Why they did not go back to the tent ?

[anganontaolo]

Hi everyone,

The tent is a safe shelter against cold weather and many ask the question why they leave the tent.
But another question is why they did not go back to the tent ?
When situation come to normal it is time to join the tent. Some object are left inside and may be essential to survive while they are poorly dressed.
Is there a fact to tell us that they made an attempt ?

[Teddy]

Well, three of them were in fact found crawling back to the tent.

[Tony]

Igor, Zinaida, and Rustem all tried to return to the tent.

My guess as to why they walked so far from the tent is that they could not remain on the mountain slope due to wind and cold exposure and they had to travel to the treeline in order to survive. Why they left the tent in the first place is the obvious question. There was an overwhelming real or perceived threat at the tent. Whether that threat followed them to the cedar or it remained at the tent we'll probably never know.

[Marchesk]

Assuming all three were actually trying to go back to the tent.

My question would be why attempt to back to a tent they abandoned for the woods? They would have to go back up slope, in the dark, exposed to the wind and hope the situation at the tent had improved. This assuming they had enough strength to do so, which they did not. Zina, the farthest from the cedar, didn't even make the halfway point. That or the conditions were so terrible it was a hopeless attempt. But if that was the case, why bother?

Unless there is some other reason for the three of them being on the slope, or different reasons. If one or more of them were going back, it would seem to indicate they had reason to believe the tent situation could have improved. But as I understand it, there were no footprints. We can't tell whether they went together, whether it was in a straight line back toward the tent, and whether they were departing from the cedar tree. We don't even know that all three were going up when they fell, only that they died with their heads up slope.

[Jean Daniel Reuss]

Well, three of them were in fact found crawling back to the tent.

Igor, Zinaida, and Rustem all tried to return to the tent.
My guess as to why they walked so far from the tent is that they could not remain on the mountain slope due to wind and cold exposure and they had to travel to the treeline in order to survive. Why they left the tent in the first place is the obvious question. There was an overwhelming real or perceived threat at the tent. Whether that threat followed them to the cedar or it remained at the tent we'll probably never know.

Even at that point it is not quite sure that the three were crawling back to the tent.

It was Loose}{Cannon who noticed that

https://forum.dyatlovpass.com/index.php?topic=333.0
    Dyatlov Pass Forum > Theories Discussion > Murdered > My short take on murder.
Loose}{Cannon      January 24, 2019, 07:44:35 AM     Reply #6

... I think there is entirely too much faith put into the idea that Igor, Zina, and Rustem died while attempting to return to the tent. The only reason why people assume this to be the case is because their orientations having their heads all facing the general direction of the tent?  Welp, common sense tells me that I have never seen anyone lay down on an incline/slope with their heads facing downward.  Its completely unnatural.   Think about it, if I told you to walk downhill, stop, and lay down...... would you instinctively go down with your head lower then your feet?  I would assume not. 

Click here to see the large picture given by Loose}{Cannon
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/DNRTWE/blue-sky-white-clouds-view-people-sitting-relaxing-grassy-slope-below-DNRTWE.jpg

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

I learned a little about the poorly known history (archives still closed in 2020) of the USSR during the time of the Khrushchev thaw (1953-1964) and very gradually, with great reluctance, I was influenced by :

 •• Eduard Tumanov    --->  https://forum.dyatlovpass.com/index.php?topic=411.0
 •• Per Inge Oestermoen  --->   https://forum.dyatlovpass.com/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=325
 •• Nordlander  --->     https://forum.dyatlovpass.com/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=484
 •• Noelle   --->  https://forum.dyatlovpass.com/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=586
 •• and many others    ---> on https://dyatlovpass.com/

So I am currently (and slowly) working on writing my Hypothesis No. 2 which should be a complete scenario that takes into account History and Psychology. Here is a first outline.

Topic : Altercation on the pass against few attackers.

    This is what I know about those attackers.

  a) They are people under some kind of house arrest who are obliged to reside in or near Settlement 41 or Vizhay. They have to check in every two weeks at an administrative office. They are not prisoners in a gulag camp who are continuously watched by guards.

  b) They followed the tracks of the hikers on skis from North 2 (to the tent), which is easy and only takes a few hours to complete.
Here you see a clumsy pursuer who was glimpsed by Tibo and could not remain entirely hidden: 

  c) They have good footwear and warm clothing, so during the night from 1 to 2 February, they can move quickly on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl.
They always keep the initiative and they can wait several hours without cooling down the moment that they choose for their next offensive.

  d) They are armed with blunt objects made of birch wood (but they do not have firearms or large knives, which are strictly forbidden for them). In addition they prepared an ISSP =Improvised Suffocating Smoke Pot (for example: 2.KNO³ + 4.S --> 3.SO² + N² + K²S). It is a simple and well known process to quickly get people out of a closed room.  (Note this ISSP is called "a kind of dope" by Anatoly Stepochkin).

  e) They are anti-Russian, anti-Soviet, anti-communist and they consider themselves temporarily neutralized actors in a patriotic war against USSR  that is not over. It was only after 1985 (  Chernenko, Gorbachev, Yeltsin..) that resentments began to decrease.

In 1959 a large number of countries were under Soviet oppression, so I do not know the nationality or nationalities of those internal enemies of the USSR whose presence in Siberia was causing Nikita Khrushchev concerns.

(Khrushchev was criticized by the Stalinists around the supporters of Leonid Brezhnev who ousted him in 1964).
So we have the choice between : Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Poles, Czechoslovakians, Hungarians, Romanians, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Koreans, Germans, Bulgarians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Finns..

  f) They (attackers) are good tacticians (e.g. Polish officers who survived the Katyn massacre) who by a nine hours succession of three short (about 15 minutes to set the ideas) offensives followed by feigned retreats (in the manner of the Mongolian armies) succeed first to break up and finally exterminate the strong team of 9 athletic and soviet hikers.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

So it becomes easier to reconstruct the outline of a rough scenario.
(Do not dwell on precisions which are unimportant and obviously imaginary).

***   9 am, February 1: first offensive
The surprise attack begins with inserting the ISSP inside the tent.
Maybe it is the hikers who cut the tent down so they can breathe in the outside air.
Hikers are compelled to go out coughing and almost blind  because their eyes are burning.

Hand-to-hand combat begins on the snowy and slippery slope as the icy wind blows.
In the darkness black silhouettes on a white background stumble, fall and rise, no one can distinguish with certainty between friends and enemies.
On both sides, the knocks are imprecise, but blunt objects are more ravaging than bare fists and gradually the hikers are pushed away from the tent, down the slope.
At 870 m from the tent, Kolmogorova and stunned the first and fell not to get up again.
at 1020 m from the tent, Slobodin falls in turn. However despite multiple injuries and a fractured skull he will survive another 9 hours (death around 6 pm, February 2).
The attackers, who were severely affected by the punches they received, disappeared into the darkness.

The remaining seven hikers descend towards the cedar tree which is 480 m away.

At the foot of the cedar Dyatlov, Doroshenko and Krivonishenko succeed in lighting the fire.
The 4 others leave at 75 m and set up the den to hide and protect Dubinina who is the most threatened as a confirmed stalinist.

A little before 1 pm, the three who are at the foot of the cedar are less cold because they are next to the fire.  They have little hope of finding Kolmogorova and Slobodin alive. Dyatlov decides not to wait any longer and he must do something.
Doroshenko and Krivonischenko each lend a suit to Dyatlov ("long sleeved Cotton red checkered shirt in a dark-gray pattern, jacket sleeveless coated with cotton blue material on dark gray fur...).
 Thus better dressed, Dyatlov starts to go up to the tent....But...

***    1 pm , february 2 : second offensive in a blitzkrieg style
Dyatlov was found by the attackers on the slope 300 m from the cedar and stunned. To make sure he never got up, the attackers tied his feet...
Then the attackers reach the cedar and find Doroshenko alone at the foot of the cedar and he is stunned.

Krivonischenko is now at the top of the cedar cutting green branches to keep the fire going.
Soin a position where it is difficult to defend himself.
He is burned by his feet, pulled down, perhaps tortured to find out where the 4 of the den are, and then stunned.
The attackers cannot find the last four hikers and disappear into the darkness.
Before 6 pm the 4 of the den come back to the cedar and find Doroshenko and Krivionishenko both dead....


***  6 pm, February 2 :third and final offensive
Confused altercations between cedar and den. Defeat of the last 4 hikers. To mark their hard-won victory, the attackers easily break some ribs on bodies lying on their backs and tear out Dubinina's viper's tongue, to symbolically celebrate a revenge on the odious Stalinist propaganda.

***   7 pm,February 2: The exhausted and sore attackers go back up to the tent, checking that the theatre of operations is presentable, and then they rest a little.
***  10 pm,February 2: The attackers put their skis up again and follow the tracks they took on the way to North 2.
***   5 am,february 2: Arrival at North 2.
***  10 pm,february 3: Arrival at settlement 41.

[Squatch]

Assuming all three were actually trying to go back to the tent.

My question would be why attempt to back to a tent they abandoned for the woods? They would have to go back up slope, in the dark, exposed to the wind and hope the situation at the tent had improved. This assuming they had enough strength to do so, which they did not. Zina, the farthest from the cedar, didn't even make the halfway point. That or the conditions were so terrible it was a hopeless attempt. But if that was the case, why bother?

Unless there is some other reason for the three of them being on the slope, or different reasons. If one or more of them were going back, it would seem to indicate they had reason to believe the tent situation could have improved. But as I understand it, there were no footprints. We can't tell whether they went together, whether it was in a straight line back toward the tent, and whether they were departing from the cedar tree. We don't even know that all three were going up when they fell, only that they died with their heads up slope.

I think the Dyatlov group did what they did because they felt they had no choice at each location in the event chain. I think a very severe storm lifted snow from the top of Kholat Syakhl and rained it down on their tent area. In the extreme weather conditions it felt and sounded like an avalanche.

A second tragedy happened in the ravine due to some kind of snow collapse or mini-avalanche. The three that tried to go back to the tent felt that was the only chance for survival.

I think Zina, Rustem and Igor headed back to the tent together. Then Igor died first, and he was found lying on his back while Zina and Rustem were not. This hints that Rustem and Zina were perhaps talking with Igor when Igor died.