Dear Jean Daniel Reuss
I now believe that the murderers were in the special settlement 41.
Yes, it is very probable. And according to the hikers, the settlement was marking a kind of limit between "civilisation" and wilderness. If Dyatlov's hikers met District 41 coming from the wild back to civilisation, they would have risked no harm. But coming from civilisation and entering wilderness, the human content and meaning of their stopover at District 41 become essential. If we want to know what happened on the ridge, we should know what happened at District 41.
And according to the diaries, it was pure erotic pantomine. The workers even took a day off to stay with the group of hikers and their two girls... In the group of hikers there was already an atmosphere of advanced flirting, rivalry, seduction, even humiliation... Group Diary of January 24 says : "Discussion about love provoked by Z. Kolmogorova." Zinaida's Diary of 26.1.59 says : "I, as always, was approached by some countryman. We arrived at the 41st settlement. (...) Many workers are very talented, intelligent people. Especially "the beard", his beard is ginger, ginger, and his eyes are also ginger, and brown." Lyda's Diary of 24 january says : "we started to discuss love issues, talking about kisses in particular. We talked all kinds of nonsense, of course; everyone was interested (…) Zhenya often picks on me, sometimes he even says offensive things. He seem to consider me foolish. It's my fault that I like to add fuel to the fire, damn me."... In Dyatlov's group, boys and girls were provoking each other, and rivalry, frustration and resentment was already established. When they arrived at District 41, they instantly contaminated the exclusively male local community with the erotic atmosphere of their own small community. It is perfectly realistic to assert that the group of young free, rich, sexy tourists coming from the city may have triggered violent erotic desire, violent frustration and humiliation, and violent desire of revenge. Yes they played mandolin, sang romantic songs and even danced together among the joyous laughter : but it was a cruel display of unreachable happiness, the bitter taste of a forbidden life... The hikers were townspeople, tourists, strangers... but the workers of District 41 were pure locals, raised in the Taïga, fluent in Mansi language, at home in the mountains... easy for a handful of them to take advantage on and revenge from the rookies.
If the Dyatlow group was murdered, it is indeed very likely it was by locals of District 41, either Russian or Mansi. And further, their are many known cases of hikers or travelers killed by locals when crossing their territory. It was even a Biblical command : "Don't kill the stranger ! Don't ambush the stranger !" This is an old, very old story...
Regards