The active search of the Yeti, mythic figure (whose name derived from “yeh-teh”, literally “that thing over there”, sherpa's expression to point out the creature) in many cultures of Himalayan and Russian populations, started in 1889.

That year Englishman Major L. A. Waddell discovered fingerprints at more than 5,000 meters high attributed to “abominable snowman”, but until now none of the many hunters was even able to show also only a sample of the mysterious creature, rather a lot of expeditions ended in a tragic way.

Searching for the Yeti can cause death: it was the case of scientist Vladimir Pushkarev, dead 40 years ago without leaving any scientific works to the descendants, except for many articles published in magazines. Since he was a geologist, Pushkarev first encountered stories regarding snowmen in the Seventies, while he was visiting the area of the Uralis, Taiga and Tundra.

Different names for a wild being

The local population spoke of a wild man of the forest, the Yagmort, covered with a black or grey fur. Even people of taiga and tundra had a lot of legends regarding wild beings: Khanty told of Kul of the forest, Nenet of Tungus, Mansi of Menckom, Yakut feared even to pronounce the name Chuchuna.

An eyewitness in Puyko

In the Yamal, Pushkarev picked up the story of a village teacher, Martha Yefimovna Senkina, who when she was a child went with her father to work, stopping to sleep in the region of Puyko.

There she noticed that the dogs constantly barked in the autumn days, after that they discovered that this was due to the apparition of a mysterious creature which herself saw a night: an enormous figure, with red eyes, over 2 meters tall which at first seemed to draw near threatening, then it disappeared.

Pushkarev on the traces of the Yeti

Pushkarev at this point began to seriously look for mysterious monsters, beginning to prepare an expedition with the biological department of Tver.

After a further trip to the Yamal, the scientist asked his colleagues to start recording all the apparition of ancient rarities of nature-related events, until then refused and you treated as myths and legends. Pushkarev's position was pretty controversial but was his “not orthodox” method to cause his tragic end.

Unorthodox methods of research

Some psychic predicted Pushkarev a meeting with the Yeti near the Ozero Yarato lake and advised him not to carry guns with him.

Pushkarev took off alone, on an inflatable boat, dressed with light clothes and rubber boots: an outfit unappropriate for a wide environment such as the one he went, however, Pushkarev was not a hack tourist and still today it is inexplicable why he flew to meet his destiny that way.

Maybe he started to consider himself immune from any danger following the meeting with magicians, or he was simply in an inadequate state.

Pushkarev disappeared into thin air

The fact is that scientists simply disappeared, his equipment was found alongside the Hulga river together a couple of notes that didn't clarify the circumstances of the accident.

Many years later an engineer, Oleg Sharov, who was with his wife alongside Amguema river (in Chukchi region), tried to follow Pushkarev's research. The couple heard local stories regarding a strange creature with blonde hair and decided to look for it.

Also Sharov looked for Yeti's traces

There was bad weather and while the couple went down from the hill suddenly found themselves in front of their eyes an enormous snowman with long arms who quickly kept away to disappear in the fog. Later they tried to follow up Mansi's stories regarding “devils of the forest” but people didn't want to talk because they were afraid to incur doom.

Sharov laughed at these superstitions and sent to one of his colleagues, engineer Sapunov, a message in which stated that soon he would bring evidence of the existence of the hominid with which he meant to come into contact.

Another tragic outcome

Here too the story had a tragic outcome: expedition was caught in an avalanche dropped upon it as they were searching the mysterious creature.

Mansi are still nowadays persuaded that to cause the avalanche has been Yeti, for skeptics real problem is that such expeditions should be organized in great detail since the mountains, as well as tundra and taiga, don't forgive a superficial attitude towards nature.