Route number 30: How the Soviet expedition died on the way to the Black Sea

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Sometimes the hardest questions have the simplest answers. It is not easy to admit that the cause of this or that tragedy was not the intervention of aliens or the actions of special services, but mistakes, lack of will, lack of discipline among specific people, including those who themselves ended up among the victims.

In 1975, in the Soviet Union, there was a terrible story with tourists, in terms of the number of deaths far exceeding the tragedy of Igor Dyatlov's group. Oddly enough, the incident was not hushed up - it was not only reported in the Soviet media, but even a feature film was shot, where, however, the scale of the catastrophe was significantly underestimated.

The death of tourists on the 30th All-Union route is rarely remembered today, in contrast to the history of the Dyatlov group. The thing is that in the events of 1975 there is no place for conspiracy - it is known how the emergency happened and what caused it. But this fame does not make it easier - after all, as it turns out, civilized and reasonable people, finding themselves in an extreme situation, in a matter of minutes can turn into an uncontrollable crowd, where everyone is fighting exclusively for their own survival.

Route 30

The 1970s are the heyday of mass tourism in the USSR. By 1975, the country had over 350 all-Union and over 6 thousand planned local routes. Routes of union significance were developed by the Central Council for Tourism and Excursions of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, local - by republican, regional and regional councils.

The legendary “thirty” was considered the most picturesque route in the country. If officially - the All-Union tourist route No. 30 "Through the mountains to the sea." It began from the village of Guzeripl in Adygea, and ended in the resort Dagomys.

Tourist route "Through the mountains to the sea". Topographic map courtesy of Commons.wikimedia.org projects

By the mid-1970s, as they would say now, he did not arouse interest in "advanced" tourists - everything has been known for a long time, there are no special difficulties, even a child can cope with the passage. The relative lightness, picturesqueness and the finish in Dagomys attracted novice tourists, those who wanted to feel romance, sing songs by the fire, and experience an adventure without much risk and hardship.

The groups were large, but the instructors were sorely lacking. As a rule, enthusiasts who, in addition to tourism, had their main specialty, worked on the routes. At the beginning of autumn, they began to disperse, and the shortage of personnel became simply catastrophic. Old-timers remember the cases when a single instructor at the "thirty" led at once three or four groups with a total number of several dozen people. Such liberties ended happily, which, of course, lowered vigilance.

Group at the start

At the beginning of September 1975, group number 93 was formed at the Khadzhokh tourist base "Gornaya". It included residents of Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Central Russia who had arrived on vouchers. As expected, the group prepared for the hike for five days, made a training trip to the Rufabgo waterfalls, after which they moved to the Kavkaz camp site, from where they had to start.

Prepared the 93rd group by an experienced instructor Alexey Ageev … If he had led her through the "thirty", most likely, the subsequent events would not have happened. But Ageev was a school teacher, and it was time for him to leave for his main job. Therefore, the tourists were taken along the route students of Donetsk Agricultural Institute Alexey Safonov and Olga Kovaleva … They helped Ageev, and coped well with their duties. In any case, the experienced instructor had no doubts about them.

Holiday every day

However, the students who worked on the tourist route for the first season lacked experience and self-confidence, and this circumstance would later become fatal.

On September 9, 1975, the 93rd group, consisting of 53 people, and divided into two subgroups, left the Kavkaz camp site in the direction of the Teplyak shelter. It must be said here that in 1975 the route of the “thirty” was somewhat adjusted at the initiative of the director of the “Kavkaz” tourist center. Previously, he did not go through the Teplyak shelter. The change was not drastic, and I can’t say that the new site was difficult, but it didn’t have all the required designations. However, the first day of the hike went well. In the evening, a festive dinner was held by the fire, followed by various games and entertainment. Strictly speaking, this was a violation of the regime, but the instructors turned a blind eye to all this - in the end, people came to rest, and there is no harm from such liberties. But due to late lights out, the group woke up late on September 10th. While we had breakfast and got together, more than two hours were missed. And this will be another fatal factor.

The element comes suddenly

The weather turned bad, drizzling rain began, followed by a rapid drop in temperature. The tourists had warm clothes in their backpacks, so there was nothing fatal about that. But if the instructors of the group had been more experienced, they would have already at that moment turned their charges back to "Teplyak". A hurricane in these places is preceded by the smell of snow, and this smell was soon saturated with everything around. The 93rd group continued to move forward. When the rain turned into snow, and then into a real blizzard, tourists found themselves in the so-called alpine zone on the slope of Mount Guzeripl. A blizzard in the open space quickly began to sweep the path, visibility was reduced to a minimum.

And here Safonov and Kovaleva made a mistake out of inexperience. In the eyes of the tourists, they began to discuss what to do - whether to continue to make their way to the Fisht shelter, or go back to Teplyak.

Split

The instructors' uncertainty sparked panic in the group. Arguments began, and then a few guys who were physically better than others took the initiative. They independently moved to the forest, located a few hundred meters away, intending to shelter from the bad weather there.

The situation was becoming dire. Olga Kovaleva managed to gather those tourists who continued to listen to the instructor, and began to go with them to the shepherd's booth located relatively nearby. Alexey Safonov, meanwhile, tried to gather the scattered men and women. With part of the group, he reached the forest and lit a fire. He ordered the tourists to collect firewood and keep the fire going, while he himself again went to look for those lost in the blizzard.

Survive at the expense of others

I don’t want to believe what happened next, but it’s true. Safonov managed to find and bring several girls to the fire, he found that the fire had gone out, and the firewood had not been collected. Male tourists at once lost their will and character, sitting stupidly, huddled together. The instructor almost kicked them all the same to collect firewood, and again kindled the fire. And then the men ran to bask in the fire, pushing away the weaker women. It was useless to appeal to their conscience - at that moment they looked like savages fighting for their own survival.

Olya Kovaleva brought her charges to the booth, but she was blinded by the icy cereal that hit the eyes.

In the shepherd's shed were two shepherds of the collective farm "Way to Communism", Vitaly Ostritsov and Vladimir Krainy, who went out in search of those who got lost in the blizzard.

Here the same story was repeated as in Safonov's. The shepherd managed to find several missing girls, but when he asked the guys from the group to bring them to the booth, they refused. Vitaly Ostritsov saved several people, but he could not help everyone.

The trained guys, who provoked a split in the group, got to the forest, lit a fire, opened a stew, ate and calmly waited out the bad weather. They did not help those who followed them, being guided by the principle “every man for himself”. And from the raging blizzard, cries for help were heard for some time, which gradually died down.

Some of the tourists stayed in the gully called Mogilnaya. Those who were weaker never got out of it. The tourists got away stronger, leaving the unfortunate ones to die.

She begged to save her for the sake of the children

The snowstorm lasted a day. The 94th group, which approached the booth, where the tourists were hiding with Olga Kovaleva, having learned about what was happening, turned to the Teplyak shelter. The instructors of this group saved their people, but they did not help their colleagues either.

The rescuers were alerted too late. In the course of their search, they managed to find only one person alive. I came out to the sound of the helicopter Svetlana Vertikush, hiding under a large fir for three days. She managed to build a hut from branches, but the girl had no matches or food - the backpack was lost. Svetlana was warming herself by moving around her shelter. She believed that they would look for her and find her. This tactic turned out to be the only correct one. When the rescuers ran up to her, Svetlana lost consciousness. They evacuated her already on a stretcher.

Of the 53 people that were part of the 93rd group, 21 died. Boys and girls, men and women aged 18 to 48 years.

Mikhail Osipenko, 25, hid with Svetlana Vertikush, but then decided to find his missing backpack with food and matches. He got lost and fell into the abyss of the canyon. They found him last, only after nine days of searching.

There are two Dinah on the list of the dead - 25-year-old Dina Lempert from Kremenchug and 26-year-old D Ina Naimon from Kiev. One of them died in the same grave beam. Exhausted, she begged other tourists to help her, not to leave, she said that she had small children. No one took pity on the unfortunate woman; everyone fought for their lives.

When mean isn't a crime

Officials and heads of tourist centers, but not those who killed others, saving themselves, appeared before the court for the state of emergency. From the point of view of the law, everything is correct: the article "Leaving in danger" presupposes punishment only when a citizen leaves someone in conditions where nothing threatens his own life. In this case, fear for one's own skin became the reason for the withdrawal of any charges.

Inexperienced instructors of the 93rd group were not officials, therefore they were not subject to criminal liability. Finding themselves in an extreme situation, Alexey Safonov and Olga Kovaleva did everything in their power to save people. Among those who did not fight off the group, staying next to the instructors, there were no victims.

The site through the Teplyak shelter was closed immediately after the tragedy. "Thirty" did not lose its popularity after the incident, but the groups followed the old, proven path. In total, over the years of the existence of route 30, more than 200 thousand people have passed it. In the 1981 film "Storm Warning", based on the tragedy, the authors decided to mitigate the situation - only two people are killed, and the brutality in the struggle for survival does not look as monstrous as it really was.