On 2nd February 1959, nine hikers disappeared in the Ural Mountains of the Soviet Union. A rescue mission was sent to find the young people, and what they saw was hard to believe. The tracks of barefoot prints heading away from a cut open tent. Over a period of several months the bodies of the students were located within a 4 kilometres radius. Some frozen to death wearing nothing but underwear or just one sock, others had their head or chest broken, eyes popped out or the tongue torn out. The mystery of the Dyatlov group death has remained unsolved for over 60 years. The official investigation hit a dead-end and dozens of private investigators and researchers around the world have proposed new versions of what had actually happened, ranging from a runaway prisoner attack to yeti involvement, from secret military tests to aliens. The Dyatlov Group Incident evolved into myth both in Russia and internationally. The case has been followed and covered by the UK's Daily Mail and Swedish Dagens Nyheter, US The Atlantic and German Stern Crime, with special stories presented by Vice, BBC and CNN. In the year of 60th anniversary of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation reopened the official investigation, though with little hope of a successful outcome since the case had been handled by local Ural policemen who always had more important cases to focus on. But things could now change due to another tragedy that had happened in the mountains. In 2012 the mountaineer and traveller Teodora Hadjiyska almost died in Indonesia. While recovering from injuries in the hospital she came across the feature film adaptation of Dyatlov Pass Incident. Teodora started to collect, research, systemise and translate into English all the information and documents that she could find. Consequently, she was joined by other researchers or so-called amateur detectives from 40 countries and together they conducted their own investigation. In the contemporary world internet researchers are capable of cracking spy conspiracies of the leading world powers and international crimes. Are the enthusiasts in Teodora’s group able to solve the 60 year old mystery that professional investigators failed to unlock?
