Nothing goes there

[Ziljoe]

there's zero evidence of any blast shock and the autopsies don't evidence it

True. On the contrary, there is a lot of evidence of thick snow on the spot. Thus we come to the theory of a snow cave in the ravine and its collapse.

At the same time we have Ivanov's very direct statement in the newspaper article:
"The true causes of the deaths were hidden from the people, and only a few knew these reasons: the former first secretary of the regional committee A.P. Kirilenko, the second secretary of the regional committee A.F. Eshtokin, the regional prosecutor N. I. Klimov and the author of these lines, who were investigating the case".

Trying to match this statement with the Snow Cave theory we may conclude that Kirilenko, Eshtokin, Klinov, and Ivanov knew about the snow cave in the ravine, while Maslennikov, Tempalov, Askinadzi and all other people did not. Though Kirilenko, Eshtokin, Klinov had never seen the ravine... For me it sounds absurd. As for Ivanov, knowing about the snow cave, he was expected to start studying special literature on snow traumas, but he preferred to hunt fireballs and order radiactivity tests.

However, if we admit rocket collapse nearby and further blast of its fuel evaporation, that was class of events regional leaders would have been informed by federal authorities. The logic is back - those, who were entitled to know federal secrets, knew the truth.

Thank you senior Maldonado.

Sorry for the delay , life outside of the forum has been a bit challenging. I'll try to respond to your rocket proposal in the next post.

The snow cave theory is not so much a theory but more the most plausible cause of the injuries . Whether they made a snow cave , found a snow cave or manipulated a partially formed cornice into a snow cave is anyone's guess. However, the snow built up in that particular part of the ravine to engulf the ravine right across where the Ravine 4 were found . This region or small stretch of the ravine had the deepest snow from up stream and down stream from what I can ascertain from the search photos and later expeditions.

The autopsies speak of the blood in the linings of the lung , foamy blood , the nature of the rib fractures and their direction of breaking . All sorts of different things happen under different loads to the human body. The injuries mentioned in the autopsy In this instance, although not perfect and the lack of my own knowledge won't help , the injures are in line with a crushing and/or compression trauma. This means a sustained compression that also restricts breathing , not from broken ribs stopping you breathing but the chest being compressed for a length of time . We only have two mechanisms, a lump of snow or a fallen tree .

Thanks to Suri , we have a letter from one of the hikers in the 1963 trip to a friend that uses the phrase cave or they found the cave where they tried to survive and were eventually found. This is of particular interest because those hikers found the den location exactly in 1963 , in the summer. They had no case file of photos, they never mentioned rumours of lights in the sky , KGB , prisoner's. Yuri yudin was with them , smiling in the photos , climbing the tree , sitting in an old sledge and messing about in old skis.

My point is , the letter is natural, not contaminated even though there was probably chat between some of the student searchers , there is nothing to indicate that they thought otherwise but found the "cave" with left over logs or branches. There may have been more logs or branches under the snow that the searchers never dug up because they didn't search further after they found the bodies.

I'm going to try and address the ravine details in glennm post.

But here's a picture of what could be going on in the ravine and around the den. Please note the development and form of the cornice.

[Senior Maldonado]

Hello Ziljoe,

I hope that challenges you have faced are managable and I wish you to overcome them asap.

I don't think that we have only two options for the traumatic force - snow and a fallen tree. The World has more colours. SURI keeps talking about an infiltrator to the group, who had planned the DPI long before the hike and executed the plan when the group had reached 1079. This is interesting theory to look at and discuss, but SURI obviously is not ready to share the whole theory at this time. However, it's a road to try.

If we look into the Dr.Vozrozhdenny interrogation report, it becomes clear that the force which he suggested was high-speed. A gust of strong wind, a blast airwave, an automobile - all these move at very high speed, not less than 20 m/sec. He also suggested that the force had kicked the hikes, so they had spent some time flying and had hard landing afterwards. I do not know about a fallen tree, but snow collapse in the ravine could not achieve such a speed.

There were many events 'behind the scene' that indicate that DPI was not just a natural calamity. You might be interested to run a small investigation into Mr. Alexander Kidin abrupt career change which happened on April 10th, 1959 - the same day Central Committee of CPSU received the DPI investigation report from its Sverdlovsk branch office.

[GlennM]

If someone is tasked to do a job and does it, reward, not punishment is the predictable outcome. In the DPI, as a matter of record, there were punishments doled out for mismanagement. Also, because the recovery efforts were delayed on 1079, the opportunity to obfuscate the scene was wasted. There was no decompositional evidence to makemit into the record suggesting the corpses were twice thawed. Looked at another way, there was time to let the snow melt to find the missing hikers because there was nothing to hide.

The R4  bodies are a mystery to me. I can not imagine them looking that way from a blast or a fall, if they were digging out of a collapsed cave they wouldn't appear to be nappjng. It seems to me that their postures reflect fatigue and a desire for sleep, but they should all curl up or paradoxically undress. I could imagine they may have been rolled away from the mat by natural forces while the bodies were pliable. No evidence of a fire in the ravine either.

My one main reservation with a blast theory is that it was selective. My problem with a tree fall theory is that the bodies do not look like they were tended to, compared to the Yuris.My problem with the cave theory is I can not figure (considering the mat) whether they excavated down to the creek from a snow bank to create their mat, or tunnelled  along the creek into a long cave and building the mat at the far end. If the co structed cave collapsed, then Lyude, especially was facing the wrong way unless she was trying to dig ojt her friends.

If Ziljoe repsonds to your post, I will certainly understand skipping over this post.

[SURI]

I noticed a laughing Yudin a long time ago....

If I were addressing the ravine and what came next, I would look directly to these photographs. They are a better clue than the snow itself.

[GlennM]

They do not look like case file photos and they look retouched. Certainly nothing for anyone to laugh about then or now.

[SURI]

I ask myself, is it just a coincidence that they were photographed in pairs like this? I don't think so. Dubinina with her hands up, Thibeaux with his leg bent, Zolotaryov with his arm bent and raised, and according to the radiogram, Kolevatov in an embracing position. This most likely means they weren't buried and suffocated by snow, especially considering Thibeaux could have survived for up to two hours after his injury. I think the photographs reveal a great deal.

[Ziljoe]

Hello Ziljoe,

I hope that challenges you have faced are managable and I wish you to overcome them asap.

I don't think that we have only two options for the traumatic force - snow and a fallen tree. The World has more colours. SURI keeps talking about an infiltrator to the group, who had planned the DPI long before the hike and executed the plan when the group had reached 1079. This is interesting theory to look at and discuss, but SURI obviously is not ready to share the whole theory at this time. However, it's a road to try.

If we look into the Dr.Vozrozhdenny interrogation report, it becomes clear that the force which he suggested was high-speed. A gust of strong wind, a blast airwave, an automobile - all these move at very high speed, not less than 20 m/sec. He also suggested that the force had kicked the hikes, so they had spent some time flying and had hard landing afterwards. I do not know about a fallen tree, but snow collapse in the ravine could not achieve such a speed.

There were many events 'behind the scene' that indicate that DPI was not just a natural calamity. You might be interested to run a small investigation into Mr. Alexander Kidin abrupt career change which happened on April 10th, 1959 - the same day Central Committee of CPSU received the DPI investigation report from its Sverdlovsk branch office.

Thank you Senior.

Obviously we can add anything we want to the incident but I'm working within the confines of what we can observe with the evidence we have and with the modern access to medical papers. Unfortunately such things weren't available in 59.

It is clear  Dr.Vozrozhdenny has given suggestions and that's it. Given the location of the bodies under all that snow , I would have thought Ivanov in the added on questions , would have asked if the snow or snow collapse could have caused the injuries found.

To not eliminate the snow mass as a possible cause of the injured leads me to think that1) the case files are possibly fake , that2) the questions were contrived to create a narrative by Ivanovo  or3) or general incompetence.

A fallen tree or a snow collapse does not need to reach a certain speed to cause the injured found, in fact , a slow compression fits the injuries far better than the implication of bodies flying about. The autopsy findings doesn't allow for blasts or car crashes. The suggestions don't fit the full picture of the autopsy findings , it solely fixes on the broken bones and I find that challenging in a professional capacity.

I do not know of any behind the scene events and A.Kindin is a modern myth bolted on I think?.

[GlennM]

The remains were posed and the camera angle chosen for documentation. If there was something to reveal, it would be to record who each person was. If there were anything else of importance, that feature and the distance to the feature would be different. ( read closeup). I contend the photos were retouched. I am not convinced it was done to hide anything, but rather to increase contrast. The postures of the deceased may be explained from hypothermia and hypoxia. The lack of breathable air and the greatly slowed metabolism put them to sleep. I consider that the sum of the exertion of their trip to the last camp, descent to the woods, effort to excavate a shelter, heat loss and hunger exhausted all of them to the point of unconsciousness and suffocation accelerated by encasement in snow. I am open to another interpretation.

[Senior Maldonado]

the case files are possibly fake

This is very important and separate topic. Maybe, we will return to it in some other thread.

I do not know of any behind the scene events and A.Kindin is a modern myth bolted on I think?

No, Alexander Nikolaevich Kidin was a head of CPSU's Central committee department responsible for administrative, trade and finance affairs for RSFSR at the beginning of 1959. Moscow masters' of sport report as well as  Sverdlovsk communist party's reports on DPI were sent to his department in March and April respectively. In CPSU's hierarchy, Mr.Kidin was just two hops below Nikita Khruschev: Kidin -> Aristov -> Khruschev. I thought, you might be interested to check his career curve during the days of DPI.

[GlennM]

All the reports in the world won't raise the dead. They may accelerate finding the dead. If the goal is to retrieve the bodies and bring closure to the tragedy, this is the exact opposite of making an example of the loss of Soviet youth and a war veteran.

Since Kidin was allegedly high on the food chain, canning subordinates for managerial lacunae isn't going to displace someone he wants to replace.

No conspiracy, no rush to judgement, no secondary gains. Is this a latter day manufactured spin?

[Ziljoe]

@Senior.

The context of case files being fake or manipulated is with regards to the total lack of mention regarding the 3-4 meters of snow above the hikers.

It is a fact that snow den collapses can cause the injuries seen in the ravine 4.

Regarding Alexande kindin, it goes round in the same circles from general admin relocation.

[Senior Maldonado]

It is a fact that snow den collapses can cause the injuries seen in the ravine 4.

Do we have similar examples, where snow roofs collapsed and caused injuries alike? But first of all, it is not a fact at all that the ravine had enough snow on February 1st, 1959 to build caves and tunnels. It could have had pathetic amount of snow not able even to cover the stones.

[Ziljoe]

It is a fact that snow den collapses can cause the injuries seen in the ravine 4.

Do we have similar examples, where snow roofs collapsed and caused injuries alike? But first of all, it is not a fact at all that the ravine had enough snow on February 1st, 1959 to build caves and tunnels. It could have had pathetic amount of snow not able even to cover the stones.

It is highly unlikely that the ravine had a pathetic amount of snow not able to cover the stones.we have several solid examples why this is the case.

1) All the photos of the hikers on their journey.

2) Their descriptions in their diary regarding they way they had to shuttle through the snow at lower altitude because of the depth. The afternoon of the 31st where they sought to find a suitable place to camp with snow at 1.2 meters deep.

3) The depth of the snow on 1079 where the pitched their tent .

4) Ravines by their nature capture the snow where it doesn't get blown away.

5) Recent winter expeditions show the same build up of snow at the same time of year.

6) The trail found by the Mansi that led to the den

7) The snow under the den flooring .

8) The search photos and the searchers needing probes on the slope and forest.

There is snow everywhere, I cannot think of a reason why snow would not gather in the ravine or it being selective. It is a fact that 25 days later , we know that the ravine was covered up to 4 metres .

Giving the above in conjunction with the injuries and the attempts for survival  , I do not think it is a huge leap to at least dare to hypothesize that they were making some sort of shelter in the ravine. A shelter to retain heat and stop heat loss is the total priority given the circumstances of not having anything else to stop their demise from the cold .

[Ziljoe]

They do not look like case file photos and they look retouched. Certainly nothing for anyone to laugh about then or now.

There is the possibility that they were scanned in a photo copier for distribution when the case files were allowed to be copied.We can see the mirroring of the searchers legs in the lower half as shadows and the body shadow of the lower body in the top half . I believe this was caused in early scanners from the glass.

[Ziljoe]

1079 and Otorten are a long way from anywhere. The idea of Soviets wasting time an energy trying to learn from rocket tests by going there to analyze debris is not what I would expect from an organized military.

Areas that "are a long way from anywhere" have a unique advantage. Rockets trajectories can be set up over those areas without a risk to hit anybody (or anything) in case of launch failure. A rocket started from Tyuratam typicaly flies over about 3/4 of the RSFSR's territory. It is wise to select low populated areas for its trajectory.

As beginning of February 1959 was time of XXI CPSU congress, an attempt to provide CPSU with a gift - successful breakthrogh orbital or suborbital launch - looks plausible. We can talk about bold and hasty production launch rather than about a test.

My understanding is that they didn't fly rockets over dyatlov pass. They had designated target ranges and the dyatlov pass region wasn't one of them. ? There are no launch sites near dyatlov pass either?.

[Ziljoe]

So you are saying that a mess was in the area because of the rocket debris that was responsible for the demise of the group, yet the bodies of the group were not cleaned up to wipe away traces of the debris that caused their deaths.

'Mess' is not a correct word to describe the state of the slope after DPI. The 3rd rocket's stage was laying at some distance from the tent, and it was taken back to the factory by military search team, who executed Minister of Defense order to find and return rockets' parts back after tests. The team obviously saw the empty tent, maybe even walked around it. But we should remember that the group moved to the forest which was 1.5km away. It was snowing, the bodies had been already covered by snow. I guess that the search team had not discovered the footprints of the group, as the prints started 50-70 m below the tent. The search team did not have order to look for possible casualties as ones were not expected. They also had no idea which direction the hikers might depart.  The search team returned to the base and informed their commanders about the tent. The commanders in turn informed Moscow, special Prosecutor's office investigation team was set up, and interrogations started to understand what had happened. Mr. Popov was one of the first to be interrogated.

I don't think there could be any third stage at 1079 because of how it was used , it would have gone further if it ignited and fallen short if the stage two failed. If the stage three reached near orbit it would have burnt up on its way down or disintegrated. Plus we have 4 stage one rockets falling out of the flight path and the stage two? .

There would be a problem in finding any crashed rocket stages if they had any chance of being complete , the search would be vast and a number of helicopters would be needed to locate a stage. Weather windows would need to be found as well as day light hours . Lifting any underslung large surface stage in those conditions would be a risk in its self .

Mr Popovs interrogation does not fit within a frame of investigation..

[Ziljoe]

And to add, the 17th of February sighting of lights in the sky was a R7 rocket or some derivative. The case files give an exact description.

[SURI]

Mr Popovs interrogation does not fit within a frame of investigation..

Popov's document belongs to the case and for Ivanov it represented one of many conclusive pieces of evidence, therefore it is included in the case file.

[Senior Maldonado]

There would be a problem in finding any crashed rocket stages if they had any chance of being complete , the search would be vast and a number of helicopters would be needed to locate a stage. Weather windows would need to be found as well as day light hours . Lifting any underslung large surface stage in those conditions would be a risk in its self .

Sometimes it can be a problem, sometimes not. There are no trees on 1079 that can hide a fallen stage or fall themselves when the stage bumps the slope. I am not a specialist in finding used rockets' parts, but I guess it does not take a lot of effort to find parts if they land like that:

[Ziljoe]

Mr Popovs interrogation does not fit within a frame of investigation..

Popov's document belongs to the case and for Ivanov it represented one of many conclusive pieces of evidence, therefore it is included in the case file.

Sorry Suri, I meant in the context of this statement.

"They also had no idea which direction the hikers might depart.  The search team returned to the base and informed their commanders about the tent. The commanders in turn informed Moscow, special Prosecutor's office investigation team was set up, and interrogations started to understand what had happened. Mr. Popov was one of the first to be interrogated."

If a rocket part fell on 1079 on the 1st , it leaves little time, first to find the missing rocket part ,  then  get a reaction force together , then lift it if possible, then inform Moscow, then set up an investigation team , then contact a local police officer to ask a Mr Popov what he saw mid January. It makes no sense.

I see that interview as  a routine questionnaire that happens perhaps quarterly or monthly. A standard procedure.


 

[Ziljoe]

There would be a problem in finding any crashed rocket stages if they had any chance of being complete , the search would be vast and a number of helicopters would be needed to locate a stage. Weather windows would need to be found as well as day light hours . Lifting any underslung large surface stage in those conditions would be a risk in its self .

Sometimes it can be a problem, sometimes not. There are no trees on 1079 that can hide a fallen stage or fall themselves when the stage bumps the slope. I am not a specialist in finding used rockets' parts, but I guess it does not take a lot of effort to find parts if they land like that:

I am no expert on rockets either, especially finding them. But weather windows , grid location , organisation of retrieval, all take time in cold conditions and remote areas. Any specialized rocket recovery group would need to be transported from the known work locations of these recovery groups . Helicopters would have to do shuttle runs from that location to the nearest airport to dyatlov pass , large chunks of rocket stages would have to slung under the helicopter that would be seen. The weather conditions would have had to not cover the rocket stage and it not land in the trees .Those in charge would have to gauge whether it was worth the effort to retrieve a not so special large tin can . It would be difficult for the military to remove and the Mansi wouldn't steal it.

[Senior Maldonado]

I see that interview as  a routine questionnaire that happens perhaps quarterly or monthly. A standard procedure.

This is fine, but nothing prevents us from considering completely different option.

In Volume II of the case files we can see so-called 'secret task' to local police office, issued by Ivanov on behalf of Akhmin. In the text of the 'task' we can see that there were other tasks issued earlier. Surprisingly, those tasks escaped the case files and got lost. However, from the case files we can see that at least one policeman, cpt.Chudinov, worked according to those tasks performing interrogations for DPI investigation sake. So, the February 6th interrogation could be a reflection of those tasks execution. At a larger scale, we can surmise that the known case files are just a reflection of classified case files to the civil world.