Are the basic facts of the 1993 Korovina group incident well established?

[Investigator]

Let's start with my understanding.  They began on August 2 and all but one died on August 5, and the autopsies led to the conclusion the dead were killed by hypothermia and something about malnutrition?  I want to clear up the point about some form of malnutrition, because it's supposed to take about two weeks for this to occur, and I'm assuming they ate well up until August 2.  What was the basis of the malnutrition claim (what was found during the autopsies)?  Could there be some sort of translation issue (I don't speak nor read Russian)?  Thanks.

[Manti]

This site mentions "protein deficiency".

When I read about that incident I assumed "malnutrition" is mistranslation of "food poisoning", but it's harder to imagine that protein deficiency is mistranslation...


Symptoms are really strange

• sudden foaming from the mouth - could be due to some form of irritant they breathed in
• clutching their throats - same
• sudden bleeding from the ears - unusual unless there's skull injury, but that wasn't the case
• tearing off their own clothes - again some irritant in the air?

The fact there is a survivor apparently in good health all but rules that out though....

[Manti]

Some interesting theories here:
Eating poisonous mushrooms, drinking contaminated water, and... nerve agents...

[Teddy]

I published information about this incident here: https://dyatlovpass.com/hamar-daban



There are man made Russian and ENGLISH subtitles to this video (switch from Settings)

[Investigator]

Thanks, Teddy, but would you mind summing things up for us: do you think lack of food (or protein-rich food) is a possible issue here, because that doesn't seem consistent with eating little for only a few days?  I would guess that food poisoning, possibly of different toxic plants, could have been a factor, though we can't be sure (and like Manti I was wondering about a mistranslation of some kind).

[Teddy]

and like Manti I was wondering about a mistranslation of some kind.

I translated it myself, I don't see ambiguous language, only not enough information.
My way of interacting with a mystery case is gather information. This is my strength. I don't try to interpret until I have a conviction i.e. till I am convinced. I am well aware by now I shouldn't try to convince anybody in anything. I usually apply my own experience too. I can only say that the Korovina group tragedy doesn't seem like a malnutrition to me. Malnutrition doesn't explain why were they barefoot for example, and dressed in leotards only. Why were they going mad. I don't have an explanation for this incident.
In this case we do have a survivor, a real one, not like Yudin, who turned back, and was clueless till his death. Here we have a witness. This makes all look very strange.

[Investigator]

I agree, Teddy, and I'd guess that being outrageously hungry (and possibly weak due to that) may have been a major factor (in terms of odd behavior and bad decision-making).  I also like to put myself in the position of the people involved.  Here we have teenagers who were wet, super hungry, and possibly ill due to eating the wrong plants (though not to the point of that showing up in toxicology testing).  The leader of the group was the one "expert"' and the one member of the group who did a lot of the "heavy lifting" were dead or telling them to leave. They may not have felt that going down to the tree line would do much for them, since they didn't believe they had the skills to survive and were very tired, hungry, and perhaps "not in their right minds" for whatever reason (some have mentioned altitude "sickness" too).  They may have thought that staying in that open area would help rescuers find them, and didn't think that as a group they would have the requisite surivival skills without the leader and "heavy lifter."  So, I actually don't find what happened to be all that strange, other than claims about the medical issues, though it's possible the surivivor could have embellished (such as to say that several had a symptom whereas only one did), in order to make her decision seem more reasonable (or she may have hallucinated, though I think this is the least likely explanation).  As their physical conditions deteriorated (internally and externally), that is when bizarre behavior and medical conditions would be more likely, and the leader apparently was known as "tough" and preferred a Spartan approach, but to see such deterioration after just a few days seems very stange.

[Manti]

That video is actual footage of the search, right? And not a recreation?

The bodies seem to be wearing more than just leotards.

Anyway I apologise, I assume translation errors more often than I should perhaps as English is not my first language, but there is very little info available in my first language so anything I read about these cases goes through multiple translations, the last one happens as I read the English text so I got accustomed to not take everything as accurate word-by-word.

[Teddy]

That video is actual footage of the search, right? And not a recreation?

The bodies seem to be wearing more than just leotards.

Anyway I apologise, I assume translation errors more often than I should perhaps as English is not my first language, but there is very little info available in my first language so anything I read about these cases goes through multiple translations, the last one happens as I read the English text so I got accustomed to not take everything as accurate word-by-word.

No need to apologize.
The footage is real.
The article says "The scene was terrible, rescuers recall. Almost all of the victims were dressed in thin leotards, and three were barefoot."
I am not interpreting, merely citing.
https://dyatlovpass.com/resources/340/Hamar-Daban-article-page-2.jpg

[Investigator]

Thinking about possible scenarios that make sense, it could be that the lone survivor went down to the tree line and stayed there an hour or two, yelling up for the others to come back down.  Eventually, she went back up to try and get them to follow her back down, but they were all dead by that point, so the key here is that the others were at much higher altitude, being battered by strong winds, rain, and the unseasonably cold temperature, for a time long enough to kill them.  The protein malnutrition claim may  have come from a muscle biopsy, and that would not likely be relevant anyway (because they were only hiking a few days), though lack of proper daily calories could have played a factor in terms of how quickly they died under those harsh conditions.  The first to die, the oldest male, could have slipped, hit his head, and suffered a nasty concusion:

"The [leader] woke us, ordered to collect things and descend into the gorge. She tried to save us. Just did not have time. The wind was so strong that we slipped down, and not walked. Suddenly Sasha fell. He had a foam from his mouth."

https://zizuhotel.ru/en/anapa/pereval-dyatlova-gruppa-lyudmily-korovinoi-zagadochnaya-gibel/

Concussions can cause foaming from the mouth, though the information is poorly translated so perhaps this is not as useful as it appears.  The survivor may have said she saw more bleeding from the nose or ears and foaming from the mouth than there actually was, either due to her psychological state or because she wanted people to think the scene was more horrifying than it actually was (and so she was right to leave at that point, even if one or two may have still had a pulse).  She described it as a scene from a horror movie, which indeed it may have come across to most people, and so it is understandable that she wanted to get away from there, but in retrospect she may have thought a lot of people would say she abandoned those who were still alive, if that is how things developed, and so modified the "real story."

[Investigator]

I recently saw a video on Youtube about this incident, and the claim is that those who died exhibited symptoms of substances designed by the Russian (or Soviet) government to assassinate people, which may have been discarded in these kinds of locations.  Any thoughts about this idea?

[Manti]

Depends a lot on the details.

I don't suppose it was recently discarded. So it must have been a fairly stable substance. In which case, the people who searched the scene, touched their belongings, etc. should have been affected as well. But there is no suggestion any of them were.


What makes this incident so interesting is that even though there is a survivor, it seemingly didn't help in finding out what happened at all. And from a high level point of view, it's very similar to the Dyatlov Incident. They ran away from their tent and died. Cause of death not crystal clear. No obvious threat at the tent.I wonder if the Dyatlov Pass Incident would also still be a mystery even if we happened to have a real survivor.

[Investigator]

It seems like this hypothesis (say for Novichok, which you can read about at Wikipedia) would go something like:

The oldest (and by far strongest) male member picks up an object and while manipulating it, activates the poison (or perhaps it was activated when they were packing up that morning).  He dies quickly and then the others die in the order they were exposed and how much they were exposed to, so the survivor may not have been exposed, or it might have been too small an amount to cause symptoms (she waited quite a distance away from what would have been the "epicenter" and stayed away, whereas some of the others went back up quickly).  When she got back up there, she saw a sight from a horror movie and didn't stay for long.  Novichok is apparently dissolved/deactivated by water, so by the time rescuers found them, there many not have been enough of it to injure anyone else.

[Investigator]

Are you thinking of the DPI?  I don't remember any claims about radioactive clothing in this case, unlike the DPI.  But at this point, I think the important question is, does the description of what happened by the one survivor match the poisoning hypothesis better than any other hypothesis?  That seems to be the best we can hope for now.  Making allegations against specific governments, agencies, businesses, or individuals would be premature, unless there is more evidence than I have seen to date, though of course if experts stepped forward and said it was Novichok, then it would be likely related to a Soviet program, due to the geographical location of the incident and the lack of a reason why anyone would want to intentionally harm these hikers.

[Manti]

To me the symptoms don't seem like novichok but more like a corrosive gas they breathed in.

Bruised lungs, clutching their throats, bleeding from the eyes. Must have been something really strong.


Especially that Korovina herself only started exhibiting the symptoms when she went back to check on Sasha who already had the symptoms.

But all in all the description we got from the survivor / witness borders on unbelievable, and I don't know if it has been corroborated by the autopsies. It's a pretty wild thing to make up though, perhaps the substance was also hallucinogenic and she just managed to get a small enough dose to survive?

[Investigator]

I know hardly anything about poisons, but if it were a corrosive substance and all but one died very quickly (and the one survivor had no symptoms), I would guess this possibility is not likely (especially considering the autopsy reports).

[Manti]

Supposedly when she was found by kayakers her face was also covered in blood. But I don't know... her account is that they had breakfast, packed up, and were descending when Sasha became ill? But the searchers found the bodies next to tents that were still standing... Doesn't add up unless one of these is but a rumor

[Investigator]

Yes, i got the feeling that she might have confused things, but I also think that the is the evidence at the site, especially the bodies, where they were located, what condition they were in, the autopsy results, etc.  For so many people to die so quickly under conditions that do not seem like it is possible suggests something like poison.  The other possibility is hypothermia, of course, but my research into hypothermia suggests it was poison or hypothermia.  What the survivor described sounds like a poisoning, especially with the strongest member of the group dying so quickly under conditions one would usually not associate with a hypothermia death.  Also, I found another video that suggests Novichok may have been the cause:

[eurocentric]

I am convinced the surviving female poisoned the others, and she claimed they banged their heads against rocks to cover what she herself, to be sure they died, did  to them waiting until they were at their most vulnerable, on top of a mountain, away from help or potential survival.

She then chickened out of killing herself so made it down the mountain, covered in their blood, until found by suffering from hypothermia by another group.

Russia has the highest per capita incidence of serial killers, and this IMO was an obvious example. I don't know how she got away with it, to be frank. Maybe they thought a 17-year-old female wasn't capable of it and she did not speak of the incident for years making investigation impossible.

From the other site Manti linked to "Utochenko herself chalks it up to being in great physical shape, and prefers not to discuss the terrible incident."

Yes, reticence is safety.

[Ziljoe]

I am convinced the surviving female poisoned the others, and she claimed they banged their heads against rocks to cover what she herself, to be sure they died, did  to them waiting until they were at their most vulnerable, on top of a mountain, away from help or potential survival.

She then chickened out of killing herself so made it down the mountain, covered in their blood, until found by suffering from hypothermia by another group.

Russia has the highest per capita incidence of serial killers, and this IMO was an obvious example. I don't know how she got away with it, to be frank. Maybe they thought a 17-year-old female wasn't capable of it and she did not speak of the incident for years making investigation impossible.

From the other site Manti linked to "Utochenko herself chalks it up to being in great physical shape, and prefers not to discuss the terrible incident."

Yes, reticence is safety.

Where does the data" Russia has the highest per capita incidence of serial killers" come from?

I'm having Google.

[Ziljoe]

To add.

"Definition of a serial killer
At a 2005 symposium in San Antonio, TX, the FBI officially defined a serial killing as "the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events."

My interpretation would be , she can't be a serial killer.....

[eurocentric]

I am convinced the surviving female poisoned the others, and she claimed they banged their heads against rocks to cover what she herself, to be sure they died, did  to them waiting until they were at their most vulnerable, on top of a mountain, away from help or potential survival.

She then chickened out of killing herself so made it down the mountain, covered in their blood, until found by suffering from hypothermia by another group.

Russia has the highest per capita incidence of serial killers, and this IMO was an obvious example. I don't know how she got away with it, to be frank. Maybe they thought a 17-year-old female wasn't capable of it and she did not speak of the incident for years making investigation impossible.

From the other site Manti linked to "Utochenko herself chalks it up to being in great physical shape, and prefers not to discuss the terrible incident."

Yes, reticence is safety.

Where does the data" Russia has the highest per capita incidence of serial killers" come from?

I'm having Google.

If you were to Google recorded and prosecuted incidences of serial killers the US will lead the table. But an interesting UK Channel 4 documentary many years ago suggested Russia had the highest incidence, even though most of them were not apprehended and brought to justice.

The scale if it was such that Russian psychologists were proactively approaching universities and colleges and asking teachers to be on the look out for particular patterns of behaviour among students, the idea being individuals likely to become tomorrow's serial killers could be identified and counselled as a preventative measure.

They were especially keen to hear of any incidences of the dismemberment of animals (aka Jeffrey Dahmer and others) near campus as this was, and now is, widely regarded as a red flag towards the future abuse of humans.

[Ziljoe]

Jeffrey Dahmer was American? Channel 4 makes TV programmes for viewing figures. I doubt very much they made the program factual correct

I agree that evidence based practice will differ from one country to the other depending on their resources and serial killers  cover a lot of of psychological issues.

"Suggesting "Russia had the  highest per capita of serial killers by a non evidencd based TV documentary maker  , is very different from stating , Russia "has"  the highest  per capita incidence of serial killers.

It is a moot point with no evidence. It is not a fact.

[Manti]

One thing I never really understood that points to the same conclusion as Eurocentric: was she injured? If not, whose blood was she covered in, and why?

[eurocentric]

Jeffrey Dahmer was American? Channel 4 makes TV programmes for viewing figures. I doubt very much they made the program factual correct

I agree that evidence based practice will differ from one country to the other depending on their resources and serial killers  cover a lot of of psychological issues.

"Suggesting "Russia had the  highest per capita of serial killers by a non evidencd based TV documentary maker  , is very different from stating , Russia "has"  the highest  per capita incidence of serial killers.

It is a moot point with no evidence. It is not a fact.

You need to take into account that the 4 nations who typically appear above Russia in the serial killing international league tables have all provided a stable data stream across many decades, whereas that is not true of Russia due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fracturing of newly independent nations once under the same umbrella, and under the current political leadership, the opposite of open government, they wouldn't supply accurate data if they felt it presented their nation in a bad light.

It wasn't Channel 4 or the documentarists making the claim, it was the Russian psychologists, to explain the need for their new approach. As a keen docuphile I tend to place more credence on a well-researched documentary than some of the information found online which can often be copied from elsewhere and none of the propagators ever verified the original source.

I didn't suggest that Jeffrey Dahmer was Russian, his entire name is of English-German origin, not Russian, so that was a non-sequitur.

[Ziljoe]

Unfortunately, I feel some documentaries are not as good as they used to be. This is compounded by personal experience. Too many experts that contradict , although this may be down to the TV production.

 I wouldn't agree that all documentaries are well researched , I would say that , by enlarge they are made to entertain, (as to not lose viewing figures). I do recall enjoying channel 4 documentaries but find that the internet can actually give and support better evidence in some cases. I am also aware of how some program makers , even the news are trained to write.

I would agree that the data for Russia on the league table is probably incorrect for the points you make but that would also be true for many of the other countries.

Anyway, I'm getting lost in my own thoughts. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, even if Russia has or had  the highest number of serial killers , I can't make the leap or link to that being the reason for murder in this instance.

Every country has murders or serial killers. It doesn't matter where they come in on the world  table.

It would be enough to suggest the group was murdered by the sole survivor and may be a serial killer. There is no need to add or link that , Russia has the highest number of serial killers, the statement has no purpose.

So, if we are talking non-sequitur. What I read from your logic. Russia has the highest serial killers, therefore the girl killed all the other hikers as she is Russian. ?

[Manti]

Isn't she Kazakh?