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Transcript

The Russian Death March · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Today's story is about an event that was so horrifying
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Speaker 1: the one person who survived it couldn't speak when she
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Speaker 1: finally stumbled, bloody and terrified out.
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Speaker 2: Of the forest.
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Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
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Speaker 1: of our weekly uploads. All right, let's get into today's story.
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Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety three, Ludmila Corrovina, who was a forty
0:53
Speaker 1: one year old Russian hiking instructor, came under fairly intense
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Speaker 1: criticism from her colleagues for being two survivalists with her students.
1:02
Speaker 1: They thought she was a little bit too aggressive with
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Speaker 1: how she pushed her students, putting them in unnecessarily risky
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Speaker 1: situations out in the wild where they weren't really ready
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Speaker 1: for it, and at any point she might push them
1:13
Speaker 1: too far and wind up getting someone killed.
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Speaker 2: Her students, however, absolutely adored her. They said.
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Speaker 1: On the mountains she was fearless and in tune with nature,
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Speaker 1: and they felt very safe around her. And then at
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Speaker 1: camp she was very motherly and tender and always took
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Speaker 1: the time to make sure all of her students were
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Speaker 1: taken care of well before she was Former students had
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Speaker 1: said the mentorship they received from Ludmila went well beyond
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Speaker 1: just hiking instruction. They said she taught a mindset that
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Speaker 1: they carried with them into adulthood, and they pointed to
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Speaker 1: as one of the main reasons they were successful later
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Speaker 1: in life. In the summer of nineteen ninety three, Ludmila
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Speaker 1: was scheduled to lead an expedition up to the Hamar
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Speaker 1: Devon Ridge, which is in eastern Siberia and it's one
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Speaker 1: of the oldest mountains on the planet. With her on
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Speaker 1: this expedition would be six fairly experienced hiking students that
2:00
Speaker 1: ranged in ages from fifteen to twenty four years old.
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Speaker 1: One of those six students was a twenty three year
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Speaker 1: old young man named Sasha, who, although he was not
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Speaker 1: Ludmila's biological son.
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Speaker 2: She called him her son because she.
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Speaker 1: Had raised him ever since he was a young child,
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Speaker 1: and he looked at Ludmila as his mother. Sasha also
2:17
Speaker 1: happened to be the most physically fit and competent of
2:21
Speaker 1: all six hiking students, and he would function more like
2:24
Speaker 1: an assistant to Ludmila on this particular.
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Speaker 2: Hike rather than a pupil.
2:28
Speaker 1: The other five students were a twenty four year old Tatiana,
2:31
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Dennis, sixteen year old Victoria, fifteen year
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Speaker 1: old Timoor, and seventeen year old Valentina, who she is
2:39
Speaker 1: the only reason we know anything about the horrible things
2:42
Speaker 1: that happened to.
2:43
Speaker 2: This group up on Hamar Devon Ridge.
2:45
Speaker 1: On August first, nineteen ninety three, Ludmila and her hiking
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Speaker 1: group boarded a Trans Siberian Railway car in Kazakhstan, and
2:53
Speaker 1: later that day they arrived in a town called Marino,
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Speaker 1: which is on the eastern side of Siberia on the
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Speaker 1: southern end, and it butts up against the base of
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Speaker 1: the Hamardban Mountain range. The Hamardban Mountain was not considered
3:05
Speaker 1: a very dangerous hike to make.
3:07
Speaker 2: It was relatively small.
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Speaker 1: It was just under twenty four hundred meters in elevation,
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Speaker 1: and in the summertime, you'd have scores of recreational hikers
3:14
Speaker 1: all over this mountain range. Plus the weather forecast for
3:17
Speaker 1: Ludmila and her group's multi day hike in that mountain
3:20
Speaker 1: range was going to be incredibly favorable.
3:22
Speaker 2: It was going to be warm, clear, nice summer weather.
3:25
Speaker 1: Ludmila had charted a course that began just outside of
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Speaker 1: the town of Marino, which is the town they were
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Speaker 1: staying in that first night. They were going to start
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Speaker 1: next to Lake Baikal, which is the deepest lake in Russia.
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Speaker 2: From the lake, they.
3:36
Speaker 1: Were going to move north and inland over this stretch
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Speaker 1: that was totally barren. There was no trees, with just
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Speaker 1: rocks and grass before ultimately reaching the Hammar d'bon Ridge,
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Speaker 1: which was their destination, and at that point there would
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Speaker 1: be shelter and firewood and they could take a break
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Speaker 1: before ultimately descending. And so in total, from the lake
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Speaker 1: all the way to Hammar d'bon Ridge was approximately fifty miles.
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Speaker 1: Ludmila's group would not be the only group making this
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Speaker 1: particular movement towards Hamardabon Ridge, they'd be taking their own path,
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Speaker 1: but there'd be two other groups that were on similar
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Speaker 1: courses basically parallel to them, making their way up to
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Speaker 1: the ridge. And one of those groups was actually led
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Speaker 1: by Ludmila's sixteen year old biological daughter, and they had
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Speaker 1: actually made plans to meet up on one of the
4:19
Speaker 1: last days of.
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Speaker 2: This multi day hike.
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Speaker 1: As they were making their descent, there was a forest
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Speaker 1: they were going to meet up in, so Ludmila and
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Speaker 1: her six students stayed the night in Marino and the
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Speaker 1: next morning they got up early and made.
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Speaker 2: Their way over to Lake Baikal. The weather's beautiful.
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Speaker 1: They're excited to start their journey, and they'd take off
4:35
Speaker 1: and everything was going great until the late afternoon. It
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Speaker 1: would turn out the weather forecasters were just completely wrong,
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Speaker 1: and as soon as the group climbed above the tree line,
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Speaker 1: the temperatures plummeted and it started raining and snowing on them.
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Speaker 2: It was just absolutely miserable.
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Speaker 1: This treacherous weather would persist over the next few days
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Speaker 1: and it really started to destroy the morale.
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Speaker 2: In the group.
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Speaker 1: But Ludmila, she was a pro, and she had hiked
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Speaker 1: in far worse can conditions than this, and so she
5:01
Speaker 1: made a point of telling the group that this stuff happens,
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Speaker 1: bad weather happens. We are prepared, we are trained, We're
5:08
Speaker 1: going to be fine. You need to have a positive
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Speaker 1: attitude about this. We need to just keep pushing forward
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Speaker 1: and not play a victim here. And that was enough
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Speaker 1: to inspire the group to just keep on going. You know,
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Speaker 1: they believed in Ludmilla and she's telling them to keep going.
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Speaker 2: So they kept going.
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Speaker 1: By the evening of August fourth, so this is three
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Speaker 1: full days of hiking later, they were only about thirty minutes.
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Speaker 2: Away from the summit.
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Speaker 1: They have now reached the point where they are in
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Speaker 1: the open section of the mountain where there is no
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Speaker 1: reprieve from the wind or the rain or the snow.
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Speaker 1: There's no trees to block anything, and so it's just
5:40
Speaker 1: an absolute abomination trying to climb this last stretch. Every
5:44
Speaker 1: step is like an eternity as the wind just cuts
5:47
Speaker 1: through their clothes and they're soaking, wet and miserable. Ludmilla's
5:50
Speaker 1: students were not about to ask for a break. They
5:52
Speaker 1: knew how she operated. She was someone that really believed
5:55
Speaker 1: in pushing through your own pain and fatigue and misery,
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Speaker 1: and she always led by example, and they saw her,
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Speaker 1: you know, right out in front leading the charge up
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Speaker 1: towards the Hamardbon Ridge, and so they were very surprised
6:08
Speaker 1: when she stopped and she turned around and told them
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Speaker 1: we're taking a break, and in fact, we're actually going
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Speaker 1: to camp out for the night right where we are,
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Speaker 1: right here. No one knows why lude Mila made this decision.
6:18
Speaker 1: You know, on the one hand, it does make sense
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Speaker 1: to take a break and say, you know what, we'll
6:22
Speaker 1: reach the summit tomorrow. We've had a really hard couple
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Speaker 1: of days here with the bad weather. We'll make camp
6:28
Speaker 1: and we'll get some rest and we'll hit the summit tomorrow.
6:31
Speaker 2: That makes sense. But where she elected to make camp
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Speaker 2: does not make sense. She had them stop right.
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Speaker 1: Smack dab in the middle of this totally open section
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Speaker 1: of the mountain where there are no trees, there's no
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Speaker 1: objects to protect them from the horrible wind and snow
6:46
Speaker 1: and ice and rain that's just going to be pelting
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Speaker 1: them all night. And so some people have speculated that
6:51
Speaker 1: when she looked at her crew of hikers, they were
6:54
Speaker 1: so badly beaten down and tired and miserable that she
6:57
Speaker 1: knew she could not ask them to go any further,
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Speaker 1: and so that was why she said, let's just make
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Speaker 1: camp here, will make do.
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Speaker 2: Others have said her map may not have been very.
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Speaker 1: Accurate, and so she didn't know how close she was
7:08
Speaker 1: to the summit, where at the summit there was literally
7:11
Speaker 1: a shelter that had firewood in a place for you
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Speaker 1: to rest. Maybe she didn't know she was so close.
7:16
Speaker 1: Perhaps she thought she was much farther away, and this
7:18
Speaker 1: is the best we can do. But what the inaccurate
7:21
Speaker 1: map theory does not account for is Ludmila would have
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Speaker 1: known there is a forest about two and a half
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Speaker 1: miles down the mountain, because the whole time they'd been
7:29
Speaker 1: on this hike, they'd tried to stay up above the
7:31
Speaker 1: tree line as they make this final approach up to
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Speaker 1: the ridge, and so she would have known there's a
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Speaker 1: forest strike down there, and if I wanted to, I
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Speaker 1: could go down there and seek shelter in the trees.
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Speaker 1: And so for whatever reason, she decided that we can't
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Speaker 1: go down to the forest.
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Speaker 2: We've got to stay here.
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Speaker 1: And so perhaps that lends more credibility to the idea
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Speaker 1: that the group was far more beaten down than maybe
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Speaker 1: we even realize, and she thought, they can't make the.
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Speaker 2: Two and a half mile journey. We're going to have
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Speaker 2: to just make camp.
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Speaker 1: Here and make de But regardless of her reasoning, they
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Speaker 1: did make camp right in the middle of this open section.
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Speaker 2: They set up two wet, crappy.
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Speaker 1: Tents and they used their little kerosene stoves to make
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Speaker 1: a tiny meal, and then they all crammed inside of
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Speaker 1: these two tents and huddle as the wind howled outside.
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Speaker 2: That night, the storm got much worse.
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Speaker 1: The wind picked up, and again they're totally exposed on
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Speaker 1: this open section of the mountain, and so they're just
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Speaker 1: getting destroyed by this wind. And at about two am,
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Speaker 1: the wind actually broke the ropes that were holding the
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Speaker 1: tents down, and they did go outside and retie them,
8:29
Speaker 1: and they were able to do that. And then a
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Speaker 1: couple hours later, at about four am, the wind actually
8:33
Speaker 1: lifted up the section of the tent that was facing
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Speaker 1: where the wind was blowing, and it pulled the tent
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Speaker 1: up in such a way that water rushed into the
8:40
Speaker 1: tent and soaked their sleeping bags, and they were able
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Speaker 1: to go outside and they put the stakes back down
8:46
Speaker 1: in the ground. But you know, they were sleeping in
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Speaker 1: wet sleeping bags in the middle of this mountain, in
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Speaker 1: the middle of the storm.
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Speaker 2: So this is getting quite dangerous at this point.
8:53
Speaker 1: But they were able to eventually fall asleep, and at
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Speaker 1: about ten am the next morning, Ludmila gets up and
8:58
Speaker 1: looks outside and she can see that everything's frozen, that
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Speaker 1: it snowed, and the temperatures have dropped again, and everything
9:04
Speaker 1: is just snow and ice, and she knows that, you know,
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Speaker 1: we're actually reaching very dangerous hypothermia territory and if we
9:12
Speaker 1: don't warm up soon, this.
9:13
Speaker 2: Could be life threatening.
9:14
Speaker 1: And so she woke everybody up and she said, we
9:16
Speaker 1: need to go down into that forest and we need
9:18
Speaker 1: to start a fire as soon as possible. And so
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Speaker 1: everybody said all right, they got up, they started packing
9:23
Speaker 1: up their things, rolled up their tents, and they began
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Speaker 1: walking down the mountain in a line.
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Speaker 2: Although this was not intended.
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Speaker 1: When Ludmila had said we will reach the summit tomorrow,
9:32
Speaker 1: that had delayed their schedule and it meant they were
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Speaker 1: not going to be able to meet up with her
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Speaker 1: daughter the next day. But now in the morning, when
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Speaker 1: they're deciding basically to abandon the summit and turn around
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Speaker 1: and head down again. They were now back on schedule
9:45
Speaker 1: to meet up with her daughter down in the forest.
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Speaker 2: However, her daughter said she was at the.
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Speaker 1: Rendezvous point in the forest and Ludmila and the six
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Speaker 1: other hikers never showed. Four days later, on August ninth,
9:56
Speaker 1: a group of Ukrainian kayakers were making their way down
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Speaker 1: this river and south in Siberia, and they were passing
10:02
Speaker 1: by the.
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Speaker 2: Hamara Deban mountain range.
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Speaker 1: And so as they're kind of slowly moving their way down,
10:06
Speaker 1: it's this beautiful morning and they're looking up at the
10:08
Speaker 1: mountains all around them. The leader of this group happens
10:11
Speaker 1: to see something move on his left side. There's a
10:14
Speaker 1: forest right up against the left side of this river,
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Speaker 1: and he turns his head and he has to do
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Speaker 1: a double take because there is this girl who's standing
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Speaker 1: there at the edge of the forest looking out at them,
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Speaker 1: totally expressionless, and she's covered in blood and she's not
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Speaker 1: doing anything. She's just standing there. And at first he
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Speaker 1: actually thought like, we need to leave. His first thought
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Speaker 1: was we need to just get away from this person.
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Speaker 1: There's something wrong with this person. But very quickly the
10:38
Speaker 1: group realized like, we cannot abandon this girl. This is
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Speaker 1: a young girl who should not be out here.
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Speaker 2: I don't know what she's doing out here.
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Speaker 1: And so they turned around and they went on shore
10:48
Speaker 1: and they yelled to her and they said are you okay?
10:50
Speaker 1: And she just stood there, not reacting.
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Speaker 2: And they tried a couple more times to say, you know, hey,
10:55
Speaker 2: we're not going to hurt you.
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Speaker 1: We just want to know what's going on. And she
10:58
Speaker 1: didn't say a word, stood there in shock. She looked
11:02
Speaker 1: very scared. They finally got up right next to her
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Speaker 1: and they asked her, you know, what are you so
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Speaker 1: scared of? Where are you coming from? And they just
11:09
Speaker 1: could not get her to speak. But they're up close looking.
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Speaker 2: At her, and you know, she's got blood all over her.
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Speaker 2: She looks dirty, she looks like she might be sick.
11:17
Speaker 1: And so they decide that, you know, this girl needs help,
11:19
Speaker 1: and they had blankets, and so they threw blankets over her.
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Speaker 2: They put her in one of the kayaks and they
11:24
Speaker 2: brought her back to town.
11:25
Speaker 1: Once in town, the Ukrainian kayakers went and got authorities
11:28
Speaker 1: and said, hey, we found this girl. You know, she
11:30
Speaker 1: was covered in blood walking out of the forest. We
11:32
Speaker 1: have no idea what's going on with her, And so
11:34
Speaker 1: authorities came over to speak to her, and although she
11:37
Speaker 1: barely spoke, she would finally say that she was seventeen
11:40
Speaker 1: years old, her name was Valentina yo Tachenko, and that
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Speaker 1: she had been a part of a seven person hiking
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Speaker 1: group up along the Hamar Deban Ridge. And then she paused,
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Speaker 1: and they said, both, where's your hiking group?
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Speaker 2: How did you get separated?
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Speaker 1: This is what she told them back on the morning
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Speaker 1: of August fifth, So this would have been the morning
11:57
Speaker 1: after that terrible night's sleep on the mountain where the
12:00
Speaker 1: tent ropes are breaking and their sleeping bags are getting
12:02
Speaker 1: soaking wet. Well, Valentina wakes up and she looks outside
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Speaker 1: of the tent and she sees Ludmila and she's standing
12:08
Speaker 1: there with her hands on her hips and she's looking around.
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Speaker 2: She looks very concerned.
12:12
Speaker 1: Valentina goes out there, and Ludmila turns to her and says,
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Speaker 1: we need to leave.
12:16
Speaker 2: We need to go down to the forest and we
12:17
Speaker 2: need to make a fire. Can you help me wake
12:19
Speaker 2: everybody up and start having them pack up their stuff
12:22
Speaker 2: so we can get moving. So Valentina goes in.
12:24
Speaker 1: She starts waking people up, and everybody very quickly packs
12:27
Speaker 1: up the tent, packs up their things, and they're in
12:29
Speaker 1: a line and they start walking.
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Speaker 2: Down the mountain. They had only made it about ten
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Speaker 2: meters into their.
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Speaker 1: Descent when Sasha, the twenty three year old young man
12:37
Speaker 1: that Ludmila considered her son, he just suddenly falls, and
12:40
Speaker 1: the other hikers, Valentina included, run over and they help.
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Speaker 2: Get him up again, and he looks kind of shaken.
12:46
Speaker 1: He takes a couple more steps and he falls again,
12:48
Speaker 1: and this time, when Valentina goes over to try to
12:51
Speaker 1: help him up with the others, they see his eyes
12:53
Speaker 1: are wide and he looks like he's really terrified, and
12:56
Speaker 1: then blood starts rushing out of his nose and his
12:58
Speaker 1: ears and his mouth, and then he just suddenly dies.
13:01
Speaker 2: And Ludmila runs.
13:03
Speaker 1: Over and she grabs him and she's panicking and she's
13:05
Speaker 1: trying to feel for a pulse and she's checking for
13:07
Speaker 1: his heart and then she screams out in pain and anguish,
13:10
Speaker 1: and she yells he's dead.
13:12
Speaker 2: The other hikers can't believe this is happening. They can't
13:15
Speaker 2: even process that someone any of them had died let alone.
13:18
Speaker 2: It be Sasha, the most physically fit and healthy one
13:22
Speaker 2: of all of them, including up until a few minutes ago.
13:25
Speaker 2: He wasn't showing any signs or symptoms that something was wrong.
13:28
Speaker 1: He was perfectly fine. What's going on? Ludmila was in shock.
13:32
Speaker 1: She's on the ground and she's holding onto Sasha, and
13:34
Speaker 1: she's telling the group that she's not going anywhere.
13:36
Speaker 2: She's staying with Sasha.
13:38
Speaker 1: And Valentina would say, the group is just falling apart
13:40
Speaker 1: at this point. You have some of them that are crying,
13:43
Speaker 1: others who are just standing there looking around, like, what's
13:45
Speaker 1: happening to us right now? And at some point Ludmilla
13:48
Speaker 1: collects herself and she says to the group, go down
13:50
Speaker 1: to the forest, go down to the forest and start
13:53
Speaker 1: a fire. And Valentina said they didn't want to leave her,
13:55
Speaker 1: and they were pleading with her to let them stay,
13:57
Speaker 1: and she said, no, go down to the forest and
14:00
Speaker 1: start a fire. And finally Valentina said the group would
14:03
Speaker 1: they'd get together and they'd turn around, and not really
14:06
Speaker 1: knowing what was going to happen next, they just begin
14:08
Speaker 1: walking down this mountain and they only get a few
14:11
Speaker 1: steps before they hear Ludmilla yell out to come back.
14:14
Speaker 2: She's saying, I.
14:14
Speaker 1: Can't move, and they turn around and Valentina was towards
14:18
Speaker 1: the front of the returning group as they're going back
14:20
Speaker 1: up the mountain back to Ludmila, and she's now bleeding
14:23
Speaker 1: out of her nose and her ears and her mouth,
14:26
Speaker 1: and she's heaving like something's going on inside of her.
14:29
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, she keels over on.
14:30
Speaker 2: Top of Sasha and she dies right in front of them.
14:34
Speaker 1: And now now the group is in hysterics, and Valentina
14:38
Speaker 1: is in the front and she can't see anybody else,
14:40
Speaker 1: and then she turns around. Then she can't believe what
14:42
Speaker 1: she's seeing. To her side, now everybody else is bleeding
14:46
Speaker 1: from their nose and their ears and their mouth, and
14:48
Speaker 1: some of them are frothing from the mouth. Valentina reached
14:51
Speaker 1: for her mouth and her ears and her nose to
14:53
Speaker 1: look for blood, and there wasn't any. And then she
14:54
Speaker 1: turned and she saw sixteen year old Victoria and twenty
14:57
Speaker 1: four year old Tatiana suddenly fall to the ground, just
15:00
Speaker 1: like Sasha had, except they weren't just laying there.
15:03
Speaker 2: They began rolling around and ripping.
15:05
Speaker 1: Their clothes off and clutching at their throats and they're
15:08
Speaker 1: frothing at the mouth, and so Valentina reaches down to
15:11
Speaker 1: try to help Victoria, the sixteen year old, and Victoria
15:14
Speaker 1: bites her on the hand that she pulls her hand back,
15:17
Speaker 1: and then Victoria curls into a ball and then goes still,
15:20
Speaker 1: and then Tatiana begins hitting her head on a rock
15:23
Speaker 1: over and over and over.
15:24
Speaker 2: Again until she goes still.
15:26
Speaker 1: At this point, Valentina is in pure survival mode, and
15:29
Speaker 1: so she looks at the other two, which was fifteen
15:31
Speaker 1: year old Timmer and nineteen year old Dennis. Everybody else
15:33
Speaker 1: is down on the ground at this point, and she
15:35
Speaker 1: sees Dennis is moving behind a rock and he looks
15:38
Speaker 1: like he's not acting as erratic as everybody else, and
15:41
Speaker 1: so she starts making her way over to Dennis to
15:43
Speaker 1: see if he's going to be okay, and on the way,
15:46
Speaker 1: she sees fifteen year old Timmer fall to the ground
15:48
Speaker 1: and he's suddenly lying there still, and so she believes
15:51
Speaker 1: he's dead too. She gets over to Dennis and he's
15:53
Speaker 1: bleeding profusely from all of his orifices in his head,
15:56
Speaker 1: but he's talking to her, and he's saying, Okay, you
15:59
Speaker 1: need to go back to your bag, get out whatever
16:01
Speaker 1: you can that is essential. Ditch the rest and run
16:04
Speaker 1: down to the forest and I'll meet you down there.
16:06
Speaker 1: And so Valentina says, okay. She makes her way up
16:08
Speaker 1: to her bag, She gets her sleeping bag and a
16:10
Speaker 1: couple of her small items, and when she turns around
16:12
Speaker 1: to go back to Denis, she sees that he's now
16:15
Speaker 1: slouched over his backpack, and now the blood is just
16:17
Speaker 1: pouring out of his head and she can tell that
16:19
Speaker 1: almost certainly he's dead as well. And so not only
16:22
Speaker 1: is she all alone, she's now totally traumatized and believes
16:26
Speaker 1: whatever has happened to them is going to happen to her.
16:29
Speaker 1: And so she runs down the mountain and she goes
16:31
Speaker 1: into the forest and she gets underneath this rock overhang.
16:35
Speaker 1: She puts her sleeping bag down, she crawls inside, and
16:38
Speaker 1: she drifts in and out of consciousness for the rest
16:40
Speaker 1: of the day. And then that night she's still laying there,
16:44
Speaker 1: and the storm picked up dramatically, and she could hear
16:47
Speaker 1: all night these huge trees all over the mountain falling
16:50
Speaker 1: and slain all around her, and so she's thinking, if
16:53
Speaker 1: I don't die from whatever killed my friends, I'm going
16:56
Speaker 1: to get hip up one of these trees.
16:57
Speaker 2: But she manages to get through the night.
16:59
Speaker 1: The next the storm had cleared, and so Valentina gets
17:03
Speaker 1: up and she's thinking to herself, maybe, by some miracle,
17:07
Speaker 1: one of them is still alive, and so she climbs
17:10
Speaker 1: back up the mountain to where they were, and she
17:12
Speaker 1: finds all of them still laying exactly where they were
17:15
Speaker 1: when she left them, all motionless, all deceased, and so
17:19
Speaker 1: she decides to go one by one and close each
17:21
Speaker 1: of their eyelids, and then she says her goodbye, and
17:24
Speaker 1: then she turns and kind of wanders back into the forest,
17:27
Speaker 1: where she would stay for the next four days, desperately
17:31
Speaker 1: walking around hoping to be rescued at some point, the
17:34
Speaker 1: whole time just expecting to die, either from exposure, from
17:39
Speaker 1: an animal attack, from whatever killed my friends. Eventually she
17:42
Speaker 1: does hear voices and she starts making her way towards
17:45
Speaker 1: where they're coming from, and that's when she gets to
17:47
Speaker 1: the river and she sees the Ukrainian kayakers, who ultimately
17:51
Speaker 1: pick her up and bring her back to town after
17:53
Speaker 1: authorities heard Valentina's story and realized there were other hikers
17:56
Speaker 1: out there. They launched a search party and it would
17:59
Speaker 1: take them home month to locate them. Their bodies were
18:02
Speaker 1: contorted and their faces were locked in these these grimaces
18:06
Speaker 1: that looked like they were in absolute terror and agony
18:09
Speaker 1: right as they died. In addition to missing most of
18:12
Speaker 1: their clothing and their shoes, they were also all missing
18:15
Speaker 1: their eyeballs. The autopsies were only able to conclude that
18:18
Speaker 1: hypothermia contributed to their death, although it wasn't the only factor,
18:22
Speaker 1: as well as a protein deficiency, despite the fact that
18:25
Speaker 1: they had all eaten well over the course of their
18:27
Speaker 1: trip and that all of their lungs were very bruised,
18:30
Speaker 1: but they didn't know what that was from. But nothing
18:32
Speaker 1: the autopsy concluded could reconcile what Valentina said she saw happen,
18:37
Speaker 1: which was a sudden, violent death of six healthy people
18:42
Speaker 1: with no signs and symptoms leading up. Suddenly they are
18:45
Speaker 1: bleeding out of every orifice and they're falling to the ground,
18:48
Speaker 1: tearing their clothes off, grabbing at their throats, frothing at
18:51
Speaker 1: the mouth, and then dying. And whatever happened to them,
18:54
Speaker 1: why didn't it happen to Valentina. To this day, we
18:57
Speaker 1: don't really have a good answer why that happened, and
18:59
Speaker 1: the cases clothed, it was ruled they mostly died of
19:02
Speaker 1: hypothermia and it was an accident and that's that. But
19:05
Speaker 1: this isn't the first time something like this has happened
19:07
Speaker 1: in Russia. In nineteen fifty nine, nine very experienced Russian
19:11
Speaker 1: hikers set off on a sixteen day expedition into the
19:15
Speaker 1: Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union, and about ten days
19:18
Speaker 1: into their hike, they reached a part where they needed
19:20
Speaker 1: to crest over this mountain before some bad weather rolled in,
19:24
Speaker 1: and they started moving up this mountain, which would be
19:26
Speaker 1: renamed the Dyatlav Pass after the leader of this group.
19:29
Speaker 2: His name is D'atlav. They started making their way up
19:32
Speaker 2: the Dayatlav Pass and they were going too slowly and
19:34
Speaker 2: the weather was coming in too quickly, and so they
19:36
Speaker 2: had to make a critical decision stay put. But being
19:40
Speaker 2: this totally exposed open mountain face.
19:43
Speaker 1: Much like the Hamar debaand situation where they were up
19:45
Speaker 1: on that open mountain face either hunkered down there and
19:48
Speaker 1: get ruined by weather. And the weather was a lot
19:51
Speaker 1: worse for the dayatlav Pass group, it was you know,
19:53
Speaker 1: sub zero temperatures and just snowing ruthlessly. Or they could
19:57
Speaker 1: go down and give up ground and go down into
20:00
Speaker 1: the forest at the base of this mountain where you'd
20:02
Speaker 1: be sheltered from the storm with some trees. And so
20:05
Speaker 1: these hikers, who might be a little bit overconfident in
20:07
Speaker 1: their ability, decide to stick it out right on this
20:10
Speaker 1: mountain face. And over the course of that night, at
20:13
Speaker 1: some point they cut open their tent with a knife
20:16
Speaker 1: from the inside and ran out into sub zero temperatures,
20:20
Speaker 1: most of them not wearing shoes, not wearing jackets, not
20:23
Speaker 1: wearing pants, they're basically an underwear. And they calmly walked
20:28
Speaker 1: down the mountain all the way down to the forest.
20:31
Speaker 1: And once they got down there, two of them tried
20:33
Speaker 1: to desperately climb this big tree where there wasn't any
20:37
Speaker 1: low hanging branches and so they couldn't climb up it.
20:39
Speaker 1: We don't know what they were trying to climb up
20:41
Speaker 1: at four, but they ended up building this little tiny
20:44
Speaker 1: fire that could not have provided very much warmth at all,
20:47
Speaker 1: and they were found de ceased lying around this fire.
20:50
Speaker 1: The seven other hikers were found in two different areas.
20:53
Speaker 1: One that appeared to go down to that tree where
20:56
Speaker 1: those two were, but then doubled back and tried to
20:58
Speaker 1: get up to the campsite, but didn't make and fell
21:00
Speaker 1: to the ground and died there. The other group was
21:03
Speaker 1: not found for a couple of weeks later. They were
21:05
Speaker 1: found at the mouth of this river. They were inside
21:08
Speaker 1: of this den, and they were wearing the clothes of
21:11
Speaker 1: the other hikers that were deceased, and the clothes they
21:14
Speaker 1: had on had traces of radiation on them. And the
21:17
Speaker 1: ones that were in the den had these devastating chest
21:20
Speaker 1: and skull injuries, and one of them was missing their eyeballs.
21:23
Speaker 1: And the official statement by the Soviet Union was they
21:27
Speaker 1: died from an unknown compelling force, which is a really
21:31
Speaker 1: mysterious way to describe how someone might die. This case
21:34
Speaker 1: was actually reinvestigated in twenty twenty and the new cause
21:38
Speaker 1: of death is death by avalanche, except loads of people
21:42
Speaker 1: disagree with that. In fact, experts have gone out to
21:45
Speaker 1: where this happened and they say, not only was there
21:48
Speaker 1: no avalanche, there's never been an avalanche in this area.
21:52
Speaker 2: There's literally never been one.
21:53
Speaker 1: So what do you think is there a connection between
21:56
Speaker 1: Hamardaban and the Diatla pass incident. Is there a cover
21:59
Speaker 1: up in both cases where something far more sinister has
22:01
Speaker 1: happened to both groups that we don't know about, or
22:05
Speaker 1: are they unrelated? And these are just both examples of
22:07
Speaker 1: Mother Nature being far more powerful than we even realize.
22:11
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22:12
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22:13
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