Mountain of the Dead (5 page)

On 2 January 1959 the USSR launched
Luna 1
from Baikonur, which was the first spacecraft to travel to the vicinity of the Moon. The Americans kept up with the launch of their
Pioneer 4
mission two months later on 3 March 1959. What the Russians could not keep up with in nuclear and space developments, they had an army of spies to get the information for them. On 23 June 1959, Klaus Fuchs, the atomic spy who had worked on the Manhattan Project and was arrested in Britain for passing nuclear secrets to the Russians, was released from his fourteen-year jail term after nine years and allowed to return behind the Iron Curtain to Dresden in East Germany, where he resumed his scientific career.

This intense rivalry between the USSR and the USA extended to all areas, not just military. It was also not just rivalry between the governments of two superpowers, but rivalry between two completely opposing systems: communism versus capitalism. Everything from sport to technology was touted as being superior to the other. This fierce rivalry is best illustrated in one example that took place on 24 July 1959.

Known as the ‘Kitchen Debate’, Vice-President Richard Nixon was visiting Moscow and was at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki Park. Also present at the opening was Nikita Khrushchev. An entire house was built for the exhibition and presented as the type of house that anyone in America could afford.
2
The house had been cut in half to make viewing easier and Khrushchev and Nixon had engaged in discussions through their respective interpreters as to the respective merits of their systems of government and accomplishments. The discussions took place in a number of locations at the exhibition but primarily in the kitchen of the American showhouse. Khrushchev pushed his view that the Soviets concentrated on things that mattered and not on luxury. He sarcastically asked of Nixon if they (the Americans) ‘had a washing machine that puts food in the mouth and pushes it down’. Nixon’s response was that at least their argument was more to do with technology than military.
3
Both men eventually agreed that their two countries should be more open with each other. Khrushchev was sceptical that his remarks would not be translated and broadcast as he intended – to state the Communist case for wanting peace and improving the lot of the ordinary man – in the USA, but they were, and in colour videotape, which was new at the time. Nixon’s remarks were only partially translated into Russian and the debate broadcast late at night in the USSR. Up to this point, Nixon had had a fairly ambivalent relationship with the American public. However, despite mixed reviews in the American press, Nixon’s standing was enhanced as a result of the debate, as many felt he had stood up firmly to Khrushchev’s blustering bully persona.

In the rest of the world, notably the other Communist giant, China,
Liu Shaoqi succeeded Mao Tse Tung as Chairman of the People’s Republic on 27 April 1959
.
In Britain, Harold Macmillan was letting go of overseas possessions and
Cyprus was granted independence on 19 February 1959. Not long afterwards, on 3 June 1959, Singapore became a self-governing colony with Lee Kwan Yew as premier.

In
France, Charles de Gaulle was inaugurated as the fifth president of the French Fifth Republic on 8 January 1959 and slowly set about taking France out of NATO. In Switzerland, on 1 February 1959 a referendum turned down female suffrage. Against this setback for women in Switzerland, in Nepal women voted for the first time less than three weeks later on 18 February 1959.

  
1.
  There is some dispute over when and where the M-4 Bisons were observed. Some state it was Aviation Day at Tushino Airfield, near Moscow in July 1955, although others say it took place at the May Day Parade in the same year.

  
2.
  
Kitchen Debate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Debate
.

  
3.
  Ibid.

Life was grey and austere in the 1950s Soviet Union. The same could also have been said of Britain and many other countries in the West, although things were starting to change in Britain and teenagers at least had outlets and interests such as rock and roll (and Teddy Boys could kick the hell out
of each other to their hearts’ content). Life for students in 1959 Sverdlovsk was very different and there were few outlets for their energies in their spare time. One outlet, of course, was sport, but this was still rigorously controlled by the state.

The whole concept of ‘sport’ occupied a different place in Soviet society to that in the West. It came under the control of the powerful All-Union Committee on Physical Culture and Sports Affairs until its dissolution in 1959, the year of the Dyatlov tragedy (although its dissolution was nothing to do with the tragedy itself). The official Soviet view was that sport was part of physical culture, which had four components: organised physical education, playful activities or games, all forms of (socially approved) active leisure pursuits and organised sports. Active leisure pursuits were included in physical culture as long as they were considered to add to the physical and mental well-being of the individual or the community in general. The other aspect of sport from an official point of view was that there was a constant emphasis to prepare the younger generation not just for a healthy future life but also to be better workers and to better enable them in support of the defence of their socialist homeland. Sport was officially viewed as combating anti-social behaviour in town and countryside. Lenin himself had been a keen sportsman and viewed it as a vital activity. His views were close to that of the English ‘muscular Christians’ such as Dr Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School, and the novelists Thomas Hughes and Charles Kingsley, who all promoted the concept of ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’
1

After the Second World War, sport in Russia was seen by the government as a means of continuing peacefully the war against the remaining enemy – the bourgeois-democratic states of the world. Physical education was compulsory at Soviet colleges and universities for all students in the first two years. Within the Ural Polytechnic Institute (in common with similar Soviet establishments) great emphasis was placed on sports, and virtually every year from 1956 onwards, the ‘Student Spring’ was held by the students, with many competitions being staged. The ‘Student Spring’ became known as ‘UPI Spring’ but was not held in 1959, partly as a reaction to the Dyatlov tragedy and also because the authorities did not want any demonstrations. All the members of the Dyatlov group were keen on these sports events and particularly ‘UPI Spring’. ‘UPI Spring’ itself was moved as a yearly event from the confines of the university to the Lenin Prospekt main street, which runs from the park area in front of the main entrance to the university through the centre of Ekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk).

Although ‘UPI Spring’ is still held at the same time every year, it has changed from being a one-day intensive sporting event to a series of sports events and cultural seminars held over a period of three to four weeks, and includes international participation. The scene looking down from the front of the university towards Lenin Prospekt is essentially unchanged from 1959, apart from some of the newer, taller buildings.

For a student in 1959 Sverdlovsk, the opportunity for having ‘a good time’ had narrower possibilities than for a student in the West. Anything that attracted more than a frown from the mirthless views of the Soviet state could end up with a charge of ‘hooliganism’. After university registration, all new students were sent to work on a
kolkhoz
(collective farm) for two weeks, which was intended for the students to get to know each other and foster solidarity between themselves and the farm workers.

One activity that was popular among students was ‘tourism’. This was a wide term that covered organised outdoor activities and included hiking, camping, rock climbing and skiing. Ski tourism, which came under this general description, was very popular among students. It meant a group of friends or like-minded individuals could have the chance to get away from the day-to-day grind of their lives and enjoy themselves while participating in an officially sanctioned activity, as it involved group participation that promoted solidarity. It should not be viewed that this was an excuse for a bunch of guys and gals to grab a stash of booze and head into the mountains for a two-week orgy. What the Dyatlov group were attempting to do demanded the highest levels of fitness and orienteering skills, but one main reason it was popular is that it gave them the chance to let their hair down and relax without being watched or listened to constantly.

The description ‘ski tourism’ has modern-day connotations of an organised package holiday group in which a group of skiers pay their money and have everything laid on for them to enjoy a skiing holiday at the resort of their choice. In the late 1950s in the USSR, the description had a very different meaning in that it referred to a more organised activity with rules and control by the university (in the Dyatlov case) and state control. It was also considered to be a sport that demanded high levels of physical fitness and orienteering skills, which could be adapted to military requirements.

The trip organised by the Dyatlov group was dedicated in honour of the 21st Communist Party Congress being held in Moscow between 27 January and 5 February 1959. It may appear odd that a provincial sports party in the middle of the country should dedicate their forthcoming trip to a political meeting being held by the ruling political party. It would be similar, say, to a group of mountaineering students at Edinburgh University dedicating their next mountain climb to a forthcoming Labour Party Convention being held in Blackpool, or the Miami Hurricanes American Football team at Miami University dedicating their hardest won game of the season to the Republican Party National Convention in Tampa. However, the Communist Party was central to daily life in the USSR and no observance of that fact could be too great or considered over the top in whatever form it was expressed. It is also worth noting that when Stalin was in power, Soviet mountaineers would often carry a bust of Stalin to the top of the highest peaks. The highest Soviet peak, a 24,590ft (7,495m) mountain in the Pamir Range, was named Stalin Peak during his premiership and in 1962 was renamed Communism Peak. With the break-up of the USSR, the mountain now lies in Tajikistan and was renamed Ismoil Somoni Peak in 1998.

It would be hard to imagine any American mountaineer carrying a bust of the serving US President to the top of Mount McKinley. Similarly, a British climber carrying a bust of the current British Prime Minister to the top of Snowden or Ben Nevis in adulation would probably be thought of as strange.

Yet this was the situation in the Soviet Union at the time and anybody who did not wish to play by the rules found that life would rapidly start getting very difficult for them.

The bulk of the chapter has been provided by information from the staff of the Spring Day Museum at URFU (formerly UPI) and the book
Sport in Soviet Society
by James Riordan, Cambridge University Press (1977). Based on the author’s thesis (University of Birmingham), this is probably the most comprehensive description of how sport fitted into Soviet society, starting in 1861 and covering up to 1975.

  
1.
  From the famoud Latin quotation
Mens saba in corpore sana.

Although the group are all usually described as students of UPI (Ural Polytechnic Institute), in reality only six of them were students at the time of the tragedy – Igor Dyatlov, the two young women Zina Kolmogorova and Luda Dubinina, Alexander Kolevatov, Yury Yudin and Yury Doroshenko.

Igor Dyatlov, born 13 January 1936, was the group leader and had considerable experience of ski tourism, to the extent that he was considered a professional ski tourist, having been the leader of numerous tourist groups on hikes of different categories of complexity. Dyatlov had already been asked to stay on after his graduation (due to take place later in 1959) and continue to work at the university in his capacity as an experienced ski tourist. He had also made three previous ski tourism trips to the northern Urals. He was considered to be a modest, honest and considerate man who did not rush his decisions. It was said that he was very hard on people on the ski trips but he felt that discipline needed to be imposed on these trips for safety reasons; he would not tolerate a ‘shirker’. At the time of the tragedy he was a fifth-year student in the Faculty of Radio Engineering. During his second year he had designed and built a radio that he had used on hikes in the Ural Mountains in 1956. He had also designed an extremely functional small stove, which he had taken with him on trips in 1958 and also on the final and fateful trip in 1959. As well as his engineering skills, he liked to play the mandolin. He was very fond of Zina Kolmogorova and she appeared to reciprocate his feelings, despite the fact she had previously been in a relationship with Yury Doroshenko, who was also in the group. A photograph of Zina was found on Igor Dyatlov’s body by the search parties. As leader of the group Igor was responsible for planning the route of their journey to Mount Otorten from Sverdlovsk.

Semyon Zolotarev, born 2 February 1921, introduced himself to the others as Alexander.
1
He was the oldest member of the group at 37 years old, the rest being between 20 and 25 years old, although all of them were experienced ski tourists. Semyon’s death was very early in the morning of his 38th birthday. His involvement with the Dyatlov group tends to attract the most attention from researchers as he was much older than the rest and had what could be described as a more ‘mysterious’ background and character. His background was also very different to the others. He was born in Kuban in the North Caucasus to Cossack parents (his father Aleksay Zolotarev was a paramedic). From October 1941 to May 1946 Semyon was in the military (attaining the rank of sergeant in the Russian Army) and served in the Second World War (or, more correctly, the Great Patriotic War). He joined the Communist Party after the war and, just prior to leaving the military, he transferred to the Leningrad Military Engineering University in April 1946. After this, he appeared to drift somewhat, transferring first to the Minsk Institute of Physical Education (known by its acronym GIFKB) and later he became a tourist guide in Artybash, Altai in southern Siberia. People who knew Zolotarev when he worked as a tourist guide in Altai described him as not being very good at his work and that he appeared to be more interested in drinking and womanising. Adding to his mystery was a number of tattoos that he generally took care to keep hidden. While it is possible he may have been embarrassed by them, tattoos then, as now, have particular meaning in Russia as they are used to signify status within the Russian criminal underworld. Few criminals would dare to wear tattoos they had not earned. There is, however, controversy over Zolotarev’s tattoos, which can be seen in a picture of his body at the autopsy. His sister said that he had never had any tattoos.