INTRODUCTION

A hundred years before Ermak

Conqueror of New Siberian Land

Their names remain unknown

Seeker of unknown lands Mikhail Stadukhin

Kochi Semyon Dezhnev did not return home

Ivan Tolstoukhov, who disappeared without a trace

The last expedition of Vitus Bering

The Mystery of Lassinius's Squad

Even death couldn't separate them

The missing expedition of Nikita Shalaurov

What are the shores of Tyuleniy Bay silent about?

The strange death of Captain 1st Rank Krenitsyn

Lieutenant Krotov and the wrecked ship in Mityushikha Bay

August Tsivolka and the mass grave in Melkaya Bay

Chasing a ghost

“A heartfelt feat of gratitude”

The mystery of Lieutenant Brusilov

“Crazy attempt” by Sedov

Diary of Afanasy Roslyakov

"Ruslan" did not return home

Secrets of "Chelyuskin"

Where did N-209 go?

The airship "USSR-B6" was supposed to save the Papaninites

The failure of "Wonderland"

"Academician Shokalsky" fought to the end

Nord was next

Cases of deaths in the North of single or unknown Russian sailors

The Diary of Hugo Willoughby

Willem Barents's legacy

Henry Goodson. Life for the Arctic

Hard lesson

What did the finds on King William Island tell us?

The mystery of Solomon Andre's expedition

Fatal "Jeanette"

Captain Bartlett was the last to leave the Karluk

Obelisk on the banks of Provins

gone With the Wind

Float from "Latama-47GR"

Foreign travelers are eternal prisoners of the Arctic

How did Fedot Popov die?

The immortal feat of Ruf Serebrennikov

Gun from the schooner "Gregory Bogoslov"

The last journey of Eduard Toll

Albanov's story about the fate of the "St. Anna" team: some riddles

Butorin's plane was found 10 years later

The true face of Vitus Bering was restored

Barents' ship was found in the expected location, but new secrets were born

CONCLUSION

APPLICATIONS

Annex 1

Little-known cases of deaths of Russian travelers in the Arctic

Appendix 2

Little-known cases of deaths of foreign travelers in the Arctic

ILLUSTRATIONS

USED ​​BOOKS

Secrets of the missing expeditions

Kovalev. S.A.

Moscow

"Veche"

Harsh and cold Arctic. Ice-bound seas, islands, archipelagos and shores, ships and ships that have not returned to their home port and are frozen in ice, villages covered in blizzards. An endless icy element hostile to humans. All over the Far North - in the tundra, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, on ice-covered islands, in abandoned parking lots, there are memorial signs, crosses and tombstones - silent witnesses to the dedication and courage of the heroes who went to conquer the Arctic seas and deserts. The famous names of polar explorers - Roald Amundsen, Willem Barents, Vitus Bering, Ferdinand Wrangel, Semyon Dezhnev, T. DeLong, Dmitry and Khariton Laptev, Pyotr Pakhtusov, Fedot Popov, Vladimir Rusanov, Georgy Sedov, Eduard Toll, John Franklin, Semyon Chelyuskin - forever entered the history of the study of the North.

He talks about the secrets of missing polar expeditions and the mysteries of the harsh Arctic. A new book writer and journalist, captain 1st rank S. Kovalev.

INTRODUCTION

The harsh and cold Arctic is the land of frost and snowstorms. Ice-bound seas, islands, archipelagos and shores, ships and ships that have not returned to their home port and are frozen in ice, villages covered in blizzards. An endless ice element, hostile to humans. But there is another Arctic - in granite, in stone houris, in votive and grave crosses. All over the Far North - in the tundra, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, on ice-covered islands, in abandoned parking lots, there are mute witnesses to the dedication and courage of the heroes who went to conquer the Arctic seas and deserts. The glorious names of polar explorers - Roald Amundsen, Willem Barents, Vitus Bering, Ferdinand Wrangel, Semyon Dezhnev, T. DeLong, Dmitry and Khariton Laptev, Pyotr Pakhtusov, Fedot Popov, Vladimir Rusanov, Georgy Sedov, Eduard Toll, John Franklin, Semyon Chelyuskin and many others are rightly proud all over the world. These explorers showed unforgettable examples of dedication to conquer the Arctic. And today their names are well known to every civilized inhabitant of our planet.

But among the conquerors of the Arctic seas and deserts there are thousands of sailors, feed workers, industrialists, and merchants, whose names have not become part of world history. Neither their relatives nor friends ever learned about their fate. Meanwhile, the role of these people in the development of the Arctic deserts is no less than the merits of those mentioned above. And although the names of many pioneers of Arctic exploration are already lost in the fog of history, below we will remember them, and, if possible, by name. The truth is, in most cases, very, very sparingly, since the fog of world history has become frankly “impenetrable” over the years. And how many fishing huts and unknown crosses standing on the Arctic shores and islands still preserve the memory of their exploits! Moreover, winter quarters often became a refuge for sailors and industrialists from ships and vessels who died in an unequal struggle with the harsh Arctic. Unfortunately, only a small part of these memorable places is known to us today.

This book represents the first attempt to collect together the names of the dead Arctic travelers, sailors and polar explorers for the edification of new generations of Russian residents. I’ll immediately make a reservation that here we will talk not only about the lost expeditions, but also about those who returned home.

Chapter 1

RUSSIAN EXPEDITIONS THAT REMAINED FOREVER IN THE “NORTH”!

IN ancient times In Greece, a legend was born about the country of the Hyperboreans, which was located in the Far North, beyond the blows of the cold wind Boreas, where day lasts half the year and night lasts half the year. The discussions about the polar countries of the famous Greek scientist and educator Alexander the Great - Aristotle, who in one of the drawings of his work “Meteorology” depicted the southern and northern poles of the Earth, and in the text noted that after the “summer solstice” the northern ones constantly blow, have become extremely important for historians. winds (boreas). “This is explained by the fact that the borealis blows from the polar region,” wrote Aristotle. full of water and snow." But the first to visit the Arctic Circle in 325 BC, leaving behind written evidence of the existence of the country of the midnight sun - Thule and the “collapsed sea”, was the ancient Greek astronomer and geographer Pytheas. The first to penetrate the Barents and White Seas by 890 AD and reach the mouth of the Northern Dvina River (according to other sources, Varzuga) was the Norwegian Otar from Halogaland. This campaign opened the way from Norway to the Murmansk coast.

The appearance of Russian people on the shores of the White Sea supposedly occurred at the beginning of the 12th century. And in 1342, the Novgorod boyar Luka Valfromeev founded the fortress town of Orlets on the banks of the Northern Dvina. However, the remoteness from Novgorod of convenient and rich fishing places in the North and the difficulties of the routes going there became the main reasons why it was difficult for a simple settler to get there. He got stuck on the way, delayed by wide rapids rivers, stone rocks-selgi and swampy swamps of Obonezhye. Only well-equipped and supplied parties of colonists could penetrate to the distant seashore (Tersky, Pomorsky, Letniy, Zimny, as it was called in different localities), with the goal of establishing a new fishery or acquiring a new camp for sea fishing. Parties of this kind were formed by Novgorod boyars who wanted to establish or increase their fishing interests in the North. They went there on horseback or in “ushkui” boats and most often reached the seashore. Having reached the sea, they walked along the coast by sea, looking for convenient places to live. Having found the mouth of a river flowing into the sea, they entered the river to its first rapids. They were also attracted by convenient bays in which they could settle for fishing and fighting walruses. All convenient places that were not previously occupied were occupied by the latter in the name of the master and became the boyar estate.

129 dead in the polar desert: the mystery of the death of the Franklin expedition

They were last seen in August 1845. Two British ships with the eerie names Erebus (“Gloom”) and Terror (“Horror”) with 129 sailors on board were waiting in the Baffin Sea near the coast of Greenland for suitable weather to sail further into the uncharted waters of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. Equipped with last word science and technology of that time, the expedition led by Sir John Franklin was supposed to put an end to the search for the treasured Northwest Passage, but disappeared in the ruthless polar ice, and the mystery of her death has haunted generations of adventurers ever since. Only in 2014, Canadian scientists discovered the sunken Erebus, and more recently, on September 3, after 170 years of searching, the Terror was found. The tragedy of Franklin's missing expedition - in the review of Onliner.by.

The discovery of America, despite the monumentality of this event for the history of mankind, did not remove from the agenda another task that was extremely urgent at that time - finding a new route to India. The phenomenal riches of the new part of the world had not yet become known to Europeans, and both Americas were still perceived as an annoying obstacle blocking the path to Asia. In 1522, Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the first circumnavigation bypassing the South American continent. The issue of the so-called Northwest Passage, a promising sea route along the northern coast, remained on the agenda. North America.

The first attempt to discover it was made by the British back in 1497, but ultimately the search lasted for four centuries. The best navigators of their time tried to cope with the task - from Henry Hudson to James Cook. But on the way, the heroes were faced with the impassable ice of the Arctic, the intricate labyrinth of straits and bays of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and extreme weather, which left little chance of success, but regularly took the highest price for their conquest - human lives.

Possible options for the Northwest Passage

Research in the Canadian Arctic intensified in the 19th century, and, despite all the objective difficulties, by the middle of the century the size of the white spot was geographical maps North America was reduced to a minimum area less than the territory of modern Belarus. It seemed to the British Admiralty that all that remained was to take the last but decisive step, a hundred miles long, and it was entrusted to John Franklin, an experienced, albeit rather elderly 59-year-old polar explorer who had already completed three large-scale Arctic expeditions.

John Franklin

There were no problems with financing. For the voyage, the British Royal Navy provided two ships that had already been on Arctic (and Antarctic) voyages. Almost one hundred tons of food (flour, biscuits, corned beef, canned vegetables and meat) were loaded onto the Erebus, which became the flagship, and the Terror. They didn’t forget about the remedy against scurvy, this scourge of all seafarers: four tons lemon juice should have helped deal with it. The hulls of the sailboats for sailing in difficult ice conditions were reinforced with metal sheets, and steam engines removed from the locomotives were mounted on them as additional power plants. The heating system and water distillation system completed what was then state-of-the-art technical equipment ships. Everything was ready for a multi-year journey, the goal of which was the long-awaited Northwest Passage.

Franklin's expedition set sail on May 19, 1845. Having made a stop in Greenland's Disko Bay, where five guilty sailors left the Erebus and the Terror (thus saving their lives), the ships with 129 people on board set off further into the Arctic Ocean. In August the whalers last time They were seen in the Baffin Sea, after which traces of the sailboats and their inhabitants were lost for almost a decade.

The Admiralty sounded the alarm only two years later. On the one hand, it was clear that the conquest of the Northwest Passage would require a winter (and, most likely, more than one), on the other, the lack of any news began to be alarming. In 1848, an expedition of the authoritative polar explorer James Ross, who himself sailed on the Erebus and the Terror, set out in search of Franklin and his squad. This event ended in complete failure, but Ross gained many followers, which was greatly facilitated by the reward of £20 thousand announced by the British government - a significant amount at that time.

In August 1850, five years after the last time Franklin's ships were seen, some trace of them was finally discovered. On the small island of Beechey off Devon, the largest desert island on the planet, Captain Horace Austin's team discovered traces of wintering, and nearby - three graves of sailors from Franklin's crew.

In the lifeless rocky landscape of an island forgotten by God and people, fireman John Torrington, sailor John Hartnell and Marine private William Brain, who died in January - April 1846, found their last refuge. It became clear that they were victims of the expedition’s first winter, which the Erebus and the Terror, trapped in ice, spent near Beachy Island.

In 1854, during the exploration of the Boothia Peninsula, a detachment of traveler John Ray collected whole line stories from local Inuit people. The Aborigines unanimously claimed that they saw a group of several dozen “white people” who died of starvation at the mouth of the large local river Buck. Moreover, the aliens, judging by the evidence of the Eskimos, ate the corpses of their comrades before dying. The alleged cannibalism among the crew of the Erebus and the Terror deeply outraged their colleagues back in Britain and Franklin's widow. The public completely rejected the insinuations that suggested that a Royal Navy sailor could stoop to eating his own kind.

In addition to oral evidence, Ray also collected material evidence of the death of the expedition, buying cutlery from the Erebus that they found from the Inuit. This was enough for Franklin and company to be declared dead, and their search officially ended. Nevertheless, the story of those doomed in the polar desert did not end there.

Four years later, another search party, financed this time personally by Franklin’s widow, made a long-awaited discovery while exploring the large King William Island, located between the Boothia Peninsula and the mouth of the Buck River. Among polar expeditions, especially when something went wrong, it was customary, just in case, to leave messages for potential rescuers under special stone pyramids - houris. It was just such a document that was discovered on King William, and its contents shed light on the fate of the travelers.

The message, in fact, was two notes written in different time. The first was written after the second winter:

"May 28, 1847. Her Majesty's ships Erebus and Terror spent the winter in the ice at 70°5′ N. w. and 98°23′W. The winter of 1846-1847 was spent near Beechi Island at 74°43′28″ N. w. and 91°39′15″ W. etc., having previously ascended Wellington Channel to 77° north latitude and returned along the western side of Cornwallis Island. The expedition is commanded by Sir John Franklin. Everything is fine. A party of two officers and six sailors left the ship on Monday, May 24, 1847."

After reading this text, several questions remained. Firstly, it is obvious that the situation was difficult to characterize as “everything is in order.” There were already the first victims among the crew members, and as many as eight people managed to abandon their ships and comrades, heading towards death. In addition, the authors of the message, for some unknown reason, got confused about the dates. Wintering off Beachy Island happened a year earlier. In the summer of 1846, the freed ships drifted among the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, eventually descending south to King William Island, where they spent the winter of 1846-1847, and in the spring they described their adventures in the above document.

A second note was written a year later in the margins of the first:

"April 25, 1848. Her Majesty's ships "Erebus" and "Terror" were abandoned on April 22, 5 leagues north-north-west of this place, having been covered with ice since September 12, 1846. Officers and a crew of 105 men under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier camped here, at 69 ° 37′42″ N. w. and 98°41′ W. d.

Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847, the total losses of the expedition to currently- 9 officers and 15 sailors.

James FitzJames, Captain of Her Majesty's Ship Erebus, F. R. M. Crozier, Captain and Chief Officer. Tomorrow we’ll go to the fishing river Bak.”

In this text the correct chronology is restored. So, King William's Erebus and Terror ended up spending two whole winters: the summer of 1847 turned out to be too short and cold, the ice around the ships never had time to melt. By the spring of 1848, 24 of the 129 crew members had died, including the head of the expedition, John Franklin. The surviving sailors, feeling powerless in front of the polar semi-desert that surrounded them and finding themselves under the threat of hunger and imminent death, went on a desperate adventure. They decided to try to get to the mainland with the remaining supplies and equipment. The closest Hudson's Bay Company base at Fort Resolution was 2,210 kilometers to the south.

The doomed polar explorers built improvised sleighs from boats, which they were forced to drag themselves. Exhausted by three winters, suffering from disease, extreme weather, hunger, they last bit of strength dragged these sleighs, periodically losing their comrades. One of the boats was found in 1854. In addition to two skeletons, they found books, soap, sewing supplies, sailor gloves, guns and knives, two rolls of sheet lead, boots and silk scarves - things both necessary and absolutely unnecessary on the expedition undertaken.

The skeletal remains of sailors were periodically found over the next decades. Apparently, most of the crew of the Erebus died on King William. The survivors managed to reach the desired mouth of the Buck River, where the Eskimos saw them. Most likely, at this stage they ran out of provisions, which led to cannibalism: traces of it were recorded on human bones discovered later.

In the mid-1980s, Canadian scientists decided to exhume the bodies of three sailors who died on Beachy Island during their first winter in 1846. First, the grave of John Torrington was opened, and photographs of his mummy, perfectly preserved for 140 years in permafrost, spread throughout the world. A post-mortem examination of the remains showed that the unfortunate fireman, who died on January 1, 1846, suffered from exhaustion and pneumonia. In addition, elevated levels of lead were found in his tissues. Immediately, theories arose that the cause of death of Torrington (and with him the rest of Franklin's team) could be lead poisoning. The cans found at their sites were hastily sealed using lead solder that came into direct contact with the food. High content There was also lead in the fresh water supplied by the distillation systems installed on the ships.

Lead poisoning by itself could not kill the sailors. However, it appears to have significantly weakened the immunity of the crew members, after which they became easy victims of weather, hunger, scurvy and other diseases. Torrington and his companion William Brain, whose bodies survive to this day, died of pneumonia. The third of those buried on Beechey Island, sailor Hartnell, died of tuberculosis. Most likely, a similar fate awaited the rest of their colleagues.

Lost expeditions. 7 missing expeditions: main secrets

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Lost expeditions. 7 missing expeditions: main secrets

The disappearance of an entire expedition is always a mystery. Trained people, polar explorers, tropical explorers, pioneers - disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Traces of some groups were never found.

La Perouse Expedition

On August 1, 1785, the Comte de La Perouse set out on a risky trip around the world on the ships Boussole and Astrolabe to systematize the discoveries made by Cook and establish trade relations with native tribes.

During the first year of his journey, La Perouse rounded Cape Horn, visited Chile, Easter Island, and reached Alaska in July 1786.

The following year, the explorer arrived on the shores of Northeast Asia and discovered the island of Kelpaert there.

Then the expedition moved to Sakhalin - finding a strait that now bears the name of the count. At the end of 1787, La Perouse was already off the coast of Samoa, where he lost 12 people in a skirmish with savages.

In the winter of 1788, the expedition transmitted the last message to their homeland through British sailors. Nobody saw them again. Only in 2005 was it possible to reliably identify the site of the shipwreck, but the fate of La Perouse is still unknown. Most of his records also perished with him.

"Terror" and "Erebus"

These two British ships, with 129 people on board, left Greenhithe Wharf one morning in May 1845. Under the leadership of Sir John Franklin, they set out to explore the last blank spot on the map of the Canadian Arctic and complete the discovery of the Northwest Passage.

For 170 years now, the fate of this expedition has haunted scientists and writers.

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But all that was discovered during this time was only a few graves and two wintering camps.

Based on the findings, it was concluded that the ships were frozen in ice, and the crew, suffering from scurvy, pneumonia, tuberculosis and terrible cold, did not disdain cannibalism.

Walking across Australia

On April 4, 1848, the German explorer Ludwig Leichhard set out with eight companions. He planned to cross the Australian mainland from east to west on foot in three years.

However, after the agreed time, none of the members of this expedition showed up. In 1852, the first team set out on the search, followed by the second, then the third, and so on for seventeen years in a row.

Until one tramp wandering around the mainland accidentally mentioned that he had lived for several months on the banks of the Muligan River with a certain Adolf Klassen.

When he found out that this was one of those whom they had been looking for for so long, he went in search of him, but died on the way.

And only after a long time it became clear that Klassen had lived in captivity among savages for almost thirty years. They killed him around 1876. She died with him last hope learn about the fate of Leichgard and his expedition.

In search of Arctida

In 1900, Baron Eduard Vasilyevich Toll set out on an expedition on the schooner Zarya to search for new islands in the Arctic. Toll also firmly believed in the existence of the so-called Sannikov Land and wanted to become its discoverer.

In July 1902, the baron, accompanied by astronomer Friedrich Seeberg and two hunters Vasily Gorokhov and Nikolai Dyakonov, left the schooner to reach the coveted Arctida on sleighs and boats.

Zarya was supposed to arrive there in two months.

However, due to poor ice conditions, the ship was damaged and was forced to leave for Tiksi. The next year, under the leadership of then-lieutenant Kolchak, a rescue expedition was assembled.

They discovered Toll's site, as well as his diaries and notes. It followed from them that the researchers decided not to wait for “Dawn” and continued on their own. No other traces of these four people were ever found.

Hercules

This is a small hunting vessel, on which in 1912, experienced polar explorer Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov, together with members of his expedition, went to the island of Spitsbergen in order to secure Russia’s right to extract minerals there before other countries.

Everything went well. But for unknown reasons, Rusanov decided to return through the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya, and if the ship survived, then go east to the first island he encountered. A telegram with his intentions was the last news from Hercules.

Only in 1934, on one of the islands near the shore of Khariton Laptev, a pillar with the carved inscription “Hercules 1913” was discovered. And on the neighboring island things from Hercules were found: a nautical book, notes, pieces of clothing, etc. But the bodies of the expedition members were never found.

Glory to them, who were not afraid to leave warm and cozy homes, hospitable tables and went into the unknown, risking their lives, with only one goal - to learn the mystery or bring others closer to solving it.

However, not all campaigns ended successfully. Many expeditions were inexplicably lost. Some were never found; the found remains of others do not shed light on the reasons for their death, giving more mysteries than answers to questions.

Many missing expeditions are still the subject of investigation today, as inquisitive minds are haunted strange circumstances their disappearance.

In the footsteps of the lost Arctic expedition

Franklin's expedition was one of the first on the sad list of lost ones. served as the primary reason for equipping this expedition in 1845. It was supposed to explore an unknown section of the Northwest Passage, lying between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the temperate latitude zone, approximately 1670 km long, and complete the discovery of unknown Arctic regions. The expedition was led by an English naval officer, 59-year-old John Franklin. By this time, he had already been a member of three expeditions to the Arctic, two of which he led. John Franklin, whose expedition was carefully prepared, already had experience as a polar explorer. Together with his crew, he set sail from the English port of Greenhithe on May 19 on the ships Erebus and Terror (displacing approximately 378 tons and 331 tons, respectively).

The Story of Franklin's Lost Expedition

Both ships were well equipped and adapted for navigation in ice, and much was provided for the convenience and comfort of the crew. A large supply of provisions, designed for three years, was loaded into the holds. Biscuits, flour, salted pork and beef, canned meat, supplies of lemon juice against scurvy - all this was measured in tons. But, as it turned out later, the canned food that was cheaply supplied to the expedition by the unscrupulous manufacturer Stephen Goldner turned out to be of poor quality and, according to some researchers, was one of the reasons for the death of many sailors from the Franklin expedition.

In the summer of 1845, relatives of the crew members received a few letters. A letter sent by Osmer, the steward of the Erebus, said to expect their return to their homeland in 1846. In 1845, whaling captains and Dunnett reported encountering two expedition ships waiting for suitable conditions to cross Lancaster Sound. The captains were the last Europeans to see John Franklin and his expedition alive. In the following years, 1846 and 1847, there was no further news from the expedition; 129 of its members disappeared forever.

Search

The first search group on the trail of the missing ships was sent at the insistence of John Franklin's wife only in 1848. In addition to the Admiralty ships, thirteen third-party ships joined the search for the famous navigator in 1850: eleven of them belonged to Britain and two to America.

As a result of long persistent searches, the detachments managed to find some traces of the expedition: three graves of dead sailors, tin cans with Goldner’s mark. Later, in 1854, John Re, an English doctor and traveler, discovered traces of the expedition participants in the territory of the present Canadian province of Nunavut. According to the Eskimos, the people who came to the mouth of the Bak River were dying of hunger, and there were cases of cannibalism among them.

In 1857, Franklin's widow, after futile attempts to persuade the government to send another search team, herself sent an expedition to find at least some traces of her missing husband. IN total 39 polar expeditions took part in the search for John Franklin and his team, some of them were financed by his wife. In 1859, members of the next expedition, led by officer William Hobson, found a written message about the death of John Franklin on June 11, 1847 in a pyramid made of stones.

Causes of death of the Franklin expedition

For 150 long years it remained unknown that the Erebus and the Terror were covered in ice, and the crew, forced to abandon the ships, tried to reach the Canadian coast, but the harsh Arctic nature left no one a chance to survive.

Today, the courageous John Franklin and his expedition inspire artists, writers, and screenwriters to create works telling about the lives of heroes.

Mysteries of the Siberian taiga

The secrets of the missing expeditions never cease to haunt the minds of our contemporaries. In today's progressive times, when man stepped into space, looked into depths of the sea, revealed the secret of the atomic nucleus, many mysterious events that happen to people on earth remain inexplicable. Such secrets include some missing expeditions to the USSR, the most mysterious of which remains Dyatlov’s tourist group.

The vast territory of our country with its mysterious Siberian taiga, the ancient Ural Mountains dividing the continent into two parts of the world, stories about numerous treasures hidden in the bowels of the earth, has always attracted inquisitive minds researchers. Lost expeditions in the taiga are a tragic part of our history. No matter how hard I tried Soviet authority to hide and hush up tragedies, information about the disappearance of entire teams, overgrown with rumors and implausible legends, reached people.

The inexplicable circumstances of the death of Igor Dyatlov and his expedition

The name of Mount Kholat-Syakhyl (which translates as “mountain of the dead”), located in the northern part of the Urals, is associated with one unsolved mystery, relating to the missing expeditions in the USSR. It was not for nothing that the Mansi people living in these places gave the ridge such an ominous name: here many times people or groups of people (usually consisting of 9 people) disappeared without a trace or died for unknown reasons. An inexplicable tragedy happened on this mountain on the night of February 1-2 in 1959.

And this story began with the fact that on January 23, a detachment of nine Sverdlovsk tourists, led by Igor Dyatlov, set off on a planned ski trip, the complexity of which was of the highest category, and the length was 330 kilometers. Nine again! What is this: a random coincidence or fatal inevitability? After all, 11 people were originally supposed to go on a 22-day hike, but one of them good reasons refused at the very beginning, and the other, Yuri Yudin, went on a hike, but fell ill along the way and was forced to return home. It saved his life.

The final composition of the group: five students, three graduates of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, a camp instructor. Of the nine members, two are girls. All expedition tourists were experienced skiers and had experience living in extreme conditions.

The goal of the group of skiers was the Otorten ridge, which is translated from the Mansi language as a warning “don’t go there.” On an ill-fated February night, the detachment set up a camp on one of the slopes of Kholat-Syakhyl; the top of the mountain was three hundred meters away from him, and Mount Otorten was 10 km away. In the evening, when the group was preparing for dinner and working on the design of the newspaper “Evening Otorten”, something inexplicable and terrible happened. What could have scared the guys so much and why they ran in panic from the tent they had cut from the inside is unclear to this day. During the investigation, it was established that the tourists left the tent in a hurry, some did not even have time to put on their shoes.

What happened to the Dyatlov expedition?

The group of skiers did not return at the appointed time and did not make themselves known. The boys' relatives sounded the alarm. They began to contact educational establishments, to the camp site and to the police, demanding that search operations begin.

On February 20, when all the waiting periods had expired, the leadership of the Polytechnic Institute sent the first detachment to search for the missing Dyatlov expedition. Soon other units will follow, and police and military structures will be involved. Only the twenty-fifth day of the search brought any results: a tent was found, cut on the side, with untouched things in it, and not far from the place where they spent the night - the corpses of five people, whose death was a result of hypothermia. All tourists were in huddled positions from the cold, one of them had a traumatic brain injury. Two have traces of nosebleeds. Why couldn’t or didn’t want to return to the tent, barefoot and half-naked people who ran out of the tent? This question remains a mystery to this day.

After several months of searching, four more corpses of expedition members were found on the snowy bank of the Lozva River. Each of them had broken limbs and damage internal organs, the skin had an orange and purple tint. The girl's corpse was found in a strange position - she was kneeling in the water and had no tongue.

Subsequently, the entire group was buried in Sverdlovsk at the Mikhailovskoye cemetery, and the place of their death is marked with the names of the victims and with the screaming inscription “There were nine of them.” The pass unconquered by the group has since become known as the Dyatlov Pass.

Unanswered Questions

What happened to the Dyatlov expedition? Until now, there are only numerous versions and assumptions. Some researchers blame the death of the squad on UFOs and, as evidence, cite the words of eyewitnesses about the appearance of yellow fireballs at the Mountain of the Dead that night. The state weather station also recorded unknown “spherical objects” in the area where the small detachment died.

According to another version, the guys went to the ancient Aryan underground treasury, for which they were killed by its guardians.

There are versions according to which the missing Dyatlov expedition died in connection with the tests various types weapons (from atomic to vacuum), with alcohol poisoning, with a ball lightning strike, with an attack by a bear and Bigfoot, with an avalanche.

Official version

In May 1959, an official conclusion was made about the death. It indicated its cause: some elemental force that the guys could not overcome. The perpetrators of the tragedy were not found. By decision of First Secretary Kirilenko, the case was closed, strictly classified and transferred to the archive with an order not to destroy it until special order.

After 25 years of storage, all closed criminal cases were destroyed. However, “The Dyatlov Case” ended up remaining on dusty shelves.

The missing schooner "St. Anna"

In 1912, the schooner set sail around the Scandinavian Peninsula and disappeared. Only 2 years later they returned on foot to Big Earth navigator V. Albanov and sailor A. Kondar. The latter withdrew into himself, abruptly changed his type of activity and never wanted to discuss with anyone what happened to the schooner. Albanov, on the contrary, said that in the winter of 1912, "St. Anna" froze in the ice and was carried away Arctic Ocean. In January 1914, 14 people from the crew received permission from Captain Brusilov to go ashore and get to civilization on their own. 12 died along the way. Albanov developed a vigorous activity, trying to organize a search for the ice-covered schooner. However, Brusilov's ship was never found.

Other missing expeditions

The Arctic swallowed up many: aeronauts led by the Swedish scientist Salomon Andre, the Kara expedition led by V. Rusanov, Scott’s team.

Other lost expeditions of the 20th century are associated with the tragic and mysterious circumstances of the death of the seekers of the Golden City of Paititi in the endless jungle of the Amazon. To solve this mystery, 3 scientific expeditions were organized: in 1925 - under the leadership of the British military and topographer Forseth, in 1972 - the Franco-British team of Bob Nichols and in 1997 - the expedition of the Norwegian anthropologist Hawkshall. They all disappeared without a trace. Particularly striking is the disappearance in 1997, when the technical equipment of the expedition was at its lowest. high level. They couldn't be found! Locals claim that everyone who seeks the Golden City will be destroyed by the Huachipairi tribe - Indians who guard the secret of the city.

Lost expeditions... Something mysterious and ominous lies in these words. These expeditions were equipped and sent in order to solve some problem or explain some mystery to the world, but their very disappearance became an incomprehensible mystery for their contemporaries and descendants.