Watches in the Dyatlov group

In the Case files are mentioned 4 watches: Dyatlov is wearing Zvezda, Slobodin - Pobeda, Thibeaux-Brignolle - Pobeda and Sportivnye.

Dyatlov was found with a Zvezda on his left hand showing 5:31.

Case files I - 121 Autopsy: "On the lower third portion of the left forearm there is a Zvezda brand watch; the hands of the watch show 5:31."
Case files I - 69 Maslennikov testimony: "On his hand Dyatlov was wearing a wrist watch that stopped at 5:31."
Case files II - 41 Ivanov: "Zvezda wrist watch 5:31"
Case files II - 45 Ivanov: "Zvezda 5:31 on Dyatlov"
Case files II - 46 "I, A.A. Dyatlov received from Ivanov:... 5) A Zvezda wriswatch on a strap with arrows coated with luminous substance."

On this photo Dyatlov (bent down) is wearing a watch on his right hand.

Slobodin was found with a Zvezda Pobeda on his left hand showing 8:45.

Case files I - 96 Autopsy: "On his wrist is a Zvezda brand watch showing the time 8:45."
Zvezda is mentioned only in the autopsy report. The rest of the documents read Pobeda and Slobodin owned a Pobeda.
Radiogram 183 "On his wrist a Pobeda watch stopped at 8:45"
Case files II - 73 "I, N. F. Slobodina received from prosecutor comrade Ivanov:...3. A Pobeda watch on a strap."

Rustem Slobodin wearing a Pobeda watch

Thibeaux-Brignolle was found wearing two wrist watches on his left hand, a Pobeda showing 9:38 or 8:38 and the Sportivnye showing 9:15 or 8:15.

Case files I - 341 "...on his first hand are two watches brands Pobeda and Sportivnye the watches show - Pobeda 9:38, and the Sportivnye 9:15"
9:38 is repeated once more in this document. Times on both watches are off by an hour, this must be an error.
Case files I - 352 Autopsy: "On the left forearm there are two watches: a Sportivnye watch showing the time 8:14:24, and a Pobeda brand watch showing the time 8:39."
Case files II - 72 "I, Elizaveta Iosifovna Muzafarova,... received a Pobeda wrist watch... belonging to Nikolay Tibo."

Tibo wearing a Pobeda watch

The Sportivnye is identified by his relatives to belong to Krivonischenko.

Case files II - 9 "I, Igor Alekseevich Krivonischenko received from Prosecutor comrade Ivanov:...3. Sportivnye wrist watch"

Why is Tibo wearing Krivonischenko’s wrist watch? I have came across three theories:

1. Krivonischenko was on duty the previous night and he passed his watch to the next attendant - Tibo. Tibo will make sure to wake up the group the next morning.
2. Tibo and Krivo were friends, they liked swapping things, like the photo duel, when each took his friend’s camera and they made photos of each other. If Krivo had to do something and his watch was in the way most probably he would have given his watch to Tibo for safekeeping. Activities like these are washing dishes, but there was no water in the vicinity of the tent, chopping wood, but there were no trees around.
3. Krivo died first and Tibo took his watch as a remembrance to return to his family.

Krivonischenko (left) and Tibo (right) - these two photos ate taken at the same time with swapped cameras.

In the photo below some people see two watches, although I believe this is a fiber or defect on the film. Here is a link to the original photo.

Tibo in the snow, a watch under his sleeve

In the photo of the bodies in the river the two watches on Tibo's wrist can be clearly seen.

Zolotaryov had a Pobeda watch on this trek that he was not wearing when they found his body. He was found wearing a compass on his left hand.

Zolotaryov wearing a Pobeda on his left hand.

The Pobeda watch was among Zolotaryov’s belongings that were given to Sogrin until Zolotaryov’s mother arrived for the burial.

Case files I - 258 "I, Vera Ivanovna Zolotaryeva, mother of Semyon Alekseevich Zolotaryov, received the following items from Prosecutor comrade Ivanov that student Sogrin handed over as belonging of my son: Pobeda wrist watch 1 MWF (Minsk Watch Factory) on a strap, in working condition..."

So far, we have five watches. Here is a sixth one:

Kolevatov’s Molniya was in the items retrieved from the tent but not in the inventory.

Kolevatov had a Molniya watch.

Grigoriev notebook 2 "There is a pocket watch in the pocket of one backpack, which stopped at 2:15."
"Vishnevskiy took the letter, the purse, money, diaries and watches."
Kolevatov kept his watch in the pocket, while Zolotaryov wore his Pobeda on the left hand. This is why we attribute the time 2:15 to the Molniya. It was put in a backpack with all the items found in the tent and was later identified by his sister. This watch never made it into the inventory included in the case files.
Case files II - 50 "Kolevatov's sister: My brother had a pocket watch, he fixed it, similar to the one here (Molniya)..."

Doroshenko was poor, he didn’t have a watch. Or at least there is no photo of him before or during the trek wearing one. We see Zina and Lyuda wearing watches on other treks but we do not have a photo from the trek to Otorten of the girls wearing a timepiece.

Zina wearing a watch on a previous trek

Lyuda wearing a watch on a previous trek

These times made people wonder if there is a connection between the time of death and the time showing on the watch. I was recently given an article by Vladimir Borzenkov, who is a Dyatlov case avid follower and researcher, but more importantly, he took part in more than 20 rescue operations, some of them in very similar regions and climates. I will be publishing a long article about another incident, which was the first one to surpass the Dyatlov Pass incident by duration and complexity of the search operations, and the number of dead. This is the Chivruay tragedy. Vladimir Borzenkov participated in the search in 1973, he was the one handling the bodies. I will tell you in more detail about his experiment in Lovozerskiye Tundry. In that case they found frozen bodies with wrist watches and they wondered why each group's watches stopped in the span of 30 minutes. Perhaps because they died together? In the Dyatlov Pass incident we have a body with two watches that stopped 24 minutes apart. Borzenkov makes a very important discovery: the watch of the last frozen body found continued to work after the body thawed. Unfortunately we don’t have this information for the Dyatlov group.

Slobodin's body thawing in the Ivdel morgue. The Pobeda is still on his frozen hand.

There are 3 reasons a manual wind watch to stop in this conditions:

1. Fully unwind
2. The lubricant freezes
3. Condensation freezes
4. If the watch is placed on a frozen surface with good contact, e.g. ice, then one part of the watch will promptly freeze and the mechanism might stop working due to large difference in temperatures among the parts.

Several experiments were conducted on the subject. Here is one.

The time on these three watches was set to 12:00 and they were placed in a freezer with a temperature of -20°C (-4°F) for 2 hours (a dual-compressor refrigerator with an electronic control unit keeping the temperature quite accurately). The result is in the photo. The watches stopped in the span of 8-25 minutes. After taking them out of the freezer and let to thaw they continued working normally.

The bottom line is that the watches on the bodies may tell us when the bodies hit the frozen ground where they were found.

You will have more information on the subject next week straight from Dr. Borzenkov.

Dr. Vladimir Borzenkov on Russian TV1 with Malahov