By Amalia Theocharidou,
1959, Russia. Igor’s mother is desperately trying to stop him from taking on the lead to a hiking trip of three weeks with other nine university students. She says he’s being irresponsible and that he should focus on his thesis instead. The young man manages to persuade his mother that it’d be the last time he’d take on on such a hobby. And sadly, it was. Igor Dyatlov had carefully set out a hiking path for him and his camarades in the Ural Mountains, despite the tension of the ongoing Cold War, or the prohibiting weather, since it was the dead of winter. Their advantage? All of them were experienced sportsmen and women, who hiked regularly, originating from the Urals Polytechnic Institute in Yekaterinburg. Eventually, though, only one would survive.
As BBC reports, “The party consisted of eight men and two women. Igor, the leader, was a fifth-year radio engineering student and one of the most experienced athletes in the group. There was also Zinaida Kolmogorova, 22, from the same faculty, Yuri Doroshenko, 21, who was studying power economics, Alexander Kolevatov, 24, studying nuclear physics, Yuri Krivonischenko, 23, Rustem Slobodin, 23 and Nicolas Thibeaux-Brignolle 23 –all engineering students. Lyudmila Dubinina, 20, and Yuri Yudin, 22, were both studying economics. Semyon Zolotaryov, a 38-year-old sports instructor who had fought in World War Two, was the odd one out“.
Found later on in their abandoned tent, nine bodies were laying in terrible condition. Some barefoot, or stripped in a strange way, some even carrying a bit of radioactivity. Two had even missing eyes and one’s tongue was missing. Igor was also found in a compromising position. His fists were clenched and his jacket was open, despite the cold. As the leader, Dyatlov had promised to send out a signal when his team had successfully reached their base. On the first days, no one had suspected a thing, blaming his delay on the bad weather. But as time went on and the students were nowhere to be found, the families began an initiative to spot them, resulting to a search party of 80 people sent by their university to look for them.
Mikhail Sharavin, one of the volunteers, shares: “We had gone about 500 metres when on the left I saw the tent. Part of the canvas was poking out but the rest was covered in snow. I used an ice pick lying nearby to uncover the entrance“. What they found there was a blanket, a pair of boots, maps, alcohol, money and lastly, some food of high fat, special for hikers, that was sliced but not eaten, as if they ran out of time, the volunteers claim. Outside of the tent, the group quickly noticed some frozen footprints made by barefoot people, with socks or even with a single boot. 100 meters down the path and they stopped. What kind of a person would leave their tent at -20 degrees?
The Soviet forces began a criminal investigation, which ended with the cause of death due to an “unknown natural force” and later on they closed the case. This action resulted to the sparking of multiple conspiracy theories, even an alleged Yeti attack. In 2021, Swiss researchers claimed to have found the real answer to the mystery, which according to them was a rare, slow motion avalanche that caused fatal injuries. Despite the theory making some sense, many are still claiming that there’s still light to be shed in this mysterious case.
References
- The Dyatlov Pass Incident Remains World’s Most Terrifying Hiking Mystery. NDTV. Available here
- There were nine… BBC. Available here
