Free Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar

at Kuntsevich’s apartment, I was greeted by the familiar odor of fossil fuel. Inside the apartment, Olga was awake and preparing breakfast for us. Her face brightened when we entered, and after a warm hug, she was ready with an English greeting: “Good to see you again” and “You are like family.” She had clearly been practicing.
    I swapped my shoes for rubber slippers, and within five minutes of our arrival the three of us were seated around the compact kitchen table. The space was so cozy that Olga didn’t have to getup from her chair to serve the food from the counter or stove. She simply swiveled and grabbed what she needed. Russian political radio filled the air as we ate chicken wrapped in foil, with potatoes, cabbage and sour cream.
    As we neared the end of the meal, Olga surprised me with yet more of her English vocabulary. I was touched by her efforts, and was starting to feel ashamed that I hadn’t learned more Russian. But I quickly forgot my guilt when I understood what she was trying to communicate in her earnest, overenunciated English. She and her husband, she said, had a guest staying downstairs in the spare apartment. He had arrived the previous day. The guest was Yuri Yudin.



8
    2012
    KUNTSEVICH AND I HEADED DOWN TO THE LOWER FLAT , where Yuri Yudin was staying. I’d spent time in the unit on my first visit, and had come to think of it, in its role as the Dyatlov Foundation offices, as “ground zero” for the case. Now, as Kuntsevich unlocked the door, I saw the main room’s assemblage of evidence through the eyes of Yudin: the cracked bamboo ski poles, Zorki 35mm cameras, clothing, tent materials, drawers of case files, maps, as well as scores of photos from the 1959 rescue effort. I wondered how he felt about sleeping here, among the belongings of his fallen comrades.
    Kuntsevich went to the corner and roused his guest from his bed on the couch. Yudin arose sleepily and held out his hand in greeting. He stood at about five-foot-seven and had a full head of spiky gray hair. There was something delicate about the way he moved, even for a man in his mid-seventies, reminding me of his various lifelong ailments. We shook hands before he shuffled into the kitchen to make tea.
    I had worried that it might be difficult for him to talk about the tragedy, and indeed, when Yudin returned to the room, my fears were confirmed. Through our translator, he explicitly laid down the rules for our conversation. The focus of the story should not be about him, he said, and everything about the tragedy had already been told. He then turned his clear, slate-blue eyes toward me: “Doyou not have mysteries in your own country that are unsolved?” Of course I did. What could I say? In lieu of an answer, I smiled and suggested we sit down at a table in the center of the room. He picked up my tape recorder and examined it with curiosity. Yudin then told me something that had not occurred to me. Today was February 27, fifty-three years ago to the day that the first bodies of the hikers had been discovered.
    It was Yudin who started with the questions: Which picture do you want to paint? The one rooted in the Revolution, or that of the Iron Curtain? Puzzled, I told him that while the political backdrop of the time certainly interested me, I wasn’t looking for a political angle on the story. But, because he appeared to be expecting me to choose, I stammered something about the Iron Curtain being of interest. This answer appeared to please him and he began.
    Outdoor exploration had been a huge part of young Soviets’ lives in the late ’50s, Yudin said, and hikers like the Dyatlov group had used expeditions to escape the confines of big cities. “After Stalin died,” he said, “things opened up more, and students could go almost anywhere within the country. But we still couldn’t go abroad.” To Yudin and his friends, the next best thing to international travel had been escaping into the wilderness, which held a