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"1079. The Overwhelming Force of Dyatlov Pass" Sixty-seven years will pass on February 1, 2026, since nine experienced hikers mysteriously perished in the Northern Ural mountains. This is also the one year anniversary of the publication of "1079: The Overwhelming Force of Dyatlov Pass". The volume is a detailed encyclopedia on this coldest case of the 20th Century, and includes a groundbreaking theory, based on well-documented evidence rather than wild speculations, that finally ties together all known facts about the Dyatlov mystery into a credible sequence of causes and effects. More about the book → "1079. Стихийная сила Перевала Дятлова" Можете купить русское издание в следующих книжных магазинах: Russian Detective award "1079" won the "Russian Detective 2024" award for "Documentary Detective" June 8, 2024 "1079. Стихийная сила Перевала Дятлова" стала лауреатом премии "Русский детектив 2024" в категории "Документальный детектив". «Победу в этом конкурсе, полученную премию я посвящаю своему соавтору Игорю Павлову, - сказала Теодора Хаджийска со сцены. – Без него этот проект не состоялся бы.» "1079. The Overwhelming Force of Dyatlov Pass" became a laureate of the "Russian Detective 2024" award in the "Documentary Detective" category. “I dedicate the victory in this competition and the award received to my co-author Igor Pavlov,” Teodora Hadjiyska said from the stage. "Without him, this project would not have happened." Articles Kuzminov's letter to the Uralsky Rabochi newspaper "We were all inclined to believe the Dyatlov group perished due to a fireball phenomenon. One night, we observed such a phenomenon. The orderly woke us up. We left the tent and watched it. After 5-6 minutes, we began to lose consciousness (the fireball was approaching us), and we wandered off like sleepwalkers. At the group leader's command, I fired my pistol into the air several times, which brought those who were starting to go dizzy back to consciousness. We returned to the tent. The day after this incident, we radioed for immediate evacuation from the search site. We were told that they were testing a new type of hydrogen fuel and that there was nothing life-threatening, but we simply needed to stay in the tent for the time being. They promised to stop testing for the duration of the search. We calmed down and continued the search." Read the letter → 100 Questions to Askinadzi I consider Vladimir Askinadzi one of the best, if not the best witness of the search operation in 1959. If we apply the investigative motto "Means, Motive, and Opportunity" not for a suspect in a crime but for a witness, then Vladimir Mihaylovich checks all the boxes to be our best witness, that is. Here are the three most important things, in my opinion. First, he remembers, his mind is intact, but most importantly, his recollections are not biased by any theory. Second - he actually had the chance to find the bodies that had the injuries that couldn't be explained by anything else but "overwhelming force". Third, not the least, he agreed to answer our questions. Read his answers → Forensic constraints on the tent-site trauma in the Dyatlov incident Using exclusively the 1959 autopsy reports and the sworn testimony of forensic examiner B.A. Vozrozhdenniy, combined with standard trauma physiology and a validated empirical off-road walking-speed model, we show that the documented survival windows and functional capacities are incompatible with the proposed sequence. The slab avalanche model therefore contains an internal methodological inconsistency when reconciled with the contemporaneous forensic evidence. Read the paper → "Case without a number" Forensic and procedural analysis of materials on the death of the Dyatlov group Vladimir Ankudinov, Victoria Louhi, Mar 21, 2026 ""Case without a number" is not the material used to investigate the deaths of the Dyatlov group. The incident involving the Dyatlov group, as a separate incident, was investigated in the criminal case reported by Evgeniy Okishev, which was investigated by the USSR Prosecutor's Office. This case was classified, and until this classification is removed, no one will receive any information about it." Read the article → "The cause of the tragedy? Ask the Central Committee!" Korotaev "Na Smenu!" Feb 14, 1991 "The investigation lasted twenty days (and here, cases involving hooliganism and domestic murders sometimes take months), what kind of investigation can we even talk about?! In an interview with Uralsky Rabochy, criminal prosecutor Ivanov admits that he was ordered to remove "everything unnecessary" from the case. I remember that atmosphere of secrecy well. I recall telephone conversations with high-ranking party officials. And I repeat: in my opinion, Kirilenko knew the cause of the tragedy well." Read the article → How Did the C.I.A. Lose a Nuclear Device? In 1965, during a secret expedition to Nanda Devi, an atomic device got lost and continues to be missing and potentially hazardous to the people of India if it contaminates the Ganga. This is a chilling story of international espionage, involving China, the CIA and the Indian government. Capt Manmohan Singh Kohli, the leader of the expedition, speaks about the three-year-long project that remains one of India’s lurking unsolved mysteries. I still can't wrap my mind around it. If the CIA managed to lose a nuclear device on Nanda Devi and cover it for so many years then anything is possible. Read the article → Elena Koskina's notes from 1988-1989 part 2 Elena Koskina chronicled her investigation into the Dyatlov group hikers' deaths. From 1989 to 1999, Elena communicated with searchers and recorded their recollections of the tragic events of the winter of 1959: Boris Slotsov, Boris Suvorov, Pyotr Bartolomey, Vadim Brusnitsyn, Vladimir Lebedev, and radio operator Egor Nevolin. Elena traveled to Kustanay and met with Lev Ivanov's widow Leontina Grigoryevna, daughters Tatyana and Aleksandra, and colleague Zinaida Kivokurtseva. Note how afraid is not to be found guildy of something. Notice how Vozrozhdenniy is afraid of being accused of something. Read the article → The original title of this article is "A forensic expert on the Dyatlov Pass mystery: "If they weren't Phystech students, they'd still be alive." I didn't understand it so I turned to Vladimir Askinadzi, who was Phystech student himself. Here is what he explained to me in a private correspondence: "Lev Ivanov believed the fireball theory until the end of his days. This was passed on to Vozrozhdenniy. The actual atomic bomb explosions and their consequences were hammered into the minds of the Phystech students in their curricula. The explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were the most common examples. According to Ivanov, the Dyatlov group (the two who were outside the tent) mistook the fireballs for an atomic explosion and caused a panic. The Phystech students knew the consequences of these explosions better than anyone else, and by the time they emerged from the tent, the fireballs had already flown over the horizon. But the aftereffects of the panicked screams continued to trigger panic, and the group rushed down the slope, away from what they thought was the radiation." Elena Koskina's notes from 1989 part 1 Alexey and Elena Koskin were the first-generation sleuths who went to the archive and copied as many of the case files as they could. Then, suddenly, on December 27, 2012, he announced that he would no longer be involved. Many explained this with their divorce. Alexey Koskin was friends with Yuri Kuntsevich. Kuntsevich headed the Memory fund, and after his death, Alexey Koskin was compelled to step back into action. He is now the head of the memory fund left as a legacy by Yuri Kuntsevich. The notes are published for the first time, having been taken directly by Elena Koskina, who spoke with searchers, Slobodin's mother, and sister. Read the article → Meteo data from 1959 We are making public the weather data from seven nearest to the Dyatlov Pass meteo stations for the dates of January 30 - February 2, 1959. We do not have an analysis from an expert on what this data confirms. This is the next step of our sleuthing. The authors of this project give thanks to the people that donated for the information. Read the article → Polar Vortex Collapse, happens now and in January 1959 In lamer terms this article says that the cold air is contained by the polar jet stream above the arctic pole and when a Stratospheric Warming event (warm air moving North) causes a disruption the cold air leaks and spills over the continents. This had happened rarely and the first recorded anomaly was in January 1959. This means strong winds and a drop in temperature similar to what we are observing now. And it's all happening because the Polar Vortex is disrupted. Scientific prove that weather was not all normal as the prosecutors say. The weather is a contributing factor but to understand what really happened we can't ignore it. Read the article → The Cairngorm Plateau Disaster, 1971 The 1971 Cairngorm Plateau disaster, Britain's worst mountaineering tragedy, occurred on the high, exposed plateau area of the Cairngorms, near Ben Macdui, at altitudes around 900 m (3,000 feet), with the group caught in a blizzard while trying to navigate the vast, featureless expanse known for its harsh, inhospitable conditions. The young hikers died from hypothermia and exposure, and were found buried in 1.2m of snow. Parallel to the Dyatlov group are the similar altitude and terrain. What drew my attention was that the dead were buried in snow. They were suffocating. This proves that if the hikers of the Dyatlov group were buried in the snow in the ravine they would have died first of either asphyxiation or hypothermia before the snow supposedly crushed their ribs and skulls. The lethal injuries were per-mortem. They were not caused by the weight of the snow. Read more → Deadly Patagonia Storm, 2025 A doctor's first-hand account of the deadly Patagonia storm. In November, a blizzard with hurricane-force winds struck a popular hiking route in one of Chile’s most visited tourist destinations. Five people died. David Zonshayn, an emergency physician from New York, was on the trail when it happened. I want to drive your attention to what he was mostly scared of. Here is his story. Read the interview → John Garner Pass, 2025 Five hikers died after being caught in a violent snowstorm in Torres del Paine National Park, located in Chile’s Magallanes region of Patagonia, on November 17, 2025. Many tourists were hiking along the park’s O-circuit route when weather conditions deteriorated rapidly. At the time of the accident, they were traversing the John Garner Pass. Amidst the controversy surrounding the efficiency of the rescue operation and the lack of an immediate response due to compulsory voting for Chile's presidential elections, the sadness remains that the odds were stacked against these people, full of love for the mountain. Mother Nature always has the final word, but there is a lot that can be done to prevent this from happening again. Read the article → New weather data from 7 meteo stations for Jan 30 - Feb2, 1959 We are making public the weather data from seven nearest to the Dyatlov Pass meteo stations for the dates of January 30 - February 2, 1959. We do not have an analysis from an expert on what this data confirms. This is the next step of our sleuthing. The authors of this project give thanks to the people that donated for the information. Keep reading → Death in the Alps, 2018 The Haute Route became a death trap on April 29, 2018, leaving many questions unanswered. Seven people froze to death from exhaustion in the snow and ice. The parallels with the Dyatlov Pass incident is the death by extreme hypothermia and exhaustion due to hurricane-strength winds, which are very common at the Dyatlov Pass too. There was a cascade of mishaps that led to the tragedy. What's piqued our interest in this particular incident is that there were two more groups that survived. One of the groups didn't even know someone was struggling in the storm 550m away from the shelter. Were they that different to start with? Read the article → Statistics and weather data, or what was unknown in 1959 A "bora"-type phenomenon could have been observed in the area of the main ridge on the eastern side—a downward drop of heavy cold air as it crossed the ridge, with winds increasing to hurricane force at 20-30 m/s below the ridge. This was the weather in the accident zone, according to Moshiashvili's analysis. Strong winds could have caused increased blowing of fresh snow from the mountains, heavy drifting snow, and a "ground blizzard" of previously fallen snow. This could have been the reason for the Dyatlov group to halt on the slope of Mount Kholat Syakhl when the temperature began to drop and the wind began to pick up at the end of the daylight. Keep reading → Dendrochronology report The dendrochronology report is ready. The conclusion is that the tree samples collected during the last expeditions in July and August, 2025, are not helpful to narrow down where to work with the metal detector. The tree cores are not proof but pointers where to dig for the truth. The results on the samples brought in 2022 and 2023 are still our best bet. Keep reading → Firewood in Dyatlov group tent If you ask if there was firewood in the Dyatlov group's tent you will get many different answers. This publication is about something that stands between the stove and the tent, it is also made of wood, but it is not firewood. Small detail, but it makes the whole scenario of carrying wood implausible. It is only one of the many aspects of the tent being on this place pointing into the direction of staging. Why would Dyatlov carry one log and then pitch the tent in a way that the stove can not be used? Was this firewood or something else that the conspirators considered part of the stovepipe? Keep reading → Interview with Pyotr Bartolomey 2019 In this interview Pyotr Bartolomey talks about the last hike he shared with Igor Dyatlov which was in many aspects very similar to the fateful trek a year later. The tent was the same, the stove was of a similar design, they pitched the tent in a treeless zone and had to use the stove because the leader, Moisey Akselrod got sick after a fall through a gully into a stream. They had quite an adventure, Igor Dyatlov was flown over the route and he guided the group from memory. The trek was in the Subpolar Urals, 3rd category, and all the practices that Igor Dyatlov will later use in 1959 were witnessed and shared by Bartolomey, who was invited to the 1959 trek to Otorten, but couldn't make it due to his studies schedule. Read the interview → In the Footsteps of the Lost Expedition This is the first article that the duo of journalist Natalya and Nikolay Varsegov did on the subject of the Dyatlov Pass incident. This is their first peak into the rabbit hole. The original assignment to Natalya Ko was to investigate the unexplained disappearance of an An-2 aircraft with a pilot and 12 passengers on board in the Northern Urals in June of this year has once again brought to mind the equally mysterious story of the Dyatlov Pass, where 9 students and graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute died in the winter of 1959. Komsomolskaya Pravda special correspondents followed the route of the ski tourists who died in the Northern Urals half a century ago under very mysterious circumstances. There is also a video that goes with the article → "Dyatlov Pass" by Anna Matveeva The recent TV series, "Dyatlov Pass" (english title "Dead Mountain") was based on Anna Matveeva's detective novel. The book has no direct relation to real history, except for its use as a backdrop for a fictional plot. Reviews of the novel are mixed: some criticize it for its fiction and inaccuracies in relation to real events, while others note it as a fascinating detective story with an interesting intrigue. What is of value for the sleuths is that the author studied the information pertinent to the case that was available at the time, and this book is considered one of the first sources to cite the case files. Read the book → Knives in Dyatlov group Roman (aka Hunter) is doing some deep diving into the bottomless subject of the knives that the Dyatlov group brought or didn't bring with them. In the center of the problem is always the fact that on the trek photos we see knives that then are not mentioned in the case files. The author calls his article "debunking of myths surrounding the Dyatlov group knives". The conclusions are addressing years of rumors, some having started before the case files were even available. Now that we have more information, is the picture becoming any clearer? Decide for yourself → Vladimir Askinadzi interview 2025 Vladimir Mihaylovich Askinadzi, a resident of Sevastopol, is 88 years old. He is the only surviving direct participant in the May search for the Dyatlov group (the search for the missing hikers continued several months, starting in February 1959). It was Askinadzi who found the body of Lyudmila Dubinina, next to which there were three more corpses. We met with Vladimir Mihaylovich to learn first-hand the details of the discovery of the last four and to discuss previously unknown photographs of the den and the excavation site of the corpses recently found in a private archive. Keep reading → 100 questions to Yuri Yudin Yuri Yudin passed away on 27 April 2013 at the age of 75 from rheumatic heart disease. Till the very end, researchers obsessed with the case were trying to come up with the right questions to ask. They gathered 100 questions. What would you want to ask the only "survivor" from the Dyatlov Pass incident? He didn't actually survive the incident; he turned back from the trek due to a chronic disease that flared up. He was one of the last to learn his friends had died since he went to his village, Emelyashevka, to spend the remaining of the break from classes, and the investigation found him there and flew him straight to Ivdel to identify the bodies. Keep reading → 2013 interview with members of the 1959 search This brief interview sparked a long-standing controversy about the stove and whether firewood had been discovered in the tent. I will follow up with an overview of the sources, who said what, and a startling conclusion. To me, these "unsensational" interviews contain the details that can break the case. There are so many missing pieces. Where did they all go? Searchers: There were 3 flasks found in the tent including the one with alchohol that Slobtsov group drank. Question: But the materials of the Criminal Case do not describe any hot water bottles? Askinadzi: The materials of the Criminal Case do not describe a lot of things! Keep reading → New photographs from 1959 How often do we get new information on a 66 years cold case? They made me revise the order of the search photos and also seek answers to questions I didn't know I had. My own take is that putting the pieces of the puzzle in their correct place not only helps paint the big picture but also saves us from drawing ridiculous conclusions. Keep reading → Please check the new revised order of the search photos. The Mansi Trace - part 1 Maya Piskareva, 4 March 2015 Maya Piskareva's specialty is to find and talk to people who have connections to the Dyatlov Pass. In a series of interviews, she gathers valuable information about the Mansi. This knowledge is important because the events took place in their habitat, and knowing more about their customs, belongings, livelihood, and folklore can help spot their presence in the taiga and role in the tragedy. Maya Piskareva concludes that the Mansi people are capable of killing. Read the article → Vladimir Androsov Maya Piskareva, 25 May 2012 This is a very interesting interview, a must read. Everythin

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