Episode Transcript
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0:10
Knee deep in snow by the banks of the
0:12
Lozva River, Boris slops off,
0:15
pulled the hood up over his head, and tied
0:17
the flaps of his hat down tightly below
0:19
his chin. It
0:21
was all he could do to stop the incessant pelting
0:24
of his face by the flecks of snow
0:26
being whipped up relentlessly by the wind.
0:30
In the distance, he can hear the repetitive,
0:32
dull chop of helicopter blades. The
0:35
sound gets closer and closer, until
0:37
eventually the olive green m I
0:39
four finally comes into view. Squinting
0:43
now into the sun, he watches
0:45
as it makes a slow, lumbering turn across
0:48
the sky, before settling over the Lozva
0:51
and forging a path straight towards
0:53
him. And then,
0:56
just as it's about to fly above his head, it
0:58
makes a sharp bank to the right. Boris
1:02
is close enough to see the copilot wave
1:04
before throwing something out of the cockpit.
1:09
Boris watches as the object drops
1:11
from the sky, its red ribbon
1:14
flapping manically as it falls, before
1:16
nestling in the snow meters away from
1:18
Boris's feet. He
1:20
hurries over and pulls the canister free
1:23
unscrewing the cap to find a message
1:25
for his team lodged inside. It
1:29
tells them to head towards the Auspia
1:31
River, roughly three kilometers to the
1:33
south. It
1:36
is Wednesday, February the twenty fifth, exactly
1:39
four weeks since Yuri Yuden was
1:41
forced to abandon Eager Diatlov and
1:44
the eight other friends he had been accompanying
1:46
as part of an expedition towards O'tauton
1:49
Mountain in the Russian Urals. It
1:52
had been a painful decision for Yuri, but
1:55
one perhaps not quite as painful as
1:57
the crippling effects of rheumatism
1:59
that had plagued him throughout the journey and
2:02
in the end left him with little choice but
2:04
to turn back. Urie
2:07
had last been with the group in the north to
2:10
settlement an old, abandoned
2:12
geological site from which they
2:14
were due to strike out towards O'torton
2:16
Mountain a short time after they
2:18
had said their goodbyes. The
2:21
team had been expected to arrive back
2:23
in their hometown of spurred Lovsk on
2:25
February the thirteenth,
2:28
almost two weeks ago, but
2:31
the team had never returned. Twenty
2:35
two year old Boris Slobsov is a
2:37
friend of Eagers and a member of
2:39
the same hiking club. He
2:42
too had planned to one day make the
2:44
hike to O'tauton Mountain, but
2:47
never could he have imagined it would be under
2:49
circumstances such as these. Boris
2:53
had been one of the first to volunteer to
2:55
help find the team, after concerns
2:58
had been voiced about their whereabouts. The
3:01
alarm had been raised by anxious parents
3:04
on the thirteenth, but it would be almost
3:06
another week before hiking club officials
3:09
deem it a serious concern worthy
3:11
of a formal search and rescue operation.
3:14
It was, after all, not uncommon
3:16
for such lengthy hikes to suffer
3:19
the odd one or two days delay, But
3:22
when a whole week later there
3:24
is still no word from the team,
3:26
it is clear that something has gone drastically
3:29
wrong. The
3:37
Ural Polytechnic's first response is
3:40
to dispatch hiking club director Lev
3:42
Gordo and young Yurie Blinov,
3:45
who had traveled part way with the Diatlov
3:47
team prior to their disappearance, to
3:50
undertake a quick air surveillance of
3:52
the team's probable route. Meanwhile,
3:55
in Evedale, the town closest
3:58
to where the team was last seen, A
4:00
criminal investigation is opened up, led
4:03
by local prosecutor Vasili
4:05
Tempolov. A
4:07
three pronged attack is established when
4:10
experienced hiker Yevgeny Maslennikov
4:13
is also enlisted to help run things
4:15
on the ground. Yevgeny,
4:18
who was well aware of Eager and his compatriots,
4:21
having initially helped them to plan their route,
4:23
wastes little time in joining the search.
4:27
On the twenty fourth, Tempolov agrees
4:30
to open up the search to include all possible
4:32
routes taken by Tiatlov's team, and
4:35
by now, with news of the team's
4:37
disappearance spreading throughout the region,
4:40
many volunteers have come forward to offer
4:42
their help, including members
4:44
of the family, fellow students,
4:47
and workers from the local camps.
4:51
The search is given an early boost when
4:54
Gordo and Blinov pick up a trail
4:56
that leads them to a Manzi village called
4:59
bartier Rova. The
5:01
Manse are an indigenous people of
5:03
western Siberia, an
5:06
area running roughly fifteen hundred
5:08
kilometers from the Ural Mountains
5:10
to the Great Jense River in the east.
5:14
This vast stretch of land is sometimes
5:16
referred to as Ugra Land,
5:19
but is now commonly known as the
5:21
Kanti Mansisk Autonomous
5:23
District. It
5:25
is believed that Manse have populated the
5:27
region since the Mesolithic Age, sharing
5:30
ancestors with both the people of Hungary
5:33
and Finland. They
5:36
are historically known for their proficiency
5:38
in hunting, fishing, and reindeer
5:40
breeding, but they are also a
5:43
superstitious people, steeped
5:45
in a rich culture and folklore unique
5:47
to themselves but also to
5:50
this region, although
5:52
some have claimed an ancient lineage that
5:54
goes back to the Sumerians, whom
5:57
many consider to be the first great civilization.
6:02
To look upon the Ural Mountains through
6:04
the eyes of the Mansie is to see
6:06
another world hidden from the view
6:08
of most. It
6:11
is a sacred place, home to
6:13
spirits and gods, and
6:15
many an unsolved ancient mystery.
6:26
Although for Gordo and Glinov the trail
6:29
goes cold in Bartia Rova,
6:31
their efforts have caught the attention of
6:33
several Mansie tribesmen, who,
6:36
like everybody else, are deeply moved
6:38
by the plight of the missing students. The
6:41
offer to lend their unparalleled local knowledge
6:44
and tracking skills to the search is
6:46
gratefully accepted. The
6:48
Mansie team is led by Stepan Kurikov,
6:52
a warm hearted and hulking presence,
6:54
as well as being one of the most respected of
6:56
the tribal elders. A
7:00
few days later, the helicopter search
7:02
team picks up ski tracks heading
7:04
north from the Auspire River at the bottom
7:06
of a mountain known as Kolat Siakl,
7:10
but searches on the ground are unable
7:12
to establish any clear route before
7:14
bad weather brings the day's search to
7:16
an end. It is the following
7:19
day when Boris Slapsov and his team
7:21
receive their message to search the corresponding
7:24
area.
7:26
Later that afternoon, a breakthrough discovery
7:29
is made when Boris locates
7:31
one of the Diatlov team's campsites on
7:33
the banks of the river, just to the edge
7:35
of a forest. It is
7:37
clear that Diatlov's team would most likely
7:40
have stuck out from here and headed straight
7:42
towards a tautumn mountain over
7:44
the exposed banks of Colat Siakol,
7:48
But with night fast approaching and the weather
7:51
becoming increasingly volatile, Slobsov's
7:53
team are unable to follow suit and
7:56
a force to retreat into the tree line and
7:58
make camp for the night. That
8:02
evening, as the dark closed in around
8:04
them. With yet another day gone, Slopsov
8:07
can't help but think upon the fate of his
8:09
friends and to just what exactly
8:12
might be lying in wait, buried under
8:15
the snow. It
8:17
hasn't escaped his attention either, that
8:19
the name Collet Siakl translates
8:23
as dead Mountain. The
8:26
next day, Fabruary the twenty sixth,
8:28
Slopsov suggests that the team break
8:30
into pairs to widen the search area.
8:33
Boris joins up with fellow hiking
8:35
team member Mikhail's Sharavin, and
8:38
together they head off in the direction of O'tauton
8:41
across the eastern slope of Kolet
8:43
Siakl. That
8:46
afternoon, as the two hikers battle
8:48
raging winds and minus twenty degree
8:51
temperatures, the hikers
8:53
are three hundred meters from the top of the mountain
8:55
when Mikhail spots something up ahead
8:58
sticking out of the snow. It
9:00
looks like a tent. Getting
9:03
nearer, the thing starts to reveal
9:06
itself. They can now
9:08
clearly see the poles sticking out from
9:10
underneath and the south facing
9:12
entrance that remains intact while
9:15
the entire back half has collapsed
9:17
under the weight of snowfall. Boris
9:20
calls out hopefully for his friends,
9:23
but hears nothing in reply save
9:26
for the fierce whistling of the wind.
9:29
He steps toward the entrance, takes
9:31
a deep breath, and pulls back
9:33
the flap. It
9:43
is with an odd mix of relief and disappointment
9:46
that Boris finds the tent completely
9:48
deserted, the relief
9:50
being tempered by the fact that almost everything
9:53
that the hikers had been traveling with appeared
9:55
to have been left behind inside, as
9:57
if the team had just vanished into the
10:01
But for Boris, their absence provides
10:03
a glimmer of hope that his friends
10:06
might actually still be alive. Pushing
10:09
back on the heavy canvas, Boris
10:11
and Mikhail managed to write the tent
10:14
enough to take a proper look inside.
10:17
On the floor, they find the nine backpacks
10:20
belonging to each team member, as
10:22
well as each of their skis. Perhaps
10:25
most curiously, they find a jacket
10:28
left on the ground outside the tent.
10:32
Boris pulls it from the snow and scours
10:34
the surrounding area, hoping to spot
10:36
footprints or any other sign of
10:39
his friends, but sees only
10:41
the vast white emptiness, and
10:44
with dark clouds beginning to roll in, Boris
10:47
and Mikhail only have a few minutes
10:49
to gather what they can before reluctantly
10:52
being forced back to their camp. On
10:55
their return, Boris is able to send
10:57
word back to Evedale suggesting
11:00
all search efforts be concentrated on
11:02
the surrounding area. A
11:04
reply comes back to dig out a helicopter
11:07
landing site in preparation for over
11:09
fifty people who will be arriving the next
11:11
day. It
11:14
is another anxious night for Boris and his team,
11:16
and their attention is constantly drawn
11:19
to the items brought back from the abandoned
11:21
tent. The presence
11:23
of the items in Boris's tent seems
11:26
only to bring the absence of their owners closer,
11:29
as if they had merely stepped outside for
11:31
a moment before returning to
11:34
collect their things. Boris
11:37
picks up the jacket and examines the pockets,
11:40
hoping for any clue as to the team's
11:42
whereabouts. Inside,
11:44
he discovers a notebook, suggesting
11:46
the jacket was eager to Yatlovs.
11:49
Flicking through the pages, Boris discovers
11:52
a photograph. It is a portrait
11:54
of Zena. The
11:57
following day, Friday, the twenty seventh,
12:00
the search teams converge on the newly discovered
12:02
campsite, including police
12:04
equipped with search dogs. The
12:07
ensuing chaos threatens to undermine
12:09
any hope of finding tracks under the snow,
12:12
but remarkably, one of the team
12:14
find some twenty meters or so
12:17
from the tent, under a patch of
12:19
freshly fallen snow. They
12:22
see them clearly now veering off
12:24
down the side of the hill towards the
12:26
Lzva River valley. But
12:29
there is something very odd. Some
12:32
of the prints seemed bizarrely small,
12:35
almost as if whoever had made them had
12:37
not been wearing any shoes. And
12:40
there is another vital discovery, a
12:43
team diary kept by all the members of the group
12:46
to document their expedition. The
12:49
entries had been meticulously kept since
12:51
the first day, but had ended abruptly
12:54
on January the thirty first, suggesting
12:57
whatever happened likely occurred
12:59
around Ray the first, meaning
13:02
the group has now been missing for four
13:04
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14:20
Slopsov's team, who are that morning searching
14:22
the banks of the Lozva River, are informed
14:25
of the tracks found leading towards their
14:27
location. Boris
14:29
plays out the scenario in his head until
14:32
he has transported back to the night the team
14:34
left the tent. He sees
14:36
them now, their movements echoing
14:39
through time as they descend down the
14:41
mountain and head for the shelter of the same
14:43
trees that he is walking among A
14:46
short time later, and Mikhail finds
14:49
something strange at the base of a cedar tree.
14:52
Poking through the snow, he finds the
14:54
charred remains of a makeshift fire that
14:57
had clearly been hastily put together. He
15:00
notices also that a number of the tree's
15:02
branches have been recently snapped
15:04
off. And then,
15:07
just north of the tree, there is
15:09
something else sticking out of the snow, something
15:13
once soft but now as rigid
15:15
and hard as the cedar. It
15:18
is a human leg. For
15:22
Boris and his team, it is a devastating
15:24
discovery, and one that will extinguish
15:27
any remaining hope of finding his friends
15:29
alive. But for
15:32
us it merely marks another beginning
15:34
to this strange and bizarre tale, for
15:37
it is about to get very weird. Indeed,
15:44
after Mikhail's grew some discovery, Boris
15:47
alerts mass Lennikov's team, and
15:49
together they carefully begin to excavate
15:51
the body from the snow. But
15:53
as they dig further, they discover not
15:56
one body, but two, lying
15:58
side by side together, with one
16:00
face down and the other face
16:03
up. As the last
16:05
of the snow is pushed from one of the faces, Boris
16:08
recoils in horror, the mouth,
16:10
nose, and eyes appear to have
16:12
been completely removed. Despite
16:16
the apparent mutilation, Boris
16:18
recognizes the face instantly as
16:21
Giorgi Kryvonnishenko. The
16:25
other body is soon revealed to be that
16:28
of Yuri Dorishenko, but
16:31
it's not until the full horror of the discovery
16:34
has sunk in that they notice
16:36
something peculiar about the clothes
16:38
on the bodies, or rather the
16:41
lack of them. Georgy
16:44
appears not to be wearing a jacket or trousers,
16:47
just one checkered shirt and some
16:49
swimming trunks under long underwear. Even
16:53
more bizarrely, the left leg of the underwear
16:55
has been ripped off and his feet are
16:58
completely bare. Doroshenko
17:01
appears somewhat better dressed, with an undershirt,
17:04
check top, long underwear and
17:06
socks, but no shoes. His
17:10
clothes also appear to have been bizarrely
17:12
shredded. After
17:16
the discovery of the bodies, the focus
17:18
of the search switches quickly to the valley
17:21
Mancy elder Stepan Kurikov
17:24
leads the search along with his German
17:26
shepherd sniffer dog. Another
17:29
experienced hiker, Vladislav Kurelen,
17:32
has also joined the search. Vladislav
17:35
was a medical engineer who had cross
17:38
passed with Datlov's team. As they made their
17:40
way towards o' taunton. Having
17:43
located the first two bodies, it
17:45
isn't long before the German shepherd picks
17:47
up another ominous scent. Pulling
17:51
hard on the leash, he drags his owner
17:53
across to a spot where Stepan
17:55
recognizes something unnatural about
17:57
the way the birch tree shoots a sticky
18:00
out from the snow. The
18:02
dog sniffs heavily at the spot, and
18:05
soon they have made another gruesome
18:08
discovery, as just below
18:10
the surface they find an arm that
18:12
appears still to be pulling in desperation
18:15
at the shoots. This
18:17
body is better dressed than the other two, complete
18:20
with a sweater, fur vest and ski
18:22
trousers, but again extraordinarily,
18:26
there are no gloves and no shoes.
18:30
Vladislav Korellin recognizes
18:33
the face of Eager Diatlov.
18:37
Moments later, Evedale policeman
18:40
Lieutenant Nikolay Moisiev and
18:42
his dog Alma are heading back
18:44
from the trees towards the team's tent,
18:47
when Alma gets suddenly anxious and
18:49
begins to dig. Manikoi it
18:52
is yet another body, lying face
18:55
down with their knees bent, as if making
18:57
a final desperate bid to crawl back
18:59
to the same of the tent. Moisiev
19:04
turns the body over and is surprised
19:06
to find dried blood smeared
19:08
across the faith. The
19:11
body will later be identified as
19:13
that of Zena Kolmogorova.
19:25
Yevgeny Maslennikov, who by
19:28
now has been made head of the entire ground
19:30
search operation, orders
19:32
the bodies to be wrapped in tarpaulin and
19:35
taken to Boot Rock on the bank of
19:37
Kolatsiakl while they
19:39
await evacuation and formal
19:41
autopsy. Watching
19:44
as the bodies are laid out at the base of the rock,
19:47
Maslennikov can't help but begin to formulate
19:50
his own theories about just what might
19:52
have taken place. For
19:55
Maslennikov, it appears a simple
19:58
case of being caught out by the weather. Perhaps
20:01
one of the team stepped out of the tent only
20:04
to be swept away by the wind, prompting
20:07
his friends to make a fatal rescue attempt.
20:10
Or perhaps it was an avalanche that scared
20:12
them from the safety of their tent and left
20:14
them catastrophically disorientated.
20:18
Only if the wind or avalanche
20:20
had been so strong as to push the hikers
20:22
down the valley, why was the
20:24
tent still clinging so firmly to the
20:26
side of the mountain, its poles
20:29
still standing as they would have been the
20:31
day they were pitched. The
20:34
day after the four bodies are discovered, Prosecutor
20:37
Vasily Tempelof finally arrives
20:40
on the scene to make his own assessment of
20:42
the evidence. He makes
20:44
a note of the various items found at
20:46
the campsite, but also he
20:48
is the first person to notice something odd
20:51
about the tent itself. It
20:54
may have still been standing, but what no
20:56
one had seemed to notice before was
20:58
that one side of it had been completely
21:01
and unnaturally slashed to pieces.
21:05
But before Tempolov can get his teeth
21:08
into the investigation, he is told
21:10
to step down from the operation. On
21:13
the morning of Sunday, March first, yet
21:16
another helicopter arrives at the search headquarters
21:19
at the foot of Kolat Siakle. The
21:22
door is opened and outsteps
21:24
the determined figure of lev Ivanov,
21:28
junior Counsel of Justice and now
21:31
lead investigator on the case. He
21:34
adjusts his glasses and pulls his jacket
21:36
tighter before being led away from
21:38
the chopper and straight into the fray.
21:42
Moments later, he is casting his
21:45
eyes over the makeshift fire at the base
21:47
of the cedar tree. Suddenly,
21:50
with Ivanov on the scene, the investigation
21:53
seems to have taken on another guise, like
21:56
something from a classic detective novel. There
21:59
is more than the touch of the brooding, enigmatic
22:01
hero about Ivanov, his
22:04
thick, black rimmed glasses lending
22:06
a cerebral air to this intense
22:09
veteran of the Great Patriotic War.
22:13
Immediately, he makes note of a number
22:15
of branches snapped from up high in the tree.
22:18
Perhaps one of the team climbed the tree in
22:20
an attempt to call the others, or
22:22
maybe he had been trying to escape
22:25
from something. He
22:28
also notices another pair of footprints
22:30
in the snow, suggesting that Georgi
22:32
and Yuri weren't alone when
22:34
they died. He begins
22:37
to ponder as to just why they let the fire
22:39
burn out if there was plenty of firewood
22:42
around to be used. Meanwhile,
22:46
Maslennikov is overseeing a team of
22:48
thirty men lined up shoulder
22:51
to shoulder as they probe the ground
22:53
with steel avalanche poles. That
22:57
day, they cover a region of roughly
22:59
thirty thousand square yards, but
23:02
the search yields nothing more. Later,
23:06
Ivanov and Maslennikov will together
23:09
analyze the abandoned tent, leaving
23:11
Ivanov convinced more than ever that
23:14
whatever killed Diatlov's team members, it
23:17
wasn't the wind and it wasn't
23:19
heavy snowfall. On
23:22
March, the second one of the search teams
23:24
comes across a story shelter perched
23:27
high up in the trees, laden with
23:29
various supplies. It
23:31
is a common practice for hiking teams to
23:33
unburden themselves before venturing out on
23:36
the most grueling part of a journey. This
23:38
appears to have been the case with Diatlov's
23:40
team. The
23:42
search party are moved to find Georgy's
23:45
mandolin amongst the items of food.
23:48
It is a stark and sudden reminder of
23:50
a time before. Later
23:54
that day, after the news of the store camp
23:56
is passed up the chain, something a
23:58
little more peculiar comes to light
24:01
when Maslennikov is approached by one
24:03
of the searches. It
24:05
is Vladislav Karelin, the mountaineer
24:08
who found Eager's body the previous week,
24:11
and he has had something on his mind ever
24:13
since. On
24:20
the night of February the seventeenth, Karelin
24:23
was hiking with his own team close to the trail
24:25
that Dyatlov and his team had been taking
24:28
when they witnessed something strange in the sky.
24:32
A member of his group, Georgi at Menaki,
24:35
had woken early to make breakfast when
24:37
he noticed a large, bright white spot
24:40
in the distance above them. He
24:42
points it out to his friend Vladimir
24:45
Chavkunov, believing it to
24:47
be an especially bright moon, but
24:50
Chavkunov was concerned there
24:52
was no moon that morning, and in
24:54
any case, if there had been, it
24:57
would have been on the other side of the sky. Then
25:01
suddenly, a spark lit in the
25:03
center of the spot that seemed to burn
25:05
brighter, getting bigger in sides, before
25:07
flying off quickly to the west. The
25:11
light would eventually get so big that
25:13
they believed it was going to collide with the earth
25:16
and kill them all, and
25:19
they weren't the only ones to see it, as
25:21
many local villages would later
25:23
come forward attesting to the bizarre sighting.
25:27
Maslennikov agrees it is certainly something
25:30
to think about, but as he reminds
25:32
Karelin Diatlov's team most
25:35
likely died around the turn of the month, a
25:37
good two weeks prior to the appearance
25:40
of the strange light, but
25:43
when the news reaches Ivanov, he
25:45
finds it a little harder to shake. Later
25:49
that afternoon, as he watches the
25:51
bodies of Eager Yuri, Yorgi
25:54
and Sina being loaded into the
25:56
helicopter, talk of the strange
25:58
lights and fire in the sky weighs
26:01
heavily on his mind. It
26:04
certainly wouldn't be the first time that something
26:06
unknown had occurred in this nation, something
26:09
perhaps carried out in secret and
26:11
kept hidden from view. As
26:15
he climbs in after the bodies, Maslennikov
26:18
is there to see him off as the chopper lifts
26:20
up into the air and flies away on
26:22
its journey back to Evedale. The
26:25
following day, with the search now starting
26:28
to deliver results, Yuri Blinov,
26:31
one of the last people to see his friends alive
26:33
and who had worked so tirelessly over the
26:35
past seven days to help find them, decides
26:39
it is time to return home. The
26:47
bodies are taken to the hospital of Labor
26:49
Camp H two forty in Evedale
26:52
and left to thor out before the formal autopsy
26:55
can begin. Or
26:57
March the fourth, the Regional Bureau
26:59
of Forensic pathologist Boris Alexeyevitch
27:02
vosros Deny and the city
27:04
medical examiner Ivan Ivanovitch
27:07
Laptev begin the procedure. Both
27:11
Yury and Gyrgy display signs of burns
27:13
to the side of their heads, consistent
27:15
perhaps with the fact that they had fallen so close
27:18
to the makeshift fire. As
27:21
for Gyorgy's missing features, they
27:23
are deemed likely to have been eaten by ravenous
27:26
animals. Post mortem, The
27:30
litany of abrasions and spots of dried
27:32
blood found on all of the bodies suggest
27:34
final moments of wild panic, but
27:37
are not thought to be particularly suspicious
27:41
given the location of where the bodies were found
27:44
and the time of year. It is perhaps
27:46
unsurprising when a verdict of death by
27:48
hypothermia is returned on all
27:50
four of the victims, and
27:53
yet looking closer at the autopsy
27:56
report reveals a number of peculiar
27:58
findings. Skin
28:01
from one of Gilgi's right knuckles is
28:04
found in his mouth, suggesting
28:06
he must have bitten it off himself, perhaps
28:09
to force his hands to move, or
28:11
as some have suggested may be to
28:13
stifle a cry. Eager's
28:17
body shows signs of vomiting blood,
28:20
with Ury's autopsy noting signs
28:22
of fluid in the lungs as
28:24
well as bruises sustained by some kind
28:26
of blunt trauma, and
28:28
something found on Zena's back also
28:31
catches the eye, a long,
28:33
bright red bruise, the sort
28:35
you might sustain, perhaps after
28:37
being clubbed by a heavy object. Meanwhile,
28:43
in a room not far away, Ury
28:45
Yudin has been summoned by lead investigator
28:48
lev Ivanov. Incredibly,
28:51
yuden had been one of the last to learn of the
28:53
rescue operation to find Datlov's
28:56
team, having decided to recuperate
28:58
in his hometown of emily Chevka before
29:01
returning to spurred Lovsk, and
29:04
now he was being given the somber task
29:07
of sorting through all the team's personal belongings
29:09
in order to assign them to their correct owner.
29:14
He too, finds the picture of Zena in
29:16
Eager's notebook, and manages
29:19
a rise's smile when he finds a packet
29:21
of cigarettes secretly stashed away
29:23
in Alexander Kolovatov's bag. But
29:29
back on kolatsiakl the search continues,
29:32
and on March fifth, another body
29:34
is discovered. Karelin
29:37
had been searching a region in between
29:40
where Eager and Zena were found when
29:42
he hits something solid just below the surface.
29:46
Once the snow had been cleared, Karelin
29:49
recognizes the body as that of the much
29:51
loved Rustick Slobodin. Unlike
29:55
the others, Roostick seems almost properly
29:57
dressed, but something else immediately
30:00
catches Krellin's attention. There
30:03
is a severe discoloring on the front of his head,
30:06
while a patch of ice close to his mouth
30:09
suggests that he had been alive for some time
30:11
after he fell. Rustick's
30:16
injuries were confirmed by the pathologist
30:18
in an autopsy three days later as
30:21
being potentially consistent with damage
30:23
sustained from a blunt object. The
30:26
frontal bone of his skull is
30:28
found to be fractured, with severe hemorrhaging
30:31
in the temple region, as if he had
30:33
repeatedly been forced down onto his
30:35
face. Rustis
30:40
is the fifth body to be recovered, while
30:42
four of Diatlov's team remained
30:44
missing and the investigation
30:48
has only just begun. All
30:54
elements of unexplained are produced by me Richard
30:56
McClain Smith Please subscribe and rate
30:58
the show on iTunes. Feel free to get in touch
31:01
with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories
31:03
you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have
31:05
an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You
31:08
can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot
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com or on Twitter at Unexplained
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