Why a fire at the cedar didn't work.

[SURI]

Logically, the knife ended up where the people who had it under control the whole time were.

[SURI]

There is one more interesting thing here. And that is number 4.

4 are in the ravine. And then we have the beginning and end of the combat leaflet "Evening Otorten". 3 of them are also listed in the introduction of the combat leaflet + the 4th one that he wrote and also at the end of the leaflet is the number 4. Specifically 27.4. So out of the nine, only 4 should have remained.

[SURI]

It's easy with the combat leaflet. If nothing happened to the expedition, the leaflet wouldn't mean anything. It's different this way, and when you read it in this context, suddenly the things in the leaflet take on a completely different meaning. The leaflet clearly states that it is about increasing the tourist birthrate. And when you turn there words around in the context of what happened, you get the answer to everything.

[Arjan]

@ GlennM
'If getting water for sanitation was an issue, it is extreme to walk a half mile either way to do so.'

The issue with the tent site is:
The whole group needed running water badly to avoid the risk of dehydration during in the cold night in a dry air environment.
This is not an opinion or a view, but a fact for survival in a cold climate with dry air: every exhalation moist leavest the body while no moist will be inhaled.
Nowadays this risk is handled by melting snow every hour or so on small petrol burner, like the 'Dragonfly or 'Whisperlight' by MSR or models by Optimus.

Before arriving at the tent site, the group had made the ascend of 350 m elevation over 1 kilometer from the storage to the tent site, with 25/20 kg rucksack and skis and ski poles in their hands.
This is an ascend of 35 percent on average, so many parts are steeper.
This kind of climb consumes a lot of energy over some two hours or so.
By sweating and exhaling the group members had to replean their water level.
After doing so, very probable their waterbottles had mostly emptied.

Suppose these facts resemble the situation of the group while preparing for the night at the tent site, it makes sense that:
- several group members had descended to the ravine - as place nearby - looking for running water
- Lyudmila had one of these group members, so she had been able to clean herself.

Additional remark on privacy:
- Lyudmila had been found in the stream flowing in the ravine
- the den had been several meters away
- personally I assume that Semyon had been near the den site and Lyudmila near the stream when the blast wave had hit both.

[GlennM]

Yet, the hikers were experienced in winter hikes. Hydration would be a given. Because we have no record of melt water at the tent does not preclude that water was melted. Any small firepit may have been obliterated.  It also seems unreasonable to me for the hikers to expend energy to make their last day's trek, set up a tent ( using skis for foundation) and then realizing they need walk a mile round trip in order to get a drink of water.

Ziljoe argues that a snow cornice at the ravine had tragic consequences for the ravine 4. Rather than getting a drink, some got wet. This was the greater problem.