The electronic version of the report by V.D. Ankudinov. (Lawyer, criminologist, worked together with the medical examiner Vozrozhdenny, finished his career as a federal judge)
ON THE ISSUE OF EVIDENCE
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For a correct understanding of what happened to Dyatlov's group, it is advisable to compile a register of factual information that is available in sources published to date and indicate the cause of the incident. So that everyone can get acquainted with what is available in this regard at this point in time and draw their own conclusions (not to come up with "versions", namely, to draw their own conclusions) about the cause of the incident with Dyatlov's group - this is on the one hand. And on the other hand, so that everyone can supplement this register with factual materials known to him, indicating the cause of the incident.
This register is not a "fitting" of evidence to any "version" or "theory", but a list of factual material, the primary sources of which anyone doubting the origin of the information included in it can easily find and verify.
We include only information about facts in this register. For example, a witness questioned in a criminal case reports in his testimony that he knows something personally or he knows something from someone. This is information about facts. But if a witness builds his "version" – for example, that one of the tourists left the tent "in need", and he was blown away by the wind, and his comrades rushed to help him out - then this is no longer information about facts, but speculation of this witness: ballast, which is suitable only for increasing the mass of the trash can. And this kind of speculation should not be included in this list.
This is the first criterion for selecting information. The second is that the information should relate to February 1, 1959. What happened after February 1 cannot be of interest.
The third criterion is that this information should be relevant to the cause of the incident. We discard everything else.
The fourth criterion is that the information must be from the original source, and not have a derivative generalized character. Such as, for example, the information specified in the resolution on the termination of the case dated May 28, 1959. We do not include such information here. They are completely unsuitable for their own conclusions based on the available facts.
The sources of this information are, first of all, the materials of a well-known case. In addition, there are certificates of competent persons who have become known by now. For example, information about the facts contained in the testimonies of persons who were directly involved in the 1959 investigation. They, more than anyone else, should have known about what they were investigating in 1959.
Here are the main provisions for compiling this registry.
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We are starting to compile this register, sifting out the garbage, of which whole mountains of incredible size have accumulated.
1. We begin, as required by forensic methods for the investigation of criminal cases, with the information obtained during the very initial inspection of the scene. The well-known inspection protocol is not suitable. It was compiled when the "pristine" situation of the scene had already been significantly disrupted by the search engines who discovered the tent. And we need information about how the scene of the incident looked at the time the tent was discovered. There is not much such information, but it is there. This information is contained in Slobtsov's testimony on case sheets 298-299. That's what Slobtsov saw.
"When we approached the tent, we found that the entrance of the tent protruded from under the snow, and the rest of the tent was under the snow. There were ski poles and spare skis in the snow around the tent - 1 pair. The snow on the tent was 15-20 cm thick, it was clear that the snow on the tent was inflated, it was solid. An ice axe was stuck in the snow near the tent next to the entrance..."
That's all there is about the actual circumstances at the time of the tent's discovery.
Therefore, it is immediately possible to summarize this kind of inspection of the scene: ski poles and skis stuck in the snow around the tent exclude snow mass movements on the tent in any form - in the presence of snow movements, ski poles and skis could not be in this position in any way.
The direct impact of any volumetric material physical object on the tent is also excluded.
And this, you must admit, is not so small: a whole "series" of possible reasons known to all immediately disappears! And in this "series" there are all kinds of snow "avalanches", "boards", "rubble-collapses", "wasps" and all that kind of stuff. And also - "aerosani", "balloon gondola", "direct fall of rocket or airplane debris on the tent", "attack of a connecting rod bear", "passage of a herd of reindeer through the tent", etc.
2. Forensic medical documents.
They are represented by reprints of acts of forensic medical examinations on l.d. 95-134, 345-357 (it should be noted at once that these reprints do not have the legal status of properly certified copies of documents attached to a criminal case - this should be borne in mind!) and the original protocol of the expert's interrogation at l.d.381-383 on the forensic medical examinations of the corpses of Kolevatov, Thibault, Zolotarev, Dubinina conducted by him on May 9, 1959.
Freezing was indicated as the cause of death of 6 people, three people died as a result of their injuries. Since three people were most seriously injured, freezing cannot be considered the cause of the death of Dyatlov's group as a whole. Therefore, the traumatic factor is crucial for solving the issue of the cause of the incident. And for its determination, the mechanism of injury is very important.
And that's what we have here.
According to Zolotarev. "... The above-mentioned multiple rib fractures in Zolotarev with the presence of hemorrhage into the pleural cavity occurred during his lifetime and are the result of the impact of great force on the chest area of Zolotarev at the time of his fall, compression or throwing ...".
According to Thibault. "... The above-mentioned extensive multi-comminuted fracture of the bones of the arch and base of the skull is of lifetime origin and is the result of exposure to great force followed by a fall, throw and bruise of Thibault-Brignol...".
By Dubinina. "... The above-mentioned injuries could have occurred as a result of exposure to great force, which resulted in a severe closed fatal chest injury in Dubinina. Moreover, the injuries are of lifetime origin and are the result of exposure to great force, followed by a fall, throw or bruise of the chest area of Dubinina ...".
As can be seen, the expert in all cases indicates the effect of "great force" and the subsequent effects of "throwing", "dropping", "falling", "bruising". These are very important circumstances, because they immediately allow you to exclude causes that do not have such a mechanism for injury.
In the protocol of the expert's interrogation (this is the only forensic medical document attached to the case in the form of an original, l.d. 381-383), which was conducted in accordance with Articles 169-173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR (1923) - that is, on the basis and based on the results of forensic examinations conducted by the same expert, the expert made additional conclusions on additional questions posed by the investigator.
According to Thibault, the expert compared the mechanism of injury with that which occurs when a car moving at high speed is injured - as a result of being thrown off during a traumatic impact and followed by a fall associated with a strong impact on the surface of the soil. And he pointed out that "... Such an injury could have occurred if Thibault was thrown by a gust of strong wind with a fall and bruising of his head on rocks, ice, etc."
That is, according to Thibault, the expert indicates the impact of great force and rejection with subsequent fall as mandatory elements of the injury mechanism.
All other traumatic effects that lack the above elements should be excluded from the possible causes of Thibault's death.
According to Zolotarev and Dubinina, the expert additionally indicates that their injuries "... are the result of exposure to great force, approximately the same as was used against Thibault. These injuries, namely with such a picture and without violating the integrity of the soft tissues of the chest, are very similar to the injury caused by an air blast wave.".
Accordingly, according to Zolotarev and Dubinina, all options
traumatic effects, in which there are no elements of the injury mechanism established by the expert, should also be excluded from the possible causes of death of Zolotarev and Dubinina.
3. Conclusion of the forensic examination of the tent, l.d.303-304.
The tent's incisions were made from the inside. That is, cutting the tent from the outside in order to penetrate it is excluded.
4. Witness statements.
But with this, as you can see - "tight"! About the reasons for this - separately.
There is only one document in the case file, which contains an indication of an event related to February 1, 1959. This is the protocol of the interrogation of the witness Krivonishchenko at l.d.273.
The witness reported the following: "After the burial of my son on March 9, 1959, students, participants in the search for nine tourists, were at lunch in my apartment. Among them were tourists who, in late January and early February, were hiking in the north, slightly south of Mount Otorten. There seemed to be at least two such groups, at least the participants of two groups said that they observed on February 1 in the evening a light phenomenon that struck them north of the location of these groups: an excessively bright glow of some kind of rocket or projectile. The glow was so strong that one of the groups, being already in the tent, getting ready to sleep, were alarmed by this glow, came out of the tent and observed this phenomenon. After a while, they heard a sound effect similar to strong thunder from afar...".
There is no more information related to February 1, 1959 in the case file. The available descriptions of events with other dates are not of interest to us in this case.
In addition to the case materials, information regarding facts directly related to the events of February 1, 1959, can be found in the published testimonies of Korotaev, Ivanov and Okishev.
5. Okishev informed journalists, and they published the following information in Komsomolskaya Pravda (in particular, this information can be found at these links
https://www.kp.ru/daily/26120.4/3013200/https://yandex.ru/video/preview/16832691216494068536 from 31 min.40 sec. at 32 min.20 sec., etc.).
In 1959, the investigation identified and interrogated employees of the N-240 Institution, who were returning home on the evening of February 1, 1959, after the end of the film session and saw a flash in the direction of Otorten. There are no interrogation protocols of these persons in the well-known case, although they existed in 1959.
It can be added here that the researcher of this topic, Roman Feldberg, found the daughter of the forester Rempel and had correspondence with Rempel's granddaughter. And the daughter of the forester Rempel reported that she and her father themselves observed the flash of the explosion, just at that time and in the direction where the tourists who visited Rempel before the start of the hike were supposed to be at that time. Feldberg published this correspondence in February 2019, however, as happens in such cases, this publication was "not noticed" in the woodpecker community. More precisely, they pretended that they "did not notice".
6. Ivanov, in well-known publications (for example, "Ural Worker", July 8-12, 1990), reported that he, along with Maslennikov, examined burnt tree branches on the border of the forest.
To Bogomolov (a journalist of the Uralsky Rabochy newspaper, published in 1990), Ivanov reported literally the following: "... The fact is that at the edge of the forest, where the tourists so hastily fled from the tent, the branches of the trees were singed, as it were… Not burned, not broken, but scorched.".
7. Korotaev, in newspaper publications ("Ural Worker, July 12, 1990, "On the shift" on February 14, 1991), regarding the factual circumstances related to February 1, 1959, reported the following.
"... Mansi Kurikov, who took part in the search, told Korotaev that he had found some kind of incomprehensible piece of iron in those places shortly after the tragedy..."
"... We managed to identify about a dozen Mansi witnesses who said that on the day of the murder of the students (I say "murders" because I am an investigator and I do not consider it just an "accident") some kind of balloon flew by. Witnesses Anyamov, Sambindalov, Kurikov - not only described what they saw, but also drew this disk. Now we can talk about the rocket. There were no televisions then, we,
I repeat, they did not know about any missiles, especially the Mansi population did not know about them. Later I went to Severouralsk. There, too, he established a witness who saw the flight of the fireball. Moreover, as I remember now, they all said that fire was "flying out" of the disc...".
"... Stepan Kurikov, for example, saw burnt tree branches and some kind of metal sheet in those places...".
Korotaev reports the following about the reason for the absence of all these protocols in the well-known "case without a number": "... All these materials were requested by the deputy prosecutor of the republic Urakov. I handed them over to Prosecutor Ivdel Tempalov, who took them to Sverdlovsk."
So all these facts were recorded in 1959 in the interrogation protocols in accordance with the procedure established by the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR, and the fact that these protocols were not found in the well-known case does not in any way affect the existence of information that was recorded in these protocols. Where did the protocols with the testimony of these witnesses go and why they are not in the well-known "case without a number" - Korotaev indicates specifically and definitely: these protocols were taken to Moscow in 1959 by the deputy prosecutor of the RSFSR Urakov, who arrived in Sverdlovsk.
The same is true with the protocols of interrogations of employees of the N-240 Institution, the existence of which was reported by Okishev.
All these protocols of interrogation of witnesses in 1959 were, and the above-mentioned witness statements recorded in them also existed. And if they are not in the well-known "case without a number", this means that they were taken by the deputy prosecutor of the RSFSR Urakov, who came from Moscow, for another criminal case, which so far remains "in the shadows". The main thing here is something else - the content of these testimonies, and not the fact that they are not in the well-known "case without a number".