A quick take on Yuri Yuden's interview

[GlennM]

In his interview, Yuri Yuden makes a comment about puttees, or leg wrappings found in two locations at two times. From a family photo, he claims they are military. He claims that owing to the complection of the deceased hikers in their open caskets, as well as Ivanov's comments, as well as the case files being dated Feb 6, not Feb 20, all point to a missile related incident. He discounts an avalanche but does not rule out a localized snow slide. He feels it impossibe the hikers created an observation blind in the cedar. He maintains that because of Lyuda's family connections, the hikers were buried at home and not close to where they perished. The implication being to cover up a crime.

When taken as a whole and given Yuden's presumption of and suspicion of military involvement, I can see how members of the forum support the accident/incident/ conspiracy/ coverup point of view.

Whereas those of us who put their crisis of Feb 1, 1959 down to terrible weather and unfortunate circumstances, the conspiracy advocates still can not provide anything more than opinion to promote their point of view.  Their "out" in this regard is the missile detonation is still a State secret. My thought is that Russians today who are invested in this tragedy are better placed to get at those records. Then again, given the long standing dust up with their southern neighbors, a peaceful snooping in the archives is unlikely. Anything that smacks of in competence then or now is not going to earn a carton of cigarettes.

[Senior Maldonado]

the case files being dated Feb 6, not Feb 20, all point to a missile related incident.

Yes, this is very important pointer that on Feb 6th, 1959, criminal case already existed. And it had its own case files, very different from what we have on hand today. There are many other important pointers to that other case, which accomodated originals of autopsy reports, orders to perform the autopsies, etc, etc. At the same time, the known case files accomodated mostly drafts, re-prints, handwritings, and fakes like the case opening document, which under no circumstances could be created on Feb 26th. But it's OK, we should not care much about the known case files, because they do not reflect real investigation of DPI that was run in 1959. On the contrary, the real case was investigated at very high quality level by a group of professionals formed by central prosecutor's office in Moscow. In May 1959, low value documents that were not needed for the real case files were flushed to the case files we know.

[GlennM]

 We remember that Yuri Yuden did not have first hand information at the time. His interview responses make it clear that he has been influenced by others. He also comes across as cranky. I put that down to a life of suffering.

The Feb 6th report date might mean someone knew that they died on the 1st or 2nd, after accomplishing all the activities at the cedar, the ravine and IRZ attempting the tent, a considerable distance away.

Conspirators would have to know their whereabouts from an aerial view by military plane or helicopter, I suppose. There were no additional boot prints on the ground along the hikers trail to the woods from the tent. The interlopers would have had to do their conspiratorial activities, sweep up after themselves before an official search was brought in. High among the tasks is splitting their time between dispatching and obfuscating the DP9 while removing all the rocket debris and chemical contamination. There could have been Mansi hunters who would be aware of something going on up on the ridge. That would have to be kept quiet. And then there is the logistics of troop movement in and out of the area to clean up the rocket debris, and do the other things.

I really wonder about the necessity of picking up crashed rocket parts. Deep in the Urals is no place for Western scavengers. For me, the only real justification for the time, effort and expense of Soviet recovery is if the payload was something of great value. If it was, then by all means you do not go around killing people, which only makes the issue bigger and risks investigators finding your crashed missile site, if not the payload. I can imagine a comment in the forum claiming that the radioactive contamination in clothing was because hikers went snooping and got too close to something they shouldn't be around. It would explain why a Geiger counter of all things was delivered to the recovery area.

All in all, a simple typo explains a lot more economically. I could be wrong, but...

[Senior Maldonado]

Yuri Yudin had left the team a few days before the incident occurred. He could not know anything valuable about DPI and how it was investigated.

I think it makes sense to clarify a little bit what was behind the investigation that was run by Tempalov and Ivanov in 1959. And here it is very important to understand that neither Tempalov nor Ivanov had ever been leading investigators (owners) of the case.

The only case related to DPI was initiated by the special prosecutor’s office responsible for overseeing the facility that conducted some technology tests, and then transferred to the Prosecutor’s Office of the USSR. The basis for initiating the case was an accident that occurred during the tests. The case was against designers or production personnel, who were to be held accountable for the accident. The deceased tourists had nothing to do with the case at the beginning. Perhaps, if it weren’t for the technology accident, no case would have been initiated at all. And when it turned out that the failed test also resulted in the deaths of 9 civilians, this episode had to be included in the charges against the individuals involved in the case. That is why the Prosecutor’s Office of the USSR tasked the Prosecutor’s Office of the Sverdlovsk Region with gathering materials on this episode.

And then everything went in full compliance with the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR, except for the fact that the case being investigated was classified as secret. Therefore, not all those who carried out investigative assignments for the USSR Prosecutor’s Office knew who they were working for or what case was being investigated. And measures were taken to conceal the purpose and direction of the investigation.

What had evidentiary value for the case was sent to Moscow. But in such complex case, a lot of unnecessary junk documents inevitably had to appear — junk that could not be allowed to clutter the case being investigated by the USSR Prosecutor’s Office. Therefore, such junk had to be cut off and left in Sverdlovsk. The only possible and reasonable way to do this was to create a separate case files for it. That’s where the useless paper waste was dumped. The Moscow investigation group, apparently, requested these case files, taking from them whatever might be useful for their real case files. After that, Moscow returned all the scraps to Sverdlovsk to be deposited in the archive of the Sverdlovsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, Moscow had no use for that junk.

The case that the USSR Prosecutor’s Office had investigated was either terminated or sent to one of the special courts and ended with a court verdict. In the first case, it is stored in the closed archive of the USSR Prosecutor’s Office; in the second case, in the archive of one of the former special courts.

[Hunter]

Regarding the foot wraps, they've been discussed at length on other forums. Some speculate that they weren't actually foot wraps, but rather homemade waist warmers—their length supports this. Another possibility is that the foot wraps belonged to one of the hikers and were homemade. Zolotarev, for example, may have had them. Yudin, however, didn't see them because he left the group before they actually reached the uninhabited areas.