Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / The Khamar-Daban Incident

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The Khamar-Daban Incident · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: In August of nineteen ninety three, seven hikers entered the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: remote Kumar de Ban Mountains in Serbia, Russia, only for
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: six of them to suddenly collapse and die on an
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: exposed mountain side. There was, however, a sole survivor who
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: would describe a horrifying scene of convulsions, choking, bizarre behavior,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and even blood, before fleeing into the wilderness alone and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: spending days trying to find her way back to civilization.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: When researchers finally reached the bodies weeks later, the scene
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: waiting for them offered very little answers, and the question
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of what swept through the group so suddenly would prove
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: far more difficult to explain. This is the story that
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: has been nicknamed the Other Dyatlov Pass. This is the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: story of the Kamar Debon incident.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: The following material for audience listener discretion.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Cheers, cheers, Happy Friday.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Happy Friday. So good okay, but before just like going
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: in talking about how good my drink is and your
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: drink is, I've got something to talk about.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Do you?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: I do what the heck is it.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: It's that this is not a true crime case in
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: its typical sense that I'm covering today. I decided to
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: go a little more spooky today because of the spooky
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: season coming up. Dun dunduh.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: It's fast approaching, it really is.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: We have been even getting a couple of little like
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Halloween shopping things going.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Actually the stores are stalked with Halloween stuff already.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and we buy the Century. We got the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: buy of the century of our life, our life. So
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: we found a cast iron Dutch oven. But it's not
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: just a Dutch oven. It is a fucking cauldron. We
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: bought ourselves a cast iron cauldron.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: And it's tiny, home size, like it's perfect exactly.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: So we're pretty freaking stoked. But the thing is, we
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: got it at well it's winners, right, which is it's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: something else home stands for winners whatever, and it is
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: a six court cast iron cauldron. It is so cool.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I looked it up. It's regular like one hundred and
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: fifty ish dollars Canadian. We picked it up for forty.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Thirty nine, nine and nine, right, Yeah, it was. It
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: was awesome.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: It's kind of funny because I saw someone with it
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: walking around the store, and I was like, oh my god,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: that is so cool. Yeah, but I wasn't really thinking.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know, like we already are kind of at
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: our limit for space really right in the tiny hole,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: and so I'm like, yo, Ben's not gonna want this.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: But then we started looking for it. We found one in.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: A teal I think it was teal.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like a sea phone, which.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Was really cool too, and we're like, oh, but the
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: black would be better, and then and then yet, lo
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: and behold there was a black one.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: One more left.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we were we were snatching that up so fast,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: so fast, like.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: How cool is it going to be making chili or
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: soup or something in there.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I gotta season this thing up and I'm going to
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: make the dopest soup we've ever had. Like it's it's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: literally a cauldron, but it doesn't have like the feet though,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: so for like fire, it's a flat bottom like a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Dutch oven would be. Yeah, but it does have like
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the handles you can hanging over a fire still and everything.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, I'm looking at it right now. It's awesome.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: It's so cool, so cool. I am it's the vibe
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I know, right, And I'm a basic white bitch at heart.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Let's be honest here, So it is making making Ben's
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: basic but white bitch on the inside very very happy.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I want to do like a chicken noodle soup or something.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Chicken noodle's the first one you want. Hey, maybe I
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: was thinking almost like a cream based or something like that.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Like maybe, I don't know, I don't know. If you're
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: like a clam chowder person, I can't remember, but if
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you want like a clam chowder in there, maybe, Or
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: we can do like a broccoli cheddar I know we
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: like that, or a split pee and.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: And ham is kind of our jam for soup, yes,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: or stu or whatever. That would be a soup. It's
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: a soupy stu would be good. Okay, holy Honestly, the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: possibilities are just endlessly.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: It's so ending.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I gonna make Fei alfreto in that down just.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Because you can. Anyways, we are going off on this pot.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you guys are enjoying the the beginning of spooky season,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: because officially when September hits here and not too long,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: it's a little over a week away, or is it
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: two weeks, No, a little over a week away. There
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: we go, right, Shit, now you're looking, so it's like
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: less than where's my calendar? I mean, what's the date today?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Twentieth twenty first.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Okay, so it's a little bit more than.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit more Okay, that's what I thought.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: A little bit more than a week away. And then
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: it's officially spooky season starting in September, and then October
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: is just the entire month is Halloween. So how it works,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the entire month, the entire month of October is.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Hell, it's honestly crazy that you even started decorating yet,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: because I know you want.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: To September first. That's when we do it, right, Okay,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: so we'll pull the decorations out here soon, make sure
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: we got everything, but we'll decorate on the first. Okay,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: but I think we've or I've rambled enough. You ready
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: to get into the story?
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: I am ready?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, it's like an intriguing one.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, make sure you put your your thinking
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: cap on, your conspiracy theory helmet on. Okay, you know
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: you're your normal hood, you know your supernatural beret. Make
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: sure they're all at the ready, because you're going to
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: need it for this story, Okay, I'm ready. In the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: summer of nineteen ninety three, the Kamar Deban Mountain range
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: in southern Serbia Russia was not some forbidden or unexplored wilderness,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: stretching across the southern side of Lake Bakal, mostly through
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the Russian Republic and Buryada Range. Well, this area was
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: a very popular destination for hikers. Its mountains were remote
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and the weather could change quickly, but during the summer months,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: tourists regularly traveled through the region. Many organized hiking groups,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and they could all be moving through Kamar de bah
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: at the same time. One of the groups preparing to
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: enter the mountains that August had traveled from Petroval, Kazakhstan.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: They belonged to the Asimut Tourist Club and they were
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: led by forty one year old ludimal Yevona Corvina, an
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: experienced hiking instructor who knew mard Bahd from previous trips. Now,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I do want to clarify there are a lot of
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: different names in different languages here. I'm going to be
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: doing my best, but I apologize in advance for some
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of the ones that I'm inevitably going to butcher. But
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Corvina had earned the title of Master of Sports and Hiking,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: which is a formal sporting distinction that reflected just how
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: experienced she really was. So to put it simply, she
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: was clearly not just an adult accompanying a group of
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: teenagers into the wilderness for the story. Hiking and survival
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: training were a major part of her life.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: That's like a badass title.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Definitely is and now, alongside her skill, Corvina also had
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: a reputation for being a bit demanding. Her approach was
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes described as tough love, and she believed in pushing
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: her students physically, you know, and teaching them how to
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: function in difficult conditions. At the same time, accounts from
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: her students described her as a good teacher who gave
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: them confidence and even practical skills, which is what you
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: want from a teacher and a leader. Now, the group
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: preparing for Kamar de Baan had trained for the trip
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: together for months, with some accounts putting their preparation at
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: even roughly six months in total. They belonged to a
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: hiking club. They regularly went into the mountains and had
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: spent considerable time getting ready for this particular trip. The
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: oldest of Corvina's six students was twenty four year old
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Tatiana Yurevana Filipenko. Now Tatiana was a teacher and worked
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: at the school connected to the hiking club, and though
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: she had outdoor experience, it didn't seem like it was
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a serious amount that she had.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Though.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Alexander Jenendivik Krisin was twenty three and usually known as
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Sasha for everyone traveling with Corvina, Alexander was the one
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: who had a closest relationship with her. He had reportedly
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: joined her hiking club when he was only around the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: age of twelve years old, and continued traveling with her
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: as he grew up, and by nineteen ninety three, Corvina
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: had known him for much of his life and reportedly
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: even thought of him almost as a son, and some
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: accounts also described Alexander as Corvina's deputy on the expedition
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: and one of the most capable hikers within the group.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Next was nineteen year old Dennis Vitrovish Shavakin. Dennis had
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: been involved in the hiking club for quite some time,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: but according to several accounts, he was not originally supposed
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to make this particular trip, another young man had actually
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: dropped out, which left an opening for Dennis to join.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Shortly before they left, his parents were reportedly away actually
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: when he got this opportunity to join the group, though,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And what I found was that Dennis actually just left
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a note behind saying, yeah, hey, I'm going to the mountains.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I'll be back soon.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Dang, that's kind of unsettling. Hey, yeah.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Valentina Udachenko was seventeen. She had hiked with Corvina before
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and was familiar with the way that she prepared her
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: groups for an expedition. Their equipment was planned in detail,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: right down to their shoes and even their underwear, and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: none of Valentina's previous trips with Coravina had ever turned
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: into something like a life threatening situation. She was physically
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: tough and accustomed to hard work from growing up in
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: a village. Sixteen year old Victoria Zlozova, who was often
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: known as Vika, was among the youngest. She had reportedly
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: struggled a bit during the previous winter hikes with Coravina
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and had initially been reluctant to be included in this.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: You know, Corvina looked at her and was like, she's capable,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: but I don't know if she's quite capable enough. However,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: she must have eventually found some sort of confidence in
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: her because she was able to join.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, but I am also just sitting here thinking like
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: they would have needed like parent consent when they have
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, likely, So how did that one just leave
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: a note?
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Well he was nineteen, so he's an adult.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, So okay, still might live at home obviously, but yeah,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: you can make your own decisions.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: I see.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: No, we're kind of going by age here. Some of
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: them are in their twenties. He was nineteen. Yeah, there's
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Valentina was seventeen, this girl sixteen. And the youngest of
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: them was actually Timor Balgabevich Bapanov. He was just fifteen
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: years old. But despite his age, Timur had become someone
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: who had I mean, he was growing up hiking. He
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: was already very comfortable with the mountains, so he was
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: quite capable despite even only being a kid. But assuming that, yeah,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: they probably need consent at that age, I'm sure they did,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: most of them, not necessarily the case. Now, together, though,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the seven were participating in a much larger season of
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: an organized outdoor activity than one one might think. In
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, this was the year of a mass
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: hiking event known as TUEDA, with organized groups registering for
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: their roots with civil defense and emergency authorities. Corvina's group
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: was among those groups taking part. So you have this
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: basically like a big hiking event saying oh, yeah, you know,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: all over this area and stuff like register your hiking
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: groups and go out and enjoy the mountains, the summer,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. Right, So this is a very active
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: hiking area. They're not alone in some out back wilderness
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: area where no one's thinking to be Yeah, it's remote, Yeah,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: it's mountains, it's wild, but they're not alone typically or
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: really to say, like there's other people out there?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Is it sort of like because when we were in
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: grade twelve, we had the or if you were in
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: gym class, you had the opportunity to go to Mount
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Robson with like your class.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Robson's a lot more packed than this would be.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Okay, so not quite as okay, No.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: In this case, you're not really running into other people,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: but other people are out there a few miles away somewhere,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: like you know what I mean. Yeah, Okay, lot more
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: spread out. It's not just one single trail. It's like, oh,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: here's a mountain range where there's several groups hiking. Okay,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Now, they wouldn't exactly be running
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: into people, but that doesn't mean that they're specifically alone
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: to say, because there are other organized hiking groups in
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the area, which actually included another party traveling with Corvina's daughter, Natalia. Now,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the mother and daughter pair had actually arranged for their
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: groups to meet during the expedition, so they had different
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: hikes or routes or whatever they were taking. They were
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: going to meet up at a certain spot at a
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: certain day and then continue on from there. And by
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the beginning of August the preparation was officially over. Corvina
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and her six students traveled to Russia into the small
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: village of Marino at the edge of Kamar de Ban.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Their equipment had been packed, their route was planned, and
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the weather forecast was calling for some rather pleasant conditions,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and on August second, nineteen ninety three, Arvina and her
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: six students began their hike into the Kamardban mountains, with
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Marino serving as the starting point. The expedition was organized
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: with route documentation and an established itinerary. The group was
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to move from Marino into the mountains along the Langoudi River,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: passed through the Lungoudi Gate area, continue across high ground
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and river valleys, and eventually travel towards the ridge system
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: around can Ula and Retrasan Salato. From there, their route
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: would take them towards the Snesnia River basin. The entire
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: planned trek was roughly seventy to eighty kilometers or about
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: forty four to fifty miles in total. Corvina and Natalia's
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: arrangements for their parties were to meet on August fifth,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: where their routes kind of intertwined or crossed or came together.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: That gave Corvina's group a schedule to maintain as they
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: moved through these mountains. But before leaving, the weather fore
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: cast called for generally pleasant summer conditions as I mentioned,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: with either clear skies or some limited rain to be expected,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: but still Camard Deband could be wet very unpredictable in August,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: but there was nothing the forecast to suggest the group
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: was going to face conditions outside what they had trained for,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: and that's the key, even if it was stormy, windy, rainy, wet.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: They've trained for this. They were prepared. Their backpacks weighed
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: about twelve kilograms each and their food allowance was roughly
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: two four hundred calories per person per day. They were
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: carrying tents, sleeping bags, food, navigation equipment, and the usual
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: supplies for multi day mountain roots, making them well prepared
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: regardless of almost anything that they were going to encounter.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Corvina was not known for leisurely hiking, and as the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: group started out, there was nothing unusual about her asking
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: them to cover some serious distance. As I mentioned earlier,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: she kind of had a reputation for being well, for
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: lack of better word, a bit of a hard ass
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: right pushing them. And that's exactly what they prepared to
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: do was cover that ground, cover distance, and go at
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: her pace. And at first it worked. During August second
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and August third, the seven made very good progress. They
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: moved faster than expected, crossing rivers, high grounds, and gaining
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: considerable elevation, and all in all they were very well
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: ahead of the schedule, and the group believed that on
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: August fifth, the rendezvous was very comfortably within their reach.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Then on August fourth, the weather began to change. Rain
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: moved across Kimar de Ban, accompanied by very strong winds
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: at higher elevations. The rain was turning even into snow sleet,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and while visibility just got worse. Corvina's group was traveling
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: across exposed high ground near an area called the Retranslator,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and it was experiencing very heavy rain coming down as
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: they entered it. The seven hikers continued moving for some
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: time despite the weather. Their clothing and equipment were getting
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: wet saturated, their packs were becoming heavier with water. Visibility
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: was deteriorating, and the exposed terrain out in the open
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: on the mountain side offered little protection from the wind.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: The group had already covered considerable distance during the previous
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: two days, and by this point fatigue was becoming a
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: very large factor. At approximately four pm, Corrivina decided they
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: had gone far enough and rather than continued through the storm,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: they were going to stop for the night. Now the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: site that they were at was exposed. There were no
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: trees around the tents, only grass, rocks and open mountain side,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: so the decision to camp here later became one of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the most debated parts of the expedition because better shelter
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: was apparently not far away. Although the surviving accounts disagree
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: significantly on exactly how close it was, some sources do
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: place the tree line it roughly four kilometers just downhill,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: which would have required the exhausted group to continue descending
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: with soaked equipment in this rough weather for much farther.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: That's quite a waste, yes, But another reconstruction of the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: route identified a different option. A shelter or prepared stopping
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: area was near the summit, and it was complete with
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: a place to rest and access food and firewood, and
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: supposedly it was only about thirty minutes away. Vladimir Zarev,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: an experienced traveler who later walked Corvino's route himself, believed
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: inaccurate maps may have helped explain why they stopped where
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: they did. Maps in nineteen ninety three would honestly be
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: reportedly off by as much as one hundred meters, which
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: is a very significant difference when navigating mountain terrain and
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: poor visibility. But whatever corven is reasoning, the group stopped there,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and they erected two tents. Key.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: But when you're I just have to say, when you're exhausted,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: even thirty minutes, like when you're done, I feel like
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: is a lot. Yeah, And if the weather is super horrible,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I just think an extra thirty minutes
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I would probably stop too, to be honest.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, put up a tent, get some shelter, rest,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: try and warm yourself up. All those things are very
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: valid and in poor visibility, and if your map's not
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: working right, not only to mention opening a map on
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a rainy, windy mountain side.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Too well, and like some of them are kids too.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I feel like an extra half an
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: hour when you're done is actually a lot.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, starting a fire here appears to have been
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: very difficult or even impossible. That evening Camardebaud was already
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a damp environment, and now almost everything around them was wet.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: All the while the rain continued, strong wind blew across
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the ridge, and the hiker's clothing and equipment became increasingly
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: more and more soaking wet. At approximately four am on
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: August fifth, lines holding and securing one of the tents
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that they were sleeping in on this mountain side reportedly
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: broke in the strong winds and the hikers had to
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: get up and go repair them. Then, at around six am,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: another stake pulled from the ground, and the tents were
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: being battered again by the strong winds. Each time an
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: incident happened. Their gear, including their sleeping bags, were becoming
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: soaking wet more and more by every moment. By daylight
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: on August fifth, they were cold, their equipment was soaked,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: but they were still functioning as a group. They managed
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: to warm themselves up to some sort of degree despite
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: still being wet and freezing, and they ate breakfast before
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: preparing to move on. Corvina's priority was now getting everyone
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: off the exposed ridge and down towards the trees, so
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the hikers began packing their equipment and readying themselves for
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the descent. At the same time time elsewhere on Cammard
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: de Bah, another group was working towards the rendezvous point
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: that had been planned before the expedition began. Natalia was
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: expecting her mother and her party reached that meeting area
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: on August fifth and waited, but Corvina's group failed to appear.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: As agreed. Now, this wasn't exactly abnormal, though the mountain
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: had just been hit by some serious weather, and an
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: experienced instructor like Corvina had plenty of reasons to slow down,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe stop or even alter her pace. So
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Natalia and her group remained in the area till August sixth,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the next day, before finally continuing on their route, now
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: back at the retranslator area. On the morning of August fifth,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, Corvina's group was still high in that
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: mountain range, somewhere around twenty four hundred meters above sea level,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and now they were finally heading down towards the trees
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: sometime between ten am and eleven thirty am. However, they
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: didn't make it far. They had traveled only approximately ten
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: meters from their campsite when Alexander, who was walking towards
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the rear of the group, suddenly fell. The others came
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: back and helped him to his feet, but Alexander fell again,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: and this time he screamed. What happened over the next
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: several minutes comes almost entirely from Valentina, and that distinction
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: is very important. She was the only member of the
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: group who would survive. What happened next. Alexander reportedly began
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: frothing at the mouth and convulsing heavily. Then after that,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: blood began coming out of his eyes, ears, and nose,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and within minutes the twenty three year old stopped moving.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Coravina instructed the others to continue downwards towards the forest,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: while she remained with Alexander and trying and tried to
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: help him figure out what was going on, right wake
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: him up. The hikers obeyed and started descending, but they'd
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: barely gone anywhere when they heard Corvina calling back to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: them for help. They turned around and saw Corvina now
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: beginning to suffer symptoms just like Alexander had. She was
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: reportedly beginning to froth at the mouth and bleed from
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: her face and convulsing.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: That's a nightmare, what is happening?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Then she collapsed there next to Alexander and wasn't moving either.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Then Tatiana Philipenko twenty four began behaving strangely. She reportedly
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: been among the first to return towards Corvina, and then
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: she suddenly clutched at her throat as though she could
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: not breathe. Then she rushed and moved towards a nearby
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: rock and began striking her head against it over and
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: over and over until she eventually went limp. Then Victoria
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and Timur began heading down the slope. They were in
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a panic, and they soon too began clutching at their throats. Allegedly,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: they even began to tear off and remove their clothing
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and vomiting blood before collapsing to the ground. Coravena quickly
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: managed to instruct Valentina to bring Vika down the mountain,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and Valentina recalled climbing towards her and trying to help her,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: but Vika lashed out and bit her. Valentina nevertheless managed
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to drag her back towards the others. Meanwhile, Dennis reacted differently.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Rather than immediately running, Dennis reportedly hid behind an outcropping
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: of rocks. One account says he tried to climb even
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: into his sleeping bag, apparently attempting to shelter himself from
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: whatever was happening around them. At some point, Valentina checked
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: on Coravina and found that she was no longer breathing,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Tantiana was down, Alexander was motionless, Victoria and Tom had collapsed,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and that left Valentina and Dennis. They tried to get away,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: running together before Valentina saw Dennis too collapse, and he
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: began convulsing and bleeding, just like the others, and now
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Valentina was the only person still on her feet. It
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: all happened so fast. They had been functioning as a
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: regular hiking party with experience and demeanor, and then when
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: they began descending in rapid succession, the people around her
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: became incapacitated, dropping like flies. She did not know what
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: was happening, She did not know whether the same thing
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: was about to happen to her, and there was nobody
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: left to tell her what she should do, so she ran.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Valentina headed downhill away from everybody, continuing until she finally
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: reached the shelter of the trees. By then she had
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: put some distance between herself and the exposed slope where
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the others had collapsed, but she still was alone in
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: an unfamiliar mountain terrain. After an exhausting night and a
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: chaotic morning, there she found shelter, hunk her down in
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the trees, and spent the night. She was cold, wet,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: physically exhausted, and she just gone through an intense period
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: of panic and exertion on the mountain. So there she
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: remained and eventually slept until the following morning.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Well, honestly, that is a worst nightmare. Like, that's not
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: a place where anyone wants to have a freaking medical emergency,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: no kidding. Hiking up a mountain like I don't know.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: That almost just makes me.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Want to like lose it, because what would you even do?
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Not only is it a medical emergency, you have seven
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: people and six of them dropped like that.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're russo probably like what am I next? Too?
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Exactly what's going on? Am I next? Holy shit? Do
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I need to run? Leave? Should I help? Should I stay?
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: You don't know what to do?
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: And honestly, and it seems like it's like a poisoning
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: of sorts or something.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't know. I'll continue listening.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: We will get into theories at the end. Don't worry now.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: When she woke up on August sixth, Valentina was happy
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to still be alive, but she had an immediate problem.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: The food, maps, compass, and most of the group's equipment
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: were still uphill where everyone had collapsed. She had to
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: go back, so she retraced the route towards the place
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: where she had left the others. She reached the slope
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and nobody had moved. They were all still laying right
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: where she left them. They all died laying on that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: mountain side. Now she needed equipment if she's going to
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: find her way out of Camar Deban, so she recovered
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: her backpack, along with a map and compass from the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: group's belongings, and reportedly Corvina was lying there with her
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: eyes open when Valentina caught her vacant gaze. She closed
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: her eyes for her, said her goodbyes to her and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the others. Then Valentina left the slope again began trying
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: to find a route out of the mountains. One of
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the most useful landmarks in the area for her, though,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: was actually not a natural landmark at all. Electrical or
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: relay lines ran across parts of the mountain, and Valentina
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: eventually found them, so rather than continue wanderingly, wandering aimlessly,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: or whatever she needed to do bushwhacking, she followed these
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: poles downhill on the assumption that you know what, infrastructure
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: had to leave somewhere that makes sense, and that decision
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: gave her a path to follow. And when the train
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: itself it offered very little clues otherwise this was her
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: best bet. The route was slow, and forest growth and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: uneven ground made progress very difficult, and she was already
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: tired and underfed, but she was going. She was going
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: until she reached the Snezea River. Now Valentina began following it,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: hoping either to reach people or to encounter tourists traveling
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: on the water, because this was not an unreasonable expectation.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: The Tueda event, the activities that I had mentioned earlier
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: had brought a lot of people to the area, whether
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: it was hikers, fishermen, paddlers in the region, or people
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: on the river itself be going out and kayaking in groups.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: So by this point Valentina had been alone for days.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: But on August ninth, nineteen ninety three, Valentina finally encountered
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: other people, a group of Ukrainian tourists from Kiev who
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: were traveling along the river when they spotted her on
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the bank. One of the men, Alexander Kavitsnitsky, later remembered
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: seeing a girl on shore, waving her arms and screaming
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: with enough urgency that the group immediately knew something was wrong,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and so they turned towards the bank to greet her,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: and as they approached, Valentina rushed towards them and threw
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: herself a against one of the tourists, crying for a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: long time before she was able to even begin to
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: explain what happened, but Alexander remembered her speaking incoherently at first,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: telling them that people had died, and she said that
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: she was frightened, and the group did what they had
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to do. They took her in, They gave her food
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: the medical attention that they could, and they allowed her
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to travel with them as they continued along the river.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Valentina was safe, but it would be several more days
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: before they reached their destination where the death of Corvina
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and the others could finally be formally reported. And once
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Valentina was brought out of the mountains, she had reported
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: that the other six in her registered group were dead
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: somewhere high on the Kamar de Bon mountain. So soon
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: search personnel began trying to establish where Corvina's party had
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: last been and where Valentina had separated from them. Uri
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Golias would become one of the central figures in the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: recovery effort, later recalling meeting Valentina after the Ukrainian paddlers
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: brought her into the city, he described her as being
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: in a state of shock. She could barely speak coherently
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: for several days, reportedly, but she was able to give
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: enough to rescuers at least, you know, even just basic
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: descriptions of what had happened, almost immediately, so she was
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: able to at least communicate what she needed to, despite
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: being rather incoherent otherwise. But still rescuers weren't able to
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: quickly locate the others. The delay that followed was largely
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: caused by the same weather that had battered Corvina's group
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: just days ago. Rain continued over the mountains, with fog
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and low clouds, making helicopter flights difficult. The first aerial
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: searches were not able to begin until August twenty.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: First, that's like a real good chunk of time.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, rescue teams from the Buryat Search and Rescue Service,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: we're joined by personnel from neighboring cities. But even with
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Valentina's account, locating the exact site was difficult.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, clearly, this mountain doesn't actually have a lot of
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: people hiking it if they're going that long without anyone
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: even like coming across them up there and reporting it
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: again or something.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Hey, well they do have people in the area, I think, but.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: They might have been like off track too, I guess
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: from kind of the beaten path.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Maybe.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Well, the thing is, I don't think that there's a
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: specific beaten path from my understanding. Okay, so people are
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: just going to a mountain and hiking a mountain. You
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: do that, You're not going to really cross people if
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: you're all walking a trail. Yeah, you're going to cross people.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: This is backcountry hiking. This is mountain climbing. Mountain maybe
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: not mountain climbing. I don't think they were doing that,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: But this is mountaineering. This is going out into the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: rugged wilderness and hiking.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, So yeah, I just have a very kind of
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: thought in my head.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: You're still picturing Mount Robson, aren't we Almost?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: But and this is honestly too, probably a hike or
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: a venture or whatever that I would never do. So
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: maybe that's why I'm also having trouble kind of envisioning it. Yeah,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I would want a beaten path that I follow.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: This is more like picture this when I used to
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: go hunting up north. Right, there's other camps around, but
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I don't run into other hunters because they're a couple
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: of kilometers way and they're off hunting another valley or
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: something like that. Right, same sort of thing. So it's like, oh, well,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: we're all in this mountain range. They're hiking that peak,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: we're hiking that peak. We're planning to cross at a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: peak in between and continue on our own ways. But
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: other than that, if we don't plan it, we're not
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: ever going to see each other. Well, it's such vast
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: wilderness and it could be.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Very much so like the one Mount Robson spot I'm
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: thinking where we were kind of almost close to camp
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: and the weather was like really bad and the path
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: was quite hard to see. There was barely a path.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: It was all like rocky. Yeah, that's true, So it
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: could maybe, I guess, be something like that ish, but
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: there was still a path.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: I couldn't see a fucking path, you could. I was
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: just following you. There was no path.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, there was a path, and that was
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: only a short distance because it was hard to read
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the path on the gravel. Yeah, right, once we got
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: into it and got out of it, like there was
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: a path on either side of it, and still yeah,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: there's no path that they're taking.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: No, which is wild.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Now. The group's planned rootbook referred to a summit or
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the summit they were after, as the Tretons, which is
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: a name that did not appear on the rescuer's map.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: The mountain that they were actually talking about, the peak
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: was generally known as the Retranslator, which which is what
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I've already been talking about, and the naming error complicated
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: their efforts to try and match Corvina's plan route with
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the train that was actually below them. Rescuer Vladimir Zenoff
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: later recalled that he knew the groups starting point and
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: eventually identified at least the campsite, but the broad rolling
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: alpine plateau with the continuing rain, fog and port visibility
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: made finding the six bodies somewhere within that extremely difficult.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: There was another complication too, because at the same time,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: rescuers were also looking for two other hikers, eighteen year
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: old Ivan Vasnev and Olga Indykova. They had gone missing
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: in the Kamar de Bahn mountains on August seventeenth. On
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: August twenty fourth, a helicopter finally located the two alive
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: beside the Sneznea River, where they had stretched out a
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: sheet of blue plastic like a tarp on the bank
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: to attract attention.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: Super smart.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, also really good, because I was kind of worried
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: when you said that that it was like a kind
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: of the same scenario that they went through or something.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: No, they were luckily found, and yeah, they stretched out
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: a tarp to try and signal from the air that hey,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: this is where we are.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, super smart.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Now the rescuers picked them up and began flying out
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: of the area. It was during that return flight when
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: they were rescuing these two eighteen year old hikers that
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: someone on board the helicopter spotted something on the slope
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: below the main ridge near retranslator. It was the bright
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: colors of clothing and backpacks against the otherwise bare mountain side.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: So the helicopter went down to investigate. All six members
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: of Corvina's group were there, matching the area that Valentina
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: had described. Their bodies were lying on an open, treeless
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: slope reportedly approximately two hundred to two hundred and fifty
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: meters in a straight line below the main ridge, facing
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: towards the Snesnea River basin the edge of the forest
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: was another two hundred to three hundred meters downhill from there. Now,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I do want to clarify this is the most reported
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: distance that I could find, though it is a bit
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: of a difference that I've seen in many different reportings.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: So as I mentioned it was up to lake couple kilometers.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: There was that report of like a thirty minute walk,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: but in stormy soked, in snowing, foggy weather, they probably
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have known.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: You'd have no idea.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: So regardless of the distance, that's where they chose to camp.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Now they had died relatively close to the protection of
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the trees at the very least, but still completely exposed
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: to the wind and weather on the alpine slope. Nineteen
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: days had also passed since they died. The exposure to
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the elements had badly affected their remains. Levinski remembered that
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the bodies were swollen and even reportedly partly mummified, as
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: he said, with soft tissues of their face having suffered
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: extreme post mortem damage. For example, the eyes from the
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: sockets of their head had been completely eaten away. It
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: was a condition that was consistent with the bodies having
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: remained outdoors inaccessible to insects, birds, and otherwise just scavengers
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: in general, and maggots were crawling all over their empty
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: eye sockets and partly open mouths when they were recovered
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: from the rescue team.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, good lord. That's I feel terrible for them.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: But it is very important to note that the missing
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: eyes were not a result of something other than decomposition
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: and scavengers, because it is often reported that it likely
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: was their eyes were taken or something. Oh gosh, you'll
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: find a lot of stories talking about, Yeah, their eyes
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: were missing and they were taken. No, it was they
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: were out there for nineteen days, birds, bugs, you name it,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: any sort of animal or person out in exposed elements
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: like that. It happens. Their eyes are one of the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: first things they go for.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I even know that, So I'm like, yeah, it's
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: kind of like an easy target, I guess, which is
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: really gross to say.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not only easy, but it's very nutritional too.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Oh so it's one of the reasons why animals.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Go for it first, gravitate towards it.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually one of the reasons why you hear
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: like grizzly bears can't eat your eyes because it's so
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: small and they're big snout, right, But you will hear
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: that people get their bellies are eaten. If they're eaten
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: alive by grizzly bear, the grizzly bear will go for
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the belly because they're after the organs, which are rich
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: in nutrients, liver, heart, lungs, all those sorts of things.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: So if you're eaten by a grizzly bear, there's a
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: good chance he's going to start eating at your belly
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: and you'll still be alive. Awesome fun fact.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Love that.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Well, we are watching that alone show right now, and
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: they do they do talk about like if they kill
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: a rabbit or whatever, they're eating the organs and like
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: the brain even and stuff because they need that for
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: their nutrition.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: And it's the same thing. Yes, it's easy access high
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: nutrition for animals. So eyes are an easy target. So no,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: it is proven that the eyes were not removed in
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: some mysterious way. It was scavengers. Now. Their clothing also
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: drew immediate attention to though the recovery records state that
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Dennis Tatiana Victoria they were all dressed in thin tights
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: or lightweight trousers, while Timour and again Tatiana were barefoot
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: when recovered. Now Levinsky remembered the group as being generally
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: very lightly dressed for the conditions in which they died
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: in The recovery team placed their bodies in two protective bags,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: then loaded them on board the two helicopters that they
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: now had there involved in the operation. They were then
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: flown to Ulin Yude, the capital of Buryatia, where forensic
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: pathologists would examine the remains and try to determine how
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: six members of the same hiking group had died. Now.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Once the examinations were complete, the official explanation was surprisingly straightforward.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Alexander Christen, Tatiana Philipenko, Dennis Shivashkin, Victoria Silsova, and Timur
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Bapanov had all died from hypothermia, while Ludmila Covina had
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: suffered a fatal heart related event basically a heart attack.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: There was no indication that the six died suspiciously or
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: had been murdered, or their deaths were ultimately anything other
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: than accidental. Now Constant Yukov, the head of the Bureau
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: of Forensic Medical Examination, later explained that the investigators had
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: considered other possibilities, including poisoning physical injury, but the examinations
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: did not lead them to either of those directions. Now,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: there was plenty about the group's condition that made exposure
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: a very reasonable finding. They had spent August fourth traveling
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: through the cold, rainy, storm, wind, and all that right,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: even eventually snow and sleet. At that high elevation, their
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: clothing and equipment had become saturated, They had struggled to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: make a fire, and Valentina said that their sleeping bags
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: were wet by the morning of August fifth. They had
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: also been hiking hard for several days. Yukov later pointed
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: to this combination of low temperatures, heavy precipitation, physically exertion,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and the effects of elevation when explaining how dangerous the
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: situation had become. The examinations reportedly found physical changes consistent
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: with that broader picture. Yukov described signs of general cooling
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: off of the body, but there were also findings involving
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the victim's nutritional and physical condition too. Their muscles were
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: reportedly depleted of nutrients, while changes were identified in internal organs,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: including the heart, liver, and lungs. These changes had been
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: described as protein dystrophy, and some accounts additionally refer to
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: severely depleted glycogen, the stored carbohydrates that the body can
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: rapidly convert into energy. Now, those findings eventually produce claims
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: that Coravina had effectively been starving her students, but the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: medical evidence needs to be described more carefully than that.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Yukov said that the findings only in directly suggested insufficient nutrition,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: rather than providing prolonged starvation. A group traveling hard through
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: coal mountain terrain would also be burning enormous amounts of
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: energy simply through physical activity and the body's attempt to
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: maintain its temperature. Exactly what the hikers had eaten and
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: whether their rations were genuinely inadequate became disputed, but the
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: examinations apparently supported the conclusion that their bodies were badly
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: depleted by the time that they died. Now, their lungs
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: presented another important finding. Multiple accounts state that all of
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the dead hikers showed abnormalities involving their lungs. Some described
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: the findings as bruise lungs, while others refer to pulmonary edema.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Meaning fluid had accumulated within the lungs and interfered with
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: normal breathing. Pulmonary edema can actually develop for several different reasons,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: so its presence did not by itself identify what had
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: happened on the mountain. Yukov appears to have interpreted the
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: lung findings as part of the combined effects of exposure, exhaustion,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: and oxygen deprivation, rather than evidence of any sort of
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: unknown poisoning is what you were alluding to. The examinations
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: also created difficulties when compared directly with Valentina's account, though
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: for example, she had described Tatiana striking her head against rocks,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: yet Tatiana's death was still attributed to hypothermia rather than
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: a fatal head trauma. Also, there were no other catastrophic
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: or traumatic injuries in any of the six victims that
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: could independently explain their deaths. The condition of their bodies
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: when recovered, including missing soft tissues around the eye, had
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: also been separated from injuries seen on the remains because
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: they'd been exposed to insects and scavengers for weeks. The
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: same goes, perhaps with the most famous detail in the
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: entire story. The bl leading Valentina's account is repeatedly reported
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: as describing blood coming from Alexander's ears, and, depending on
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: the versions, even his eyes, nose, or mouth. In fact,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: many retellings expand this into increasingly horrific scenes in which
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: several hikers were bleeding heavily from their faces all over
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: the place. Now, the supplied descriptions of the autopsy findings, however,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: do not independently establish that multiple victims suffered unexplained bleedings
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: from their eyes, but that doesn't prove that Valentina saw
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: no blood though. Either the bodies were not recovered quick
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: enough to prove whether hemorrhaging from their faces actually occurred
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: or not, so it could not be proven, nor could
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: it be disproven. Now the partial state of them being
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: undressed could theoretically fit the official conclusions. Severe hypothermia can
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: produce confusion and irrational behavior in an individual, including what's
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: called paradoxical undressing, in which a dangerously cold person removes
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: their clothes after experiencing a false sensation of warmth, basically
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: making them think that they're overheating when instead they're actually freezing.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: That offered investigators a plausible explanation for at least some
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: of the clothing reportedly being removed before they died without
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: requiring poisoning for some external attack. Now, the nutritional findings
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: also brought criticism of Corvina herself. Ury Golius, who participated
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: in the search and recovery, later argued that Corvina's survival
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: training philosophy had pushed her students unnecessarily hard and claimed
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: that their food intake had been inadequate, But Valentina defended
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: her former instructor. She rejected the idea that Corvina had
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: recklessly starved the group. She said that their expeditions were
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: carefully prepared and that Coravina cared about the people she
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: was responsible for. Now. Ultimately, with everything taken together, the
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: medical evidence gave investigators a defensible explanation for the group's
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: physical collapse after prolonged exposure. You had five hikers to
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: come to hypothermia and Corvina suffering a fatal cardiac event
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: after an exhausting night in severe weather. The wet equipment,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the cold temperatures, depleted energy reserves, and reported lung findings
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: all provided support for that conclusion. What remained difficult to reconcile, However,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: was the manner in which the crisis reportedly began. Valentina
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: had not described a group gradually becoming sluggish, nor confused
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: or incapable of continuing on. She remembered Alexander suddenly collapsing,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: followed by a rapid succession of convulsions, breathing problems. Extreme
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: behavior among people who she'd been walking with moments earlier,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: for the past few days can account for that. It
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: can account for some confusion, some irrational behavior, undressing, and
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: even untimely death. But the official findings they do not
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: neatly explain every symptom that she reported seeing firsthand, nor
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: why Valentina remained functional enough to survive long afterwards. If
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: everyone's so dehydrated, malnourished, their hypothermic, why did she get
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: to run away without any supplies, make it another night,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: have the strength to go back get supplies, and continue
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: on for several more days to find help.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Well, Honestly, a lot of this kind of doesn't really
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: make sense to me.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: It doesn't. All we really know is that the autopsies
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: technically supply at an official cause of death, but many
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: feel that the real cause is still unresolved. But now
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: here we are more than three decades after the deaths,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and there is still no explanation that comfortably fits the
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: accounts for every part of this incident describes convulsions, frothing,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and difficulty breathing, even reportedly bleeding, with several hikers apparently
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: becoming incapacitated in rapid succession. Those details led to perhaps
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: the most persistent theory out there, poisoning by a nerve agent.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: What you are alluding to, some sort of poisoning must
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: have gone to them now. This theory says that the convulsions, frothing,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: and severe respiratory distress can occur after exposure to powerful
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: nerve agents, and cardiac arrest is also possible too. This
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: led for some to specifically suggest that novachoke, the family
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: of chemical agents developed by the Soviet Union, could be responsible,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: with claims that perhaps such chemical agents were tested somewhere
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: in the area during this time. There are serious problems
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: with that theory, though the autopsy never found nerve agent
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: poisoning within their body unless someone was trying to cover
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: something up and just didn't say so, and the famous
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: bleeding from the eyes is not characteristically a symptom of
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: it either, and also Valentina was standing amongst the others.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: David kam Ill, she didn't. Why so any theory involving
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: a lethal cloud or contaminated patch of ground or anything
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: of the like is hard to explain when six people
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: received the devastating exposure but the seventh didn't. Plus, the
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: idea that the group stumbled directly into an active military
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: experiment is even harder to support. Camar de Band was
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: being used by multiple hiking groups during the tourist season.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: There was an event that was going on. The slope
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: was exposed and visible even people could see from great distances,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: and no physical evidence or official documentations supplied has ever
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: demonstrated that the military tests were occurring there, which of
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: course no documentation ever would even if it had. But
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I digressed. But the fact it's a popular hiking location
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: with several active, active, you know, registered groups because they
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: are registered, which means the government would know they're there.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Right, I forgot about the registration thing.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: It makes it highly unlikely that the military would choose
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: this location to do tests.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Key and really quick to the hypothermia thing, like you
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be bleeding from your face.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: No, not an act right, not hypothermia?
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: No, there's no way. Yeah, okay.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Now, Another theory places the poison in something the hikers
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: actually ate or drank, rather than inhaling and breathing right
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: see Lake Bacal and the surrounding region had pollution concerns,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: leading to suggestions that contaminated water had somehow entered the
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: group's water supply. This would potentially explain why several people
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: became ill around the same time, particularly if they had
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: consumed similar quantities, but there is no evidence that the
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: supplied material ever showed the water was actually contaminated with toxins.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: It also begged the question of why other people traveling
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: through the same popular region other hiking groups were not affected.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Food poisoning was produced as another variation of the same idea.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Corvina was reportedly familiar with foraging, so poisonous mushrooms could
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: have been proposed, right, maybe as toxic plants were mistakenly
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: added or on a misidentified or something like that, right,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: thinking oh, this is something edible when really it's not.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Golden root or rodalia. Rosea has also entered the discussion
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: because the hikers were said in some accounts to have
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: collected it, and because partially eaten roots were even reportedly
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: found among their belongings. Yet none of the supplied evidence
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: establishes that the group ate a poisonous mushroom or toxic
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: plant before they collapse. That would be found in their
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: system in the autopsy. And if it's not a nefarious
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: reason for them to die, no one's going to cover
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: that up. So that would, of course, if it was
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the actual situation, it would be mentioned in the autopsy.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it wouldn't be something you'd hide for sure.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: No, you can. You can argue that the government's hiding
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: an accidental poisoning about group. You could argue that, oh yeah,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: but you can't argue that the government is hiding the
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: fact that these people accidentally ate the wrong mushroom. No,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: why would.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: There would be no reason.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: To There's no reason to cover that up. So that
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: would show up in an autopsy for sure. Now, this
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: golden root itself is also generally not considered dangerously poisonous,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: making it a very poor fit for this sudden death
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: of six people. Violent medical emergencies or something like that. Yeah,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: sure can happen, but it's not the same sort of
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: scenario as bleeding from your eyes, laughing, foaming, and dying.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: So suddenly, Like maybe if only one person had died
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: or something, it would be a little bit more, you
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: need understand.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Even at that, who's to say, right, they probably would've
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: gotten sicker first and slowly succumb if they didn't get
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: medical attention. It's my guess anyways. Now, altitude sickness has
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: also been a considered theory, particularly because pulmonary edema could
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: potentially connect the breeding difficulties Valentina remembered with the abnormal
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: lung findings reported after the bodies were discovered. The group
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: was around twenty four hundred meters in altitude when the
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: crisis began, after all, but it is relatively low for
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: six acclimatized or healthy people to suddenly develop fatal altitude
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: illness together. These are people who've been training for a
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: long time, lots of outdoor experience. Sure it sounds like
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: a great height, but for someone experienced not so much.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: They were also descending at the time too, rather than
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: continuing upwards. But still, pulmonary edema remains an interesting part
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: of this medical picture, even if altitude alone does not
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: convincingly explain why nearly the entire group appeared to deteriorate
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: at basically the same time. Now there is another explanation
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: that focus is less on poisoning and more on the
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: extraordinary weather that was going on at the time. See
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Strong mountain winds can produce something called infrasound, which is
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: a very low frequency sound below the normal range of
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: human hearing, and it has been suggested that this could
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: have caused fear, disorientation, or even panic among the hikers.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: The idea has become popular in discussions of this story,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: but there is nothing showing that the dangerous infrasound occurred
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: on that slope that fatal day. But even if panic
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: contributed to the group's behavior, it does little by itself
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: to explain anything else. Okay, they were disoriented, panicking, why
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: were they bleeding from their eyes, ears, nose frothing, convulsive dying?
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Well, that kind of makes sense for the teacher because
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: she was a heart She died of a heart attack, right, they.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Said cardiac arrest. Correct, So if.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: She's panicking, right and holy shit like that could totally
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: give you a heart attack. I feel like it's less
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make as much sense because she's very healthy,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: though I don't know if panic would necessarily kill a
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: very healthy individual.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Hey, you're surprised. There's a lot of people who just
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: suddenly collapse even though they're very healthy runners and stuff.
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: That she could have had something that she didn't know
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: that she.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Had to right, like heart murmur or something.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: But then it does not explain the others and how
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: they were deemed that they died of hypothermia.
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: That makes no sense.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: But it could say, okay, if they're panicking, not thinking straight,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: and then maybe they're doing something dumb, getting themselves wet
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: or who knows.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: Not keeping warm, not being smart.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: And then attributing to them getting colder and dying of hypothermia.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Though, Sure it can attribute to
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: some of it, but it does not cause what happened,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: even if it attributes it. How does panic make you
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: foam at your mouth? Yeah, even if it does attribute.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: How does panic and fear make you bleed from the
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: orifice is in your face? How does it make you convulse?
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: See?
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: This shit would be so much easier to understand if
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I think less people died, not just one survivor surviving person,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: and they all had died of the same thing. So
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: just all these little pieces and you're trying to figure
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: it out in your brain and what actually happened or
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to comprehend.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying, let's put it that way.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, because it also like their age, their healthiness too, right,
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: so that also plays into it.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: And you're like, oh, and their experience as well.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, Like they weren't new to this, they were prepared,
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: They knew that they could have terrible weather, and they
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: had trained for I think you said at one point
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: six months or something.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Yep. So now there is also a similar problem with
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: this whole thing on how the group's psychological breakdown could
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: have occurred. Like, sure, witnessing Alexander suddenly becoming desperately ill
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: could have certainly terrified anyone who's around him. But this
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: whole panic and fear thing alone, it still doesn't prove
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: any sort of satisfying medical explanation for the physical symptoms
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: that were happening to each of these hikers all at
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: the same time. Too. There is, however, also the possibility
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: that the contradiction is partly because of what was witnessed itself.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: This could be a chink in the armor. It was
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: an extraordinarily traumatic event, and we only have one eyewitness
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: to say what happened. Valentina was seventeen, she was exhausted,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: she was cold, she was frightened, and she watched her
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: companions collapse around her and then spent several days surviving alone.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Eyewitness memory under those extreme circumstances cannot be expected to
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: function like a perfect recording for a memory.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: She probably would have was in shock and then just
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: went kind of like in survival mode exactly.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't mean that she's lying, that she's saying
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: things that she's making up. What it means is that
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: details such as you know exactly who screamed, or how
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: much blood appeared, where the blood appeared, how quickly each
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: person collapsed, what order things came, all this confusion or anything.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Even the fact that on how it had been retold
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: over the following decades can expand it even more too. Now.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: The problem became especially apparent when Valentina spoke publicly about
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: the tragedy again many years later. In a widely cited
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: twoy eighteen interview, she rejected some of the details that
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: had become inseparable from the story, including versions describing extensive
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: blood and screaming, not saying that there wasn't screaming that
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: there wasn't blood, but saying that no, there wasn't this
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: extensive stuff that the story has evolved into. She also
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: defended Coravina against accusations that she had recklessly starved or
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: endangered the group, and reportedly believed that pulmonary edema brought
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: into the context of cold, wet conditions and physical exhaustion
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: as a possible and likely explanation for what she believes
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: could have happened. All we know for certain, though, is
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: that Ludmila Corvina forty one years old, Tatiana Philipenko twenty
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: four years old, Alexander Chrisen twenty three years old, Dennis
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Shivashkin nineteen years old, Victoria Zelzova sixteen years old, and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Timur Bapanov fifteen years old, entered kamar Juban as part
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: of a trained hiking group and died after enduring something.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Valentina Uduchenko, meanwhile, for some reason, was she survived. The
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: medical examinations ultimately attributed five deaths to hypothermia and Corvinas
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: to cardiac arrest or a cardiac event is actually I
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: believe how they wrote it, but the circumstances that brought
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: six people to that point have never been established. That
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: unanswered distinction between the cause of their deaths and the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: cause of the sudden crisis that preceded them is ultimately
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: what kept the Kammar Demand incident in an unresolved mystery status.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: And that's the story of the Kahmar Deban Incident, also
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: known as the Other, diatlov Past, the Other or the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Second or There's there's a few different nicknames for it.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: There just bizarre, like it's so and it's also kind
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: of sad because I don't know, it's like this wild story,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: and I feel like it almost takes away a little
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: bit from the fact that like, these six individuals died
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: like a traumatic, terrible death.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, definitely, And.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: Then okay, hypothermia could cause cardiac arrest though right I'm thinking.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: It could theoretically.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: I think I was just thinking that I feel like
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: it could, So now I'm like, maybe does that actually
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: make sense?
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, typically when you get colder, I believe your
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: heart rate slows, but your heart is acting irregularly in
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: those temperatures. And I'm not a medical professional, I could
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: be wrong. Yeah, but I believe when you get cold,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: your heart slows. But if you do begin panicking, you know,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: if an event happens, your heart rate is going to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: suddenly spike race when your body is trying to compensate
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: for something else. So you could be in the state
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: of going hypothermic, encounter something that creates your heart rate
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: to spike and thus create a cardiac arrest.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: Well. And also her being in charge and seeing what
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: was she got to see the start of what was happening, right, Yes,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: I could that is we could also be like freakin.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: Panicking too, you know, yeah, for sure, holy shit.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: But then yeah, to have one person completely fine, but
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: who knows, maybe they didn't. Maybe she didn't go out
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: to fix the tent at all, so like didn't really
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: get wet or something, right, like, there could be reasonings.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Behind it, who knows, maybe the theory of eating some
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: sort of poisonous mushroom or something. It's true, yeah, but
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: maybe the sole survivor is the only one who ate
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: a poisonous mushroom and hallucinated some shit as people were
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: trying to fix tents and were freezing to death, and
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: she thought something else was happening.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: Hmm.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: I also don't totally. I still think the whole poisoning
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: thing from whatever you had said, like the government or
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: something testing. Yeah, I still don't think that's like totally
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: far fetched. But then yeah, then they probably all would
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: have died too.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If there's a cloud of poisonous gas causing this,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: how did she walk away from it? How did one
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: of seven not get affected?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: Huh?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So I'm just gonna go with I think
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking the hypothermia thing.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Then I think it's I think it's a combination of
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: so many things. I think that there's potentially some hallucinations happening.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: Whether it was consuming a possible poisonous mushroom or contaminated water,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: or maybe it's exhaustion, who know, because exhaustion can do
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: some things with your mind stressed. Yeah, maybe she saw
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: things that were not there. Maybe it was poor lighting,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: who knows. I think that there is a combination of
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: I've talked about it before, the Swiss cheese effect. Things
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: lined up so perfectly for this bizarre event event to occur.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: And I don't think she's lying in her reports of
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: what happened. I'm not sitting here saying that, you know what,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: we have someone who witnessed a horrible event and blah
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: blah blah, and now she's just like lying and making
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: it up and telling us, like, you know, stuff that
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: didn't actually happen. I believe that Valentina saw what she saw,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: but what she saw might not have been real. That's
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: what I think. These individuals would have.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: Been suffering a little bit too. She could have been
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: got herself pulled out of it, right for sure.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: So I think she reported exactly what she saw, but
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: what she saw may not have been real. I believe
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: there was hallucinations, tricks of light. I believe it could
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: have been stressed. This sound thing that was going on.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: I think it was a perfect storm for a horrific story,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: the perfect.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: Storm for six people just to die like that.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Like that's trick. Yeah, because those people maybe they all
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: succumbed to hypothermia and stuff all overnight and she dreamt
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: this and in the morning woke up and found them
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: all laying there and was still all, you know, hallucinating
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: and out of it and just ran And she thought
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: she saw this horrific event that happened within minutes, but
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: really this was the accumulation of all night slowly dying,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: slowly trying to take care of the tent.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then still like in her survival mode, she
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: got up in the morning, got ready or whatever.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: Right, and then yeah, I fully believe she saw what
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: she thinks she saw. I do know she's drying at all. No,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: I just think she didn't see it accurately. That's that's
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: my theory.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: Well, and clearly like she got I don't know. Do
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: you want to do you say lucky? I don't know, Like,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: do do you.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: Call it luck?
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: I think in a situation like that, coming out of
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: it alive, yeah, that is luck. Yeah. The others unfortunately
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: were not quite so lucky. But either way it from hell. Yeah.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: It's one hell of a fucking story. Anyways, if you
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: guys have a theory, love to hear it, because this
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: is one of those one where the theories are all
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: over the place. There's a lot of plausible things that
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: could have occurred. Shoot us a message, shoot us an email,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: let us know what you think happened to this group
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: of hikers who unfortunately lost their lives in nineteen ninety three.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: So if you want to check out a description of
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: this podcast. You can find our socials, email, website, all
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: of that where you can get a hold of us
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: and let us know what you think. You can also
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: join us over on Patreon, where not only can you
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: talk to us over there and the broader community who
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: actually listen over on Patreon and talk about it frequently,
• 1:07:31
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• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: No ads, completely ads free listening experience for our show.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: Pretty cool.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, We're an independent podcast host, written all that in
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: our little lonesome and our tiny home where their two
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: dogs and chicken coop outside, but also with you. We
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: get to do this because of you, so thank you
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: and until next time.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: I was going to pass it off to you too late.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: Until next time, stay wicked thing.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Oh oh