The most mysterious accidents in domestic tourism. Tragedy in the Khamar-Daban mountains: what secret does the “Buryat Dyatlov Pass” hide? The mysterious death of climbers on the Khamar Daban Pass

This happened in August 1993. A group of seven tourists arrived in Irkutsk from Kazakhstan and went to the Khamar-Daban mountains. Only one girl was destined to return from there alive. Six people, including a female instructor, died at an altitude of 2204 meters
taken from here: http://baikalpress.ru/friday/2010/41/008001.html photos of Khamar-Daban were honestly stolen from here: http://turizm-ru.livejournal.com/1520052.html

“In August 1993, a group of tourists from Petropavlovsk, Republic of Kazakhstan arrived in Irkutsk by train,” says Leonid Izmailov, then deputy head of the ZRPSS ( Transbaikal regional search and rescue service). — There were seven of them: three girls, three boys and their 41-year-old leader Lyudmila Ivanovna, master of sports in hiking. The group set off along the assigned route of the fourth category of difficulty through Khamar-Daban.
The tourists moved from the village of Murino along the Langutai River, through the Langutai Gate pass, along the Barun-Yunkatsuk River, then climbed to the very high mountain Khamar-Dabana Hanulu (2371 m), walked along the ridge and found ourselves on the watershed plateau of the Anigta and Baiga rivers. Having covered this significant part of the journey (about 70 kilometers) in about 5-6 days, the group stopped for a rest. The place where tourists camped is located between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204 m) and Tritrans (2310 m). “This is a completely bare part of the mountains - there are only stones, grass and wind,” explains Leonid Davydovich. “Why the manager decided to stop here, and not go down 4 kilometers, to where the trees grow, where there is less wind and there is an opportunity to make a fire, is a mystery. This was probably one of the tragic mistakes...
And this is why we had to talk about the instructor’s mistake: on August 18, 1993, ZRPSS employees learned that six participants in the hike had died. Only 18-year-old Valentina Utochenko survived. The exhausted girl was noticed and taken with them by tourists from Ukraine who were rafting down the Snezhnaya River. It was she who told the rescuers about how it all happened.
— Probably, few people remember that on August 3, 1993, a Mongolian cyclone came to Irkutsk and such an amount of rain fell that the entire Karl Marx Street was knee-deep in water. The torrential rain did not stop for about a day. Naturally, at that time there was also precipitation in the mountains, only there was snow and rain,” says Leonid Davydovich. — All this time the group moved in the mountains, without giving themselves rest.
It is worth noting that at the same time, another group from Petropavlovsk-Kazakh was in the Khamar-Daban mountains. Its leader was the daughter of Lyudmila Ivanovna. Even before the trip, mother and daughter agreed to meet at a designated place, at the intersection of two routes in the mountains. Perhaps it was precisely because of the rush that the group did not wait out the bad weather and kept moving forward. Apparently, when the tourists no longer had any strength left, it was decided to take a break. “How else can we explain the manager’s decision to spend the night in an open place blown by a squally wind, when there were about 4 kilometers left to the forest?” — Leonid Davydovich argues.
Rescuers will become aware of the tragedy that took place at the rest stop only two weeks after the incident - on August 18. From the meager stories of the surviving girl, they were able to imagine what exactly happened there.
“On the night of August 4-5, it continued to snow and rain in the mountains, the weather was very bad, with a piercing wind,” Leonid Davydovich describes what happened. “All this time, tourists were freezing in a wet tent, unable to warm up by the fire. By the way, the guys’ clothes were also wet, because they had been walking in the rain all day. As a result, on the morning of August 5, they got ready to set off, when suddenly, at about 11 o’clock, one of the guys started foaming at the mouth, blood poured out of his ears - in front of everyone, 24-year-old Alexander became ill, and he died immediately and suddenly.
Then complete chaos began in the group. It is surprising that this death instilled panic not only in the 16-17-year-old participants in the hike, but also in the leader - an experienced woman, a master of sports. It is difficult to explain what was happening in the mountains - real madness was happening before the eyes of Valentina Utochenko, who maintained her composure. “Denis began to hide behind the rocks and run away, Tatyana hit her head on the rocks, Victoria and Timur probably went crazy. Lyudmila Ivanovna died of a heart attack” - such data is recorded in the report on search and rescue and transportation operations from the words of the surviving girl.
Valentina, as the rescuers say, watched what was happening for a long time, tried to somehow reason with the remaining four, but it was all in vain - those who had lost their minds were uncontrollable, they broke free and ran away from Valentina when she tried to take them away from this place into the forest.
When the girl realized that all attempts to save her freezing, distraught friends would not be successful, she took her sleeping bag, a piece of polyethylene and went down several kilometers down the slope. Where there is a forest, where the wind is not felt so much. There the girl spent the next night, and in the morning she returned to the parking lot. By this time, everyone remaining on the mountain was dead.
“The strangest thing is that all night, even before the first death, the guys were wet and frozen, but did not even try to warm up,” says Leonid Izmailov. “Each of them had a sleeping bag and plastic wrap, but this remained untouched - everything was dry and in their backpacks. Why the manager did not take any action is inexplicable. How inexplicable is the general panic that set in after the first death.
But, according to the rescuers, Valentina acted completely correctly and logically. Having climbed the mountain in the morning and seeing a terrible picture, the girl was not at a loss - she found a route map in the leader’s things, collected food and set off to seek salvation. 18-year-old Valya went down to the Anigta River, spent the night of August 7 there, and continued moving again in the morning.
After some time, the girl came across an abandoned relay tower at an altitude of 2310 meters, where she spent another night completely alone. And in the morning, the tourist noticed pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses to which wires had once been laid turned out to be abandoned. But the tourist went out to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream. Here the girl again had to spend the night, and the next day continue the search for people. After walking another 7-8 kilometers, the exhausted Valya stopped. She stretched out her sleeping bag on the bushes near the water - this is how lost tourists indicate their presence.
“It was here that a group of tourists from Kyiv, rafting along the Snezhnaya, noticed her. The Ukrainians saw the banner, moored to the shore and took Valya with them, continues Leonid Davydovich.
The specialist notes that Valentina Utochenko is very lucky, because people rarely visit these places. The girl told what happened to her group, and at the first opportunity the tourists contacted rescuers. “The information came to us from Alexander Kvitnitsky, a Ukrainian tourist, on August 18 at about one o’clock in the afternoon. A helicopter was immediately ordered to go in search of the dead, but for various reasons it was possible to take off only on August 21, recalls Leonid Izmailov. “But it was not possible to find the parking lot, although helicopters from Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk flew in searches.”
At the same time, a search was underway in the Khamar-Daban mountains for two more guys from Omsk. The fact that they went missing on August 17 became known to rescuers thanks to a participant in the hike, who independently reached Irkutsk to report about her lost comrades. The girl said that the leader of the group, 18-year-old Ivan Vasnev, and 18-year-old tourist Olga Indyukova went on reconnaissance and did not show up at the meeting place at the appointed time. After waiting a day, the remaining trio, leaving a note and food at the place, went to the people.
“Together with two guys from Omsk, who were lifted aboard a helicopter already on Snezhnaya, we went in search of the lost. At the same time, a search was underway in the mountains for the dead tourists. We flew out on August 23, 24 and 25,” says Leonid Davydovich. “And on the 26th, Ivan and Olga were finally found - they were steadfastly waiting for rescue at Snezhnaya, stretching blue plastic on the shore. The guys were fine, they even had food in stock - Snickers and a can of canned beef.
By coincidence, having already taken Ivan and Olga on board, the rescuers also discovered the dead group from Kazakhstan. The helicopter landed, and everyone on board witnessed a terrible sight: “The picture was terrible: the bodies were already swollen, everyone’s eye sockets were completely eaten away. Almost all of the dead were dressed in thin tights, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra...”
What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the hikers take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remain unanswered. Rescuers from Buryatia took the group from the scene of death by helicopter. An autopsy was performed in Ulan-Ude, which showed that all six died from hypothermia. By this time, relatives of the missing tourists had arrived in the capital of Buryatia, who eventually took the bodies home. By the way, Lyudmila’s daughter, without waiting for her mother’s group at the appointed place, decided that the tourists simply did not make it by the agreed time, and calmly continued their hike. Later, when the route of the second category of difficulty was completed, the daughter of the deceased woman, together with her charges, returned to Kazakhstan, not even suspecting the misfortune.
“We saw this group just on August 5,” says Leonid Davydovich. “We had to take the children out of Khamar-Daban, and Lyudmila Ivanovna’s daughter was there for the second day. Just at this time, in another place in Khamar-Daban, tragic events happened to the group.
Leonid Davydovich says that it is very difficult to understand the reasons for the death of six people: “Of course, there was bad weather, but these are tourists - a prepared people, and the leader should know how to behave in such cases. In addition, the woman, in my opinion, made a serious mistake by pitching a tent in a drafty place far from the forest. And, as I understand, the group was tired - Lyudmila was in a hurry to meet her daughter and spared no effort. The night spent in the wind in wet clothes and a damp tent also took its toll.”
— What helped Valentina avoid the same fate? Probably character. We don’t know her at all, and when we talked in August 1993, the girl was deep inside herself - not every person is able to survive this. The main thing is that she did everything right, which saved her.
P.S. The names of the victims are not indicated for ethical reasons.
Turned out to be the most persistent
“Friday” managed to find Alexander Kvitnitsky, a tourist from Kyiv, who was part of the group that found Valentina on the Snezhnaya River. Alexander Romanovich shared his memories with us.
“It turned out that we were the first to whom Valya told about the death of her friends,” the man recalls. “She said that they had a wonderful leader and that they were in a hurry to complete the route as quickly as possible, so they were very tired. When bad weather came, they were all very cold, but they did not go down from the ridge to wait out the bad weather, but walked all the time. This made us even more tired. As she said, it all started with the death of the strongest participant in the campaign - a young, strong guy. Valya said that the group leader considered him her son, because she raised him from childhood. The guy's heart sank and he suddenly died in front of everyone. Because of this, the leader lost her remaining strength and told everyone to go downstairs and leave her with this guy. The guys, of course, did not abandon her, and she also died before their eyes. We were never able to make out what happened next: Valya described everything as an attack of mass madness. Despite her attempts, it was simply impossible to organize further movement with the remaining team. She even tried to drag someone by the hand with her, but he broke free and ran away. And Valya, a strong village girl who is used to physical activity, turned out to be the most persistent of all. She was as unbearably cold as the others, she also became numb as she walked, but thoughts of her family saved her. The girl thought what would happen to her mother if she did not return home. Taking a sleeping bag and polyethylene, Valya went down to the forest. There she waited out the bad weather, and when she returned, she saw that everyone was dead.
Later I reached the river and decided to wash my hair. She reasoned like this: if you are going to die, then you need to look good before you die. By that time the weather had settled - the sun was scorching. We noticed her on the river. Valya had a cold - we gave her antibiotics and other medications. And when we continued our route along the river, we met Muscovites who were traveling to Irkutsk together with Valya’s group. They were fishing on the shore, noticed a girl and began asking where everyone else was and how they were doing. Valya told them everything that happened - it was a shock for them, because during the journey they managed to become friends. Later, when the bodies had already been found, our guys helped Valya buy train tickets and escorted him home.
Is altitude sickness to blame?
Alexander Kvitnitsky, discussing the reasons for the death of the group, suggests that the group developed mountain sickness, which appears in high altitude conditions: “It can be assumed that due to oxygen starvation they could have changes in the brain that cause different reactions, including affecting on the heart, blood vessels, cause hallucinations, etc. But at the altitude at which that group was, altitude sickness almost never happens.”

We managed to find Valentina Utochenko on the Internet. Now the girl who escaped in the mountains on Lake Baikal has a family and children. And talk about that story
Valentina has no desire: “Do you think I want to remember this nightmare? I had to leave and change my whole life. I don’t want to remember this.” However, Valentina noted: “Our instructor was of a very high level, and everything that happened was not her fault. “Everything would be fine with us then if there was the weather that the weather forecasters promised.”

An old relay tower helped Valentina Utochenko find her way and reach the Snezhnaya River, where she was picked up by tourists from Kyiv

There were seven of them: three girls, three boys and their 41-year-old group leader, a master of sports in hiking. The group set off along the assigned route of the fourth category of difficulty through Khamar-Daban. Only one person returned...

"The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass." A film with the same name was released last week. The film is about one of the most mysterious secrets of the Urals - the death of Igor Dyatlov’s tourist group in February 1959. However, no less scary tale occurred 20 years ago in Buryatia, on the Khamar-Daban pass. In 1993, in the area of Retranslyator Peak (Mount Tritrans), almost all tourist group. Only one participant in that fateful campaign survived.

Inform Policy tried to reconstruct the history of the tragic events on Khamar-Daban according to people who were involved in the search for the tour group and who conducted an investigation into the emergency. While working on the material, correspondents were surprised at how similar the details of the tragedies were.

A little history

We won’t particularly retell the mysterious events that happened to tourists from Dyatlov’s group. The media wrote a lot about the incident on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (translated from Mansi as “Mountain of the Dead”), they tried to reconstruct the events at the “Battle of Psychics”, a documentary and now a feature film was made based on the incident.

However, all versions (strike of a secret weapon, tourists went crazy, were killed by the military, fell under an avalanche, were poisoned by poisons) are only hypothetical. No one still knows what happened on Mount Kholotchahl. Anyone interested in this story can find a lot of documentary evidence, photographs, artistic versions and scientific hypotheses on the Internet.

So this fatal peak is not deprived of attention. But the same cannot be said about the incident on Khamar-Daban, where six people from Petropavlovsk-Kazakhsky died. During the investigation, we had to collect material literally bit by bit. Unfortunately, little is known about some details. And the only surviving participant in the fatal hike, whom we managed to find through social networks, did not answer our questions. Apparently, it’s just hard for her to remember what happened on a rainy August 1993 in the mountains of Buryatia.

A series of strange deaths

The media reported little about the tragedy at Tritrans Peak. Of the local publications, only one of the Irkutsk newspapers wrote about the emergency. But in Kazakhstan they talked a lot about this event. Therefore, in terms of the chronology of the emergency, we will rely on their reports.

In August 1993, a group of tourists from Petropavlovsk-Kazakhsky arrived by train.

This is a completely bare part of the mountains, there are only stones, grass and wind,” Leonid Izmailov, the former deputy head of the Transbaikal regional search and rescue service, is quoted on the forum.

It snowed and rained over the mountains for several days. Exhausted, the group stopped. Below, at a distance of four kilometers, is the edge of the forest. Why the tourists didn’t go down into the forest still remains a mystery.

On the morning of August 5, they were getting ready to set off, when suddenly, at about 11 o’clock, one of the guys started foaming at the mouth and bleeding from his ears. In front of everyone, Alexander K-in became ill, and he died suddenly there and then,” said Leonid Izmailov.

After this, according to survivor Valentina U-ko, complete chaos began in the group. “Denis began to hide behind the rocks and run away, Tatyana hit her head on the rocks, Victoria and Timur probably went crazy. Lyudmila Ivanovna died of a heart attack,” such data was recorded in the report on search and rescue and transportation operations from the words of the surviving girl.

And here is how Kazakh athletes describe what happened on the forum:

“After a while, two girls fall at once, start rolling around, tearing their clothes, grabbing their throats, the symptoms are the same, a boy falls after them. The girl and the guy remain, decide to leave the essentials in their backpacks and run downstairs. The girl bent over the backpack while she was laying it out, raised her head, the last guy with the same symptoms was rolling on the ground. The girl ran downstairs. I spent the night under a stone, on the edge of the forest area, trees fell nearby like matches. I got back up in the morning.”

“Separated from the group and not knowing how to escape, the tourists died individually from hypothermia and exhaustion. They stretched out along the slope and died one after another.”

“I read about this a few years ago on some website... A hypothesis was put forward about the impact of infrasound: strong wind, specific terrain.”

“I heard a version about poisoning with some kind of gas...”

Seeing the dead, Valentina went in search of people. Ukrainian water tourists saved her. At first they sailed past, but decided to return - they found it suspicious that the girl did not respond to their greetings. The girl did not speak for several days. The corpses were removed almost a month later and buried in zinc - the weather, animals and birds did a good job...

The picture was terrible, rescuers recall. Almost all of the dead were dressed in thin tights, while three were barefoot. What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the hikers take off their shoes? These questions remain unanswered. An autopsy was performed in Ulan-Ude, which showed that all six died from hypothermia.

So, it’s worth summing up some results. The events on "Mountain of the Dead" and on Tritrans Peak have a number of similar details. But there are also differences.

Similarities and differences between incidents.

Dyatlov group.

Time and place of emergency: February 1959, Ural Mountains, slope of Mount Kholatchakhl.

Number of people: 10 people. 9 died. 1 survived (due to illness, he was forced to interrupt the ascent and returned).

Judging by reports from the scene of the emergency, the group left the parking lot in a panic, as if they were terribly frightened by something. The tent was cut open from the inside and personal belongings were thrown away.

Bodies found in different places. It seemed that the Dyatlov group simply fell dead. Many did not have outerwear.

The victims were found to have strange intravital injuries to internal organs. Experts explained the injuries to external organs (lack of eyes and tongue) by the fact that the bodies had lain in the forest for a long time and could have become prey for animals.

Official version death: an elemental force that people were unable to overcome. For all the dead, the conclusion was drawn that death occurred from exposure to low temperature (freezing).

Korovina Group

Time and place of emergency: August 1993.

Number of people: 7 people. 6 died. 1 tourist survived.

Judging by messages on Kazakh forums, the group panicked. The reason is the sudden death of a tourist.

The bodies were found in almost the same place. Some had no outerwear.

No injuries were found on the bodies. The official version of the death: the tourists froze to death.

Tourists are frozen

In the days of August 1993, the operation to search for the bodies of dead tourists was led by the well-known rescuer Yuri Golius in Buryatia. Here's what he said:

Specialists of our control and rescue service served climbers, hikers and ski tourists. All organized tourist groups that had a route sheet and a route book were registered with the Civil Defense and Emergency Committee. Including the group of Lyudmila Korovina, who led a group of guys from Kazakhstan.

In 1993, the country hosted the so-called “Turiada” - mass hikes into forests and mountains. Lyudmila Korovina’s group also took part in them. By the way, at that moment in Khamar-Daban, but her daughter was part of another group. Mother and daughter agreed in advance to meet at a certain place, but the second group did not arrive in time.

I was in Kyren when I was informed that water tourists had brought a girl from a group lost in the mountains to Slyudyanka. I met with Valya U-ko. The girl was in a state of shock. Nevertheless, I asked her to give an explanation. According to her, before the fateful night, the group spent the whole day collecting and drying golden root at the pass. It was cold rain and snow all day, and a strong wind blew. The exhausted tourists were very cold and hungry.

The version of what happened on the fateful morning of August 5 was mentioned above. Now about what happened next.

The girl took her sleeping bag and went down the slope. She spent one night in the forest, and the next morning she climbed the pass and closed the eyes of her dead comrades. After that, she walked along the ridge, saw pillars going down from a nearby relay tower, went down to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream. Tourists noticed her there, says the rescuer.

Yuri Golius’s detachment was joined by specialists from Chita and Gusinoozersk, and an investigator from the prosecutor’s office was in one of the helicopters. When a team from Irkutsk arrived, the bodies of the tourists were found. About a month has passed since the death of the guys and their leader.

According to Yuri Golius, the cause of death of the tourists was hypothermia and loss of strength.

Unfavorable set of circumstances

Exactly five years after the tragedy, Vladimir Zharov, a well-known journalist and experienced traveler in Buryatia, walked the fatal route alone.

There were many unknowns about this incident. Therefore, I decided to completely repeat the route of the Kazakh group and figure out what happened on the spot,” Vladimir Zharov told Inform Policy.

He timed his campaign to coincide with the 5th anniversary of the death of the group.

“I walked in the same way along the Langutai River, through the Langutai Gate pass and reached the Tritrans peak, on the slope of which the group died,” says Zharov.

An inspection of the accident site allowed us to draw certain conclusions.

We can talk about a whole chain of tragic circumstances. The most important thing, of course, is the weather. August 1993 was very rainy. Later, the Kazakh athletes who came to the site of the death of the group could not believe it - it was summer outside, the heat was 30 degrees, and here people were freezing to death. However, this is most likely what happened, says Vladimir Zharov.

Almost all the days when Korovina’s group walked along the route, it rained.

Imagine, cold rain pours day and night. Clothes and tents are wet. It is difficult to light a fire. It’s difficult to do this on Khamar-Daban and in normal weather, everything around is damp. And then it rains like this for several days! Therefore, by August 5, the guys were tired and cold,” says Vladimir Zharov.

Food, which was only enough for the so-called “external heating” of the body, did not help from the cold. There were a number of other reasons. For example, many wondered why the group stopped on the slope and did not climb to the top, where there was a special platform. There was firewood and a place to rest. It only took 30 minutes to walk to this point. But the group stopped on a bare slope. According to Vladimir Zharov, the reason could be the inaccuracy of the map.

It was 1993. Maps were not as accurate as they are now. The spread between the data on the map and what was in reality was 100 meters. And in the mountains, 100 meters is already a lot,” explains the journalist.

It is possible that the experienced group leader Lyudmila Korovina simply did not get her bearings in the approaching twilight. Or maybe she felt sorry for the tired guys and stopped before reaching the top, blown by the winds.

In the morning Lyudmila Korovina saw that snow had fallen. She was an experienced traveler and immediately understood what this meant for a tired and cold group. She immediately gave instructions to immediately turn around and go down to the edge of the forest. The guys did just that. We collected our things and rolled up our tents. And then the tragedy happened. In front of everyone, the oldest student, Alexander, suddenly fell and died,” says Zharov.

It was a shock. The strongest and oldest of the guys died, the one who could build a fire, chop branches, help carry heavy things, the support and hope of the leader Lyudmila Korovina. It is not difficult to imagine what feelings could have gripped her at that moment. After all, she was responsible for the life of each member of the youth group. Korovina gives the only correct command - all tourists must immediately go down to the forest. But she herself remains next to the body of the dead guy.

What happened next is now difficult to find out. A group of teenagers began an organized descent to the forest. But then they suddenly returned. Why? Did the group leader call them? Or did they themselves decide not to abandon Lyudmila Korovina on a snowy slope? But what the children saw horrified them - the group leader died.

The boys' further actions are shrouded in mystery. On the forums they say that teenagers have fallen into despair. Only Valentina U-ko, who tried to take control of the group, did not lose her composure. She tried to calm the tourists down and demanded that they follow Korovina’s last command - to go to the forest. She dragged them by the hands and pushed them in front of her.

But, apparently, they did not listen to her. The girl, realizing that all her actions were useless, went to the edge of the forest alone. In the morning, she discovered that all the other members of the group were dead.

An examination of the accident site, says Vladimir Zharov, showed that the cause of death was hypothermia. On this he completely agrees with Yuri Golius.

“I don’t see mysticism here,” said the traveler. “It was an unfortunate set of circumstances.”

Vladimir Zhapov, Tatyana Rodionova, Leonid Aktinov

In August, it was 24 years since the mysterious death in the mountains of the Irkutsk region of six tourists from Petropavlovsk - Victoria, Denis, Alexander, Timur, Tatyana and their experienced leader Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina. According to Sputnik, the tragedy occurred in the Khamar-Daban mountains - the oldest massif on the planet, encircling Lake Baikal from the south. Only one participant in the campaign remained alive then - 18-year-old Valentina Utochenko, who was unable to shed light on the mystery of the death of her comrades.

... There are legends around these places, the degree of mysticism of which is off the charts. What is reliable is that it was here that a large pulp and paper mill smoked for almost half a century, which closed after a series of gloomy forecasts from environmentalists that stretched over decades. Here, according to the weather station, up to 800 earthquakes are recorded per year. Around the fires here they tell legends about people walking through the local forests. Bigfoot. In television programs from the category incredible facts talking about aliens landing somewhere nearby. It seems that the more conversations there are, the less chance there is to figure out how much of it is true and how much is fiction.

The story about the death of a group of Petropavlovsk tourists who conquered local peaks in August 1993 is absolutely true. People who knew them closely are still uncomfortable with the memories of this tragedy. A couple of years later, a hundred meters from the ill-fated place, friends of the victims will erect a memorial obelisk with the names of those who did not return from the mountains. Well, the reason for their mysterious death is still being clarified...

Greetings from Dyatlov

In conversations about this story, analogies with another, more famous case the death of tourists in the mountains - the Dyatlov group.

This happened 34 years earlier - in 1959, on the Ural slopes, at an altitude that was not too sky-high (a little over a thousand meters), but the site was classified as of increased complexity. The number of the group of "Dyatlovites" was 10 people, only one remained alive (due to illness, he was forced to interrupt the ascent and return back).

Then only three and a half weeks later the bodies of skiers began to be found in the snow, with injuries to internal and external organs. Many did not have outerwear. The tent was cut open from the inside and personal belongings were left abandoned. It seemed that the tourists were very frightened and left the tent in a hurry. The official version of the death is that it was a natural force that people were unable to overcome. Death occurred due to massive frostbite.

However, over the decades, this story has become overgrown with many legends, mysteries, versions - where the elements were to blame, and the human factor, and the anthropogenic factor, and even foreign spies and mysterious aliens from outer space. A book was written about this case, a film was made and a number of television shows were made.

The tragedy that happened on August 5, 1993 does not receive such increased attention, even in the homeland of the victims - in Petropavlovsk - few people have heard about it, although there are no less mystics in this story.

We were a real family...

...Then the so-called “Turiada” took place in the country - mass hikes in the forests and mountains. The group of Lyudmila Korovina, the 41-year-old helmsman of the Petropavlovsk tourist club "Azimut", which operated at the pedagogical school, also took part in them. In the early 90s in Petropavlovsk there were several groups of people who were interested in and engaged in tourism. But the brightest leader was and remains Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina.

Head of the Azimut tourist club Lyudmila Korovina / Photo: ru.sputniknews.kz

One of her students at that time was Evgeniy Olkhovsky, a researcher of those events, through whose efforts this story was not forgotten. He recalls how being in the club turned them into real people - young and idle hooligans.

She knew how to unite everyone and make a team. She believed in people, she believed in people. Could force a person to become who he really is. Under her mentorship, each of us was able to maximize our abilities and grow in all areas of life. How many people, thanks to her, became excellent teachers, athletes, created families, learned to play the guitar, draw, became stronger, bolder, more correct! We were all like adopted children to her, she was worried about everyone, she sent guys and received them from the army,” recalls Evgeniy.

Lyudmila Ivanovna was an international master of sports in hiking. The geography of the hikes expanded every year - Western Tien Shan, Western Sayan, Northern Urals, Subpolar Urals, Mountain Shoria, Karakum Desert, Altai. Not for the first time, in August 1993 I went to Khamar-Daban...

In August 1993, Evgeniy was also supposed to go on a hike with a group to Khamar-Daban. There was a route of the third category of difficulty ahead. But the circumstances turned out differently: “For the campaign,” he recalls, “I prepared thoroughly then - I wanted to get a discharge. But a month and a half before departure, I found out that I would have to go to the construction brigade. When I was already there, they “buried” me too, they called my mother constantly. Maybe it’s fate. But I rather think that if I had been there, everything would have turned out differently...”

Deadly halt

So, at the beginning of August 1993, a group of seven people (quite experienced tourists aged from 17 to 20-something years old), under the leadership of Lyudmila Korovina, went to the mountains from their starting point - the village of Murino. By the way, at the same time another group of our tourists was traveling along a different route in the same area, which included Lyudmila Ivanovna’s 17-year-old daughter. Even before the trip, mother and daughter agreed to meet at a designated place at the intersection of two routes in the mountains.

5-6 days after the start, Korovina’s group managed to cover a significant part of their journey - about 70 km. On August 4, the group takes a break at the top of 2300 m. Their last stop... It is noted that this place is a completely bare part of the mountains, it is even compared to Martian landscapes- there is practically no vegetation here and almost no living creatures are found, only stones, grass and wind. The group spent the night at this place. The weather stubbornly hampered the group of travelers day and night. Contrary to quite optimistic forecasts, in Irkutsk region then the Mongolian cyclone came - since August 3, it rained and snowed here all day and night.

Why did a group of tourists stop at such an open, windy place? From this moment on, history begins to become overgrown with legends and speculation. On the one hand, the group could descend 400 m lower, to the forest zone - for this it was necessary to overcome 4 km of pure distance. In such conditions, one could already dream of a saving fire. There was, according to local rescuers, another option - to climb to the top, where a special platform was located. There was firewood and a place to rest. The walk to this point was only 30 minutes.

According to Vladimir Zharov, a well-known journalist and traveler in Buryatia, the reason could be the inaccuracy of the map, which was not uncommon at that time. The spread between the data on the map and what was in reality was 100 meters. It's not like that in the mountains short distance, as it may seem. Finally, it is worth considering the fact that the tourists were so tired and frozen that they decided to stop for a while.

By the way, this place already had a bad reputation - here on August 3, 1914, he died in a snowstorm famous explorer A. P. Detischev...

What I wanted to forget

What happened the next day, August 5, became known to local rescuers only almost two weeks later - according to the only surviving girl. Her stories subsequently were not full of big amount details. One day, Valentina briefly and clearly remarked: “Do you think I want to remember this nightmare? I had to leave, change my whole life. I don’t want to remember this.”

If we collect the memories of different people who happened to hear the girl’s story about what happened, we get the following picture.

...On the night of August 4-5, the weather was bad - a thunderstorm thundered, a hurricane was raging below with such force that it knocked down trees... In the morning, at 11 o'clock, Alexander, the oldest and strongest of the guys, began to feel ill. He fell. There was blood coming from my nose, mouth and ears. It is worth noting here that the group leader raised the guy since childhood and therefore practically considered him her son. She decides to stay with him, and gives instructions to the other guys to try to go lower to the edge of the forest area. I appointed Denis as senior. But after a while, two girls fall at once. They begin to roll around, tear their clothes, and grab their throats. Timur fell after them with similar symptoms. Valentina was left alone with Denis. He suggests that you grab the most necessary things from your backpacks and run downstairs. Valentina bent over her backpack to pull out her sleeping bag. When the girl raised her head, Denis was already lying on the ground. Grabbing her sleeping bag, Valentina ran downstairs. She spent the night under a stone, on the edge of the forest area. Trees fell nearby like matchsticks. The next morning the girl rose back - Lyudmila Ivanovna was still alive, but on her last legs. She showed how and where to go out."

Here is how the events that happened are described from the words of the surviving girl in the report on search and rescue and transportation work: “It is difficult to explain what happened in the mountains - real madness was happening in front of V.U., who maintained her composure (Valentina Utochenko - ed.) Denis began to hide behind the stones and run away, Tatyana hit her head on the stones, Victoria and Timur probably went crazy.

Estimated place of death of tourists / Photo: ru.sputniknews.kz

Survivor

Having collected food and taken a map from the leader’s things, on August 6 Valentina went in search of salvation. The search lasted for three days.

The girl went down to the Anigta River, where she spent the night of August 7. The next day, she came across an abandoned relay tower at an altitude of 2,310 meters, where she spent another night completely alone. The next morning, noticing the pillars going down, the tourist, in the hope that they would lead her to people, set off on the road. However, the houses to which the wires were laid turned out to be abandoned.

But soon the girl went out to the Snezhnaya River and went downstream. Here she had to spend the night again in order to continue the search for people the next day. Having walked 7-8 kilometers, exhausted, she stopped and stretched out her sleeping bag on the bushes near the water. This is how lost tourists indicate their presence. At this time, a group of tourists from Kyiv were rafting along the river, and they picked up the girl. Even in this case, Valentina was extremely lucky - they say there are rarely people in those places...

At first, the girl did not talk to the tourists who saved her - she was in severe shock and exhausted. As a result, either as she returned “to life,” or because of the reluctance (or prohibition) of rescuers to search for the dead tourists... they were found only on August 26.

The truth that no one will tell...

The picture upon arrival at the scene of the tragedy was depressing: mummified bodies, grimaces of horror on their faces... Almost all of the dead were dressed in thin tights, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra.

What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the hikers take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remain unanswered.

The dead were buried only a month later - our delegates spent more than two weeks seeking the right to take the deceased to their native land...

...The bodies were taken out by helicopter. The head of the Poisk search team, lawyer Nikolai Fedorov, who was in the rescue expedition group at that time, recalls that when information about the tragedy arrived, he and his colleagues were sent by plane to the scene of the incident.

We were all gathered and in a team of six people were sent to the scene of the incident. The task was to find the bodies of the dead. When we arrived, the bodies were already prepared. One feature that was told to us by those who removed the dead from the mountain is that the bodies lay in pairs, and at a decent distance from each other (40-50 meters), said Nikolai Fedorov. — The autopsy of the bodies was carried out in Ulan-Ude. According to experts, everyone died from hypothermia...

There are many versions of the circumstances that led to what happened. And the fact that many Russian sources seem to deliberately allow some inaccuracies or discrepancies in the testimony suggests that someone wanted to “hush up” the story.

Thus, in the notes of traveler Leonid Izmailov, Korovina’s group seems to be almost a group of teenage schoolchildren with a pioneer leader, while the difficulty category of the route is indicated as higher. And the death was allegedly caused by unpredictable weather and the leader’s lack of professionalism. However, the average age of the hike participants, even without taking into account the “counselor,” was 20 years old. Each of them already had a certain number of solid forays under their belts, and careful monitoring of their physical condition and nutrition was provided for. Strict taboo regarding alcohol. All this eliminates the possibility of blaming it on frivolity or physical unpreparedness.

They add color and drama to Valentina’s stories in the description of the mass psychosis that happened. The time of death of Lyudmila Korovina is vaguely interpreted - was she still alive on the morning of August 6? According to Valentina, there was. According to some Irkutsk sources, it seems that it no longer exists. There is an opinion that rescuers knew about the death already on August 10-12, and began the search a week later - some say that bad weather allegedly got in the way, others talk about solving financial issues... Or maybe the rescuers were waiting for it to end the effect of certain toxic substances?

Finally, why did the control and rescue service release groups when entering their routes if it was known that a major hurricane was approaching? The forensic medical examination of the dead is subject to doubts and criticism (and what kind of examination can there be after three weeks of the bodies being in the open air). However, none of the “mere mortals”, apparently, saw the details of the investigation. However, now, after so many years, it seems that it is much easier to confuse and create more fog than to put all the dots in place.

It is obvious that, based on the symptoms described, hypothermia was only a contributing factor, and not the root cause of the deaths of tourists.

Evgeniy Olkhovsky does not believe in the hypothermia version. According to him, such a professional as Lyudmila Ivanovna strictly monitored this so that the children were provided with food and did not freeze.

Korovina’s people didn’t freeze at minus 50, but here on you..... I would rather believe in aliens, but for Korovina’s people to freeze, I went on a dozen hikes with her, and I know what I’m talking about... Possibly ozone poisoning occurred . There was a strong thunderstorm front, maybe the guys got into a high concentration of ozone, so the body couldn’t stand it,” Evgeniy shares his version.

It is known that ozone poisoning causes massive pulmonary edema and rupture of blood vessels. How were Valentina and Lyudmila Ivanovna lucky to stay alive under such conditions (until the next morning)? According to the researcher, the characteristics of the body are in the first case, its training is in the second.

Those who passed through those places (only 1000 m below) write that they were caught in the same rain as the deceased group, and after that rain, all the woolen clothes of the tourists simply fell apart in their hands, and everyone began to have severe allergies...

Moreover, there are even suggestions that several more groups actually died in those days. Alexey Livinsky, one of the local rescuers who participated in the search for the dead, denies this version. True, according to him, it is reliably known that at the same time a guy was found nearby who died with similar symptoms - blood from the ears, and clouding of mind with foam at the mouth...

Livinsky claims that when their group of rescuers found themselves near the scene of the incident, no significant logging was noticed. And according to Valentina, the hurricane dropped trees like matches. And again the question arises - why did the rescuers delay their search for so long, since the talk about bad weather is exaggerated? Also, according to Livinsky, the corpses of tourists were not eaten by living creatures at all, and in general a rare animal appears on that “Martian plateau.” And, accordingly, the examination was carried out more than complete and reliable. As for the main environmental disaster of the region - the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, it was inactive in those years.

At the group's campsites, to put it mildly, we were discouraged by the group's diet. For dinner and breakfast, we consumed one can of canned meat 338 g and one can of fish 250 g. I don’t know what the side dish was and how much, but there was clearly too little protein in the diet for seven healthy, tired people. The overnight sites were on a ridge much higher than the forest zone, and the group probably had problems with cooking and drying clothes, notes rescuer Livinsky. - And then the pathologist conducting the examination in Ulan-Ude openly said that there was a complete absence of glucose in the tissues of the dead, in the liver and elsewhere. Those syndromes that were observed in the group are fully consistent with hypothermia plus complete exhaustion of the body.

There was another version of what happened, which was voiced in Petropavlovsk: supposedly the cause of death was... banal poisoning with Chinese stew. However, the group had no signs of poisoning, and pathologists did not find any toxic substances in the tissues.

If people eat something that can lead to poisoning, then each body will react in its own way. Poisoning cannot affect everyone equally. Then you have to eat something so poisoned that everyone dies, especially within half an hour. It is also unclear about hypothermia; the air temperature could not drop sharply to 5 or 10 degrees below zero. Our guess is that there was an anticyclone and there was a strong wind. Magnetic vibrations began, huge air currents began to move, which created infrasound, and it could affect the psyche. Individual rocks under a strong wind can become an infrasonic generator of enormous power, which causes a person to feel a state of panic and unaccountable horror. According to the girl who survived, her friends behaved restlessly, their speech was confused, notes Nikolai Fedorov, a member of the search group.

It is most often mentioned that tourists could develop vegetative-vascular dystonia (VSD). This is almost directly indicated by the fact that they tried to undress - in the case of attacks of VSD, it may seem that the clothes are suffocating. However, it was too late to cope with the symptoms - as a result, numerous hemorrhages.

A tragedy could also happen for man-made reasons, given a large number of closed areas on Lake Baikal. And the rescuers got out to help, having already waited for the emissions to dissipate...

In general, versions, secrets, riddles and - there are many more questions than answers...

By the way, the Azimut club did not last long after the tragedy - 3-4 years, its old-timers say that a worthy replacement for Lyudmila Ivanovna was never found...

... There are legends around these places, the degree of mysticism of which is off the charts. What is reliable is that it was here that a large pulp and paper mill smoked for almost half a century, which closed after a series of gloomy forecasts from environmentalists that stretched over decades. Here, according to the weather station, up to 800 earthquakes are recorded per year. Around the bonfires here they tell legends about Bigfoot walking through the local forests. Incredible facts on television talk about aliens landing somewhere nearby. It seems that the more conversations there are, the less chance there is to figure out how much of it is true and how much is fiction.

Greetings from Dyatlov

In conversations about this story, analogies with another, more famous case of the death of tourists in the mountains - the Dyatlov group - often flash.

We were a real family...

Head of the Azimut tourist club Lyudmila Korovina / Photo: ru.sputniknews.kz

She knew how to unite everyone and make a team. She believed in people, she believed in people. Could force a person to become who he really is. Under her mentorship, each of us was able to maximize our abilities and grow in all areas of life. How many people, thanks to her, became excellent teachers, athletes, created families, learned to play the guitar, draw, became stronger, bolder, more correct! We were all like adopted children to her, she was worried about everyone, she sent guys and received them from the army,” recalls Evgeniy.

Lyudmila Ivanovna was an international master of sports in hiking. The geography of the hikes expanded every year - Western Tien Shan, Western Sayan, Northern Urals, Subpolar Urals, Mountain Shoria, Karakum, Altai. Not for the first time, in August 1993 I went to Khamar-Daban...

Deadly halt

5-6 days after the start, Korovina’s group managed to cover a significant part of their journey - about 70 km. On August 4, the group makes a halt at the top of 2300 m. Their last rest... It is noted that this place is a completely bare part of the mountains, it is even compared to Martian landscapes - there is practically no vegetation and almost no living creatures are found, only stones, grass and wind. The group spent the night at this place. The weather stubbornly hampered the group of travelers day and night. Contrary to quite optimistic forecasts, a Mongolian cyclone then came to the Irkutsk region - since August 3, it rained and snowed here around the clock.

According to Vladimir Zharov, a well-known journalist and traveler in Buryatia, the reason could be the inaccuracy of the map, which was not uncommon at that time. The spread between the data on the map and what was in reality was 100 meters. In the mountains this is not as short a distance as it might seem. Finally, it is worth considering the fact that the tourists were so tired and frozen that they decided to stop for a while.

By the way, this place already had a bad reputation - here on August 3, 1914, the famous explorer A.P. Detischev died in a snowstorm...

What I wanted to forget

What happened the next day, August 5, became known to local rescuers only almost two weeks later - according to the only surviving girl. Her stories subsequently were not replete with a lot of details. One day, Valentina briefly and clearly remarked: “Do you think I want to remember this nightmare? I had to leave, change my whole life. I don’t want to remember this.”

If we collect the memories of different people who happened to hear the girl’s story about what happened, we get the following picture.

Estimated place of death of tourists / Photo: ru.sputniknews.kz

Survivor

Having collected food and taken a map from the leader’s things, on August 6 Valentina went in search of salvation. The search lasted for three days.

The truth that no one will tell...

What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the hikers take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remain unanswered.

The dead were buried only a month later - our delegates spent more than two weeks seeking the right to take the deceased to their native land...

We were all gathered and in a team of six people were sent to the scene of the incident. The task was to find the bodies of the dead. When we arrived, the bodies were already prepared. One feature that was told to us by those who removed the dead from the mountain is that the bodies lay in pairs, and at a decent distance from each other (40-50 meters), said Nikolai Fedorov. — The autopsy of the bodies was carried out in Ulan-Ude. According to experts, everyone died from hypothermia...

It is obvious that, based on the symptoms described, hypothermia was only a contributing factor, and not the root cause of the deaths of tourists.

Korovina’s people didn’t freeze at minus 50, but here on you..... I would rather believe in aliens, but for Korovina’s people to freeze, I went on a dozen hikes with her, and I know what I’m talking about... Possibly ozone poisoning occurred . There was a strong thunderstorm front, maybe the guys got into a high concentration of ozone, so the body couldn’t stand it,” Evgeniy shares his version.

At the group's campsites, to put it mildly, we were discouraged by the group's diet. For dinner and breakfast, we consumed one can of canned meat 338 g and one can of fish 250 g. I don’t know what the side dish was and how much, but there was clearly too little protein in the diet for seven healthy, tired people. The overnight sites were on a ridge much higher than the forest zone, and the group probably had problems with cooking and drying clothes, notes rescuer Livinsky. - And then the pathologist conducting the examination in Ulan-Ude openly said that there was a complete absence of glucose in the tissues of the dead, in the liver and elsewhere. Those syndromes that were observed in the group are fully consistent with hypothermia plus complete exhaustion of the body.

A tragedy could also happen for man-made reasons, given the large number of closed areas on Lake Baikal. And the rescuers got out to help, having already waited for the emissions to dissipate...

In general, versions, secrets, riddles and - there are many more questions than answers...

By the way, the Azimut club did not last long after the tragedy - 3-4 years, its old-timers say that a worthy replacement for Lyudmila Ivanovna was never found...

"The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass." A film with the same name was released last week. The film is about one of the most mysterious secrets of the Urals - in February 1959. However, an equally terrible story happened 20 years ago in Buryatia, on the Khamar-Daban pass.

In 1993 in the area Repeater Peak (Mount Tritrans) Almost the entire tourist group died. Only one participant in that fateful campaign survived.

This is an attempt to restore the history of the tragic events on Khamar-Daban according to people who were involved in the search for the tour group and who investigated the emergency. While working on the material, correspondents were surprised at how similar the details of the tragedies were.

A little history

We won’t particularly retell the mysterious events that happened to tourists from Dyatlov’s group. About the incident on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (translated from Mansi - “Mountain of the Dead”) in the media, they tried to reconstruct the events at the “Battle of Psychics”; a documentary and now a feature film was made based on the incident.

Unfortunately, little is known about some details. And the only surviving participant in the fatal hike, whom we managed to find through social networks, did not answer our questions. Apparently, it’s just hard for her to remember what happened on a rainy August 1993 in the mountains of Buryatia.

A series of strange deaths

In August 1993, a group of tourists from Petropavlovsk-Kazakhsky arrived by train.

This is a completely bare part of the mountains, there are only stones, grass and wind,” Leonid Izmailov, former deputy head of the Trans-Baikal regional search and rescue service, is quoted on the forum.

And here is how Kazakh athletes describe what happened on the forum:

. “After a while, two girls fall at once, start rolling around, tearing their clothes, grabbing their throats, the symptoms are the same, a boy falls after them. The girl and the guy remain, decide to leave the essentials in their backpacks and run downstairs. The girl bent over the backpack while she was laying it out, raised her head, the last guy with the same symptoms was rolling on the ground. The girl ran downstairs. I spent the night under a stone, on the edge of the forest area, trees fell nearby like matches. I got back up in the morning.”

. “Separated from the group and not knowing how to escape, the tourists died individually from hypothermia and exhaustion. They stretched out along the slope and died one after another.”

. “I read about this a few years ago on some website... A hypothesis was put forward about the impact of infrasound: strong wind, specific terrain.”

. “I heard a version about poisoning with some kind of gas...”

So, it’s worth summing up some results. The events on "Mountain of the Dead" and on Tritrans Peak have a number of similar details. But there are also differences.

Similarities and differences between incidents.

Dyatlov group.

Time and place of the emergency: February 1959, Ural Mountains, slope of Mount Kholatchakhl.

Number of people: 10 people. 9 died. 1 survived (due to illness, he was forced to interrupt the ascent and returned).

The bodies were found in different places. It seemed that the Dyatlov group simply fell dead. Many did not have outerwear.

The official version of the death: a natural force that people were unable to overcome. For all the dead, the conclusion was drawn that death occurred from exposure to low temperature (freezing).

Korovina Group