S02 Episode 4: When the Snow Melts pt.1

That's alllbi rds dot com. It could be said that the history of life is a history of movement, a vast dance of inexorable entropic change, from the propulsion of the stars and the planets to the vibrating of subatomic particles and the stretching of space itself. It's useful to remember sometimes, but even the most solid seeming of objects are, in one way or another, in a constant kinetic state, be that the glass in your window, the elements of

a diamond, or even the earth under our feet. Let us, then, for a moment, take one singular place and look upon it as an ageless being of omnipotence might observe it. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McClain Smith. At first, we see a minute speck hanging in the depths of space. Drawing closer, we see it is in fact a nameless

planet moving around a nameless star. Drawing closer still, we see on the surface of that planet, two gigantic land masses are set on an imperceptible but devastating collision course, and on the edge of one we find our spot. The movement of the land is generated in part by the heat of the planet's core, a solid ball of iron nickel raging at almost five and a half thousand degrees centigrade that in turn heats a mantle layer below

the planet's surface. This outer shell appears to be a static rock composed mainly of silicon, iron, magnesium, oxygen, and aluminium, but of course it is not still. Instead, it bends and creeps, cajoled by the planet's warm belly, expanding and contracting in convective circles as the heat rises and falls through the silicate layers. It is on this sea of rock and waves of heat that the two land masses are being thrown toward each other and on this planet.

By our measurements, the days last just over twenty two hours, and oxygen levels in the air are fifty percent higher than anything we have ever experienced, and there is life in plenty across the continents. Owing to the humid climate, the land is smothered in vast swamps and enormous trees. Amphibious creatures dominate, while giant invertebrate arthropods wiggle and cruel in abundance. Some even fly too, their twitching segmented bodies lifted into the air by gossamer wings Over half a

meter in span. The two continents draw ever closer, until finally they collide to form one giant singular mass. As they merge, our spot is pushed and pulled as vast splinterings of rock rise into the sky to form mountains

and rolling hills. Over time, the land beneath continues to move and break apart into many separate pieces, and over the land above, more and diff front creatures are taking their place, entire species rising into falling, while the planet spirals on through space as it continues to orbit the nameless star, a mere three hundred million orbits later, and now the oxygen levels on the planet have depleted, the days have become longer, and from out of a central place,

what was once four legs has become two. In herds, these strange bipedal creatures are dispersed throughout the planet. Eventually they will learn to give themselves names and names two for the many things around them, including the very planet they walk upon, which will become known as Planeta Zimna jigu hen Song, or to others, planet Earth, and those creatures will learn to tell stories, bringing ever greater potential

for change. For now, not only does the material world change, but so too will the world that is mapped onto it in the minds of the creatures who walk upon it, Entire worlds that two can rise and fall in a matter of moments. As for our spot, it will eventually find itself nestled at the foothills of those same mountains formed three hundred million years ago, still surviving today as

one of the oldest mountain ranges on the planet. Those mountains will eventually find themselves encased in a country named Rossia and will become known as Uralski Gorri, or as the Ural Mountains. So let us now get closer in time and space to the spot that we have marked.

The Ural Mountains form a natural order between Europe and Asia, running two and a half thousand kilometers through western Russia, from the coast of the Kara Sea to the northwest border of Kazakhstan, and just to the east of the central Urals, we will find our region of interest. In seventeen twenty three, Peter, the great leader of the Russian Empire, establishes a town here that will be named Yachitterimborg after

his wife Yiketerina. Due to the abundance of minerals, vast resources of timber, and the deep waters of the Ist River, the location was a place of great natural beauty, but also a prime location for what would become the administrative mining capital of the Russian Empire. Just under two hundred years later, and the city is firmly established as a focal point for the country's growing industrial appetite. And in

that time so much has changed, not that we might notice. However, certainly the surrounding land and even the city, to all intents and purposes, has remained fixed. But even as we look upon it now, invisible changes are taking place. As a primary industrial hub, Yukaterimburg has found itself a beating heart of a new world that has materialized around it.

Having been a town built by royal decree to excavate natural resources that would then be turned into capital and wealth for a fortunate few, it is now a symbol and ode to those that generated the wealth, not through some strange alchemy, but through the blood and sweat of the many hands that scraped it from the earth. And so it is that, at the beginning of the century we find in our spot the same furnaces burning, and the same coal brought from the land by the same hands,

But the status of those hands has been elevated. Two thousand and two hundred miles away, on April sixteenth, nineteen seventeen, a train will pull into Finland Station in Saint Petersburg, carrying a man whose words, on stepping onto the station platform will bring further winds of change. We watch as they provoke an internacene war, turning the people of the

nation against each other in brutal and devastating ways. Back in Yakaterinburg, there is a mansion house belonging to a merchant named Epatiev, but as we avert our gaze for a moment. A year has passed, and when we look again we see the same bricks and mortar standing in the same place, only now there is no Epatiev and the mansion has been renamed the House of Special Purpose

of the Ural Soviet Committee. A year later, in the spring of nineteen eighteen, seven highly prized prisoners a family will be escorted to Yakaterinburg and imprisoned in this House of Special Purpose. We see them now in the early hours of July seventeenth, nineteen eighteen, as they are raised from their beds and taken to a small room. They are told to sit and wait for a truck to

come and take them away. But the truck never comes, only a hail of bullets and thrusting bayonets that ends with the walls dripping in blood and the prisoners lying dead on the ground. We watch as the bodies are taken to an abandoned mine shaft and one by one are dropped to the bottom of it. It is the last time that Russia will ever know a royal family.

Five years later, the war is over. Yukaterinburg remains, but now finds itself not in Russia but the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and though the name and rulers have changed, the minerals and oars in the ground are still very much in demand. To that end, a school has been established, named the euro Polytechnic Institute, to promote better skills in the working classes to aid with increased production. The following year, we return to find the city as it was, only

now it has a new name, spurred Lovsk. In the blink of an eye, just over thirty years have passed. It is nineteen fifty nine, and both spurred Lovsk and the euro Polytechnic as much as we left it. We see the building's familiar majestic architecture colonnaded at the front, underneath a vast pediment bearing the large embossed symbol of a hammer and a sickle. But in those thirty years, as ever, so much has changed, and a new ruler has replaced the old, ushering an end to an era

of almost unparalleled upheaval. In that time, an old enemy has risen and fallen from the west, and some considered enemies from within have fallen too, And now the deaths of over forty million people haunt the land. The mindset of an entire country has been altered, and a new war stalks the people of this vast nation, a Lognoya Voina, or the Cold War, as it will come to be known.

The new leader, Nikita Khrushchev, has promised a thawing of the old ways, and a new generation are ready to embrace it, a generation embodied by the bright and enthusiastic

students of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. And so it is that on Friday, January the twenty third, nineteen fifty nine, finally we arrive at the beginning of one more story to scatter across the foothills of the Ural Mountains, a story that is perhaps the most extraordinary of all the stories featured on the show so far, a chilling and profound mystery that remains to this day unexplained. We begin at the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Room five three one.

Seven students are crammed inside the spartan dormitory, frantically shoving various bits and pieces into backpacks, cans of meat, followed by packets of oatmeal, survival nights, and even a cooking stove. Nothing is forgotten, but rather than chaos, it is the steady haste of a well oiled team. They are preparing for a difficult mountain hike deep into the euro towards

O'tauton Mountain. The journey will involve at least sixteen days of trekking through the Siberian tundra on a path that many consider one of the toughest at this time of year, and it will need to be since all are hoping to achieve their Category three hiking certificate upon completion. It is the highest awarded category in the country and one that will require the team to cover over three hundred kilometers of ground, spending at least eight days incompletely uninhabited regions.

One boy, Yuri Krivneshchenko, looks perturbed for a moment as he hunts around the room, his face brightening into a huge grin when he finally finds his leather boots. Yuri, also known as Gyogi, is the joker of the group and at twenty three, also one of the oldest. A recent graduate of construction and hydraulics. Back in September of nineteen fifty seven, Georgy had been assigned to work at a secret nuclear facility called Chelyabinsk forty when the plutonium

plant experienced a catastrophic radioactive leak. Gyorgy was part of the team who was sent in to clean up the mess. He packs his leather boots away, then makes some space for his much loved mandolin. Do you think I can play it on the train? He asks, of course, shout the others in warm reply. In the corner of the dawn, keeping a watchful eye over the preparations is the diligent and methodical Alexander Kolovatov. At twenty four, Alexander is the oldest member of the group. A kind soul with a

ponchon for smoking antique pipes. Alexander was a distinguished student in the field of nuclear physics who had also studied in Moscow at a secret institute known as the Ministry of Medium Machine Building before returning to Spurredlovsk to complete his physics major. Who has the salt shouted Zinaida Kolmogorova,

or Zina as she is known to her friends. Although only twenty Zena is in her fourth year of radio engineering and is a tough and experienced hiker, known affectionately as the engine of the University, Zina's magnetic charm rarely went unnoticed, not least by a number of the boys in the team. Where at Doroshenko and Iger she asks, suddenly, let me have fifteen cents to call them. The question is directed at Ludmila Dubanina, the only other woman in

the group. Luda is only twenty and the youngest in the team. A focused and committed communist, the athletic Luda is practically a poster girl for the party, and like Zena, is possessed of an inner steel equal, if not superior, to any of her male compatriots. On one expedition to the Sayan Mountains, she was accidentally shot by a tourist, but didn't complain once during her long and painful journey

back home, except to apologize for troubling the group. Luda hands Seena the fifteen cents from the pile of cash she is diligently counting up. Meanwhile, Rustick is teasing Collier over who has more willpower to survive the trip without their beloved cigarettes. Rustick is Roostum Slobidin, another recent graduate of the institute. Unlike the others, Rustick comes from a wealthy family of academics, but he carries none of the

sense of entitlement that such wealth can sometimes entail. As perhaps the most popular member of the team, it would seem that Rustick had lived up to the Tartan name that his father had bestowed on him as a symbol of international friendship to all men and women. In marked contrast, Nikolay beau Brugnol's background could not have been more different.

Born in a concentration camp, Collier had been brought up by his mother on her own after his French communist father had been executed as part of Stalin's ruthless purges. Collier had graduated from the Institute in fifty eight after majoring in civil engineering, and with a reputation for unselfish behavior. Was a man always looking to help others. Today holds mixed emotions for Collier. He had promised to his mother that this trip would be his last, and he would

miss moments like these the most. The giddy, nervous energy of the team. Just before the journey begins, someone throws a couple of bags to Yuri Yudin, who deposits them outside, ready to load onto the truck that will take them to the station. The twenty one year old Yuri, a geology student at the institute, had endured a tough and impoverished upbringing, and also suffered greatly from rheumatism in his leg joints, but Yuri had always determined never to let

his affliction dictate his life. There is a great cheer when Yuri Dorishenko finally arrives to join the group. The much loved twenty one year old radio engineer had a fearsome reputation, having once successfully fended off a black bear with nothing but a geologist's hammer. His entrance is followed shortly after by Eager Diatlov, a student of radio engineering. Twenty three year old Eager was a formidable athlete and

easily the most experienced hiker in the team. Strong, thoughtful, and confident, he was a natural fit as their leader. He was also prodigiously talented, having designed and assembled a radio at the age of twenty that would later be used on Class hikes. With the final checks complete, the group gather their things and move out. Twenty minutes later, after a short tram ride to the city station, the team are settled into a Class three cabin as the

train pulls away from Sverdlovsk. Such moments are usually caused for reflection, to be leaving behind your home town on a treacherous journey into the wilderness, but in this moment they are distracted by a stranger in their midst Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself. To make time for you. You deserve it. Tele Adoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your

best to feeling like yourself again. With tell adoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven a m. To nine p m. Local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a personal or family issue, teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy to

change counselors if needed. For free teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com. Forward slash Unexplained podcast. Today to get started, that's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained podcast. Eager introduces his handsome,

dark haired friend to the group as Sasha. At thirty seven, he is considerably older than the others, and although not by any means old, he appears as if from another age, so the young students might be forgiven their palpable sense of trepidation when Sasha reveals a mouth full of gold

teeth from underneath his wolfish smile. Their sense of unease is not helped by the sight of a number of tattoos dotted about his body, but their unease is not out of rudeness, more from the tacit awareness that they are in the presence of a ghost. At thirty seven years old, Sasha is part of a generation of which only three percent remain, having been decimated by the brutality

of the Great Patriotic War. Though it is unlikely he would have forgotten much from the five years he served from nineteen forty one to nineteen forty six, Sascha bears a constant reminder of those he had lost. Three initials inked onto his skin, followed by an equal sign and the symbol for friendship. Semion Zolotatov to give him his full name, has been working as a tour guide in South Siberia, and like the others, is desperate to achieve

his Grade three certificate. Before long, the team recognize a kindred spirit, and any initial sense of unease is quickly banished by the sound of Gyorgy's mandolin as he strikes up to play together. As the train speeds on through the ural countryside, they sing all the songs that they know, while behind them Sverdlovsk recedes further and further until it has entirely disappeared from view. Ten hours later, and the train finally pulls into Serov, a small town three hundred

and fifty kilometers due north of Zverdlovsk. With their next train not due to leave until six thirty pm. The exhausted team are hoping to escape the cold and maybe get some sleep in the station waiting room, but are disappointed to find it locked for the day. Georgi attempts to cheer up his friends with a comical bus routine, but his singing has attracted the attention of two guards, a sign perhaps that they have already entered a different

world to the one encased within their dormitory walls. The guards grab Gyorgi from the platform and push him into their office. A short time later, and a somewhat stunned Gyorgi is returned to the platform after being let off with a stern warning for contravening Article two point three of the Internal Order at railway stations. Not wanting to hang around, the team head off in search of shelter when they come across an empty school hall. After knocking on the door, they are met by the kind face

of the school's janitor. Much to their relief, she takes pity on the young hikers and divites them inside to rest and warm themselves, but there is one condition. In return, they must give a talk to the school children before they leave. A few hours later, and Zena and Sasha have the children hanging on their every word as they listen wide eyed and attentively to their tales of adventure. When it is finally time to go, the children have to be peeled sobbing and crying from Zena before finally

accepting her promise to one day return. The children wave and shout goodbye to their ten new favorite heroes as they watched them head back to the train station. Finally, the team are on the move again, and by midnight they have arrived in the small town of Evedale. Since leaving spurred Lovsk, the gang had been shadowed by another team of hikers from the institute, led by their good

friend Yuri Blinoff. That night of January the twenty fourth, they all sleep huddled together in the Evedale station waiting room until the following morning, when they catch the first

tram to Evedale town center. The town is built on the confluence of the Evedeale River and the Lozla River, and like most towns in the region, Evedell had been established as a mining colony, in this case for gold, but in nineteen thirty seven the town had taken on a second purpose, becoming the location of Evedel egg Gulag. The term is an acronym that translates to main administration

of corrective labor camps. The camps had been set up during Stalin's time partly as corrective facilities for criminals, but were often also used to dispense with political prisoners, a fact that would no doubt have crossed Collier's mind, at least as the hikers made their way into the town center, with some consideration perhaps for the desperate souls hidden away somewhere beyond the snow topped roofs of the town's outskirts.

They don't have to wait long before their bus arrives, and soon after the team are moving through the white blanketed countryside. As the bus forges ahead towards Vizza, the next stop on their journey. But there is something wrong. Alexander is missing. They must have left him behind at the last toilet break. The team yelled to the bus driver to pull over. A quick headcount confirms their fears. Alexander is indeed missing, but there is nothing that can

be done. With the bus on a tight schedule, the driver has no choice but to continue the journey. But wait, says Yuri. As far off, a small shape, steadily growing larger, reveals itself to be a fully laden Alexander, sprinting with all his strength toward them. I thought you'd left, he sputters between gasps for breath, Never say the others, as they haul his exhausted body back onto the bus. Just after two pm, they arrive at Viza, and the hikers disembark.

The town is a woodcutting settlement that served as a central hub from which further outposts could be reached. From here, the two teams will go their separate ways. For Blinov and his team, a bus heading their way to Sector one oh five is due to leave late in the afternoon. For Eager's group, however, they will have to stop here

for the night. That afternoon, the team's many cameras, vital for recording evidence for their Category three certificates, are whipped out as they say their final goodbyes to Blinov and his team. Despite the minus seventeen degree temperature, the classmates smile and fool around as they pose for one final picture. Moments later, Urient team scramble into the back of a flatbed truck and wave a fond goodbye to their friends

as they pull away and out of the camp. For Eager's team, it will be one last night of domesticity before heading off into the wilderness. The team are especially excited to hear of a nearby screening room and will pile in later that evening to watch a film called Symphony and Gold. Rustick finds time to write a postcard to his mother and Dorishenko and Alexander make a number of final checks and adjustments to the equipment. That night, with two crammed to a bed and Georgi and Sasha

taking positions on the floor, the team sleep soundly. The next morning, they are up and dressed early, eager to get on the road again. But something is bugging Yuri. A pain in his legs that had been steadily growing was threatening to become unbearable. Despite his misgivings, he was determined not to let the others down and decided to ignore it for now. But there is also something else.

The previous afternoon, an experienced forester had expressed concern about the group's trip, thinking it too dangerous for them at this time of year. Eager had laughed it off in typically bullish style. After all, wasn't that precisely the reason that they were taking the trip in the first place. Yuri had laughed too, but as he prepared to board the truck for their ride out of Vizi, it was with the old man's words still ringing in his ears.

The journey didn't help much either. Sitting at the back of the rickety open air truck, the team struggled for warmth and comfort, but as any traveler knows, it is from such experiences that true bonds are made, and before long the gang were once again singing songs and speaking of love and friendship as they traveled ever higher into

the frost bitten ural Mountains. Sector forty one was a worker's outpost occupied by roughly fifty woodsmen stationed on long term contracts, many of whom had gone months cut off from the world. So it was with no little excitement that the new faces of the young students were welcomed

into the worker's homes that evening. As for Datlov and his team, they were treated to a glimpse of another world revealed through the songs and poems shared by the workers that night, many of them illegal and punishable under Article fifty eight of counter revolutionary Crimes, but even for the committed communist Luda, it was a night to remember. The next morning, on January the twenty seventh, the team awake to find a beautiful, clear blue sky waiting for them.

After eight hundred and fifty kilometers, finally the time has come to put on their skis and begin the trek to a tort and mountain. A local man named Slava offers to lend them his sled and horse to help carry their heavy equipment to their next stop, a settlement known as North two. The settlement is an older geological research site just twenty four kilometers to the north, now abandoned and home to a little more than two thousand

dilapidated cabins. It is late in the afternoon when Slava returns with his sled, but after securing the luggage and fastening their skis, the team are finally en route towards North Two. The journey takes them over the frozen waters of the Ushma River, deeper and deeper into the forest, but the thin ice is proving tricky for the horse to negotiate. After two hours, the team have only made it a third of the way, but as the winter sun drops down behind a distant ridge, the team continue

on unperturbed. Another four hours later, and eager spots something ahead. Under the soft light of the moon, they can just make out the shape of a hut against the tree line. As their eyes are just suddenly a sprawling pastoral ghost town has appeared before them. They have reached the North to settlement. The woodsmen had recommended one hut in particular that was still habitable, and somehow, after a short time stumbling around in the dark, they managed to find it

that night. Approaching the log cabin on the edge of the forest under the moonlight, it is as if they have crossed some kind of threshold and stepped right into a fairy tale. Old Slavic folk stories tell of a grotesque witch with fearsome iron teeth by the name of Baba Yaga, who lives in a hut deep in the heart of the forest. She is a complex creature that is sometimes good, but at other times utterly monstrous, given

to eating her victims without a moment's hesitation. It is said that she travels in a large pestle and mortar that flies through the trees with a sickening, grinding screech, and that her heart stands atop of a pair of chicken's feet. But there are no such feet under the cabin that night, and the air remains silent with the eerie quietude that only an abandoned village can conjure up.

Before long, there is life once again, and sector north too, As the darkness of the cabin is illuminated by the sound of young voices, filled with the relief of finding shelter for the night, and then shortly after by the flickering glow of lamp light. A few of the boys volunteer to find firewood from outside by pulling up wood from some of the more dilapidated cabins. At one point, Rustick grabs at one, only to pull away in pain.

He looks closely at his hand and sees a small pin prick from an old nail hidden in the dark. He watches for a moment as the prick becomes a drop of blood on the surface of his skin. A short time later and the fire is roaring and filling the room with the comforting, sweet smelling smoke off the hearth. The following morning and Yearie Eudin's legs are finally given

in after struggling even to stand. It is clear that he is at the point of no return with Slava due to head back to Sector forty one that day. He has little option but to join him. With sincere disappointment, he breaks the news to the rest of the group, who are all equally devastated to be saying goodbye so

early to their friend. As a keen geologist, Ury is determined not to return empty handed and manages to corral a small team to join him on the hunt for some interesting samples to take back home, But despite the area's abundance of precious stones and minerals, Ury is saddened only to find quartz and Fool's gold hidden under the snow. With Slava eager to get going, Ury loads his pack on to the back of the sled and gingerly steps

into his skiths. The team say their final goodbyes and take one last picture of their friend before he leaves. And so it is that, on the morning of Wednesday, January twenty eighth, that the ten strong team led by Iger Diatlov becomes nine. Before he is out of sight, Yuri turns one last time to waive a final goodbye to the team. He couldn't possibly have known then that it will be the last time his friends will ever be seen alive again. All elements have unexplained are produced

by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained pod Now. It's time to take care of yourself. To make time for you. Tele a doc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to

feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video any time between seven am to nine pm local full time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast