Believing Nurse Solter and her assertive husband

[amashilu]

Nurse Solter's interview is often dismissed as unreliable, since it wasn't conducted until 2008 and there is doubt as to how much she actually remembered by that time. I found her to be believable, stubbornly repeating what she recalls. She said there were 11 bodies, not 9, and that one of them was taken directly away and she never saw it again. Somewhere on this forum (apologies to whomever said it) it is suggested that there had been a major fight and that the DP group actually managed to kill two of their attackers! I find that a fascinating suggestion.

Also, Solter -- AND her assertive and interruptive husband -- both state firmly that the clothes were cut off the bodies with knives, Solter washed them, and someone was sent to Ivdel to buy them new clothes ("suits" as her husband says). They were then laid in coffins and taken to the air field to be flown out. They both have this memory and they are firm in their insistence that this is what happened. If the bodies were taken away in coffins, clean and in new clothes, could they have been re-dressed in the cut-up clothes, and brought back to the scene?

VK is husband
PI is Nurse Solter

VK: I am telling you, there was some sort of undressing. They simply cut all the clothes with knives, to remove them faster... I know that they were buying suits in Ivdel.
PI: All the clothes were dirty, everything was dirty, everything was removed from them ... Clothes were bought.
VERDEN: This is the second evidence that clothes were bought in Ivdel.
PI: Clothes were bought and they were laid in coffins ...
NAVIG: Did you see it yourself?
PI: Yes. Went to the coffins at once. Coffins brought ...

[anna_pycckux]

There are a lot of ambiguities and incomprehensions in Salter's story. Nechaev is not a professional journalist, the interview was not complete enough.
1. Unknown dates. When were 11 corpses brought in? Immediately they were examined or they were lying, unfrozen. Why didn't Nechaev show a photo from the morgue so that Salter could recognize the guys and report it to the same morgue or another?
2. A strange message about coffins and the departure of corpses to the airport of Ivdel.
3. There is no information about when, by whom and how many corpses were sent to Sverdlovsk for burial. Who dressed and washed them for the funeral (if not Salter).
4. The funeral of the first 5 tourists took place on March 9 and 10, 1959. Where were the other corpses that Salter saw in the morgue at that time??
5. Salter repeated several times, "the corpses were very dirty." Nechaev didn't ask. what kind of dirt was on the guys, earth or blood or something else. According to my version, the guys were buried in the Ivdel pit immediately after the liquidation. They wanted to forget about them. But the parents began to be loudly indignant and declare that they would have to turn to the world community for help. The corpses were immediately dug up, laid out on the slope, and a theatrical search began. This is my personal opinion and my version.
6. Salter's letter to Yuri Yudin has been preserved. It needs to be studied.

[GlennM]

Is it customary for a Russian forensic examiner to do a change of clothes, or is this more properly the province of the mortician? I'd think that wrapping the bodies in a,shroud would suffice.

[Ziljoe]

I don't know what the duties or protocol are in an autopsy but the bodies were frozen in the positions that they were found. They would have to be underressd before autopsy, so cutting clothes of is just easier  . Depending on the country/ religions etc where they have open coffins , they dress the bodies for family to see and say their goodbyes . They dress them accordingly. The autopsy would be invasive , even to find slobodin's fracture. They displayed Zina's face and I'm sure those that views her would have said there were dog bites on her face. Even Elvis went through this.

[amashilu]

PI and VK say that the bodies were allowed to lie for a few days in order to thaw, after which she washed them, new clothes were bought and put on, and they were immediately "lain" into coffins and sent away for burial. They say there were no autopsies at that point.

Interesting to note that at one point, the interviewer mentions that one of the bodies had "no face."

VERDEN: Are these them? Did you see them? Did you wash them off? You washed them in this way?
PI: We washed them in the morgue ...
NAVIG: No, but their appearance? Is this the Dyatlov group ...
VERDEN: Did they look like this? Did they?
VK: These was them. Only she says that they were very dirty.
VERDEN: You see here, there is great damage, there is no face ...
NAVIG: Well, they were found in a creek, they were brought like that...
PI: Prudkov described them.

[Ziljoe]

PI and VK say that the bodies were allowed to lie for a few days in order to thaw, after which she washed them, new clothes were bought and put on, and they were immediately "lain" into coffins and sent away for burial. They say there were no autopsies at that point.

Interesting to note that at one point, the interviewer mentions that one of the bodies had "no face."

VERDEN: Are these them? Did you see them? Did you wash them off? You washed them in this way?
PI: We washed them in the morgue ...
NAVIG: No, but their appearance? Is this the Dyatlov group ...
VERDEN: Did they look like this? Did they?
VK: These was them. Only she says that they were very dirty.
VERDEN: You see here, there is great damage, there is no face ...
NAVIG: Well, they were found in a creek, they were brought like that...
PI: Prudkov described them.

I suspect the interviewer is showing them the autopsy pictures as he asks the questions.

[amashilu]

That is what I thought also.

I see no reason why these two people would lie or make something up. I think they appear to be genuinely telling what happened in their experience.

It is likely they were told the bodies would be flown away for burial, as they say, but they were actually flown somewhere else (somewhere more private?) and other things happened, such as autopsies.

[Missi]

They most definitely show something to them. Or else it would not make any sense to use words like "these". Well, maybe there's something in the Russian language, that does make sense? It could be a mistranslation.

I also don't think there is any reason for them to lie about the situation. But there's still the "Luke, I am your father"-effect. Memories can be deceiving...

[GlennM]

So there were eleven bodies. Nurse Solter cleans the corpses and re dresses them , presumably after thawing them out. She uses store bought clothes paid for by??? Later, someone insists that the bodies be re-dressed with the now scissored up clothes they arrived in ,again, presumably after thawing. Finally, they were spirited away to various locations on 1079 for the purpose of making people believe that they were out there all along. My questions," What became of those new clothes? Who paid the bill?"

[Manti]

Let's say there's a car crash in a small town at 6pm. Then a motorcyclist slips and injures himself at 6:30 5km outside the town.


The car has to be cut the special equipment to get the victim out.
There is one hospital and both of the injured arrive there at approximately the same time. If you interviewed the nurse, she would say "there were two bodies" even though the car and the motorcycle both only had one passenger. But she would be right...

[Ziljoe]

Let's say there's a car crash in a small town at 6pm. Then a motorcyclist slips and injures himself at 6:30 5km outside the town.


The car has to be cut the special equipment to get the victim out.
There is one hospital and both of the injured arrive there at approximately the same time. If you interviewed the nurse, she would say "there were two bodies" even though the car and the motorcycle both only had one passenger. But she would be right...

A good point and example...

[GlennM]

The car has to be cut the special equipment to get the victim out.
There is one hospital and both of the injured arrive there at approximately the same time. If you interviewed the nurse, she would say "there were two bodies" even though the car and the motorcycle both only had one passenger. But she would be right...

Both drivers may suffer injuries necessitating clothes be cut away. Ordinarily,,relatives bring other clothes. In the DPI case, no relatives were there. Nurse Solter obtains clothes. Where from? How much did they cost? Who funded this? Why were the clothes taken off again? The hikers were found in clothes identifiably their own (fact).  The hikers were not found with scissored clothes(fact). If the previous two facts are true, then Nurse Solter is mistaken. If Nurse Solter is mistaken,,then she is unreliable. If she is unreliable,then her testimony may be discounted without prejudice.

[Manti]

Yeah I agree. I have been to the Soviet Union, a long time ago obviously. It was surprisingly hard to source clothes. There were department stores in the metropolises like Leningrad (St Petersburg), Moscow. But in small town SU, when I needed a pair of trousers, it seemed like it's either a daytrip to Leningrad or else there's an old lady and if I supply the materials, she can make something...


Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) probably was big enough to have a department store but Ivdel? I doubt it...

[GlennM]

As grist to the mill,  our memories do not work like a tape recorder, nor hers. Instead, we retrieve lasting impressions and weave a narrative. If the impression is lacking, we either admit not knowing or invent something logical to satisfy ourselves and others.

What we can be certain of is that the good nurse had a job. She worked within a hierarchy of authority. Beyond that... well, that is why paper records are kept.

[amashilu]

Oh boy, how easy it is to dismiss someone else's memories when they don't fit with our own narrative. I understand that and am reasonably skeptical myself. However, in this case, two people are adamant in their agreed-upon memory of events. It is important to keep in mind that they do NOT agree on everything and the husband frequently interrupts and/or corrects the wife, but when they get to the part about washing and dressing the corpses in new clothes and that the bodies were taken away in coffins (with no autopsies), they are in strong agreement.
GlennM, of course I have no idea who paid for the new clothes, but that would be something that had to happen if the bodies were dirty and their clothes unusable. You can't very well wash the bodies and just leave them naked, so there must have been some arrangements with local governing bodies as to how to get and pay for clothes in such situations.

[GlennM]

I do not have a narrative regarding Nurse Solter,  but I do understand perception. I do understand the effect of time on memory and I get peer pressure.