Death of a group of tourists. The most mysterious accidents in domestic tourism. How many times a day did you eat
The most famous and mysterious case The death of tourists is considered to be a tragedy that occurred with the Dyatlov group in early February 1959. The circumstances have not yet been clarified, and several dozen versions have been put forward. This story is known all over the world and has formed the basis of several artistic and documentaries. However, few people know that a similar and no less mysterious and tragic story happened thirty years later on one of the passes in Buryatia.
In August 1993, to Irkutsk from Kazakhstan by railway A group of seven tourists arrived to go to the Khamar-Daban ridge. Forecasters promised suitable weather for climbing, and the group set off for the mountains. It consisted of three boys, three girls and a 41-year-old leader, Lyudmila Korovina, who had the title of Master of Sports in hiking. The Khamar-Daban ridge does not shock you with its height. The most high point– 2,396 meters. Arranged in ledges, with pointed peaks and ridges, the ridge is one of the oldest mountains on our planet. These Beautiful places visited annually by thousands of tourists. Valentina Utochenko Valentina Utochenko The group moved from the village of Murino to one of the most high mountains ridge called Hanulu. Its height is 2371 meters. Having walked about 70 kilometers in 5-6 days, the tourists stopped for a rest between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204m) and Tritrans (2310m).
The weather forecasters, however, were wrong about the weather. It snowed and rained and the wind blew for several days in a row. At approximately 11 o'clock in the afternoon on August 5, when the tourists were about to leave the temporary parking lot, one of the guys became ill. Further, from the words of the only survivor Valentina Utochenko:
Sasha fell, blood came from his ears, foam came out of his mouth. Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina stayed with him, appointed Denis as a senior, told him to go down as low as possible, but not to enter the forest, then the guys Vika, Tanya, Timur began to fall and roll on the ground - symptoms were like those of a suffocating person, Denis said - quickly take the most necessary things out of the backpacks and ran downstairs, bent over the backpack, pulled out the sleeping bag, raised his head. Denis fell and tore his clothes, tried to drag him by the hand with him, but he broke free and ran away. She ran downstairs without letting go of her sleeping bag. I spent the night under a boulder, covering my head with a sleeping bag, it was scary, trees were falling along the edge of the forest from the hurricane, in the morning the wind died down, more or less dawn rose to the scene of the tragedy, Lyudmila Ivanovna was still alive but practically could not move, she showed Valya in which direction to go out and passed out, Valya closed the guys’ eyes, collected her things, found a compass and went...
relay tower
After some time, the girl came across an abandoned relay tower at an altitude of 2310 meters, where she spent another night completely alone. And in the morning, the tourist noticed pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses to which wires had once been laid turned out to be abandoned.
But Valentina went out to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream; on the sixth day after the tragedy, she was accidentally seen and picked up by a water tour group. They had already sailed past, but decided to return; it seemed suspicious that the tourist did not respond to their greetings. Out of shock, the girl did not speak for several days. It’s interesting that Lyudmila Korovina’s daughter and another tour group were walking along a neighboring route and agreed to meet her mother at their intersection. But when Lyudmila’s group did not arrive at the collection point, Korovina Jr. thought that they were simply late due to bad weather and continued on their way, at the end of which they went home, not suspecting that their mother was no longer alive. For some unknown reason, the search was delayed; the bodies of the tourists were found only when about a month had passed since the death of the guys and their leader!!!
The picture was terrible, rescuers recall. The helicopter landed, and everyone on board witnessed a terrible sight: “The bodies were already swollen, everyone’s eye sockets were completely eaten away. Almost all of the dead were dressed in thin tights, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra... “What was happening on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the hikers take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remain unanswered. An autopsy was performed in Ulan-Ude, which showed that all six died from hypothermia, and the investigation agreed that the tragedy was caused by mistakes and incompetence of the group leader. But the facts say otherwise!
At the end of the summer of 1993, tourists from relatively distant Kazakhstan arrived in Buryatia. There were 7 of them: 3 guys, 3 girls and their leader Lyudmila Korovina. Let us immediately note that all the young people, despite their age, were already quite experienced travelers. And Korovina herself, who was 2 times older than her charges, had by that time already earned the title of Master of Sports in Hiking.
The travelers headed to the previously mentioned peak-lord of Khan-Ul. The weather was not favorable for the hike: it was snowing and the wind was blowing. But the group members did not want to give up. Along the way, they tripled the parking lot between the peaks of Golets Yagelny and Tritrans. And then something inexplicable happened. One of the young people became ill. He started bleeding from his ears and foaming at the mouth. He fell and began to roll in the snow. The rest of the tourists followed the example of the unfortunate man. They ran back and forth, threw off their clothes, grabbed the throat, bit, and said something incomprehensible. Some hit their heads on rocks.
The most famous and mysterious case of the death of tourists is considered to be the tragedy that occurred with the Dyatlov group in early February 1959. The circumstances have not yet been clarified, and several dozen versions have been put forward.
This story is known all over the world and has formed the basis of several feature films and documentaries. However, few people know that a similar and no less mysterious and tragic story happened thirty years later on one of the passes in Buryatia. In August 1993, a group of seven tourists arrived in Irkutsk from Kazakhstan by rail to go to the Khamar-Daban ridge.
Forecasters promised suitable weather for climbing, and the group set off for the mountains. It consisted of three boys, three girls and a 41-year-old leader, Lyudmila Korovina, who had the title of Master of Sports in hiking. The Khamar-Daban ridge does not shock you with its height. The highest point is 2,396 meters. Arranged in ledges, with pointed peaks and ridges, the ridge is one of the oldest mountains on our planet. These beautiful places are visited by thousands of tourists every year.
Valentina Utochenko The group moved from the village of Murino to one of the highest mountains in the range called Hanulu. Its height is 2371 meters. Having walked about 70 kilometers in 5-6 days, the tourists stopped for a rest between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204m) and Tritrans (2310m).
The weather forecasters, however, were wrong about the weather. It snowed and rained and the wind blew for several days in a row. At approximately 11 o'clock in the afternoon on August 5, when the tourists were about to leave the temporary parking lot, one of the guys became ill. Further from the words of the only survivor Valentina Utochenko:
“Sasha fell, blood came out of his ears, foam came out of his mouth. Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina stayed with him, appointed Denis as a senior, told him to go down as low as possible, but not to enter the forest, then the guys Vika, Tanya, Timur began to fall and roll on the ground - symptoms like a person who is suffocating.
Denis said - quickly take the most necessary things from the backpacks and run downstairs. I bent over my backpack, pulled out my sleeping bag, raised my head: Denis had fallen and was tearing his clothes. I tried to drag him by the hand with me, but he broke free and ran away. She ran downstairs without letting go of her sleeping bag. I spent the night under a boulder, covering my head with a sleeping bag, it was scary. Along the edge of the forest, trees were falling from the hurricane. In the morning the wind died down and it was more or less dawn. I went up to the scene of the tragedy.”
Lyudmila Ivanovna was still alive but could practically no longer move, she showed Valya in which direction to go out and passed out. Valya closed the guys' eyes, collected her things, found a compass and went...
After some time, the girl came across an abandoned relay tower at an altitude of 2310 meters, where she spent another night completely alone. And in the morning, the tourist noticed pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses to which wires had once been laid turned out to be abandoned.
But Valentina went out to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream. On the sixth day after the tragedy, she was accidentally seen and picked up by a water tour group. They had already sailed past, but decided to return; it seemed suspicious that the tourist did not respond to their greetings. Out of shock, the girl did not speak for several days. It’s interesting that Lyudmila Korovina’s daughter and another tour group were walking along a neighboring route and agreed to meet her mother at their intersection.
But when Lyudmila’s group did not arrive at the collection point, Korovina Jr. thought that they were simply late due to bad weather and continued on their way, at the end of which they went home, not suspecting that their mother was no longer alive.
For some unknown reason, the search dragged on; the bodies of the tourists were found only when about a month had passed since the death of the guys and their leader!!!
The picture was terrible, rescuers recall. The helicopter landed, and everyone on board witnessed a terrible sight: “The bodies were already swollen, everyone’s eye sockets were completely eaten away. Almost all of the dead were dressed in thin tights, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra...”
What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the hikers take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remain unanswered.
An autopsy was performed in Ulan-Ude, which showed that all six died from hypothermia, and the investigation agreed that the tragedy was caused by mistakes and incompetence of the group leader. But the facts say otherwise!
Dyatlov Pass theme and the mystery of the death of students on it worries many, a lot of hypotheses, films have been made. Even in the Battle of Psychics they tried to unravel the mystery - every psychic has his own version.
And here is another, apparently not the last, “scientifically based” version.
New research by scientists has pointed to possible reason death of a tour group Igor Dyatlov in 1959. Experts linked the deaths to a similar accident, when in 1993 a group of tourists from Kazakhstan died in Buryatia in circumstances similar to the story of the Dyatlov group.
So in 1993, a group of students led by Lyudmila Korovina went to the Khamar-Daban pass. Of the seven people, only one returned - Valentina Utochenko. She doesn’t want to remember the horror she experienced.
Vladislav Rzhavtsev- a member of a local tourist club, also walked along the fatal route to study the causes of those terrible events, REN-TV reports.
"Then there was a very strong cyclone, the weather suddenly deteriorated. If the day before they passed, well, the weather immediately followed them, but was more or less tolerable, then on the morning of August 5, according to the words of survivor Valentina, it began to snow, the temperature dropped sharply, almost to zero", explains the researcher.
It snowed and rained over the mountains for several days. Exhausted, the tourists stopped to rest. The mountains in this part are completely bare, only rocks, grass and wind. Why the group did not go down to the edge of the forest is unknown. We had to spend the night on a rocky peak. On the morning of August 5, the tourists got ready to set off.
"There was a hurricane wind, snow was falling, it was cold. Here the first to fall is Alexander Krysin, the strongest, the right hand of Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina. His nose and mouth are bleeding, and, according to Valentina, he is dying. At least he loses consciousness and cannot go further", continues Rzhavtsev.
After this, complete chaos began in the group. Someone began to hide and run away. Someone hit their head on the rocks. The rest behaved like they were out of their minds. This is recorded in the search and rescue report. People tore their clothes. Some had nosebleeds. Lyudmila Korovina died of a heart attack.
"The fact is that Valentina didn’t understand anything either. Perfectly healthy guys fall, tear their clothes, hit their heads on rocks and die one after another. She could not understand what had happened, and when she realized that she could not help, she simply went downstairs to somehow ride out this storm", explains Rzhavtsev.
Valentina Utochenko A few days later other tourists picked up. Official cause of death of the group Korovina- hypothermia. But researchers insist that people died from something else. Yes, they were dressed lightly, but there were warm clothes in their backpacks.
"They would be able to get dressed, get hypothermic, a person cannot freeze so quickly. They died abruptly. They had enough time to get dressed. They began to choke, and by all indications it was poisoning", suggests a member of the tourist club Natalia Rzhavtseva.
Researchers insist: in death groups of Igor Dyatlov and Lyudmila Korovina There are too many similarities for this to be a coincidence. Both of them left the parking lot in a panic, as if they were frightened by something. The bodies were found in different places. It was as if people were falling dead; many had no outer clothing.
One of the initiators of the campaign against Kholat-Chakhl Vladimir Borzenkov I am sure that the cause of death was infrasound.
"If you take the top of two neighboring mountains and draw a straight line between them, then along the ridge itself, with a wind speed of about 15 meters per second, about 60 tons of air per second passes. I believe that this is the most likely source of this infrasound, which could have affected the Dyatlov group"- assures the researcher.
Igor Dyatlov's group died on the night of February 1–2, 1959. Tourists from the club Ural Polytechnic went on a hike to the village of Vizhay Sverdlovsk region. The day before the tragedy, they were already trying to climb the Kholat-Chakhl pass. Due to the stormy wind, they were unable to do this and postponed the ascent to the next day.
"IN dark time day, the so-called “X” moment came, when the group was forced to hastily leave the tent. They could have exited through the entrance, of course. However, they were forced to take extreme measures and cut the tent. The urgency of the escape is also indicated by the fact that the group was practically unclothed.", explains Borzenkov.
The Dyatlovites ran out into the cold undressed. That night the temperature dropped to minus 28 degrees. Later, rescuers found warm clothes and shoes in the tent. The bodies of tourists were found at an impressive distance from the camp.
What made people flee in panic? Some even barefoot.
The official cause of death was hypothermia. Many versions have been put forward - from an avalanche to a UFO. However, today we can say: the expedition was killed by sound waves.
"Only something extraordinary could force one to leave the tent, in particular, let’s say, some kind of impact on the psyche. The brain, which has its own frequencies, was affected by something external. In particular, an acoustic wave could influence", says the researcher.
Few people know that if a person is exposed to low frequency sounds, instant death will occur. No doctor can explain this. Scientists conducted a number of experiments. The animals were exposed to infrasound, and this led to rupture of blood vessels in the brain and cardiac arrest.
"Even not very strong levels of infrasound affect a person’s mental state. In particular, a feeling of fear, a feeling of uncertainty arises, and internal organs begin to tremble. When the amplitude of the sound increases, breathing problems may occur and heart rhythms may become disturbed. More high levels sound lead to damage related to the supply of oxygen to the brain", explains acoustician scientist Kanaev.
Fierce winds on the Ural and Transbaikal passes could turn into a tornado. They walked far from the tents and tourist sites. And they didn't even damage them. But the tornado caused unusual phenomenon. People felt the impact of infrasound, so they ran away in terrible panic.
"Infrasound affects not only the human psyche, but also the entire body. These fluctuations are dangerous because they are difficult to catch. For example, oscillations of 7-8 hertz can also cause disturbances in the functioning of thought processes, panic, a feeling of inexplicable anxiety, danger", - comments Candidate of Medical Sciences Svetlana Artemova.
Despite the development of science, infrasound is still little studied. We only know that these are low frequency waves. We don't hear them, but we obey them.
Recent research by scientists confirms that infrasound causes panic and horror in people, can drive them crazy and even cause cardiac arrest. The most thorough investigation will not reveal any traces. Strong winds at sea or in the mountains, thunderstorms and even aurora are one of the reasons for the appearance of infrasound. Now researchers are sure: the mysterious death of two expeditions is indisputable proof of the existence of a fantastic killer sound.
PS (Valex). My version was that this is ball lightning . However, the appearance of ball lightning is sometimes accompanied by strange sound waves, so it's probably two in one. Also, there is no need to reset the option of testing psi-weapons in those places, because some variants of psi-weapons are precisely based on infrasonic influence on a person’s subconscious, causing panic in the crowd or in the enemy army.
This happened in August 1993. A group of seven tourists arrived in Irkutsk from Kazakhstan and went to the Khamar-Daban mountains. Only one girl was destined to return from there alive. Six people, including a female instructor, died at an altitude of 2204 meters. About how it all happened today in Friday.
Chief specialist of emergency rescue service Irkutsk region Leonid Izmailov says: “The mass psychosis that happened to the group after the death of the first person can be explained by overwork, unpreparedness for such a turn of events, and hypothermia. But it is impossible to fully understand what happened. After all, at the same time there were people in the mountains who, like Korovina’s group, did not expect snowfall, but they all survived.”
The Khamar-Daban ridge is one of the oldest mountains on the planet, stretching from west to east for more than 350 km. The ridge is located on the territory of the Irkutsk region and Buryatia. Thousands of tourists visit it every year
We managed to find Valentina Utochenko on the Internet. Now the girl who escaped in the mountains on Lake Baikal has a family and children. And Valentina has no desire to talk about that story: “Do you think I want to remember this nightmare? I had to leave and change my whole life. I don’t want to remember this.” However, Valentina noted: “Our instructor was of a very high level, and everything that happened was not her fault. “Everything would be fine with us then if there was the weather that the weather forecasters promised.”
An old relay tower helped Valentina Utochenko find her way and reach the Snezhnaya River, where she was picked up by tourists from Kyiv
Kyiv resident Alexander Kvitnitsky was in composition of the group rafting down the Snezhnaya River, they discovered Valya on the shore. The man says that he called Valentina a couple of times after the incident, but then realized that any reminders of the tragedy on Khamar-Daban would cause the girl pain, and he refused to communicate: “We often remember Valya. She's a real smart girl - she did everything right. She has nothing to blame herself for."
We learned about this case from the emergency rescue service of the Irkutsk region. When preparing an article about the dangers that mushroom and berry pickers can face in the forest in the summer, the service’s chief specialist, Leonid Izmailov, briefly mentioned this story. In August 1993, Leonid Davydovich and his colleagues from the Trans-Baikal Regional Search and Rescue Service (ZRPSS was reformed in the late 1990s) had to search for dead tourists in Khamar-Daban. The story turned out to be so shocking that we asked a professional to tell it to Friday readers in detail.
In August 1993, a group of tourists from Petropavlovsk, Republic of Kazakhstan, arrived in Irkutsk by train, says Leonid Izmailov, then deputy head of the ZRPSS. - There were seven of them: three girls, three boys and their 41-year-old leader Lyudmila Ivanovna, master of sports in hiking. The group set off along the assigned route of the fourth category of difficulty through Khamar-Daban.
The tourists moved from the village of Murino along the Langutai River, through the Langutai Gate pass, along the Barun-Yunkatsuk River, then climbed the highest mountain of Khamar-Dabana Hanulu (2371 m), walked along the ridge and found themselves on the watershed plateau of the Anigta and Baiga rivers. Having covered this significant part of the journey (about 70 kilometers) in about 5-6 days, the group stopped for a rest. The place where tourists camped is located between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204 m) and Tritrans (2310 m). “This is a completely bare part of the mountains - there are only stones, grass and wind,” explains Leonid Davydovich. - Why the manager decided to stop here, and not go down 4 kilometers, to where the trees grow, where there is less wind and there is an opportunity to make a fire, is a mystery. This was probably one of the tragic mistakes...
And this is why we had to talk about the instructor’s mistake: on August 18, 1993, ZRPSS employees learned that six participants in the hike had died. Only 18-year-old Valentina Utochenko survived. The exhausted girl was noticed and taken with them by tourists from Ukraine who were rafting down the Snezhnaya River. It was she who told the rescuers about how it all happened.
Probably, few people remember that on August 3, 1993, a Mongolian cyclone came to Irkutsk and such an amount of rain fell that the entire Karl Marx Street was knee-deep in water. The torrential rain did not stop for about a day. Naturally, at that time there was also precipitation in the mountains, only there was snow and rain,” says Leonid Davydovich. - All this time the group moved in the mountains, without giving themselves rest.
It is worth noting that at the same time, another group from Petropavlovsk-Kazakh was in the Khamar-Daban mountains. Its leader was the daughter of Lyudmila Ivanovna. Even before the trip, mother and daughter agreed to meet at a designated place, at the intersection of two routes in the mountains. Perhaps it was precisely because of the rush that the group did not wait out the bad weather and kept moving forward. Apparently, when the tourists no longer had any strength left, it was decided to take a break. “How else can we explain the manager’s decision to spend the night in an open place blown by a squally wind, when there were about 4 kilometers left to the forest?” - Leonid Davydovich argues.
Rescuers will become aware of the tragedy that took place at the rest stop only two weeks after the incident - on August 18. From the meager stories of the surviving girl, they were able to imagine what exactly happened there.
On the night of August 4-5, snow and rain continued to fall in the mountains, the weather was very bad, with a piercing wind, Leonid Davydovich describes what happened. - All this time, tourists were freezing in a wet tent, unable to warm up by the fire. By the way, the guys’ clothes were also wet, because they had been walking in the rain all day. As a result, on the morning of August 5, they got ready to set off, when suddenly, at about 11 o’clock, one of the guys started foaming at the mouth, blood poured out of his ears - in front of everyone, 24-year-old Alexander became ill, and he immediately died suddenly.
Then complete chaos began in the group. It is surprising that this death instilled panic not only in the 16-17-year-old participants of the hike, but also in the leader - an experienced woman, a master of sports. It is difficult to explain what was happening in the mountains - real madness was happening before the eyes of Valentina Utochenko, who maintained her composure. “Denis began to hide behind the rocks and run away, Tatyana hit her head on the rocks, Victoria and Timur probably went crazy. Lyudmila Ivanovna died of a heart attack” - such data is recorded in the report on search and rescue and transportation work from the words of the surviving girl.
Valentina, as the rescuers say, watched what was happening for a long time, tried to somehow reason with the remaining four, but it was all in vain - those who had lost their minds were uncontrollable, they broke free and ran away from Valentina when she tried to take them away from this place into the forest.
When the girl realized that all attempts to save her freezing, distraught friends would not be successful, she took her sleeping bag, a piece of polyethylene and went down several kilometers down the slope. Where there is a forest, where the wind is not felt so much. There the girl spent the next night, and in the morning she returned to the parking lot. By this time, everyone remaining on the mountain was dead.
The strangest thing is that all night, even before the first death, the guys were wet and frozen, but did not even try to warm up, says Leonid Izmailov. - Each of them had a sleeping bag and plastic wrap, but this remained untouched - everything was dry and lay in their backpacks. Why the manager did not take any measures is inexplicable. How inexplicable is the general panic that set in after the first death.
But, according to the rescuers, Valentina acted completely correctly and logically. Having climbed the mountain in the morning and seeing a terrible picture, the girl was not at a loss - she found a route map in the leader’s things, collected food and went to look for salvation. 18-year-old Valya went down to the Anigta River, spent the night of August 7 there, and continued moving again in the morning.
After some time, the girl came across an abandoned relay tower at an altitude of 2310 meters, where she spent another night completely alone. And in the morning, the tourist noticed pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses to which wires had once been laid turned out to be abandoned. But the tourist went out to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream. Here the girl again had to spend the night, and the next day continue the search for people. After walking another 7-8 kilometers, exhausted Valya stopped. She stretched out her sleeping bag on the bushes near the water - this is how lost tourists indicate their presence.
It was here that a group of tourists from Kyiv, rafting along the Snezhnaya, noticed her. The Ukrainians saw the banner, moored to the shore and took Valya with them, continues Leonid Davydovich.
The specialist notes that Valentina Utochenko is very lucky, because people rarely visit these places. The girl told what happened to her group, and at the first opportunity the tourists contacted rescuers. “The information came to us from Alexander Kvitnitsky, a Ukrainian tourist, on August 18 at about one o’clock in the afternoon. A helicopter was immediately ordered to go in search of the dead, but for various reasons it was possible to take off only on August 21, recalls Leonid Izmailov. “But it was not possible to find the parking lot, although helicopters from Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk flew in searches.”
At the same time, a search was underway in the Khamar-Daban mountains for two more guys from Omsk. The fact that they went missing on August 17 became known to rescuers thanks to a participant in the hike, who independently reached Irkutsk to report about her lost comrades. The girl said that the leader of the group, 18-year-old Ivan Vasnev, and 18-year-old tourist Olga Indyukova went on reconnaissance and did not show up at the meeting place at the appointed time. After waiting a day, the remaining trio, leaving a note and food at the place, went to the people.
Together with two guys from Omsk, who were lifted aboard a helicopter already on Snezhnaya, we went in search of the lost. At the same time, a search was underway in the mountains for the dead tourists. We flew out on August 23, 24 and 25,” says Leonid Davydovich. - And on the 26th, Ivan and Olga were finally found - they steadfastly waited for rescue at Snezhnaya, stretching blue plastic on the shore. The guys were fine, they even had food in stock - Snickers and a can of canned beef.
By coincidence, having already taken Ivan and Olga on board, the rescuers discovered and lost group from Kazakhstan. The helicopter landed, and everyone on board witnessed a terrible sight: “The picture was terrible: the bodies were already swollen, everyone’s eye sockets were completely eaten away. Almost all of the dead were dressed in thin tights, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra...”
What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the hikers take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remain unanswered. Rescuers from Buryatia took the group from the scene of death by helicopter. An autopsy was performed in Ulan-Ude, which showed that all six died from hypothermia. By this time, relatives of the missing tourists had arrived in the capital of Buryatia, who eventually took the bodies home. By the way, Lyudmila’s daughter, without waiting for her mother’s group at the appointed place, decided that the tourists simply did not make it by the agreed time, and calmly continued their hike. Later, when the route of the second category of difficulty was completed, the daughter of the deceased woman, together with her charges, returned to Kazakhstan, not even suspecting the misfortune.
We saw this group just on August 5,” says Leonid Davydovich. “We had to take the children out of Khamar-Daban, and Lyudmila Ivanovna’s daughter was there for the second day. Just at this time, in another place in Khamar-Daban, tragic events happened to the group.
Leonid Davydovich says that it is very difficult to understand the reasons for the death of six people: “Of course, there was bad weather, but these are tourists - prepared people, and the leader should know how to behave in such cases. In addition, the woman, in my opinion, made a serious mistake by pitching a tent in a drafty place far from the forest. And, as I understand, the group was tired - Lyudmila was in a hurry to meet her daughter and spared no effort. The night spent in the wind in wet clothes and a damp tent also took its toll.”
What helped Valentina avoid the same fate? Probably character. We don’t know her at all, and when we talked in August 1993, the girl was deep inside herself - not every person is able to survive this. The main thing is that she did everything right, which saved her.
P.S. The names of the victims are not indicated for ethical reasons.
Turned out to be the most persistent
“Friday” managed to find Alexander Kvitnitsky, a tourist from Kyiv, who was part of the group that found Valentina on the Snezhnaya River. Alexander Romanovich shared his memories with us.
It turned out that we were the first to whom Valya told about the death of her friends,” the man recalls. “She said that they had a wonderful leader and that they were in a hurry to complete the route as quickly as possible, so they were very tired. When bad weather came, they were all very cold, but they did not go down from the ridge to wait out the bad weather, but walked all the time. This made us even more tired. As she said, it all started with the death of the strongest participant in the campaign - a young, strong guy. Valya said that the group leader considered him her son, because she raised him from childhood. The guy's heart sank and he suddenly died in front of everyone. Because of this, the leader lost her remaining strength and told everyone to go downstairs and leave her with this guy. The guys, of course, did not abandon her, and she also died before their eyes. We were never able to make out what happened next: Valya described everything as an attack of mass madness. Despite her attempts, it was simply impossible to organize further movement with the remaining team. She even tried to drag someone by the hand with her, but he broke free and ran away. And Valya, a strong village girl who was accustomed to physical exertion, turned out to be the most resilient of all. She was just as unbearably cold as the others, she also became numb as she walked, but thoughts of her family saved her. The girl thought what would happen to her mother if she did not return home. Taking a sleeping bag and polyethylene, Valya went down to the forest. There she waited out the bad weather, and when she returned, she saw that everyone was dead.
Later I reached the river and decided to wash my hair. She reasoned like this: if you are going to die, then you need to look good before you die. By that time the weather had settled - the sun was scorching. We noticed her on the river. Valya had a cold - we gave her antibiotics and other medications. And when we continued our route along the river, we met Muscovites who were traveling to Irkutsk together with Valya’s group. They were fishing on the shore, noticed a girl and began asking where everyone else was and how they were doing. Valya told them everything that happened - it was a shock for them, because during the journey they managed to become friends. Later, when the bodies had already been found, our guys helped Valya buy train tickets and escorted him home.
Is altitude sickness to blame?
Alexander Kvitnitsky, discussing the reasons for the death of the group, suggests that the group developed mountain sickness, which appears in high altitude conditions: “It can be assumed that due to oxygen starvation they could have changes in the brain that cause different reactions, including affecting on the heart, blood vessels, cause hallucinations, etc. But at the altitude at which that group was, altitude sickness almost never happens.”