traces of the "exit"... There were no traces at all... There were a lot of geologists working there, not only in the east of the Urals, but also in the west, in the Perm region.

Z: And what version do you yourself adhere to?

N: I am most inclined to the version of these fireballs - what is their physical essence... witnesses are saying that somewhere from the 1st to the 2nd of February, in general, it was around these dates...

Z: And do you remember the witnesses? Is that there, in the north?

N: Yes... yes, now we can say that there is no one alive... I saw them twice, once before leaving there. It was somewhere around the 22nd or 23rd of February, because I remember well that on the 23rd of February I was at home, we celebrated the holiday, but I had already received the assignment to go there. And on Monday morning we went to Suevat-Paul, in a car... From Ivdel... Along the winter road, to Suevat-Paul. And these Mansi - almost all of them there, they all had contracts with geologists, well, guides there... There was already an agreement that they would take me to Otorten on a sleigh. And why on reindeer...

Z: There was no road.

N: It's not about the road - we could have sent it by helicopter... i.e. to follow it again - we essentially... when we were passing near Vizhay, we went out onto their ski track to follow it again along their ski track, to see what could be there... maybe their camps were there... Vizhay, that was a camp site... there was no geological exploration party there, as far as I remember... there was one at Shipichny... well, they are geologists, so - they'll be given an area, they'll drill holes, and that's it - finished, off we go. At first there was one at Shipichny, that's somewhere... That means there were no geologists at Vizhay. There could have been geophysicists... but there were geophysicists in all geological exploration parties - i.e. Well, they went around with these devices and examined for radioactivity... Well, they looked for deposits... They had devices, standards for calibrating devices... each party had them. And so that these measurements were made there in our presence - someone there said that they were there... but in Ivdel, I think, they only examined clothes and a tent for radiation. There was no one there - I say this for the reason: at that time I had a watch on my hand, its dial and hands were made of radioactive zinc. And when I passed by geophysicists - not in the field, but at home - they immediately went crazy... they told me - "throw away this watch"... If someone had been there with this device, they would have paid attention... But nothing like that, no one had any problems... I know this for sure - there, on site, no research was carried out for radioactivity. And as for the military, I don't particularly remember anything. But here, closer to Ivdel, from Polunochnoe, behind the 2nd Northern, well, maybe further on there were some air defense posts...

Z: Higher up there, along the winter road, to the north, were there also air defense posts?

N: I didn't see any there, although I had to wander through the forest quite often, to the drilling rigs. Let's say, in Ust-Manya, a couple of parties... They have a power plant there, mechanical workshops... drilling rigs - 3-4-5... what kind of area is there - they were located 30, 50 kilometers from the base party, well, and they have radio communication... with the party... each drilling rig has radio communication. If the radio station fails, I would have to go to Ust-Manya by plane, and from there I would have to walk to the drilling rig. Well, at first the escorts were [inaudible]. Well, and then they realized that I had a pretty good sense of direction. Especially since you can orient yourself there - the whole forest there is in clearings, divided into grids. And so - a grid, an intersection, so a clearing, so a clearing, to the borehole. Well, first we, in order to get a general picture, if there is something interesting somewhere, then we start drilling the whole square in more detail. And so they - about two kilometers away... And the whole taiga there was lined with these clearings. And in the summer you could only get there by tractor. The stumps(?) were cut very low so that the tractor could pass, especially if... [apparently, they changed the film]

Z: Here to the west, up the mountain, about 20 kilometers from the road, there is some kind of huge hole, a crater, I mean... either there was a quarry there - they were extracting something, or something else.. .

N: I don’t know... I’ve heard of that. In Talya, for example, they found some amount of coal, not very much, and they had a power plant there that ran on local coal. They are right across the river... the base lot was on the left bank, and the spur is about the same as the spur from height 880 there - a ridge there that is not very high, in it at a shallow depth, they kind of dug an tunnel, and mined this coal, and heated their locomotive. The party chief was a coal miner, his hobby was coal, he demanded that a locomotive be sent there...

Z: A steam boiler?

N: A steam boiler, and they were running it. And in other parties, there were diesel engines at the power station. In each party, that means, power stations, workshops... After all, the Northern Geological Exploration Expedition began its operation somewhere at the end of the war. Where were they, where were they located, maybe there was also some kind of coal mine there, I don't know...

Z: Can you also tell us how the camp was packed up, how they were found? Well, when you moved the camp there... The colonel came for the last time... how did it all happen there?

N: And what was there? Well, when they had already moved there... In short, when, according to our observations, according to all observations, the impression was that they had not left here, from this area, anywhere. There were no traces "to the exit". We decided that we had to look somewhere here. Especially since the probes that were there at first, they could not reach... Then the snow settled, and so the decision was made, I don't know - either Ortyukov made it, or from here - in short, time was lost on the transition, also somewhere about a kilometer and a half, and then, in bad weather, it was generally impossible to get to the pass... And there seemed to be some kind of lull there. And so the decision was made to move the camp there. And for radio communication it was worse, because on this side the location was good... And there on the opposite slope... there, to the northwest, it was good for receiving, and here we had to put the "American" - the antenna... there was good communication, even with a microphone it was possible... microphone communication is, as a rule, half the power, and the distances. And there the connection became much worse, and it was necessary to tighten the "American", and ...

Z: "American" - what is that?

N: А calculated antenna*... And there, to the north of the tent, two cedars ... large ... at such a distance that it was located just between them ... I adapted - I take some kind of wrench, or something else ... and such "temporary" ... masts, and all that - this is when a stationary radio station, and here it seems like a "temporary" ... you take it, and tie a string to the ends ... or a cable there ... the antenna itself ... and here a cable ... such a strong string could withstand ... then the strings were twisted well ... you tie some iron thing, like a wrench, heavier, and throw it somewhere over a branch ... once, pulled... on the other side too... Even on the "American" the connection was... Unstable... especially visible by the last ones... there is a radiogram when Ortyukov complained that the pilots do not want to take... there is a copy of the radiogram that was in Ivdel... there are all the radiograms that are in the file, they are all in Ivdel... there he asked many times - it is not clear what kind of signals, and all that, he asked many times - repeat this... And what I had - I mean, I wanted [several phrases are said very quietly, unintelligibly] ... in Ivdel, to the mother of the chief... they are dragging in mysticism... a cousin remained... he has some kind of gangrene... his legs were frostbitten, and gangrene set in... first they took one, then the second.... He started drinking with friends, and in the end... a drinking bout...... [several phrases are said very quietly, unintelligibly] For about 20 years everything was quiet and deaf, then...

Z: Then they pulled out this criminal case...

N: It was found about 10 years ago... Well, journalists showed interest... [a few words said very quietly, indistinctly]

Z: But about Patrushev... How did he really die? Yesterday I asked Kutkov... "yeah, he was doing this... he was a hooligan, a loop-the-loop, and, so to speak, crashed - didn't have time to get out..."

N: There they are, all of them, I apologize... that means... because, that means... these commissions that went to investigate, they look from which sides... and what does the management tell us... what is the result, and what will the dependents have... Let's say, if he, say, is a driver there, or was drunk, and all that... crashed there, a certain number of people died... well, it turns out that he himself, the dowry... a passenger car... left behind a wife and children... they still have to exist somehow... and first of all - and what about us...

Z: Well, so to speak, in fact, what is there happened?

N: In fact, there were unofficial versions... there were some that it seemed like he was [a few words said very quietly, indistinctly] all of him in the forest, near Vizhay... but there, that means in her, the conclusion... [end of recording]

* Since I did not know how to translate I asked Vladimir Askinadzi and he explained: "To minimize the number of errors in transmitting signals by radio, the antenna, which was a piece of wire thrown into tree branches, must match the transmitter frequency. Since this is difficult to reproduce in the field, the theoretical length of the antenna is calculated on paper, and the piece of wire is cut with a small margin. Taking into account the sagging of the wire, the resulting antenna is with parameters close to the calculated ones."