







Soviet Russia, 1959





In January of 1959, 10 hikers (eight men and two women) decided to embark on a trek across the northern Ural Mountains. Nearly all of them were students or recent graduates of Russia's Ural State Technical University (which at the time was known as the Ural Polytechnic Institute).









Thanks to ermaktravel.com , we are able to put some faces and background with each member of the group. The expedition consisted of





Igor Dyatlov, the group's leader and a talented engineer.









Zinaida Kolmogorova, engineering student and experienced hiker









Ludmila Dubinina , the group's unofficial photographer





Alexander Kolevatov, a brilliant physics

student and the group's unofficial second in command.













Rustem Slobodin, skilled athlete and experienced hiker













Yuri Krivonischenko, engineer that

had worked on cleaning up the Kyshytm Disaster





Yuri Doroshenko, ex-boyfriend of Zinaida and

possible Abercrombie & Fitch model lost in time.













Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolles, engineer whose father had been executed by Stalin









Alexander Zolotariov, who was somewhat

of a mystery due to how much he moved around during his short life time.









Yuri Yudin, experienced hiker (and later blessed with some amazing luck)









Vizhai was the last inhabited settlement that the group would be able to stay at before they made their way towards their Their goal was to use the challenging journey as a training exercise for future expeditions into even more treacherous Arctic regions. On January 25, the group took a train into the city of Ivdel, then traveled by truck to Vizhai.Vizhai was the last inhabited settlement that the group would be able to stay at before they made their way towards their desired destination , the Otorten mountain range.





On January 27, they began their trek. One day into the journey, Yuri Yudin fell ill and had to return to Vizhai. As the group marched on, Yuri had no idea that it would be the last time that he saw his friends alive.





February 20





Dyatlov had told Yuri that even though their expected date of return was February 12, weather conditions would probably delay them a bit. But by February 20, the hikers' families and friends had demanded that a search to be initiated . After initially beginning as a small operation, the rescue mission eventually involved army and police teams with full air support.





Yuri Krivonischenko and Yuri Doroshenko. Both were shoeless and dressed only in their underwear. On February 26, one of the search teams found the expedition's abandoned camp . Their tent had been cut open from the inside and 8-9 sets of footprints were visible for 500 meters heading towards the edge of the woods. Under a tall cedar were the remains of a campfire...along with the bodies of





The corpses of Igor Dyatlov, Zinaida Kolmogorova, and Rustem Slobodin were recovered various distances between the cedar tree and the campsite. Their poses suggested that they were attempting to return to the campsite.





May 4





After more than 2 months of searching, the bodies of the remaining four members of the expedition were discovered. Unfortunately, this finding would not bring any closure, but instead unlock a series of disturbing and seemingly unanswerable questions.

The last four recovered bodies from the expedition were much better dressed than the others; some of them were actually wearing clothes (or using the clothes to dress wounds) from the expedition members that had been found earlier.



Nicolai Thibeaux-Brignolles was found to have a massive skull fracture, while the chests of Ludmila Dubinina and Alexander Zolotariov had been crushed inward, shattering their ribs and destroying their internal organs.





According to Doctor Boris Vozrozhdenny, who examined the bodies, the force required to do the type of damage he observed would have had to have been "equal to the effect of a car crash." Making things supremely bizarre was that even though the bodies showed internal damage consistent with exteme blunt force trauma, there was no soft tissue damage or external wounds at all.

As if all of that wasn't morbid enough, it's also worth mentioning that Dubinina was missing her tongue



















