Tourist group by cow. Mysterious death of climbers on the khamar-daban pass

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. Immediately, we note that all young people, despite their age, were already quite experienced travelers. And Korovina herself, who was 2 times older than her charges, by that time had already earned the title of master of sports in hiking.

Travelers headed to the previously mentioned peak-lord Khan-Ula. The weather was not favorable for the campaign: it was snowing, the wind was blowing. But the band members didn't want to give up. On the way, they tripled their camp between the peaks of Golets Yagelny and Tritrans. And then something inexplicable happened. One of the young people became ill. He was bleeding from his ears and frothing at the mouth. He fell and began to roll in the snow. The other tourists followed the example of the unfortunate. They ran back and forth, threw off their clothes, grabbed their throats, bit, said something unintelligible. Some banged their heads against stones.

1. The death of the Dyatlov group. Perhaps the most famous, but, looking ahead, not the most mysterious case of the death of tourists.

Winter 1959 A group of Sverdlovsk ski students set off for the Northern Urals - on a hike to Mount Otorten.
The group did not leave the route within the target date. rescued were organized. work.
On February 26, a tent covered with snow was discovered.
The outer slope of the tent was badly torn, and there was no one inside. Later they found out: three cuts in the roof were made with a knife from the inside, and pieces of fabric were torn off. One jacket was pushed by force from the inside into the gap of the tent and into the snowy slope. At 15 m below 8 pairs of tracks went down to the forest. They were visible for 60 m, then they were covered with snow.

In the tent, and then in the storage, they found food, things, shoes, equipment and documents of the Dyatlov group. On the evening of February 26, Slobtsov, whose camp was visited by radio operator E. Nevolin with a walkie-talkie, reported the findings to the search headquarters. In the afternoon of February 27, helicopters landed on the pass near the mountain 1096 the main forces of rescuers and the prosecutor of Ivdel Tempalov.

On the morning of February 27, Sharavin and Koptelov, in the forest 1.5 km from the tent, found frozen Doroshenko and Krivonischenko near a large cedar near the remains of a fire. The deceased, stripped to their underwear, had burns on their arms and legs. On the same day, the bodies of Dyatlov, Kolmogorova, and later (March 5) and Slobodin were found under a layer of snow (10-50 cm) on the line between tent and cedar.

They also died of freezing in ski suits and sweaters - "what they slept in." All five were without shoes, in socks. Only Slobodin had one felt boot on his leg. (Later, at Slobodin, doctors found a hidden crack in the crown of the skull 1 x 60 mm.) The investigation was collecting evidence. From 3 to 8 March, tourist masters from Moscow Bardin, Baskin and Shuleshko worked at the site of the tragedy.

Further searches went for a long time unsuccessfully. On the night of March 31, at 4:00 am, more than 30 search engines from the camp on Auspiya observed the flight of a "fireball" in the southeastern part of the sky for 20 minutes, which was reported to the headquarters. The phenomenon gave rise to many rumors. The investigation collected a number of testimonies about the flight of the "fireball" on February 17, which supplemented the description of Karelin's group.

Four more victims were found on May 5 under a 3-meter layer of snow in a stream bed on a decking made of fir trunks, 70 m from a cedar. Some objects and scraps of clothing were found between them and in the forest. Doctors ascertained that three of the dead had severe intravital injuries - blood in the heart wall and 10 rib fractures in Dubinina (6 on the left and 4 double on the right) and 5 double rib fractures in Zolotarev.

Thibault-Brignol was found to have a temporal fracture and a 17-centimeter fracture in the base of the skull. The mystery was the absence of external injuries to the body over the injuries, their causes. All four died from freezing and injury. The investigation revealed a strange fact: three items of clothing had traces of weak beta radiation. But in the tissues of the dead, traces of radiation and poisoning were not found.

Why did they cut and tear up the tent, why did the group urgently leave for the forest? How did these injuries arise inside? Where did the radiation spots come from? For all these questions, both investigators and researchers could not give an answer for many years. The official investigation was closed on May 28, 1959 with an unclear conclusion about the impact of "irresistible elemental force", and the case was classified.

2. Despite the presence of a surviving participant, the death of a group of tourists became no less mysterious
under the leadership of Lyudmila Korovina, in 1993 on the Khamar Daban ridge.

A group of seven people, three boys, three girls and the leader of the group, 41-year-old Lyudmila Korovina, a master of sports in hiking, was making a hike

The group moved from the village of Murino to one of the most high mountains a ridge named Hanulu. Its height is 2371 meters. After walking about 70 kilometers in 5 - 6 days, the tourists stopped for a halt between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204m) and Tritrans (2310m). Weather forecasters, however, did not guess. For several days in a row, it snowed and rained and the wind blew. At about 11 o'clock on August 5, when the tourists were about to leave the temporary parking lot, one of the guys became ill. Further, according to the only survivor Valentina Utochenko

Sasha fell, blood began to flow from his ears, foam came from his mouth. Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina stayed with him, appointed Denis the senior, said 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 - the symptoms are like a suffocating person, Denis said - we quickly take the most necessary from the backpacks and running down, bent over the backpack, pulled out the sleeping bag, raised her head. Denis fell and tore his clothes on, tried to drag the hand with him, but he broke free and ran away. She ran downstairs without letting go of the sleeping bag. I spent the night under a boulder, hiding with my head in a sleeping bag, it was scary, trees were falling along the edge of the forest from a hurricane, the wind died down in the morning, more or less dawn rose to the scene of the tragedy, Lyudmila Ivanovna was still alive, but she practically could not move, showed in which direction Valya to go out and passed out, Valya closed her eyes to the guys, packed 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 all alone. And in the morning the tourist noticed the pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses to which wires had once been forwarded turned out to be abandoned. But Valentina went to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream, on the sixth day after the tragedy she accidentally saw her and was picked up by a water tour group. They had already sailed past, but decided to return, it seemed suspicious that the tourist did not answer their greetings. From the shock, the girl did not speak for several days. Interestingly, the daughter of Lyudmila Korovina with another tour group walked along a nearby route and agreed to meet with her mother at their intersection. But when Lyudmila's group did not come to 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 she went home, not suspecting that her mother was no longer alive. For some unknown reason, the search dragged on, the bodies of 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 descended, and everyone on board witnessed a terrible sight: “The bodies are already swollen, everyone's eye sockets are completely eaten away. Almost all of the victims were dressed in thin leotards, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra ... ”What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the participants of the hike take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remained unanswered. In Ulan-Ude, an autopsy was performed, which showed that all six died from hypothermia, and the investigation agreed that the tragedy was caused by the mistakes and incompetence of the group leader. But the facts say the opposite!

3. Lovozero tundras Mount Angvundaschorr. Seidozero. Kuivo.

At the end of the 50s, the first mountaineering and tourist groups appeared in the Khibiny, the routes of which also ran along the Lovozero tundra. The climbers were attracted by the Angvundaschorr peak, but no one managed to conquer it. Moreover, one of the ascents ended with the death of two experienced climbers. The comrades of the victims fled from the valley, leaving the corpses and all their equipment there. They could not clearly explain the shameful act. They talked about the feeling of wild horror that suddenly gripped them, about the silhouette of some creature that flashed in the crevice of the rock ...

In the summer of 1965, the first unexplained death of tourists occurred in the Lovozero tundra. A group of four people left for the valley and did not return at the appointed time. The search for the missing was long and ended with autumn frosts. At first, they managed to find the last camp of tourists, where a tent, backpacks and eight pairs of torn boots were lying around. Then the remains of the owners of the things were found, gnawed by foxes. The cause of death remained unclear.
Another tragedy happened a few years later. This time, 11 people were killed. An official investigation concluded that there was a massive mushroom poisoning.

Summer 2017
In the Lovozero region, not far from Seydozero, tourists found two abandoned tents in a couple of days. Things were scattered around: clothes, shoes, bowlers, bowls. There were no people.

A torn up tent was found near the Seyduay stream near Seydozero. 50 meters from the main path. Inside there is a sleeping bag, some clothes in the form of a jacket, pants, dishes and shoes.

A second tent was found a little earlier in the same area: things, food, for about two people and no signs of people.

There were seven of them: three girls, three boys and their 41-year-old group leader, master of sports in walking tourism... The group set off on the assigned route of the fourth category of difficulty through Khamar-Daban. Only one person returned ...

"The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass". The film with that name was released last week. The speech in the tape is about one of the most mysterious secrets of the Urals - in February 1959. However, no less scary tale occurred 20 years ago in Buryatia, at the Khamar-Daban pass.

In 1993 in the area Peak Repeater (Mount Tritrans) almost the entire tourist group was killed. Only one participant of that fateful campaign survived.

This is an attempt to restore the history of the tragic events on Khamar-Daban according to the people who were involved in the search for the tour group and who were investigating the incident. In the course of work on the material, the correspondents were surprised at how much the details of the tragedies converged.

A bit of history

We will not particularly retell the mysterious events that happened to the tourists from the Dyatlov group. The media tried to reconstruct the events on the slope of Mount Kholatchakhl (translated from Mansi as "Mountain of the Dead") at the "Battle of Psychics"; based on the state of emergency, a documentary, and now a feature film, was filmed.

However, all versions (a blow from a secret weapon, tourists went crazy, killed by the military, fell under an avalanche, poisoned with poisons) are only hypothetical. Until now, no one knows what happened on Mount Holotchakhl. Anyone interested in this story can find on the Internet a lot of documentary evidence, photographs, artistic versions and scientific hypotheses.

So this fatal peak is not deprived of attention. But this cannot be said about the incident on Khamar-Daban, where six people from Petropavlovsk-Kazakhskiy died. During the investigation, we had to collect material literally bit by bit.

Unfortunately, little is known about some of the details. And the only survivor of the fatal campaign, which we managed to find through social networks, did not give an answer to our questions. Apparently, it’s just hard for her to remember what happened in the rainy August 1993 in the mountains of Buryatia.

A series of strange deaths

There was little media coverage of the tragedy at Tritrans Peak. Of the local editions, only one of the Irkutsk newspapers wrote about the state of emergency. But in Kazakhstan they talked a lot about this event. Therefore, in terms of the chronology of the emergency, we will rely on their messages.

In August 1993, a group of tourists arrived by train from Petropavlovsk-Kazakh.

This is a completely bare part of the mountains, there are only stones, grass and wind, - the words of Leonid Izmailov, the former deputy head of the Trans-Baikal Regional Search and Rescue Service, are quoted on the forum.

For several days it was snowing and raining over the mountains. Exhausted, the group took a break. Below, at a distance of four kilometers, lies the edge of the forest. Why tourists did not descend into the forest is still a mystery.

On the morning of August 5, they got ready to go, when suddenly at about 11 o'clock one of the guys started to foam from his mouth, bleeding from his ears. In front of everyone's eyes, Alexander K-in became ill, and he died suddenly, - said Leonid Izmailov.

After that, according to the surviving Valentina U-ko, complete chaos began in the group. “Denis began to hide behind the stones and run away, Tatyana banged her head against the stones, Victoria and Timur were probably crazy. Lyudmila Ivanovna died of a heart attack ”- such data were recorded in the report on search and rescue and transportation operations from the words of the surviving girl.

And here is how Kazakh athletes describe what happened on the forum:

... “After a while, two girls fall at once, begin to skate, tore off their clothes, grab at their throats, the symptoms are the same, the boy falls behind them. The girl and the guy are left, they decide to leave the essentials in their backpacks and run down. The girl bent over her backpack while she was laying it out, raises her head, the last guy with the same symptoms is rolling on the ground. The girl ran downstairs. I spent the night under a stone, on the edge of a forest zone, trees felling nearby like matches. I got up back in the morning. "

... “Having separated from the group and not knowing how to escape, the tourists died one by one from hypothermia and exhaustion. Stretched out on the slope and died one after another. "

... “I read about it several years ago on some website ... A hypothesis was put forward about the effect of infrasound: strong wind, specific relief”.

... "I heard a version about poisoning with some kind of gas ...".

Seeing the dead, Valentina went in search of people. She was rescued by Ukrainian water tourists. They first sailed past, but decided to return - it seemed to them suspicious that the girl did not answer their greetings. The girl did not speak for several days. The corpses were removed almost a month later, they were buried in zinc - the weather, animals and birds did a good job ...

The picture was terrible, rescuers recall. Almost all of the victims were dressed in thin leotards, while three were barefoot. What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the participants of the hike take off their shoes? These questions remained unanswered. An autopsy was performed in Ulan-Ude, which showed that all six died from hypothermia.

So, it is worth summing up some results. The events at Mountain of the Dead and Tritrans Peak have a number of similar details. But there are also differences.

Similarities and differences of incidents.

Dyatlov group.

Time and place of emergency: February 1959, Ural mountains, the slope of Mount Holatchakhl.

Number: 10 people. Killed 9. Only 1 survived (due to illness, he was forced to interrupt the ascent and returned).

Judging by the reports from the emergency site, the group left the parking lot in panic, as if they were terribly frightened by something. The tent was cut open from the inside, personal belongings were thrown.

The bodies were found in various places. The impression was that the Dyatlovites simply fell dead. Many were not wearing outerwear.

The dead were found to have strange intravital trauma to internal organs. The experts explained the trauma of external organs (absence of eyes, tongue) by the fact that the bodies had been lying in the forest for a long time and could become prey for animals.

Official version death: an elemental force that people were unable to overcome. For all the victims, it was concluded that death was caused by exposure to low temperatures (freezing).

Korovina's group

Time and place of the emergency: August 1993.

Number: 7 people. Killed 6. 1 tourist survived.

According to reports on Kazakh forums, the group panicked. The reason is the sudden death of a tourist. The bodies were found in almost one place. Some were not wearing outerwear. No injuries were found on the bodies. The official version of the death: the tourists froze.

Versions

The tourists are frozen

In the days of August 1993, the rescuer Yuri Golius, well-known in Buryatia, is in charge of the search for the bodies of the dead tourists. Here's what he said:

Specialists of our control and rescue service served climbers, hikers and ski tourists. All organized tourist groups with a route sheet and a route book were registered with the Committee for Civil Defense and Emergencies. Including the group of Lyudmila Korovina, who led a group of children from Kazakhstan.

In 1993, the country hosted the so-called "Turiada" - massive hikes in forests and mountains. The group of Lyudmila Korovina also took part in them. By the way, at that moment on Khamar-Daban, but her daughter was in the other group. The mother and daughter agreed in advance to meet at a certain place, but the second group did not come in time.

I was in Kyren when I was informed that water tourists had brought a girl from a group lost in the mountains to Slyudyanka. I met with Valya U-ko. The girl was in a state of shock. Nevertheless, I asked her to give an explanatory note. According to her, before the onset of the fateful night, the group gathered and dried the golden root at the pass all day. The whole day there was a cold rain with snow, a strong wind was blowing. Exhausted tourists were very cold and hungry.

The version of what happened on the fatal morning of August 5 was discussed above. Now about what happened next.

The girl took the sleeping bag and went down the slope. She spent one night in the forest, and the next morning she climbed the pass, closed the eyes of her dead comrades. After that, she walked along the ridge, saw the pillars going down from a nearby relay tower, went down to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream. There she was noticed by tourists, - says the lifeguard.

Specialists from Chita and Gusinoozersk joined the detachment of Yuri Golius, and an investigator from the prosecutor's office was in one of the helicopters. When the team from Irkutsk arrived, the bodies of the tourists were found. About a month has passed since the death of the guys and their leader.

According to Yuri Golius, hypothermia and loss of strength became the cause of death of tourists.

Unfavorable coincidence of circumstances

Exactly five years after the tragedy, a well-known journalist in Buryatia and experienced traveler Vladimir Zharov.

There was much that was unclear about this incident. Therefore, I decided to completely repeat the route of the Kazakh group and investigate what had happened on the spot, - Vladimir Zharov told Inform Police.

He timed his trip to the 5-year date of the death of the group.

In the same way, I walked along the Langutai River, through the Langutai Gates pass and went to the Tritrans peak, on the slope of which the group died, - says Zharov.

Inspection of the place of emergency made it possible to draw certain conclusions.

You can talk about a whole chain of tragic circumstances. The most important thing, of course, is the weather. August 1993 was very rainy. Later, the Kazakh athletes who came to the place of the death of the group could not believe in any way - it's summer outside, the heat is at 30 degrees, and our people freeze to death. However, this is most likely the case, - says Vladimir Zharov.

It was raining almost all the days when Korovina's group walked along the route.

Imagine a cold rain pouring down day and night. Clothes and tents are wet. It is difficult to light a fire. On Khamar-Daban and in normal weather, this is difficult to do, everything is damp. And here it rains for several days! Therefore, the guys were tired and cold by August 5, - says Vladimir Zharov.

Food, which was enough only for the so-called "external heating" of the body, did not save me from the cold either. There were a number of other reasons as well. For example, many wondered why the group stopped on the slope, and did not begin to climb to the top, where there was a special platform. There was firewood, a place to rest. It took only 30 minutes to walk to this point. But the group stopped on a bare slope. According to Vladimir Zharov, the reason could be the inaccuracy of the map.

It was 1993. The maps weren't as accurate as they are now. The spread between the data on the map and what it actually was was 100 meters. And in the mountains, 100 meters is already a lot, - the journalist explains.

It is possible that the experienced group leader Lyudmila Korovina simply did not find her way in the coming twilight. Or maybe she took pity on the tired guys and stopped, not reaching the top, blown by the winds.

In the morning, Lyudmila Korovina saw that it had snowed. She was an experienced traveler and immediately understood how this threatened the tired and frozen group. Immediately she gave the order - to immediately fold up and go down to the edge of the forest. The guys did just that. We packed our things, rolled up the tents. And then the tragedy happened. In front of everyone's eyes, the oldest student Alexander suddenly fell and died, - says Zharov.

It was a shock. The strongest and oldest of the guys died, the one who could make a fire, chop branches, help carry heavy things, the support and hope of the leader Lyudmila Korovina. It is not hard to imagine what feelings she could have overwhelmed at that moment. After all, she was responsible for the life of each member of the youth group. Korovin gives the only correct command - all tourists must immediately go down to the forest. But she herself remains next to the body of the deceased guy.

What happened next is difficult to find out now. A group of teenagers began an organized descent to the forest. But then they suddenly returned. Why? Did the group leader call them? Or did they themselves decide not to leave Lyudmila Korovina on the snow-covered slope? But what the children saw plunged them into horror - the leader of the group died.

Further actions of the guys are shrouded in mystery. On the forums, they say that teenagers have fallen into despair. Only Valentina U-ko did not lose her composure and tried to take over the management of the group. She tried to calm down the tourists, demanded to execute the last command of Korovina - to go to the forest. She dragged them by the arms, pushed them in front of her.

But, apparently, they did not obey her. The girl, realizing that all her actions were useless, went to the edge of the forest alone. In the morning, she found that all the other members of the group were dead.

Inspection of the place of emergency, says Vladimir Zharov, showed that hypothermia was the cause of death. In this he completely agrees with Yuri Golius.

I don't see mystics here, - said the traveler. - It was an unfavorable combination of circumstances.

Every year in the media there are publications about the death of climbers. The most famous and mysterious case is the tragedy that happened to the Dyatlov group in early February 1959. The circumstances that led to the death of nine climbers have not yet been clarified, but the means mass media paid sufficient attention to what happened. Not so long ago, the movie "The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass" was even released. And few people know about the mysterious death of six climbers, which occurred in Buryatia at the Khamar-Daban pass.

In August 1993, to Irkutsk from Kazakhstan on railroad a group of seven tourists arrived to go to the Khamar-Daban ridge. Forecasters promised suitable weather for the ascent, and the group set off for the mountains. It consisted of three young men, three girls and 41-year-old leader Lyudmila Korovina, who had the title of master of sports in walking tourism. The Khamar-Daban ridge does not shake with its height. The most high point- 2,396 meters. Situated on 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. Nothing foreshadowed trouble. The group moved from the village of Murino to one of the highest mountains of the ridge called Khanulu. Its height is 2371 meters. After walking about 70 kilometers in 5 - 6 days, the tourists stopped for a halt between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204m) and Tritrans (2310m). Weather forecasters, however, did not guess. For several days in a row, it snowed and rained and the wind blew. What made the experienced leader set up camp on the bare part of the mountain is anyone's guess. Just four kilometers down the slope, there was a forest where you could shelter from the bad weather and make a fire. At about 11 o'clock in the afternoon on August 5, when the tourists were about to leave the temporary parking lot, a young man named Alexander became ill. Suddenly, blood spurted from his ears, and foam came out of his mouth. He died literally a few minutes later. All members of the group were horrified. Something strange began to happen. The leader of the group fell unconscious. Mass hysteria began. The young man, whose name was Denis, ran and hid behind the stones, one of the girls (Tatiana) banged her head against the stones. Two girls fell to the ground and began to rip at their clothes and grab their throats with their hands. After a while, another young man fell. The remaining boy and girl decide to take with them only the essentials and go downstairs. While the girl lays out unnecessary things from the backpack, the guy with the same symptoms falls to the ground. Overwhelmed by fear, the girl runs down, but does not reach the forest. She sees how the hurricane force of the wind breaks trees and knocks them to the ground. Hiding under a large rock, the girl spends a sleepless night, and in the morning she decides to return to the camp. Having risen, Valentina found that all the participants in the campaign were dead. And I decided to look for people. Noticing the old relay tower, the girl managed to orient herself and went to the Snezhnaya River. Pillars stretched down from the tower. Reasoning that they could lead her to a home, Valentina went, focusing on the electric wires. And she came to the houses, but they turned out to be abandoned. Two days later, barely alive, she was discovered next to the river by the Snow group tourists from Kiev. Valentina was very lucky - people were rarely in those places. The dead were taken out by helicopter. An autopsy was carried out in Ulan-Ude. According to the conclusion, everyone died from hypothermia. The only survivor Valentina Utochenko does not like to remember what happened. Overpowering herself, she said that it all began with the death of Alexander, the strongest and strongest guy in the group. According to her, his heart seized, which is why he suddenly died in front of everyone. The leader of the group, Lyudmila Korovina, who treated Alexander like a son, ordered the group to go downstairs and leave her with the deceased. And then died herself. And then a mass hysteria began. Seeing how the members of the group, one by one, fall to the ground, Valya rushed down. After Valentina's story, the conclusion about the cause of death of the tourists is questionable. If Utochenko believes that both Alexander and Korovina died of a heart attack, then why does the conclusion given by the Ulan-Ude doctors say that all members of the group died as a result of hypothermia? And why did they fall one after another in a short period of time, with foam from the mouth and blood coming from the ears? Perhaps the reason for their death lies in something else?
Someone put forward a version that the participants in the events could have been poisoned by an unknown gas. Someone thinks that as a result of the strong wind and the specific topography of the area, an infrasonic wave was formed, which killed the tourists. It is also surprising that there were no warm clothes on the bodies of the deceased. They wore only light tights. And three of the dead were found barefoot at all. Why? What made them, dying of hypothermia, take off their outerwear? There are many questions. Only there are no answers to them. The death of six people at the Khamar-Daban pass has remained an unsolved mystery….

The most famous and mysterious case of the death of tourists is the tragedy that happened to 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 formed the basis of several feature and documentary films. However, few people know that a similar and no less mysterious and tragic story thirty years later took place on one of the passes in Buryatia.

In August 1993, a group of seven tourists arrived in Irkutsk from Kazakhstan by rail to travel to the Khamar-Daban ridge. Forecasters promised suitable weather for the ascent, and the group set off for the mountains. It consisted of three young men, three girls and 41-year-old leader Lyudmila Korovina, who had the title of master of sports in walking tourism. The Khamar-Daban ridge does not shake with its height. The highest point is 2,396 meters. Situated on ledges, with pointed peaks and ridges, the ridge is one of the oldest mountains on our planet. Thousands of tourists visit these beautiful places every year. Valentina Utochenko Valentina Utochenko The group moved from the village of Murino to one of the highest mountains of the ridge called Khanulu. Its height is 2371 meters. After walking about 70 kilometers in 5 - 6 days, the tourists stopped for a halt between the peaks of Golets Yagelny (2204m) and Tritrans (2310m).

Weather forecasters, however, did not guess. For several days in a row, it snowed and rained and the wind blew. At about 11 o'clock 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 began to flow from his ears, foam came from his mouth. Lyudmila Ivanovna Korovina stayed with him, appointed Denis the senior, said 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 - the symptoms are like a suffocating person, Denis said - we quickly take the most necessary from the backpacks and running down, bent over the backpack, pulled out the sleeping bag, raised her head. Denis fell and tore his clothes on, tried to drag the hand with him, but he broke free and ran away. She ran downstairs without letting go of the sleeping bag. I spent the night under a boulder, hiding with my head in a sleeping bag, it was scary, trees were falling along the edge of the forest from a hurricane, the wind died down in the morning, more or less dawn rose to the scene of the tragedy, Lyudmila Ivanovna was still alive, but she practically could not move, showed in which direction Valya to go out and passed out, Valya closed her eyes to the guys, packed her things, found a compass and went ...

Relay tower
After some time, the girl stumbled upon an abandoned relay tower at an altitude of 2310 meters, where she spent another night all alone. And in the morning the tourist noticed the pillars going down from the tower. Valentina realized that they should lead her to people, but the houses to which wires had once been forwarded turned out to be abandoned.

But Valentina went to the Snezhnaya River and moved downstream, on the sixth day after the tragedy she accidentally saw her and was picked up by a water tour group. They had already sailed past, but decided to return, it seemed suspicious that the tourist did not answer their greetings. From the shock, the girl did not speak for several days. Interestingly, the daughter of Lyudmila Korovina with another tour group walked along a nearby route and agreed to meet with her mother at their intersection. But when Lyudmila's group did not come to 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 she went home, not suspecting that her mother was no longer alive. For some unknown reason, the search dragged on, the bodies of 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 descended, and everyone on board witnessed a terrible sight: “The bodies are already swollen, everyone's eye sockets are completely eaten away. Almost all of the victims were dressed in thin leotards, while three were barefoot. The leader was lying on top of Alexandra ... ”What happened on the plateau? Why, freezing, did the participants of the hike take off their shoes? Why did the woman lie on the dead guy? Why didn't anyone use sleeping bags? All these questions remained unanswered. In Ulan-Ude, an autopsy was performed, which showed that all six died from hypothermia, and the investigation agreed that the tragedy was caused by the mistakes and incompetence of the group leader. But the facts say the opposite!