I've been away for a while, and naturally I come back to find something that reinforces the direction I've been going all along.
The recent interview with Pyotr Bartolomey is interesting as hell.
Bartolomey actually hiked with Igor Dyatlov. He basically describes two different Igors. When Igor was just another member of the group, he was a great guy and a great friend. When Igor was the leader, Bartolomey says he was "the worst."
Then he gives an example. Igor headed in a direction that everybody else knew was wrong. The group refused to follow him. Igor kept going anyway. He didn't come back and discuss it with them. Bartolomey finally had to chase him down and tell him that when the entire group questioned his decision, he needed to communicate with them.
Sound familiar?
I've argued for a long time that whatever started this disaster, human behavior finished it.
I still think some kind of snow slab or collapse at the tent is perfectly compatible with a fight theory. One does not eliminate the other. In fact, I think one could have caused the conditions for the other.
Picture the situation.
They are exhausted. They're cold. They've been living practically on top of each other for days. Nobody has had a bath. Everybody probably stinks. They're wet, tired and irritated. There is barely enough room in that tent to turn around without sticking an elbow into somebody.
Then something happens to the tent. A slab comes down, or enough snow loads onto it that they have to react quickly. Now everybody is scared, pissed off and trying to figure out what to do next.
And I've always wondered about that missing bottle of vodka from the train incident.
What if whoever took it didn't drink it then?
What if somebody produced that bottle later?
Maybe while everybody was getting dressed that final night, out comes the vodka. Now you've got tired, freezing people under extreme stress with alcohol added to the equation.
It doesn't require everybody getting drunk. It doesn't even require Igor getting drunk. Alcohol just has to be one more ingredient thrown into an already boiling pot.
And human beings don't suddenly become perfectly rational because they're experienced hikers.
Quite the opposite.
You're trapped in a stinking tent with eight other people. You're exhausted. Somebody's feet stink. Somebody is coughing. Somebody is stepping on your stuff. Somebody lets loose a particularly nasty fart at exactly the wrong moment. Everybody laughs except the one guy who isn't in the mood.
It sounds ridiculous until you remember how real fights actually start.
Usually it isn't Shakespeare.
It's "Shut the hell up."
"No, YOU shut the hell up."
Then somebody says the wrong thing.
Now put Igor into that environment.
Bartolomey's recollection gives us evidence that Igor could become stubborn and authoritarian when he was responsible for a group. He apparently wasn't always good at explaining himself when people challenged his decisions.
Now add Zolotaryov.
This wasn't another college kid Igor could simply order around. Zolotaryov was older, had survived the war, and had vastly more life experience. I have a hard time imagining him meekly accepting every decision from a 23-year-old expedition leader if he thought Igor was making a dangerous mistake.
I've previously liked the forum theory where the older guy essentially hijacks the tent.
But flip it around.
What if it was Igor?
After the initial emergency, maybe Igor decides the tent is still the safest place or insists they can salvage the situation. Zina and Rustem remain with him. The others finally say, in effect, "**** this," and leave.
That would help explain something that has always bothered me.
Why does the group seem to fragment?
If everybody calmly agreed on one survival plan, why do we end up with people apparently doing very different things?
The two Yuris are especially interesting to me. I can easily imagine Doroshenko and Krivonischenko being among the first people to finally tell Igor where he could stick his authority. They were young men, not robots. If they believed Igor's decisions had just put them in mortal danger, tempers could explode.
Maybe somebody "lost the plot."
I still think Igor is the strongest candidate.
But maybe it wasn't Igor alone.
Maybe the two Yuris finally snapped at him. Maybe Zolotaryov challenged him. Maybe everybody was shouting at everybody.
The important point is that the catastrophe doesn't have to be either natural OR human.
A slab can damage the tent.
The cold can create the danger.
And people can turn a survivable emergency into an irreversible disaster.
That is why Bartolomey's recollection matters to me. We finally have somebody who actually hiked under Igor's leadership describing exactly the kind of stubborn behavior I've suspected could become important under extreme stress.
It doesn't prove Igor started a fight.
But it makes the possibility a hell of a lot harder to dismiss as "Igor would never behave that way."
Apparently, sometimes he did.
I'm baack!
Topic: What If Igor Was the Problem? (Read 1255 times)