[SPEAKER_00]: Warning, this episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: 1993 Siberia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some kayakers are making their way down a beautiful river.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mist curls off the water and in the distance jagged mountains rise in a dramatic, but majestic fashion.
[SPEAKER_00]: When suddenly from the tree line, a young woman burst out, covered in blood and screaming that her friends are dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: She can't tell anyone what killed them, just that it happened fast, and she's the only
[SPEAKER_00]: Tonight we explore the harrowing 1993 Camardabon incident, sometimes called Buryatia's Diaplov Pass, where experienced hikers left Kazakhstan for an August adventure, but six would die under terrifying circumstances.
[SPEAKER_00]: One survived, and her testimony only
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the show I'm your host Michael May.
[SPEAKER_00]: And hey, Halloween season is here, my favorite time of year, and while I typically cover more ghost-like supernatural scary stories during the season, the episode today, this fits my typical love of historical strange mysteries, but there's certain aspects to this story that, I mean, it's very subjective, but it scares me in a way that makes me think of a Halloween story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, listen to the episode and you tell me if you feel the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: quick note about pronunciation.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of names of people in places that I have a lot of difficulty pronouncing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Believe it or not, I do practice and research and try to get these kind of things right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I still have a tough time.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can blame my central Florida upbringing for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I certainly do.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Kamar Dabon Range forms a jagged spine along the southern shore of Lake Baikal, the deepest freshwater lake in the world, and itself home to many mysteries and strange things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stretching nearly 350 kilometers, these mountains straddle Russia's Buryatia region and the Selenga Highlands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Though beautiful, this is a land of extremes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ridges can go from sun-drenched to blizzard in minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Weather is unpredictable because the range sits in the by-call rift zone, cold air, pores off the lake, and this creates sudden rain and snow squalls even in mid-summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: In July 1993, an experienced hiking instructor named Lutmila Ivanovna, Corovina,
[SPEAKER_00]: A symbol-day group of six of her students from the Azament Hiking Club and Petropavocazics done to go on a multi-day hike.
[SPEAKER_00]: At 41 years old, Kurovina had held the Soviet title Master of Sports and Hiking and was nicknamed Master among her students.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was strict, demanding, but also deeply protective and, again, I'll stress, very experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: The students traveling with her were Tatiana Filipino 24 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a secretary at the local teacher's college and active club member.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alexander Chrisson, a Balman technical university student who had hiked with Asimut since childhood and recently proposed to Corovina's daughter Natalia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dennis Shushkin, 19 years old, a stand-in, replacement who joined after another student dropped down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He actually slipped off on this hike without getting parental permission.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just left his parents a note that said, went to mountains back soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Valentina Udocinco, 17 years old, she was studying to be a school tourism instructor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Victoria Zalesova, a hesitant participant, Al-Colette, who's mother really wanted her to go on this hike and begged Corovina to let Victoria go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And lastly, to more Bopinov, who was 15, the youngest of the group, and from a family of avid hikers.
[SPEAKER_00]: The instructor, Corovina, heard daughter Natalia was actually leading a separate group of hikers on a tougher route, expecting to rendezvous with her mother's party near Lake Patavoy on August 5th.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hike was carefully planned, as you have to do with this type of terrain.
[SPEAKER_00]: They started at the marino station near Lake by call on August 2nd.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corovina's group would climb over multiple peaks, then descend to this Nizenea river and finish at Sludianca.
[SPEAKER_00]: This would take them well over 100 miles on their journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: On August 2, the hikers sent a telegram to rescue services just to log their departure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost immediately, things started going wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Heavy rain set in, and they spent the first night drenched in unable to dry their sleeping bags, but by August 4th, they had submitted con ula, and reached an exposed plateau.
[SPEAKER_00]: That evening, rain turned to wet snow.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had somehow gotten ahead of schedule, but we're now battling the cold winds and let's snow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And without adequate firewood on this plateau, they had a very tough time keeping warm.
[SPEAKER_00]: They planned to fight through this and descend to the Snaznaia Valley the very next day to meet Natalia's team.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happened next is this stuff of nightmares.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to reports, an around 10 a.m.
[SPEAKER_00]: on August 5, 1993.
[SPEAKER_00]: The group was descending a grassy slope of the retransliator peak towards this Niznaya Valley.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was snowing and visibility was poor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alexander Chrisen was lagging behind, and by the time he caught up to the group, he said he felt numb from the cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly he collapsed, he began shaking his eyes were bulging
[SPEAKER_00]: began to pour out of his mouth his ears and his eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Corovina went to check for a pulse, but she found not.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Corovina knelt over him, she suddenly began convulsing too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she would very quickly die of a cardiac arrest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, Tatiana Filipino clutched at her throat as if she was choking.
[SPEAKER_00]: She staggered over to Iraq and began smashing her head against it repeatedly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Victorious Elisova and Tamor Bappinov ran downhill screaming, tearing at their clothes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both of them collapsed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Valentina Udechenko grabbed Elisova and tried to drag her, but the girl bit her arm.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Valentina ran away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dennis Shushkin hid in his own sleeping bag, but he too began convulsing and frothing at the mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Within minutes, six people lay a note on the cold grass.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, alone, in terrified, had run to the tree line.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wrapped herself in spare clothing and she was waiting for something to happen to her too, but it never did.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next morning, she went back up the hill, finding all of her companions exactly where they had fallen.
[SPEAKER_00]: She gathered supplies, and then walked for four days, following power lines down the peak.
[SPEAKER_00]: To clarify, because I'm using a lot of names, so it might be hard to follow, this survivor is Valentina Udechenko, who was the 17-year-old student.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the next four days, Valentina followed these power lines down the mountain and she fought to survive.
[SPEAKER_00]: She spent nights in an abandoned repeater station and on river banks rationing with food she had.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one point, she reached some empty buildings, but now when it was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when she finally reached the sniz near river, she had to follow it for another day.
[SPEAKER_00]: An August 9, exhausted and traumatized Udechenko would finally be rescued.
[SPEAKER_00]: Coming down the river were a few Ukrainian high-ackers, and as they approached her to Chinko, the sight that greeted them was chilling.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a girl screaming, waving her arms, covered in dried blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was crying and yelling that the people that she was with had died and she was begging for help.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kayakers' fatter, gave her antibiotics, and took her to the nearest police station.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surprisingly, an official search didn't begin immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: While back on August 5th, when this all went down, Natalia's team was waiting at Lake Pativoy for her mother and the group of hikers.
[SPEAKER_00]: When no one came, the Talius team packed up and they went along and finished their track without realizing that a tragedy had occurred.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't until the 24th of August, almost three weeks after the incident that a coordinated search was launched.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rescue crews from all around the region
[SPEAKER_00]: went out and battled fog, rain, and confusing topography, and we're having no luck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rescue crews actually stumbled across two lost hikers from a different expedition.
[SPEAKER_00]: They evacuated them, and on the flight home, a crewman randomly glimpsed a patch of plastic on a slope below.
[SPEAKER_00]: Upon closer inspection, it revealed six bodies, flying separated on a grassy
[SPEAKER_00]: and about 200 meters above the tree line.
[SPEAKER_00]: These were the bodies of the hikers, and the first thing rescuers noticed is that they had become partially mummified.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bodies were immediately transported for forensic examination, pathologist were tasked with determining whether the deaths resulted from exposure, poisoning, or violence, and their findings shocked many.
[SPEAKER_00]: Five of the hikers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chrisin, Filipino, Shoshkin, Zelesova, and Bappinov had died of general hypothermia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And only, Corovina, the Masterhiker, died of cardiac arrest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Analysis revealed congestion in internal organs and complete depletion of glycogen in muscles and the liver, such changes occur in severe hypothermia and protein starvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: and no evidence of chemical toxins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors noted that continuous rain and an inability to cook may have led to malnutrition contributing to this protein deficiency.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people were unsatisfied with these findings.
[SPEAKER_00]: They argued that the weather, while harsh, should not have killed experienced hikers so quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember this happened in about three days, and the survivor Udachinko, she shared descriptions of frothing at the mouth and bleeding and frenzyed behavior that seemed inconsistent with hypothermia alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the official answer doesn't align with what witnesses describe, theories and conspiracies flourish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here are some of those.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hypothermia, severe hypothermia causes confusion, hallucinations, and paradoxically, victims may feel hot and remove clothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This could explain where several bodies were partially undressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might also account for Udachinko's memory of blood if victims aspirated blood while falling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another theory is Infrasent, some rescuers, including Vladimir Borsenkov and Nikolay Fedorov, proposed that Gailforce wins whipping over the ridge, created low-frequency infrasound waves than induced panic and irrational behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Studies show that infrasound can cause disorientation, hysteria, hallucinations, and even cardiac arrest.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next theory moves a bit into conspiracy land with a nerve agent exposure.
[SPEAKER_00]: frothing at the mouth, convulsions, and bleeding are consistent with exposure to nerve agents.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Soviet Novashok series, basically, poisoned that was developed by the Soviet Union, it was used to kill some people, was tested in parts of Siberia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rain and wind could have moved lingering toxins into the group's path, and Udechenko might have been far enough away from this to escape a lethal dose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another theory is contaminated water, or mushroom poisoning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hikers might have drunk water contaminated by industrial dumping, from lake by call, or accidentally forage poisonous mushrooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, toxicology tests on the bodies were negative, and Buddha Chinko has insisted that they did not forage for food.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another theory is out to do sickness or pulmonary edema.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been suggested by more than one person that was involved with the rescue operation that the hikers suffered acute mountain sickness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Utichinko herself told a journalist in 2018 that she believed her friends died of pulmonary edema, a form of altitude related fluid buildup in the lungs.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the elevation of roughly 2400 meters is generally considered too low for such severe edema without pre-existing conditions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lastly, there's a theory of a secret weapons test.
[SPEAKER_00]: Conspiracy theorist posit that the hikers stumbled upon a clandestine military experiment, and were silenced.
[SPEAKER_00]: Skeptics note, however, that the Camardabond region is actually a very busy tourist area, which makes it an unlikely site for secret weapons tests.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I mentioned in the introduction to the episode today that the survivor Ode Chinko
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, one of the things with stories that happen in areas of the world like this is its remote and reports can be misinterpreted or even embellished by local news and then misinterpreted and mistranslated and so on and so forth, but the fact that there's a survivor and police reports makes this feel all the more real and horrific.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adding to this mystery is that there's a difference in the reports from Russia and Kazakhstan, and then European and American reports for one in the initial Russian reports.
[SPEAKER_00]: They talk about a specific mountain that this incident occurred on, and then in English reports, they mention an entirely different mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is nowhere near the other one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Additionally, Udechenko's story has changed over time, which he first was rescued and told police about what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: She mentioned the frothing of the mouth, the blood coming out of the mouth, the eyes, and ears.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in later years, she said that there was no blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amongst other inconsistencies with her stories, this adds a layer of mystique, of strangeness.
[SPEAKER_00]: However,
[SPEAKER_00]: Valentina Udechenko suffered a traumatic experience that day on the mountain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she may have been suffering from hypothermia or malnutrition herself, meaning she likely can't remember everything as it really happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is why the story gets even stranger when you talk to the soul's survivor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in Petropavall, the hiking club and the hikers' families were devastated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talia Corovina had to confront the loss of her mother and six friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of this while fending off rumors that it was her mother's leadership that was to blame.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the rare interviews with Valentino to Chinko, she actually mentioned that Corovina cared deeply for the group, and implied that she was actually a great leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: This incident mimics other mountain mysteries, like the 1959 Diotlov Pass tragedy where nine hikers died,
[SPEAKER_00]: under very strange circumstances.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also in 1974, there was an all-female Soviet climbing team that perished on linen peek.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their last radio message read.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are two of us left in 15 to 20 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be no more.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Kamar-Doban incident remains unsolved, and it's surrounded by conspiracies and theories just like Diotlov Pass, even though it's less well known.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we may never know what really happened to this group, and that frightening image of a group of hikers seemingly being possessed one by one of a deadly, fast-acting unknown killer is something I'm never going to forget.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've just listened to a study of strange, consider helping us keep the lantern lit, illuminated, the unexplained by subscribing to our sub-stack, just head to the support tab at a study of strange.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, stay curious and stay strange.