Knee deep in snow by the banks of the Lozva River, Boris slops off, pulled the hood up over his head, and tied the flaps of his hat down tightly below his chin. It was all he could do to stop the incessant pelting of his face by the flecks of snow being whipped up relentlessly by the wind. In the distance, he can hear the repetitive, dull chop of helicopter blades. The sound gets closer and closer, until eventually the olive
green m I four finally comes into view. Squinting now into the sun, he watches as it makes a slow, lumbering turn across the sky, before settling over the Lozva and forging a path straight towards him. And then, just as it's about to fly above his head, it makes a sharp bank to the right. Boris is close enough to see the copilot wave before throwing something out of the cockpit. Boris watches as the object drops from the sky, its red ribbon flapping manically as it falls, before nestling
in the snow meters away from Boris's feet. He hurries over and pulls the canister free unscrewing the cap to find a message for his team lodged inside. It tells them to head towards the Auspia River, roughly three kilometers to the south. It is Wednesday, February the twenty fifth, exactly four weeks since Yuri Yuden was forced to abandon Eager Diatlov and the eight other friends he had been accompanying as part of an expedition towards O'tauton Mountain in
the Russian Urals. It had been a painful decision for Yuri, but one perhaps not quite as painful as the crippling effects of rheumatism that had plagued him throughout the journey and in the end left him with little choice but to turn back. Urie had last been with the group in the north to settlement an old, abandoned geological site from which they were due to strike out towards O'torton Mountain a short time after they had said their goodbyes.
The team had been expected to arrive back in their hometown of spurred Lovsk on February the thirteenth, almost two weeks ago, but the team had never returned. Twenty two year old Boris Slobsov is a friend of Eagers and a member of the same hiking club. He too had planned to one day make the hike to O'tauton Mountain, but never could he have imagined it would be under circumstances such as these. Boris had been one of the first to volunteer to help find the team, after concerns
had been voiced about their whereabouts. The alarm had been raised by anxious parents on the thirteenth, but it would be almost another week before hiking club officials deem it a serious concern worthy of a formal search and rescue operation. It was, after all, not uncommon for such lengthy hikes to suffer the odd one or two days delay, But when a whole week later there is still no word from the team, it is clear that something has gone
drastically wrong. The Ural Polytechnic's first response is to dispatch hiking club director Lev Gordo and young Yurie Blinov, who had traveled part way with the Diatlov team prior to their disappearance, to undertake a quick air surveillance of the team's probable route. Meanwhile, in Evedale, the town closest to where the team was last seen, A criminal investigation is
opened up, led by local prosecutor Vasili Tempolov. A three pronged attack is established when experienced hiker Yevgeny Maslennikov is also enlisted to help run things on the ground. Yevgeny, who was well aware of Eager and his compatriots, having initially helped them to plan their route, wastes little time
in joining the search. On the twenty fourth, Tempolov agrees to open up the search to include all possible routes taken by Tiatlov's team, and by now, with news of the team's disappearance spreading throughout the region, many volunteers have come forward to offer their help, including members of the family, fellow students, and workers from the local camps. The search is given an early boost when Gordo and Blinov pick up a trail that leads them to a Manzi village
called bartier Rova. The Manse are an indigenous people of western Siberia, an area running roughly fifteen hundred kilometers from the Ural Mountains to the Great Jense River in the east. This vast stretch of land is sometimes referred to as Ugra Land, but is now commonly known as the Kanti Mansisk Autonomous District. It is believed that Manse have populated the region since the Mesolithic Age, sharing ancestors with both
the people of Hungary and Finland. They are historically known for their proficiency in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding, but they are also a superstitious people, steeped in a rich culture and folklore unique to themselves but also to this region, although some have claimed an ancient lineage that goes back to the Sumerians, whom many consider to be the first great civilization. To look upon the Ural Mountains through the eyes of the Mansie is to see another world hidden
from the view of most. It is a sacred place, home to spirits and gods, and many an unsolved ancient mystery. Although for Gordo and Glinov the trail goes cold in Bartia Rova, their efforts have caught the attention of several Mansie tribesmen, who, like everybody else, are deeply moved by the plight of the missing students. The offer to lend their unparalleled local knowledge and tracking skills to the search
is gratefully accepted. The Mansie team is led by Stepan Kurikov, a warm hearted and hulking presence, as well as being one of the most respected of the tribal elders. A few days later, the helicopter search team picks up ski tracks heading north from the Auspire River at the bottom of a mountain known as Kolat Siakl, but searches on the ground are unable to establish any clear route before bad weather brings the day's search to an end. It is the following day when Boris Slapsov and his team
receive their message to search the corresponding area. Later that afternoon, a breakthrough discovery is made when Boris locates one of the Diatlov team's campsites on the banks of the river,
just to the edge of a forest. It is clear that Diatlov's team would most likely have stuck out from here and headed straight towards a tautumn mountain over the exposed banks of Colat Siakol, But with night fast approaching and the weather becoming increasingly volatile, Slobsov's team are unable to follow suit and a force to retreat into the tree line and make camp for the night. That evening,
as the dark closed in around them. With yet another day gone, Slopsov can't help but think upon the fate of his friends and to just what exactly might be lying in wait, buried under the snow. It hasn't escaped his attention either, that the name Collet Siakl translates as dead Mountain. The next day, Fabruary the twenty sixth, Slopsov suggests that the team break into pairs to widen the
search area. Boris joins up with fellow hiking team member Mikhail's Sharavin, and together they head off in the direction of O'tauton across the eastern slope of Kolet Siakl. That afternoon, as the two hikers battle raging winds and minus twenty degree temperatures, the hikers are three hundred meters from the top of the mountain when Mikhail spots something up ahead sticking out of the snow. It looks like a tent.
Getting nearer, the thing starts to reveal itself. They can now clearly see the poles sticking out from underneath and the south facing entrance that remains intact while the entire back half has collapsed under the weight of snowfall. Boris calls out hopefully for his friends, but hears nothing in reply save for the fierce whistling of the wind. He steps toward the entrance, takes a deep breath, and pulls
back the flap. It is with an odd mix of relief and disappointment that Boris finds the tent completely deserted, the relief being tempered by the fact that almost everything that the hikers had been traveling with appeared to have been left behind inside, as if the team had just vanished into the But for Boris, their absence provides a glimmer of hope that his friends might actually still be alive.
Pushing back on the heavy canvas, Boris and Mikhail managed to write the tent enough to take a proper look inside. On the floor, they find the nine backpacks belonging to each team member, as well as each of their skis. Perhaps most curiously, they find a jacket left on the
ground outside the tent. Boris pulls it from the snow and scours the surrounding area, hoping to spot footprints or any other sign of his friends, but sees only the vast white emptiness, and with dark clouds beginning to roll in, Boris and Mikhail only have a few minutes to gather what they can before reluctantly being forced back to their camp. On their return, Boris is able to send word back to Evedale suggesting all search efforts be concentrated on the
surrounding area. A reply comes back to dig out a helicopter landing site in preparation for over fifty people who will be arriving the next day. It is another anxious night for Boris and his team, and their attention is constantly drawn to the items brought back from the abandoned tent. The presence of the items in Boris's tent seems only to bring the absence of their owners closer, as if they had merely stepped outside for a moment before returning
to collect their things. Boris picks up the jacket and examines the pockets, hoping for any clue as to the team's whereabouts. Inside, he discovers a notebook, suggesting the jacket was eager to Yatlovs. Flicking through the pages, Boris discovers a photograph. It is a portrait of Zena. The following day, Friday, the twenty seventh, the search teams converge on the newly
discovered campsite, including police equipped with search dogs. The ensuing chaos threatens to undermine any hope of finding tracks under the snow, but remarkably, one of the team find some twenty meters or so from the tent, under a patch of freshly fallen snow. They see them clearly now veering off down the side of the hill towards the Lzva River valley. But there is something very odd. Some of the prints seemed bizarrely small, almost as if whoever had
made them had not been wearing any shoes. And there is another vital discovery, a team diary kept by all the members of the group to document their expedition. The entries had been meticulously kept since the first day, but had ended abruptly on January the thirty first, suggesting whatever happened likely occurred around Ray the first, meaning the group has now been missing for four weeks. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care
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get started. That's teladoc dot com, slash Unexplained podcast Slopsov's team, who are that morning searching the banks of the Lozva River, are informed of the tracks found leading towards their location. Boris plays out the scenario in his head until he has transported back to the night the team left the tent.
He sees them now, their movements echoing through time as they descend down the mountain and head for the shelter of the same trees that he is walking among A short time later, and Mikhail finds something strange at the base of a cedar tree. Poking through the snow, he finds the charred remains of a makeshift fire that had clearly been hastily put together. He notices also that a number of the tree's branches have been recently snapped off.
And then, just north of the tree, there is something else sticking out of the snow, something once soft but now as rigid and hard as the cedar. It is a human leg. For Boris and his team, it is a devastating discovery, and one that will extinguish any remaining hope of finding his friends alive. But for us it merely marks another beginning to this strange and bizarre tale,
for it is about to get very weird. Indeed, after Mikhail's grew some discovery, Boris alerts mass Lennikov's team, and together they carefully begin to excavate the body from the snow. But as they dig further, they discover not one body, but two, lying side by side together, with one face down and the other face up. As the last of the snow is pushed from one of the faces, Boris recoils in horror, the mouth, nose, and eyes appear to
have been completely removed. Despite the apparent mutilation, Boris recognizes the face instantly as Giorgi Kryvonnishenko. The other body is soon revealed to be that of Yuri Dorishenko, but it's not until the full horror of the discovery has sunk in that they notice something peculiar about the clothes on the bodies, or rather the lack of them. Georgy appears not to be wearing a jacket or trousers, just one
checkered shirt and some swimming trunks under long underwear. Even more bizarrely, the left leg of the underwear has been ripped off and his feet are completely bare. Doroshenko appears somewhat better dressed, with an undershirt, check top, long underwear and socks, but no shoes. His clothes also appear to have been bizarrely shredded. After the discovery of the bodies, the focus of the search switches quickly to the valley Mancy elder Stepan Kurikov leads the search along with his
German shepherd sniffer dog. Another experienced hiker, Vladislav Kurelen, has also joined the search. Vladislav was a medical engineer who had cross passed with Datlov's team. As they made their way towards o' taunton. Having located the first two bodies, it isn't long before the German shepherd picks up another ominous scent. Pulling hard on the leash, he drags his owner across to a spot where Stepan recognizes something unnatural about the way the birch tree shoots a sticky out
from the snow. The dog sniffs heavily at the spot, and soon they have made another gruesome discovery, as just below the surface they find an arm that appears still to be pulling in desperation at the shoots. This body is better dressed than the other two, complete with a sweater, fur vest and ski trousers, but again extraordinarily, there are no gloves and no shoes. Vladislav Korellin recognizes the face
of Eager Diatlov. Moments later, Evedale policeman Lieutenant Nikolay Moisiev and his dog Alma are heading back from the trees towards the team's tent, when Alma gets suddenly anxious and begins to dig. Manikoi it is yet another body, lying face down with their knees bent, as if making a final desperate bid to crawl back to the same of the tent. Moisiev turns the body over and is surprised to find dried blood smeared across the faith. The body
will later be identified as that of Zena Kolmogorova. Yevgeny Maslennikov, who by now has been made head of the entire ground search operation, orders the bodies to be wrapped in tarpaulin and taken to Boot Rock on the bank of Kolatsiakl while they await evacuation and formal autopsy. Watching as the bodies are laid out at the base of the rock, Maslennikov can't help but begin to formulate his own theories
about just what might have taken place. For Maslennikov, it appears a simple case of being caught out by the weather. Perhaps one of the team stepped out of the tent only to be swept away by the wind, prompting his friends to make a fatal rescue attempt. Or perhaps it was an avalanche that scared them from the safety of
their tent and left them catastrophically disorientated. Only if the wind or avalanche had been so strong as to push the hikers down the valley, why was the tent still clinging so firmly to the side of the mountain, its poles still standing as they would have been the day they were pitched. The day after the four bodies are discovered, Prosecutor Vasily Tempelof finally arrives on the scene to make
his own assessment of the evidence. He makes a note of the various items found at the campsite, but also he is the first person to notice something odd about the tent itself. It may have still been standing, but what no one had seemed to notice before was that one side of it had been completely and unnaturally slashed to pieces. But before Tempolov can get his teeth into the investigation, he is told to step down from the operation.
On the morning of Sunday, March first, yet another helicopter arrives at the search headquarters at the foot of Kolat Siakle. The door is opened and outsteps the determined figure of lev Ivanov, junior Counsel of Justice and now lead investigator on the case. He adjusts his glasses and pulls his jacket tighter before being led away from the chopper and straight into the fray. Moments later, he is casting his eyes over the makeshift fire at the base of the
cedar tree. Suddenly, with Ivanov on the scene, the investigation seems to have taken on another guise, like something from a classic detective novel. There is more than the touch of the brooding, enigmatic hero about Ivanov, his thick, black rimmed glasses lending a cerebral air to this intense veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Immediately, he makes note of a number of branches snapped from up high in the tree.
Perhaps one of the team climbed the tree in an attempt to call the others, or maybe he had been trying to escape from something. He also notices another pair of footprints in the snow, suggesting that Georgi and Yuri weren't alone when they died. He begins to ponder as to just why they let the fire burn out if there was plenty of firewood around to be used. Meanwhile, Maslennikov is overseeing a team of thirty men lined up shoulder to shoulder as they probe the ground with steel
avalanche poles. That day, they cover a region of roughly thirty thousand square yards, but the search yields nothing more. Later, Ivanov and Maslennikov will together analyze the abandoned tent, leaving Ivanov convinced more than ever that whatever killed Diatlov's team members, it wasn't the wind and it wasn't heavy snowfall. On March, the second one of the search teams comes across a story shelter perched high up in the trees, laden with
various supplies. It is a common practice for hiking teams to unburden themselves before venturing out on the most grueling part of a journey. This appears to have been the case with Diatlov's team. The search party are moved to find Georgy's mandolin amongst the items of food. It is
a stark and sudden reminder of a time before. Later that day, after the news of the store camp is passed up the chain, something a little more peculiar comes to light when Maslennikov is approached by one of the searches. It is Vladislav Karelin, the mountaineer who found Eager's body the previous week, and he has had something on his mind ever since. On the night of February the seventeenth, Karelin was hiking with his own team close to the trail that Dyatlov and his team had been taking when
they witnessed something strange in the sky. A member of his group, Georgi at Menaki, had woken early to make breakfast when he noticed a large, bright white spot in the distance above them. He points it out to his friend Vladimir Chavkunov, believing it to be an especially bright moon, but Chavkunov was concerned there was no moon that morning, and in any case, if there had been, it would
have been on the other side of the sky. Then suddenly, a spark lit in the center of the spot that seemed to burn brighter, getting bigger in sides, before flying off quickly to the west. The light would eventually get so big that they believed it was going to collide with the earth and kill them all, and they weren't the only ones to see it, as many local villages
would later come forward attesting to the bizarre sighting. Maslennikov agrees it is certainly something to think about, but as he reminds Karelin Diatlov's team most likely died around the turn of the month, a good two weeks prior to the appearance of the strange light, but when the news reaches Ivanov, he finds it a little harder to shake.
Later that afternoon, as he watches the bodies of Eager Yuri, Yorgi and Sina being loaded into the helicopter, talk of the strange lights and fire in the sky weighs heavily on his mind. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that something unknown had occurred in this nation, something perhaps carried out in secret and kept hidden from view. As he climbs in after the bodies, Maslennikov is there to see him off as the chopper lifts up into the air and flies away on its journey back to Evedale.
The following day, with the search now starting to deliver results, Yuri Blinov, one of the last people to see his friends alive and who had worked so tirelessly over the past seven days to help find them, decides it is time to return home. The bodies are taken to the hospital of Labor Camp H two forty in Evedale and left to thor out before the formal autopsy can begin.
Or March the fourth, the Regional Bureau of Forensic pathologist Boris Alexeyevitch vosros Deny and the city medical examiner Ivan Ivanovitch Laptev begin the procedure. Both Yury and Gyrgy display signs of burns to the side of their heads, consistent perhaps with the fact that they had fallen so close to the makeshift fire. As for Gyorgy's missing features, they are deemed likely to have been eaten by ravenous animals.
Post mortem, The litany of abrasions and spots of dried blood found on all of the bodies suggest final moments of wild panic, but are not thought to be particularly suspicious given the location of where the bodies were found and the time of year. It is perhaps unsurprising when a verdict of death by hypothermia is returned on all four of the victims, and yet looking closer at the
autopsy report reveals a number of peculiar findings. Skin from one of Gilgi's right knuckles is found in his mouth, suggesting he must have bitten it off himself, perhaps to force his hands to move, or as some have suggested
may be to stifle a cry. Eager's body shows signs of vomiting blood, with Ury's autopsy noting signs of fluid in the lungs as well as bruises sustained by some kind of blunt trauma, and something found on Zena's back also catches the eye, a long, bright red bruise, the sort you might sustain, perhaps after being clubbed by a heavy object. Meanwhile, in a room not far away, Ury
Yudin has been summoned by lead investigator lev Ivanov. Incredibly, yuden had been one of the last to learn of the rescue operation to find Datlov's team, having decided to recuperate in his hometown of emily Chevka before returning to spurred Lovsk, and now he was being given the somber task of sorting through all the team's personal belongings in
order to assign them to their correct owner. He too, finds the picture of Zena in Eager's notebook, and manages a rise's smile when he finds a packet of cigarettes secretly stashed away in Alexander Kolovatov's bag. But back on kolatsiakl the search continues, and on March fifth, another body is discovered. Karelin had been searching a region in between where Eager and Zena were found when he hits something
solid just below the surface. Once the snow had been cleared, Karelin recognizes the body as that of the much loved Rustick Slobodin. Unlike the others, Roostick seems almost properly dressed, but something else immediately catches Krellin's attention. There is a severe discoloring on the front of his head, while a patch of ice close to his mouth suggests that he
had been alive for some time after he fell. Rustick's injuries were confirmed by the pathologist in an autopsy three days later as being potentially consistent with damage sustained from a blunt object. The frontal bone of his skull is found to be fractured, with severe hemorrhaging in the temple region, as if he had repeatedly been forced down onto his face. Rustis is the fifth body to be recovered, while four of Diatlov's team remained missing and the investigation has only
just begun. All elements of unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain Smith Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. 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 a m. To nine p m Local 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 to day to get started. That's t e l a d oc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast