This happened in August 1993. A group of seven tourists came to 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. How it all happened today in "Friday".
The chief specialist of the Irkutsk Oblast rescue service, Leonid Izmailov, says: “The mass psychosis that happened to the group after the death of the first person can be explained by overwork, unpreparedness for such a turn of events, hypothermia. But it is impossible to fully understand what happened. After all, at the same time in the mountains there were people who, like Korovina's group, did not expect a snowfall, but they all survived "
The Khamar-Daban ridge is one of the oldest mountains on the planet, stretching from west to east for more than 350 km. The ridge is located on the territory of the Irkutsk region and Buryatia. Thousands of tourists visit it every year.
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 Valentina has no desire to talk about that story: “Do you think I want to remember this nightmare? I had to leave, change my whole life. I don’t want to remember it. ” However, Valentina noted: “Our instructor was of a very high rank, and everything that happened was not her fault. Then everything would be fine with us if there was the weather that the forecasters promised "
The old relay tower helped Valentina Utochenko to orient herself and get out to the Snezhnaya River, where she was picked up by tourists from Kiev
A resident of Kiev, Alexander Kvitnitsky, was part of a group rafting along the Snezhnaya River, they found Valya on the shore. The man says that he called Valentina a couple of times after the incident, but then realized that any reminders of the tragedy on Khamar-Daban hurt the girl, and refused to communicate: “We often remember Valya. She is a real smart girl - she did everything right. She has nothing to blame herself for "
We learned about this case in the emergency service of the Irkutsk region. While preparing an article about the dangers that may lie in wait for mushroom pickers and berry pickers in the summer in the forest, the chief specialist of the service Leonid Izmailov casually mentioned this story. In August 1993, Leonid Davydovich and his colleagues from the Trans-Baikal Regional Search and Rescue Service (ZRPSS was reformed in the late 1990s) had to look for dead tourists on Khamar-Daban. The story turned out to be so shocking that we asked a professional to tell it to the readers of Friday in all its details.
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. - There were seven of them: three girls, three boys and their 41-year-old leader Lyudmila Ivanovna, master of sports in walking tourism. The group set off on 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 Gates pass, along the Barun-Yunkatsuk River, then climbed the highest mountain Khamar-Dabana Khanulu (2371 m), walked along the ridge and ended up on the watershed plateau of the Anigta and Baiga rivers. Having overcome this significant part of the path (about 70 kilometers) in about 5-6 days, the group stopped for a halt. The place where tourists have made a stop 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 leader made the decision to stop here, and not go down 4 kilometers, where trees grow, where there is less wind and there is an opportunity to make a fire, is a mystery. Perhaps this was one of the tragic mistakes ...
And to start talking about the instructor's mistake, this is why: on August 18, 1993, the employees of the ZRPSS learned that six participants in the campaign were killed. Only 18-year-old Valentina Utochenko survived. The exhausted girl was noticed and taken by tourists from Ukraine, who were rafting down the Snezhnaya River. It was she who told the rescuers about how everything happened.
Probably, few people remember that on August 3, 1993, a Mongolian cyclone came to Irkutsk and such an amount of precipitation fell that the entire Karl Marx Street was knee-deep in water. Then the pouring 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, not giving themselves a rest.
It is worth noting that at the same time in the Khamar-Daban mountains there was another group from Petropavlovsk-Kazakh. Its leader was the daughter of Lyudmila Ivanovna. Even before the trip, mother and daughter agreed to meet at an agreed place, at the intersection of two routes in the mountains. Perhaps it was precisely because of the haste that the group did not wait out the bad weather and kept moving forward. Apparently, when the tourists had no strength left, it was decided to make a halt. "How else to explain the decision of the leader to spend the night in an open place, blown by a squally wind, when there were about 4 kilometers to the forest?" - argues Leonid Davydovich.
The rescuers will become aware of the tragedy that took place at the halt only two weeks after the incident - on August 18. From the scant stories of the surviving girl, they were able to imagine what exactly happened there.
On the night of August 4-5, snow and rain continued to fall in the mountains, the weather was very bad, with a piercing wind, - Leonid Davydovich describes what happened. - All this time, the 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 walked in the rain all day. As a result, on the morning of August 5, they set off, when suddenly at about 11 o'clock one of the guys started to foam from his mouth, bleeding from his ears - in front of everyone's eyes, 24-year-old Alexander became ill, and he died suddenly.
Further in the group, complete chaos began. 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, master of sports. It is difficult to explain what was happening in the mountains - in front of Valentina Utochenko, who was keeping her composure, a real madness was going on. “Denis began to hide behind the stones and run away, Tatyana banged her head against the stones, Victoria and Timur were probably 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 rescuers say, watched what was happening for a long time, tried to somehow reason with the remaining four, but everything was in vain - those who had lost their minds were uncontrollable, they struggled and ran away from Valentina when she tried to take them from this place into the forest.
When the girl realized that all attempts to save the freezing distraught friends would not be successful, she took her sleeping bag, a piece of polyethylene and went down a few kilometers down the slope. Where there is a forest, where the wind is not felt so. The girl spent the next night there, and in the morning she returned to the parking lot. By this time, everyone who remained on the mountain was dead.
The strangest thing is that all night, even before the first death, the guys got wet and freezing, but did not even try to warm up, ”says Leonid Izmailov. - Each of them had a sleeping bag and plastic wrap, but it remained intact - everything was dry and lay in backpacks. Why the manager did not take any action is inexplicable. How inexplicable is the general panic that came after the first death.
But, according to rescuers, Valentina acted absolutely correctly and logically. Climbing the mountain in the morning and seeing a terrible picture, the girl was not at a loss - she found a route map in the manager's things, collected food and went to seek salvation. 18-year-old Valya went down to the Anigta River, spent the night of August 7 there, and in the morning continued to move again.
After some time, the girl stumbled upon an abandoned repeater tower at an altitude of 2310 meters, where she spent another night all alone. And in the morning the tourist noticed the pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses, to which wires had once been forwarded, 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 to continue looking for people. After another 7-8 kilometers, the emaciated Valya stopped. She stretched out her sleeping bag on the bushes by the water - this is how lost tourists indicate their presence.
It was here that a group of tourists from Kiev, rafting down 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 was very lucky, because people are extremely rare in these places. The girl told what happened to her group, and at the first opportunity the tourists contacted the rescuers. “The information came to us from Alexander Kvitnitsky, a Ukrainian tourist, on August 18 at about one in the afternoon. A helicopter was immediately ordered to go in search of the dead, but for various reasons it was only possible to take off on August 21, - recalls Leonid Izmailov. "But we failed to find a parking lot, although helicopters flew in search from Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk."
At the same time, two more guys from Omsk were searched in the Khamar-Daban mountains. The fact that they were missing on August 17, the rescuers learned thanks to a participant in the hike, who independently reached Irkutsk to report the 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 appear at the meeting place at the appointed time. After waiting a day, the remaining three, leaving a note and food in place, went to the people.
Together with two guys from Omsk, who were taken aboard the helicopter already on Snezhnaya, we went in search of the lost. In parallel, the search for the dead tourists was going on in the mountains. We took off on 23, 24 and 25 August, - says Leonid Davydovich. - And on the 26th they finally found Ivan and Olga - they steadfastly waited for salvation at Snezhnaya, stretching out blue polyethylene on the shore. The guys were fine, they even had food in stock - Snickers and a can of canned meat.
By coincidence, having already taken Ivan and Olga on board, the rescuers also found the dead group from Kazakhstan. The helicopter descended, 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 victims 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 participants of the hike take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remained unanswered. The group was taken from the place of death by helicopter by rescuers from Buryatia. In Ulan-Ude, an autopsy was performed, which showed that all six died from hypothermia. By this time, relatives of the missing tourists 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 have time for the agreed time, and calmly continued her hike. Later, when the route of the second category of difficulty was passed, 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 the daughter of Lyudmila Ivanovna was there for the second day. It was at this time that tragic events were taking place with the group in another place of Khamar-Daban.
Leonid Davydovich says that it is very difficult to understand the reasons for the deaths of six people: “Of course, the weather was bad, 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 wind-blown place far from the forest. And, as I understand it, the group was tired - Lyudmila was in a hurry to meet her daughter and spared no effort. A night spent in the wind in wet clothes and a damp tent has also done its job. "
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 in herself - not every person can survive this. The main thing is that she did everything right, which saved her.
P.S. The names of the victims are not listed for ethical reasons.
Turned out to be the most persistent
"Friday" managed to find Alexander Kvitnitsky, a tourist from Kiev, who was part of the group that found Valentina on the Snezhnaya River. Alexander Romanovich shared his memories with us.
It so happened that we were the first to whom Valya told about the death of friends, - the man recalls. - She said that they had a wonderful leader and that they were in a hurry to go through the route as soon as possible, so they were very tired. When bad weather came, they were all very cold, but did not descend from the ridge to wait out the bad weather, but walked all the time. They were even more tired of this. 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 grabbed his heart, and he suddenly died in front of everyone. Because of this, the leader lost her remaining strength, told everyone to go downstairs and leave her with this guy. The guys, of course, did not leave her, and she also died in front of their eyes. What happened next, we could not make out: 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 exertion, turned out to be the most persistent of all. She was as unbearably cold as the others, she, too, was numb as she walked, but she was saved by thoughts of her family. 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 she reached the river and decided to wash her hair. She reasoned like this: if you are going to die, you need to look good before you die. By that time the weather had settled - the sun was hot. We noticed her on the river. Valya had a cold - we gave her antibiotics and other medicines. And when we continued the route along the river, we met Muscovites who were traveling to Irkutsk together with Vali's group. They were fishing on the shore, noticed the girl and began to ask where everyone else was and how they were doing. Valya told them everything that had happened - it was a shock for them, because during the journey they managed to become friends. Later, when the bodies were already found, our guys helped Valya buy train tickets and walked her home.
Is altitude sickness to blame?
Alexander Kvitnitsky, discussing the reasons for the death of the group, suggests that the group developed altitude sickness, which appears in high altitude conditions: on the heart, blood vessels, cause hallucinations and so on. But at the height at which that group was, altitude sickness almost never happens. "
There were seven of them: three girls, three boys and their 41-year-old group leader, master of sports in walking tourism. The group set off on the assigned route of the fourth category of difficulty through Khamar-Daban. Only one person returned ...
"The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass". The film with that name was released last week. The speech in the tape is about one of the most mysterious secrets of the Urals - the death of the tourist group Igor Dyatlov in February 1959. However, no less terrible story happened 20 years ago in Buryatia, on the Khamar-Daban pass. In 1993, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Retranslator peak (Mount Tritrans), almost the entire tourist group died. Only one participant of that fateful campaign survived.
"Inform Police" tried 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 were investigating the incident. In the course of work on the material, the correspondents were surprised at how much the details of the tragedies converged.
A bit of history
We will not particularly retell the mysterious events that happened to the tourists from the Dyatlov group. The incident on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (translated from Mansi as "Mountain of the Dead") was widely reported in the media, they tried to reconstruct the events at the "Battle of Psychics", a documentary, and now a feature film, was shot based on the incident.
However, all versions (a blow from a secret weapon, tourists went crazy, killed by the military, fell under an avalanche, poisoned with poisons) are only hypothetical. Nobody knows what happened on Mount Holotchakhl. 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 this cannot be said about the incident on Khamar-Daban, where six people from Petropavlovsk-Kazakhskiy died. During the investigation, we had to collect material literally bit by bit. Unfortunately, few details are known. And the only surviving participant in the fatal campaign, which we managed to find through social networks, did not answer our questions. Apparently, it is simply hard for her to remember what happened in the rainy August 1993 in the mountains of Buryatia.
A series of strange deaths
There was little media coverage of the tragedy at Tritrans Peak. Of the local publications, only one of the Irkutsk newspapers wrote about the state of 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 messages.
In August 1993, a group of tourists arrived by train from Petropavlovsk-Kazakh.
This is a completely bare part of the mountains, there are only stones, grass and wind, - the words of Leonid Izmailov, the former deputy head of the Trans-Baikal Regional Search and Rescue Service, are quoted on the forum.
For several days it was snowing and raining over the mountains. Exhausted, the group took a break. Below, at a distance of four kilometers, lies the edge of the forest. Why the tourists did not descend into the forest is still a mystery.
On the morning of August 5, they got ready to go, when suddenly at about 11 o'clock one of the guys started to foam from his mouth, bleeding from his ears. In front of everyone's eyes, Alexander K-in became ill, and he died suddenly, - said Leonid Izmailov.
After that, according to the surviving Valentina U-ko, complete chaos began in the group. “Denis began to hide behind the stones and run away, Tatyana banged her head against the stones, Victoria and Timur were probably crazy. Lyudmila Ivanovna died of a heart attack ”- such data were 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, begin to skate, tear off their clothes, grab their throats, the symptoms are the same, the boy falls behind them. The girl and the guy remain, decide to leave the essentials in their backpacks and run down. The girl bent over her backpack while she was laying it out, raises her head, the last guy with the same symptoms is rolling on the ground. The girl ran downstairs. I spent the night under a stone, on the edge of a forest zone, trees felling nearby like matches. I got back up in the morning. "
“Separated from the group and not knowing how to escape, the tourists died one by one from hypothermia and exhaustion. Stretched out on the slope and died one after another. "
“I read about it a few years ago on some website ... A hypothesis was put forward about the effect of infrasound: strong wind, specific relief”.
"I heard a version about poisoning with some kind of gas ...".
Seeing the dead, Valentina went in search of people. She was rescued by Ukrainian water tourists. They first sailed past, but decided to return - it seemed to them suspicious that the girl did not answer their greetings. The girl did not speak for several days. The corpses were removed almost a month later, they were buried in zinc - the weather, animals and birds did a good job ...
The picture was terrible, rescuers recall. Almost all of the victims were dressed in thin leotards, while three were barefoot. What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the participants of the hike take off their shoes? These questions remained unanswered. In Ulan-Ude, an autopsy was performed, which showed that all six died from hypothermia.
So, it is worth taking some conclusions. The events at Mountain of the Dead and Tritrans Peak have a number of similar details. But there are also differences.
Similarities and differences of incidents.
Dyatlov group.
Time and place of the emergency: February 1959, Ural Mountains, the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl.
Number: 10 people. Killed 9. 1 survived (because of illness he was forced to interrupt the ascent and returned).
Judging by the reports from the emergency site, the group left the parking lot in panic, as if they were terribly frightened by something. The tent was cut open from the inside, personal belongings were thrown.
The bodies were found in various places. The impression was that the Dyatlovites simply fell dead. Many were not wearing outerwear.
On the dead were found strange intravital trauma to internal organs. The experts explained the trauma of external organs (absence of eyes, tongue) by the fact that the bodies had been lying in the forest for a long time and could become prey for animals.
The official version of death: a spontaneous force that people were unable to overcome. For all the victims, it was concluded that death came from exposure to low temperatures (freezing).
Korovina's group
Time and place of the emergency: August 1993.
Number: 7 people. Killed 6. 1 tourist survived.
Based on reports on Kazakh forums, the group panicked. The reason is the sudden death of a tourist.
The bodies were found in almost one place. Some had no outerwear.
No injuries were found on the bodies. The official version of the death: the tourists froze.
The tourists are frozen
In the days of August 1993, the rescuer Yuri Golius, well-known in Buryatia, is in charge of the search for the bodies of the dead tourists. Here's what he said:
Specialists of our control and rescue service served climbers, hikers and ski tourists. All organized tourist groups with a route sheet and a route book were registered in the Committee for Civil Defense and Emergencies. Including the group of Lyudmila Korovina, who led a group of children from Kazakhstan.
In 1993, the country hosted the so-called "Turiada" - mass hikes in forests and mountains. The group of Lyudmila Korovina also took part in them. By the way, at that moment on Khamar-Daban, but her daughter was in the other group. The mother and daughter agreed in advance to meet at a certain place, but the second group did not have time to arrive in time.
I was in Kyren when I was informed that water tourists 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 explanatory note. According to her, before the onset of the fateful night, the group gathered and dried the golden root at the pass all day. The whole day there was a cold rain with snow, a strong wind was blowing. Exhausted tourists were very cold and hungry.
The version of what happened on the fatal morning of August 5 was mentioned above. Now about what happened next.
The girl took the sleeping bag and went down the slope. She spent one night in the forest, and the next morning she climbed the pass, closed the eyes of her dead comrades. After that, she went along the ridge, saw the pillars going down from a nearby relay tower, went down to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream. There she was noticed by tourists, - says the lifeguard.
Specialists from Chita and Gusinoozersk joined Yuri Golius's detachment, and an investigator from the prosecutor's office was in one of the helicopters. When the 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 tourists was hypothermia and loss of strength.
Unfavorable coincidence of circumstances
Exactly five years after the tragedy, Vladimir Zharov, a well-known journalist and experienced traveler in Buryatia, walked alone along the fatal route.
There was much unclear about this incident. Therefore, I decided to completely repeat the route of the Kazakh group and investigate what had happened on the spot, - Vladimir Zharov told Inform Police.
He timed his trip to the 5-year date of the death of the group.
In the same way, I walked along the Langutai River, through the Langutayskie Vorota pass and went to the top of Tritrans, on the slope of which the group died, - says Zharov.
Inspection of the place of emergency allowed 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 place of the death of the group could not believe in any way - it's summer outside, the heat is at 30 degrees, and our people freeze to death. However, this is most likely the case, - says Vladimir Zharov.
It was raining almost all the days when Korovina's group walked the route.
Imagine a cold rain pouring down day and night. Clothes and tents are wet. It is difficult to light a fire. On Khamar-Daban and in normal weather it is difficult to do, everything is damp. And here it rains for several days! Therefore, the guys were tired and cold by August 5, - says Vladimir Zharov.
Food, which was only enough for the so-called "external heating" of the body, did not save from the cold either. There were a number of other reasons as well. For example, many wondered why the group stopped on the slope, and did not begin to climb to the top, where there was a special platform. There was firewood, a place to rest. It took only 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. The 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, - the journalist explains.
It is possible that the experienced group leader Lyudmila Korovina simply did not find her way in the coming twilight. Or maybe she took pity on the tired guys and stopped, not reaching the top, blown by the winds.
In the morning Lyudmila Korovina saw that it had snowed. She was an experienced traveler and immediately understood how this threatened the tired and frozen group. Immediately she gave the order - to immediately fold up and go down to the edge of the forest. The guys did just that. We packed our things and rolled up the 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 make a fire, chop branches, help carry heavy things, the support and hope of the leader Lyudmila Korovina. It is not hard to imagine what feelings she could have overwhelmed at that moment. After all, she was responsible for the life of each member of the youth group. Korovin gives the only true command - all tourists must immediately go down to the forest. But she herself remains next to the body of the deceased guy.
What happened next is difficult to find out now. 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 leave Lyudmila Korovina on the snow-covered slope? But what the children saw horrified them - the group leader died.
Further actions of the guys are shrouded in mystery. On the forums, they say that teenagers have fallen into despair. Only Valentina U-ko did not lose her composure, and she tried to take over the management of the group. She tried to calm down the tourists, demanded to execute the last command of Korovina - to go to the forest. She dragged them by the arms, pushed them in front of her.
But, apparently, they did not obey her. The girl, realizing that all her actions were useless, went to the edge of the forest alone. In the morning, she found that all the other members of the group were dead.
Inspection of the place of emergency, says Vladimir Zharov, showed that hypothermia was the cause of death. In this he completely agrees with Yuri Golius.
I don't see mysticism here, - said the traveler. - It was an unfavorable combination of circumstances.
Vladimir Zhapov, Tatiana Rodionova, Leonid Aktinov
The question of what really happened to the group of tourists on the Mountain of the Dead is still haunted by many. Books are written about what happened at the Dyatlov Pass, films are made, and they speculate on the forums. The tragedy, which under similar circumstances claimed the lives of six people in Transbaikalia 24 years ago, is devoted to a much smaller amount of materials, but this does not prevent us from drawing parallels between mystical stories, creeping into shivers.
September 28, 2017 Text: Daria Senichkina · A photo: Getty Images, OK.RU, sibraft.ru, Alexander Ryutin
In 1993, only one girl returned from a hike across Transbaikalia, in which seven people went
Do not be embarrassed by the fact that many Internet users are looking for "Kazakh" in search engines: the fact is that young people from Kazakhstan set off on a hike through the picturesque places of Buryatia. Perhaps this is the first and perhaps the last reliable fact in this terrible story. The second - only one girl from the tourist group managed to survive. Everything else is a bizarre puzzle of scraps of memories of rescuers, stingy phrases dropped by the one that survived and did not go crazy, and hypotheses put forward by researchers and caring Internet users.
We do not undertake to judge which of the versions - from testing biological weapons to banal hypothermia and the appearance of a Yeti - is correct, we suggest you do it yourself, having carefully studied the details of the tragedy.
Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina, who led the group, was an international master of sports in pedestrian tourism
Stones, grass and wind
In August 1993, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Retranslator peak, tourists from Petropavlovsk-Kazakhsky were killed - of the seven members of the group, only 18-year-old Valentina survived. There is no doubt that everything happens in the mountains, but the mysterious circumstances of their death do not allow us to call the incident an accident.
From September to June, there is snow on the Khamar-Daban ridge, and no one will be surprised by the message that snow has fallen on the passes and plateau in summer, blizzards occur in August.
With the weather, Lyudmila Korovina's group was clearly not lucky - a strong cyclone turned the hike into a real test, it got colder, it snowed and rained for several days. The tourists stopped for a halt on a rocky peak, they did not descend to the edge of the forest from a completely bare part of the mountains, where there were only stones and grass, because a hurricane wind began, and "the trees were breaking like matches."
“The strangest thing is that all night, even before the first death, the guys got wet and cold, but did not even try to warm up,” said Leonid Izmailov, the former deputy head of the Trans-Baikal Regional Search and Rescue Service. - Each of them had a sleeping bag and plastic wrap, but it remained intact - everything was dry and lay in backpacks. Why the manager did not take any action is inexplicable. How inexplicable is the general panic that came after the first death. "
By the way, many researchers are sure that the location of the bodies of those killed at the Dyatlov Pass is due to the same mental state.
If you read the archival materials published in the local press after the tragedy, you may get the impression that the death of the participants in the campaign is the fault of the group leader. However, those who were personally acquainted with Lyudmila Ivanovna and went on hikes with her (including those of the highest difficulty level), and the one who survived, strongly disagree with this statement.
“Our instructor was of a very high rank, and everything that happened was not her fault,” Valentina will still say in a very short interview (if I can name just two phrases as such), despite her understandable unwillingness to communicate with the press.
On the morning of August 5, one of the guys - the tallest, strongest and strongest - became ill. Sasha's mouth began to foam, blood gushed from his ears. According to Vali, he died suddenly. After that, something unimaginable began to happen on the slope.
Chaos reigned around - the young people flatly refused to carry out the order of Lyudmila Ivanovna, who appointed a senior and ordered everyone to move to the forest. “Denis began to hide behind the stones and run away, Tatyana banged her head against the stones, Victoria and Timur were probably crazy. Lyudmila Ivanovna died of a heart attack, "- such data are recorded in the report on search and rescue and transportation operations from the words of the surviving girl (and we still ask the question how it was possible to determine the cause of death to a non-professional, and even in an atmosphere of mass psychosis?).
Everyone except the group leader and Vali had the same symptoms - the tourists rolled on the ground, tore at their clothes and grabbed their throats. In horror, she grabbed a sleeping bag and went downstairs alone ...
Agree, the details remind the story of the "Dyatlovites" who tried to escape from something terrible naked in the cold!
This tower helped Valentina to navigate on the spot.
I closed the eyes of all the dead
“After only one day, Valya wandered through the forest, then climbed to the Repeater, and from there went down the clearing to Snezhnaya, where she spent the night in an abandoned winter hut or barrack (this is in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Bayri estuary). Then she was picked up by water workers, ”wrote Alexei Livinsky, a rescuer who personally took part in the search for the missing, on the tourist forum.
The girl “was in a terrible state, and the people of Kiev (the site: the same water workers who noticed her on the river on August 8 and then helped her get home) poured her half a mug of vodka. She had never drunk such doses before, but it helped. Valya came to her senses, talked about "Tritrans", told how the guys from the group bite and threw their boots. She said that on the morning of the next day after the tragedy she climbed from the forest zone to the place where the group was killed, she closed the eyes of all the dead and took a map and food from Korovina's backpack, ”Alexey continued his story.
“The mass psychosis that happened to the group after the death of the first person can be explained by overwork, unpreparedness for such a turn of events, hypothermia. But it is impossible to fully understand what happened. After all, at the same time in the mountains there were people who, like Korovina's group, did not expect a snowfall, but they all survived, ”Izmailov admitted.
“Do you think I want to remember this nightmare? I had to leave, change my whole life. I don't want to remember this, ”says Valentina.
Birds don't sing here
Livinsky recalls how the place of emergency looked like: “From the helicopter we saw the group. Clothes and backpacks were bright. The group lay on a clean slope 200-250 meters (in a straight line, not vertically) below the main ridge, towards the Snezhnaya river basin. There were also 200-300 meters to the border of the forest ”.
“I don’t remember that there - at the site of the death of the group - birds, even crows, sang or flew. This place is well ventilated. The bodies were partially mummified, and there was not even a cadaveric smell, ”he continues his scary story, noting that all the guys had blue-violet faces. “The bodies are already swollen, everyone's eye sockets are completely eaten away. Almost all of the victims were dressed in thin leotards, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra ... ”- Izmailov is quoted in the press. An autopsy, which was carried out in Ulan-Ude, showed that all six died from hypothermia.
“She knew how to unite everyone, make a team. I believed in people, believed in people. I could make a person become who he really is, ”says Evgeny Olkhovsky about Lyudmila Korovina
Eyewitness accounts
The journalists managed to find Alexander Kvitnitsky, a tourist from Kiev, who was part of the group that found Valentina on the Snezhnaya River. “It so happened that we were the first to whom Valya told about the death of friends,” the website baikal-info.ru quotes him as saying. - She said that they had a wonderful leader and that they were in a hurry to go through the route as soon as possible, so they were very tired. When bad weather came, they were all very cold, but they did not descend from the ridge to wait out the bad weather, but walked all the time. We are even more tired of this. "
“Valya, a strong village girl who is used to physical activity, turned out to be the most persistent of all. She was just as unbearably cold as the others, she, too, was numb as she walked, but she was saved by thoughts of her family. 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 she reached the river and decided to wash her hair. She reasoned this way: if you are going to die, you need to look good before you die. By that time the weather had settled - the sun was hot. We noticed her on the river. Valya had a cold - we gave her antibiotics and other medications to drink, ”Alexander said.
Snezhnaya river
We have no doubt that Valya really was a strong girl, another thing is that the other participants of the hike, according to those who passed more than one route with them, were experienced tourists who had gone to the mountains not for the first time, and clearly did not yield her level of training.
So what could have happened? In addition to hypotheses that the group saw something that they should not have seen - the Yeti, for example, assumptions about the testing of new weapons, which in the dashing nineties would not surprise anyone, and guesses about the sudden onset of VSD (vegetative-vascular dystonia), there are and other versions.
Infrasound- this hypothesis is voiced by a member of the search group Nikolai Fyodorov: “Our assumption was that there was an anticyclone and there was a strong wind. Magnetic vibrations began, huge air currents set in motion, 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 state of panic, unaccountable horror in a person. According to the girl who survived, her friends were restless, her speech was inconsistent. "
Dyatlov pass theme and the mystery of the deaths of students on it worries many, a lot of hypotheses, films were made. Even in the Battle of the Psychics, they tried to unravel the mystery - every psychic has its own version.
And here's another, apparently not the last "scientifically grounded" version.
New research by scientists has pointed to the possible cause of death of the tourist group Igor Dyatlov in 1959. Experts linked the death of people with a similar accident, when in 1993 a group of tourists from Kazakhstan died in Buryatia in circumstances similar to the history of the "Dyatlovites".
So in the 93rd year, a group of students led Lyudmila Korovina went to the Khamar-Daban pass. Out of seven people, only one returned - Valentina Utochenko... She does not want to remember the horror she experienced.
Vladislav Rzhavtsev - a member of a local tourist club, also walked the fatal route to study the causes of those terrible events, REN-TV reports.
"Then there was a very strong cyclone, the weather deteriorated sharply. If even a day before they passed, well, the weather followed them immediately, but was more or less bearable, then in the morning of August 5, according to the surviving Valentina, it snowed, the temperature dropped sharply, almost to zero", - explains the researcher.
For several days it was snowing and raining over the mountains. Exhausted, the tourists took a break. The mountains in this part are completely bare, only stones, grass and wind. Why the group did not go down to the edge of the forest is unknown. Had to spend the night on a rocky peak. On the morning of August 5, the tourists set off.
"There was a hurricane wind, there was snow, it was cold. Here is the first to fall Alexander Krysin, the strongest, the right hand of Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina. His nose and mouth are bleeding, and, according to Valentina, he is dying. At least he loses consciousness and cannot go further", continues Rzhavtsev.
After that, complete chaos began in the group. Someone started to hide and run away. Someone banged their heads against stones. The rest behaved like out of their minds. This is what the search and rescue report says. People tore at their clothes. Some had nosebleeds. Lyudmila Korovina died of a heart attack.
"The fact is that Valentina did not understand anything either. Perfectly healthy guys fall, tore their clothes, bang their heads against stones and die one after another. She could not understand what had happened, and when she realized that there was nothing she could do, she just went downstairs to somehow sit out this storm", - explains Rzhavtsev.
Valentin Utochenko a few days later, picked up by other tourists. The band's official cause of death Korovina - hypothermia. But the researchers insist - people died from something else. Yes, they were lightly dressed, but there were warm clothes in their backpacks.
"They would be able to get dressed, overcooled, a person cannot freeze so quickly. They died abruptly. They had enough time to get dressed. They began to choke, and by all indications it was poisoning", - suggests a member of the tourist club Natalia Rzhavtseva.
Researchers insist: in death groups of Igor Dyatlov and Lyudmila Korovina too much in common to be a coincidence. Both those and others left the parking lot in panic, as if they were frightened by something. The bodies were found in various places. As if people were falling dead, many were not wearing outerwear.
One of the initiators of the campaign to Holat-Chahl Vladimir Borzenkov sure that the cause of death of people was infrasound.
"If you take the top of two neighboring mountains and draw a straight line between them, then along the ridge itself at a wind speed of about 15 meters per second, about 60 tons of air per second passes. I believe that this is the most likely source of this infrasound that could affect the Dyatlov group", the researcher assures.
Igor Dyatlov's group died on the night of 1 to 2 February 1959. Tourists from the club of the Ural Polytechnic went on a hike to the village of Vizhai, Sverdlovsk region. The day before the tragedy, they had already tried to climb the Kholat-Chakhl pass. Because of the stormy wind, they did not succeed, they postponed the ascent for the next day.
"In the dark, the "X" moment came, the so-called, when the group was forced to hastily leave the tent. They could have come out through the entrance, of course. Nevertheless, they were forced to go to last resort and cut the tent. The urgency of flight is also indicated by the fact that the group was practically not dressed.", - explains Borzenkov.
The Dyatlovites ran out into the frost naked. That night, the temperature dropped to minus 28 degrees. Later, rescuers found warm clothes and shoes in the tent. The bodies of tourists were found at an impressive distance from the camp.
What made people flee in panic? Some even barefoot.
Hypothermia was recognized as the official cause of death. Many versions have been put forward - from an avalanche to a UFO. However, today we can say: expedition killed by sound waves.
"Only something extraordinary could force one to leave the tent, in particular, for example, some kind of influence on the psyche. The brain, which has its own frequencies, was influenced by something external. In particular, an acoustic wave could be affected", - says the researcher.
Few people know that if a person is exposed to low-frequency sounds, instant death will occur. No doctor will give an explanation for this. Scientists have conducted a number of experiments. The animals were exposed to infrasound, and this led to rupture of cerebral vessels and cardiac arrest.
"Even not very strong levels of infrasound affect the mental state of a person. In particular, there is a feeling of fear, a feeling of insecurity, internal organs begin to tremble. With an increase in the amplitude of the sound, breathing disorders may occur and the rhythms of the heart go astray. Higher sound levels lead to damage associated with oxygen supply to the brain", - explains scientist-acoustician Kanaev.
Fierce winds in the Ural and Trans-Baikal passes could turn into a tornado. They walked far from the tents and tourist camps. And they didn't even damage them. But the tornado caused an unusual phenomenon. People felt the influence of infrasound, so in a terrible panic they rushed to run.
"Infrasound affects not only the human psyche, but also the whole organism as a whole. These vibrations are dangerous because they are difficult to detect. For example, fluctuations of 7-8 hertz can also cause disturbances in the work of thought processes, panic, a feeling of inexplicable anxiety, danger", - comments svetlana Artemova, candidate of medical sciences.
Despite the development of science, infrasound is still poorly understood. It is only known that these are low frequency waves. We do not hear them, but we obey them.
Recent studies by scientists confirm that infrasound causes panic, horror in people, can drive you crazy and even cause cardiac arrest. The closest investigation will not find any traces. Strong winds at sea or in the mountains, thunderstorms and even aurora borealis are one of the reasons for the appearance of infrasound. Now the researchers are sure: the mysterious death of two expeditions is indisputable proof of the existence of a fantastic killer sound.
PS (Valex). My version was that this fireball... However, the appearance of fireballs is sometimes accompanied by strange sound waves, so it is possible two in one. Also, it is not necessary to discard the option of testing psi-weapons in those places, because some options of psi-weapons are just based on infrasonic impact on the subconscious of a person, causing panic in the crowd or in the enemy army.
Looking through tourist routes, I came across an article about how six tourists died a strange death. The only girl who did not fall into madness survived.In August 1993, a group of tourists from Kazakhstan: three girls, three boys and their 41-year-old leader Lyudmila Korovina, a master of sports in walking tourism, set off on a route of the fourth category of difficulty through Khamar-Daban.
They moved from the village of Murino along the Langutai River, through the Langutai Gates pass, along the Barun-Yunkatsuk River, then climbed the highest mountain Khamar-Dabana Khanulu (2371 m), passed along the ridge and ended up on the watershed plateau of the Anigta and Baiga rivers. Having overcome this significant part of the path (about 70 kilometers) in about 5-6 days, the group stopped for a halt. The place where tourists have made a stop is located between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204 m) and Tritrans (2310 m).
This is what the latter looks like:
This is a completely bare part of the mountains - there are only stones, grass and wind. It is not clear why the manager decided to stop there, and not go down to the trees, where there is less wind and there is an opportunity to make a fire.
On August 3, 1993, a cyclone came to the region, and such an amount of precipitation fell that in Irkutsk the entire Karl Marx Street was knee-deep in water. Heavy rain did not stop for about a day. From 3 to 5 August it was snowing and raining in the mountains, and the group moved without rest. Apparently, when the tourists had no strength left, it was decided to make a halt. Tourists were freezing in a wet tent and clothes, unable to warm up by the fire.
In the morning, Lyudmila Korovina saw that the snow had fallen, and immediately understood how this threatened the tired and frozen group. Immediately she gave the order - to immediately fold up and go down to the edge of the forest. They began to collect things, rolled up the tents. And then the tragedy happened. On the morning of August 5, they set off, when suddenly, at about 11 o'clock, in front of everyone's eyes, 24-year-old Alexander Krysin froth from his mouth, bleeding from his ears, and he suddenly died.
Korovina gave the only correct command - all tourists must immediately go down to the forest. But she herself remained next to the body of the deceased guy. The group began an organized descent to the forest, but then for some reason they came back. What they saw plunged them into horror - the leader of the group died.
The panic began. According to Valentina Utochenko, “Denis began to hide behind the stones and run away, Tatyana banged her head against the stones, Victoria and Timur were probably crazy. Lyudmila Ivanovna died of a heart attack. "
Valentina tried to somehow enlighten the remaining four, but it was all in vain - they broke free and ran away when she tried to take them from this place into the forest. She even tried to drag someone by the hand with her, but he broke free and ran away.
When she realized that all attempts to save the freezing distraught friends would not be crowned with success, she took her sleeping bag, a piece of polyethylene and went down a few kilometers down the slope, where she spent the next night, and in the morning returned to her camp. By this time, everyone who remained on the mountain was dead. The strangest thing is that all night, even before the first death, the guys got wet and cold, but did not even try to warm up. Each of them had a sleeping bag and plastic wrap, but this remained intact - everything was dry and lay in their backpacks.
Climbing the mountain in the morning and seeing a terrible picture, the girl was not at a loss - she found a route map in the manager's things, collected food and went down to the Anigta River, where she spent the night on August 7, and in the morning continued to move again.
After some time, she stumbled upon an abandoned relay tower at an altitude of 2310 meters, where she spent another night all alone. And in the morning the tourist noticed the pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses, to which wires had once been forwarded, 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 to continue looking for people. After another 7-8 kilometers, the emaciated Valya stopped. She stretched out her sleeping bag on the bushes by the water - this is how lost tourists indicate their presence. It was here that she was noticed by a group of tourists from Kiev, who took Valya with them.
On August 26, rescuers from a helicopter found the dead group from Kazakhstan. “The picture was terrible: the bodies were already swollen, the eye sockets were completely eaten away. Almost all of the victims were dressed in thin leotards, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra ... "
