DON'T GO THERE: True mystery of the Dyatlov Pass

by Svetlana Oss

All of Russia knows the mystery; nobody knows the truth. Nine young hikers vanish in the Ural Mountains, their battered, frozen bodies found far outside the camp. Why weren't they dressed? What was the "overwhelming force" that fractured ribs without bruising? Why did the KGB infiltrate the search parties and attend the funerals? Svetlana Oss first brought the story into the international spotlight in 2008. In her groundbreaking English-language investigation for The Moscow Times, she meticulously presented the hypotheses that have proliferated for decades. Now, she reveals the truth. "Don't Go There" unveils the calamitous end of the journey for the nine experienced climbers from the Ekaterinburg University Climbing Society. Newly declassified information, records never translated before, and a captivating perspective will astonish readers. "This mystery has a peculiar and persistent every theory is contradicted by at least one conflicting fact," Oss says. "Not a single explanation is able to conquer the riddle. This excites people. It excites me."

Genres: History

224 pages, Paperback

Published July 6, 2020

About the author

Svetlana Oss (Osadchuk) is a Russian writer and investigative journalist. She has published numerous articles in The Moscow Times, The St.Petersburg Times and in The New York Times. In 2012 Russian leading publisher EKSMO published her first full-length fiction: 'One Life Narrative". Svetlana has a passion for investigating Soviet era mysteries, and transforming them into easy to read, exciting, yet informative literary work.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a very well researched and well put together book. It becomes very obvious that the author took a lot of time to go through different sources to find all the relevant information that would be needed to make a solid book about this event. There are a lot of official sources as well as witnesses referenced in this book and the way everything is laid out makes it very easy to follow the events as there happening, and to link that to the information that was learned after the fact as well. I think some people might have trouble with the last couple of chapters where the author goes over who they think is responsible for the deaths of the Dyatlov group. She does make a solid argument I feel for who she thinks is responsible, but at the same time, there’s no real solid evidence to go on for it, and that seems to be mostly because the authorities simply did not want to go down that avenue due to racial tensions that were already present within the country. Overall, I think this was a very well done book and anyone interested in this event should read it at the very least just to get such a clear and concise list of the timeline of events and all the information the authorities found out when they did their own investigation.

[Justin Mohn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reconstruction of the record leading up the mystery seems like diligent, detailed work. The author’s theory of what happened, however, quickly lapses into a thinly justified “the indigenous people did it” story worthy of 1880s Old West frontier lore.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to read about a fascinating yet tragic story.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sucks