← Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
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- [00:00]
Tim Harford
Foreign.
- [00:10]
Ben Walter
The Unshakables Podcast is kicking off season two with an episode you won't want to miss. Join host Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business as he welcomes a very special guest, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. Hear about the challenges facing small businesses and some of the oh moments Jamie has overcome. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. J.P. morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2025 J.P. morgan Chase & Co.
- [00:46]
Narrator
Sometimes getting better is harder than getting sick Waiting on hold for an appointment, standing in line at the pharmacy the whole healthcare system can feel like a headache. Amazon One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy are changing that. Get convenient virtual care 24. 7 with AmazonOne Medical and have your prescriptions delivered right to your door with Amazon Pharmacy. No more lines, no more hassles, just affordable fast care. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and AmazonOne Medical Healthcare just got less painful. Learn more at health.Amazon.com@ritual we know what goes into the holiday season. The potluck planning, the gift giving, the spreadsheets. So this new year, take a moment for yourself with science backed support that puts you first. So whether you're focusing on supporting foundational health with a clean vegan multivitamin or supporting your gut health with symbiotic plus, do it with 30% off your first month@ritual.com podcast. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
- [01:52]
Tim Harford
Trust is at the center of so many cautionary tales. I've told you about the people who trusted a man in uniform and allowed him to steal from the city coffers, and the woman who drove into the desert because she trusted the sat nav ahead of her instincts. Then there was the celebrity author who trusted photographs of fairies as proof of their existence. We've had people who trusted in technology when they shouldn't, and those who didn't trust it when they should. And that's before we get to the doctors, business leaders and scammers who abused the trust put in them. I'm fascinated by questions of trust, and given that you're a loyal listener to cautionary tales, I'm guessing you're quite interested in them too. And that's why I've invited Rachel Botsman to join me for a special edition of Cautionary Questions. Rachel is the author of the new audiobook how to Trust and Be Trusted. So who better to answer your trust questions? Maybe you'd like to know why we naturally trust some people but recoil from others. Maybe you're curious about why so many people are taken in by particular historical figures. There might be an episode of cautionary tales that makes you tear your hair out at the gullibility of those involved. Are we right to be suspicious whenever a politician says, trust me? Can being too distrustful be as dangerous as being too trusting? Whatever your query, you can trust Rachel to have the answers. So send them to Talesushkin FM. That's T A L E S Pushushushkin FM. To Soviet officials, it was simply height wide 1079. But the indigenous people of the Urals knew the peak by a different name. The Mansi called it Holat Seacal Dead Mountain. There's an equally bleak Mansi name for a ridge just to the north. Mount Ortan Ortorten means don't go there. But engineering student Igor Dyatlov was going there, and in the freezing depths of winter, no less. He was cheerfully planning to ski across 200 miles of Mansi territory, taking a route that, even in January 1959, no Russian had likely traversed before. He wouldn't be going alone, of course. To accompany him on the 16 day trek, Dyatlov recruited friends from the Ural Polytechnic Institute. Both current students and recent graduates, they were a gleeful bunch. The joker of the pack was Georgy Krivonishenko. Newly employed at a top secret nuclear facility, his real love was to sing and play his mandolin en route to the mountains. His exuberance nearly landed him in a police cell. He'd burst into raucous song at a train station. Street performers, it turns out, were not welcome. Sinaida Kolmogorova might have been glad of a cheery song, for she was nursing a broken heart. We're not even talking, she explained, not saying hello to each other. He's already going everywhere with another girl. The object of her spurned affections was Yuri Doroshenko, and he had signed up for the trek, too. Her plan was to stay as far from her former lover as possible. No small feat in the cramped train carriages, remote cabins, and the single tent that would be their home for the duration of the trip. Zinaida was resigned to arguments flaring, though not necessarily stemming from affairs of the heart. We will quarrel, she predicted. After all, Kolevatov is with us. Quarrelsome? Alexander Kolevatov was a nuclear physicist who'd just landed a plum job in faraway Moscow. Maybe it was this good fortune that caused him to lord it over his university friends. He'd have found it hard to pick a fight with Rustem Slobodin. Of course, Rustem was a long distance runner and perhaps the epitome of that lonely pursuit. He was a man of so few words that he'd even forgotten to bid farewell to his family before heading off to the wilderness. Nicolai Thibaut Brignol was more outgoing in nature, often adopting the role of mentor. On previous trips he'd taken younger adventurers under his wing, teaching them to light fires and allowing them glimpses of his copy of a titillating but educational tome, the Sexual Question. The expedition members were all achingly young, but at 20, Lyudmila Dubninja was the baby of the group. And while she may have looked like a child, she certainly had an inner steel. She had been accidentally shot on a recent hike and yet had hobbled home and, undeterred, signed up to go out again. I say they were all young, but just before they departed their university, the Ural Polytechnic Institute insisted on a late addition. At 37, Semyon Zolotaryov was far older than Igor Dyatlov and the rest, and for many years had served in the Soviet Army. Now a civilian, he was odd man out in the Fresh Faced Party, a moustachioed interloper who threatened group cohesion and might challenge Dyatlov's leadership. At first no one wanted him in the group because he's a complete stranger, wrote Lyudmila in her diary. But then we got over it and he's coming. We couldn't just refuse to take him. So the party set off with this stranger in tow. After the sleeper train, they took a bus, then a truck, and finally piled onto a horse drawn sleigh. Each leg of the journey, past grim prison gulags, abandoned mines and remote logging camps, took them further from civilization and closer to Dead Mountain. They promised the Polytechnic Institute they'd send a telegram the moment they completed their trek and reached safety on the other side. Of course, no telegram ever arrived. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to another cautionary tale. When search parties reached Holat Siakho, tracks in the snow led them to a tent just short of the summit. Mikhail Sharavin was among the student volunteers who'd been sent to find the Dyatlov expedition. Part of the canvas was poking out, Mikhail said, but the rest was covered in snow. They used an ice pick lying nearby to uncover the entrance. Everything inside was neat and orderly. The skier's boots were lined up, wood was stacked for the Stove. And Mikhail saw that a plate of pipes, pork fat, a calorific treat, had been prepared. It was sliced up as if they were getting ready to have supper, he said. But what of the diners? Worryingly, there was a great slash in the canvas shelter outside. Footprints stretched out, then disappeared. The prints showed that one of Dyatlov's party had pulled on a single boot, but the others had fled in just their socks or, more horrifyingly, barefoot. Frostbite in such temperatures would have taken hold in mere minutes. It dawned on the student volunteers that they were unlikely to find their comrades alive. The first bodies spotted belonged to mandolin playing joker Georgi and Zinaida's ex boyfriend, Yuri. They lay in their underwear under a cedar tree on the edge of a forest. Beside them was a burned out campfire. The trunk of the tree told a piteous story. Branches a dozen or so feet from the ground had been torn away and the bark was dotted with shreds of clothing and human skin. The dead bodies bore the marks of multiple injuries and burns. A hunk of flesh was discovered in Georgy's mouth. It was part of his own hand. The expedition leader, Igor Dyatlov was found next, struck down, making his way from the cedar tree to back up towards their tent. With him on this climb was Yuri's jilted girlfriend, Zinaida. These bodies were semi clad and pocked with injuries. Rescuer Mikhail Sharavin later told the BBC he thought the bruises resembled the results of a beating. The long distance runner, Rustem, had made it closer to the tent before he'd died. He was more warmly dressed than his compatriots, wearing a sweater, two pairs of pants and several layers of socks. But another detail was more striking to the volunteers. Rustem had a fractured skull. Of the remaining four skiers, there was no trace. Though young, the adventurers were no novices in the mountains, no snow, strangers to the hazards. They would have known that venturing out of their tent, especially barefoot and in their underwear, would prove fatal. So what could have prompted them to flee warmth and safety for the dark sub zero hell outside? And did they flee by choice? Or were they driven from the shelter? Had a violent internal dispute broken out amongst the group? Or were intruders to blame? Such foul play could not be ruled out. So the corpses were gathered up and their belongings were packed into a helicopter and flown to a police station for careful examination. In spring, Hollaet Siarko gave up the last of its dead. A Mansi hunter and his dog made the grisly find. Receding snow revealed scraps of clothing, torn pants and half a sweater. It was the entrance to a den dug into a snowdrift. Inside were the four missing skiers. Nikolai, the owner of the risque sex guide, had had his head stoved in. Bits of bone were driven into his brain. The others too were smashed and battered. There were broken ribs and awful internal injuries. Semyon, the army veteran and last minute addition to the party, was there. And so was Lyudmila, the young woman who'd been so opposed to his inclusion on the trip. Chillingly, the eye sockets of Semyon's corpse were empty. Lyudmila's eyes were missing too, as was her tongue. Something had removed them. Something or someone? Cautionary tales will return in a moment.
- [15:31]
Ben Walter
The Unshakables podcast is back for Season two and it's kicking off with an episode you absolutely won't want to miss. Host of the show and CEO of Chase for Business, Ben Walter welcomes a very special guest Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. One of the world's most respected financial thought leaders, Jamie will connect the dots between the current challenges and opportunities facing small business owners and the broader financial landscape. And of course, it wouldn't be an episode of the Unshakables if Jamie didn't share some of the oh moments that he overcame to forge ahead in his own career. You can find this must hear episode and the rest of the upcoming season of the Unshakables wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more@chase.com podcast chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JP Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2025 JP Morgan Chase & Co.
- [16:33]
Narrator
At Ritual we know what goes into a magical holiday season. The potluck planning, the gift giving, the spreadsheets. This new year, take a moment for yourself with simple daily rituals that help you put your foundational health at the top of your to to do list. Rituals essential for women 18/ multivitamin is a clinically backed multivitamin featuring nine high quality key essential ingredients to help you fill key nutrient gaps in your diet. Or maybe you're stressing your daily protein intake or you want to double down on support for your gut microbiome from plant based essential protein to three in one pre pro and postbiotic strains with Symbiotic plus Ritual helps you focus on supporting your body and after a long season of juggling everybody else and for a limited time do it with 30% off a three month supply@ritual.com podcast, these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
- [17:35]
Tim Harford
How had the Dyatlov expedition gone so disastrously wrong? How had such a joyous, lusty band of explorers ended up naked, burned and broken in the snow? No simple explanation was forthcoming. So to some Russians, the Dyatlov saga became as rich a seam of speculation as the assassination of JFK was in the West. In fact, the conspiracy theories are far weirder and far wilder than those surrounding jfk. How they sprang up and multiplied is instructive. It has echoes of the conspiratorial thinking that seems increasingly common today. Outlandish theories seem to thrive at times of unsettling change, for instance, following assassinations or terrorist attacks. The distrust deepens when governments have been found to have misled or failed citizens. And conspiracy theories can be supercharged by those seeking to benefit from the suspicion and the cynicism they spread. There's money to be made by media personalities, influencers, even podcasters who trade in wild stories. But as we'll see, it can be the politicians themselves, sometimes at the fringe and sometimes at the centre of power, who use conspiracy thinking to bolster their position. This isn't just a story about the destruction of the dyatlov expedition in 1959. It's a story about the world we live in right now. So, to unpick the many conspiracies about the deaths on Dead Mountain, let's start with one root cause. The politics of the time. While the temperatures dropped far below freezing on Holatziakhol in the winter of 1959, metaphorically, the Soviet Union was enjoying a thaw. The prison camps that Dyatlov's party passed on the way to the mountains were being emptied of dissidents and other politically inconvenient citizens. Under Stalin's rule, the Gulag population had swelled. He saw traitors everywhere and ordered them rounded up, along with their families, friends, friends of friends, neighbours. Cold, malnutrition and the executioner's bullet carried off millions. But then Stalin suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, lay for three days on a sofa and died. With his iron grip loosened, a reckoning took place. Stalin was a very distrustful man, sickly suspicious. So said Nikita Khrushchev, an underling of the Soviet dictator now angling to replace him. Everywhere and in everything, he saw enemies, two faces and spies. Khrushchev was addressing a closed meeting of the elite of the Communist Party when Stalin said that one or another should be arrested. It was necessary to accept on faith that he was an enemy of the people. Khrushchev now said this faith was misplaced and that evidence had been largely falsified. He painted a picture of Stalin as a ruler, as deluded as he was cruel. Stalin was reluctant to consider life's realities, complained Khrushchev. Did Stalin's position rest on data of any sort whatever? Of course not. Facts and figures did not interest him. If Stalin said anything, it meant it was so to our modern ears, a leader peddling in conspiracies, blaming their own failings on plotters and making up alternative facts doesn't sound that far fetched. But to delegates listening to Comrade Khrushchev, the revelations about Stalin's rule came with thunderclap surprise. Some audience members were taken ill, others just held their head in their hands, distraught. It's said two delegates went home and killed themselves. Soviet citizens suddenly had to make sense of a past very different to the one they'd believed in. Where the innocent had been found guilty, Where Stalin had been an abuser rather than a protector. Where the clocks could indeed be made to strike 13. A topsy turvy world where nothing was as it seemed. A world where the strange deaths of nine experienced adventurers just couldn't have an innocent explanation, could it? To call Holat Siakal Dead Mountain probably misses the mark. Holat can also be translated as quiet or barren in Mansi. For these hunting people, height 1079 wasn't worth the climb because there was too little game to be caught there. Not for any more sinister reason. But the Mansi were the only people in the vicinity of the mountain in the depths of winter 1959. So suspicion for the hikers deaths fell on them. And maybe they had a motive. Stalin's terror hadn't spared these semi nomadic tribes. Their lands had been taken by miners and loggers, their religious rights had been suppressed and their children were gathered up and confined in Russian speaking boarding schools. In a few decades, a proud way of life honed over centuries had been ignominiously disrupted. Had the Dyatlov expedition been a humiliation too far for the Mansi? Had the Soviet students entered sacred land or stumbled across some illegal ceremony and paid with their lives? The Soviet interrogators descended on the local tribespeople to find out. Many people around here were arrested, Valerie Anyamov told the BBC reporter Lucy Ashe. Valerie's father had joined the search effort back in 1959, only to find himself amongst those treated not as rescuers, but as murder suspects. They said that the secret police tortured them. They were certainly interrogated for weeks. But eventually the investigators were satisfied and other evidence emerged also pointing suspicion away from the mansi. The ragged clothes found in the snow den had been examined. They seemed to have been torn or cut off the bodies of the other skiers. But further analysis of the fabric was revealed something else. These rags were radioactive. For all that Nikita Khrushchev mocked Stalin's obsession with spies and foreign plots. The Cold War with the west ramped up under his rule. In 1957, the launch of the revolutionary Sputnik satellite delighted Soviet citizens, but struck fear into the hearts of citizens in the free world. The 21 inch metal sphere did little but transmit a bleeping signal back to earth. But what if it could rain down something more deadly? Khrushchev couldn't help boasting about his country's lead in rocket and missile technology, prompting the Americans to hurriedly increase their spending to close the gap. The result? A fevered arms race. And a key centre of Soviet military research was in the Urals. The closed city of Chelyabinsk 40 contained a plant making plutonium for atomic bombs. And it was there that mandolin playing Georgy Krimonishenko worked. Could this top secret job have had anything to do with his death? Was there radioactive residue? Evidence that Georgi had smuggled something out of his workplace? Something secret, Something that people would kill to possess or kill to reclaim. A young Soviet prosecutor, Lev Ivanov, had so far diligently chased all lines of inquiry in the mysterious deaths of the skiers. He'd gathered witness statements, ordered toxicology reports and examined the tent. But all of a sudden, Ivanov halted his investigations, saying that homicide was no longer suspected. His report ended, it should be concluded, with that the cause of the hiker's demise was an overwhelming force which they were not able to overcome. Ivanov's file was then locked up and the exhibits he'd gathered were allowed to moulder away. The families of the dead, fearing a cover up, protested exactly what overwhelming force had killed their children. They wrote to Nikita Khrushchev asking that he reopen the case. But Khrushchev faced far bigger problems. Within a few short years, he was swept from power and replaced by a regime that was less tolerant of dissent. Details of what happened on Dead Mountain would not be forthcoming, and public speculation about the fate of the expedition was definitely not welcome. It wasn't until 1990 that Lev Ivanov, then retired as a prosecutor, revealed why he'd shelved the investigation. His superiors had warned him off and then transferred him to Kazakhstan. Had Ivanov come too close to naming the overwhelming force that had killed the trekkers? He certainly had an unnerving theory to explain the deaths, which he expounded in an article entitled the Enigma of the Fireballs. We found that some young pine trees at the edge of the forest had burn marks. To Ivanov, these scorch marks seemed peculiar. He imagined that they could only have been made by some heat ray. Whoever was directing this deadly beam had eventually got the unfortunate skiers in their sights and fired. Ivanov was comfortable publishing the Enigma of the Fireballs in 1990 because by then the Soviet system that had stifled debate for so long was itself all but dead. And as the Iron Curtain rusted away, the doors to the secret state archives began to unlock. Serious historians rejoiced that, but so too did amateur sleuths titillated by Ivanov's stories of mysterious mountaintop death rays. The fireballs sighted by Ivanov had emanated from a ufo. Some claimed, or were part of a new Soviet weapons system being tested away from prying eyes. Other theories pointed to murder. The skiers had witnessed a secret military operation and been silenced. Others suggested that one or more of the party were spies and that the whole group had been executed by the Soviet KGB or the American CIA. If I were being charitable, I might just say that there are holes in many of these theories. The unifying theme to them all is that the truth is known to the authorities but is being suppressed. If only we could somehow reconstruct the expedition's final hours. Well, in a way, we can. The trekkers carried cameras, and in 2009, researchers gained access to the rolls of film they'd shoot. In black and white. We can see mustachioed Semion Zolotaryov Jagir Georgy Krivonishenko beaming Lyudmila Dubninia. Photograph after photograph after photograph. But then, in one, an eerie, distant figure, blurry and out of focus. It's perhaps too tall and too broad to be any of the skiers. Who could it be? Had their killer unwittingly been caught on camera? Cautionary tales will be right back.
- [32:20]
Ben Walter
The Unshakables podcast is back for season two, and it's kicking off with an episode you absolutely won't want to miss of the show and CEO of Chase for Business, Ben Walter welcomes a very special Guest, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon. One of the world's most respected financial thought leaders. Jamie will connect the dots between the current challenges and opportunities facing small business owners and the broader financial landscape. And of course, it wouldn't be an episode of the Unshakables if Jamie didn't share some of the, oh, moments that he overcame to forge ahead in his own career. You can find this must hear episode and the rest of the upcoming season of the Unshakables wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more@chase.com podcast chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JP Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2025 JP Morgan Chase & Co.
- [33:24]
Tim Harford
The Dyatlov party filled 17 reels of film with photographs. There are action shots of skiing and fun group portraits with the youngsters posing cheerfully for the camera. But the reel, attributed to Nicolae Thibaut Brignol is a series of rather dull long shots of trees and snow. Shot 13 appears to be a selfie, done the old fashioned way with a timer. Nicolai goofs around in a snowdrift. It's not brilliantly framed. Shot 14 isn't much better. In the next image, Nicolae is at least in the middle of the frame, playfully munching on a ball of Snow. In frame 16, he's now standing. But then comes the very final image on the reel. Only the trees in the foreground are in focus, their lower branches weighed down with snow. Most everything else is white. But then, in the middle distance, drawing the eye from behind, a pine lurches a hunched, black, almost inhuman figure. The yeti lives in the Urals, wrote one of the party soon after the photo was taken. A yeti. The arrival of a towering eight foot beast, all fangs and claws, might well have encouraged the skiers to dash out of their ship shelter and run pell mell down the mountain. And had it caught up with them, such a creature could have inflicted those terrible injuries. Smashed skulls, crushed torsos, torn flesh. In 2013, the respected American explorer Mike Libecky retraced the expedition route in the hopes of unraveling the mystery. I know if I went missing, he said, I'd want my family to know what happened to me. He was making a documentary for the Discovery Channel, with the working assumption being that a forest dwelling monster slaughtered the Dyatlov group. Libe ventured out onto Holat Siakho in the dead of night in his search for this Russian yeti. I did hear something strange, the explorer said. I do believe it's possible that a yeti exists. The Discovery Channel film makes much of the supposed blurry image of a monster captured By Nicolai Thibaut Brignol When I saw this photo, this was it. It was like bam. Libe told viewers, I can't tell how big it is, but it could be 8ft tall. Someone not padding out a 90 minute documentary might look at the photo and tell you exactly how big the figure is. It's man sized. The supposed Russian yeti in the photo is almost certainly Nikolai messing around with the timer feature on his camera. And as for the scribbled note, the yeti lives in the Urals. Well, it was part of a jokey pamphlet the skiers compiled to keep their spirits up. It also reported that two of the highly educated scientists in the group had set a new world record for getting the camp stove burning. 1 hour, 2 minutes and 27.4 seconds. A Yeti didn't kill the skiers any more than the death ray of a UFO did. But to understand why these deaths became such a focus for wild conspiracy theories, we might want to consider how the very notion of truth has been put in the deep freeze in Russia. Over the years, Khrushchev had forced Soviet citizens to open their eyes to the reality of Stalin's cruel and paranoid rule. But after Khrushchev came Leonid Brezhnev. While not as violent as Stalin, Brezhnev also favoured repression and secrecy. Under him, Soviet citizens were told to rejoice in their communist system while watching it crumble before their very eyes. If their rulers were willing to lie so brazenly about shortages of food in the shops, what else were they hiding? When the Soviet Union finally did fall apart, yet another challenge to objective reality arose, this time in the form of Vladimir Putin. One feature of Putin's 25 year rule is his novel use of propaganda. Generations of propagandists have abused the truth by massaging facts and inventing lies to make the public believe their version of events. Under Putin, propaganda is deployed to make its audience start to doubt that the truth exists at all. Researchers have called this modern Russian propaganda model the firehose of falsehoods. And it sprays out partial, misleading or downright made up stories in a vast torrent and in all directions. Government statements, TV broadcasts, online articles, tweets, reels, posts, and comment after comment after comment from bots all amplify a constant and confusing commentary on world events. From wars through vaccines to election results. The firehose of falsehoods is relentless, inconsistent and confusing. But it's also visceral and entertaining. It's hard not to be drawn in. Evolution has honed the human brain to pay attention to deadly threats. And so we're suckers for vivid stories warning of shadowy figures out to get us. But the specific intention of the firehose is not to make us believe in one conspiracy. It's just to sow doubt that any voice can be trusted. Not elected officials, not established experts, not the mainstream media, not even your fellow citizens. If everyone is lying to you and every institution is untrustworthy, is it such a stretch to believe that officialdom is hiding the truth that Dyatlov and his fellow skiers were killed by a secret weapon, a UFO or even a yeti? Solving the Dyatlov mystery is an enormous task which is far beyond the scope of this paper. So wrote two Swiss researchers in a 2021 article in the journal Nature. But nevertheless, they had an idea. Their area of expertise avalanches. The possibility that a mass of snow rushing down Cholatciarkhol had struck the skiers tent, prompting them to flee, had long been discounted. The slope on which Dyatlov had supposedly camped was too gentle to be an avalanche zone, and the Mansi said they'd never witnessed a snow slip there before. But working on new information, the Swiss researchers Johann Gomm and Alexander Pusrin concluded that the Dyatlov group could indeed have set off a so called slab avalanche first. Dyatlov, perhaps buffeted by high winds, was somewhat off his intended route. He was higher up Horatziakhl than he'd planned and on a slope theoretically just steep enough to pose an avalanche risk. And crucially, to create a level floor for their tent and protect it from the wind, the team dug out a shelf in the snow. They packed down the ice beneath their feet, laid out a carpet of skis and turned in for the night. But their excavations had destabilised the snow up hill of them, and as they rested inside the tent, the wind outside relentlessly added new snow to this wall above the flimsy canvas structure until at last the drift collapsed. The avalanche might have been modest, but even that weight of snow could have inflicted injuries on those inside the tent and encouraged them to cut themselves free and seek safety down the mountain, fearing that a second, much larger avalanche was imminent. Dazed in a state of undress and whipped by a wicked freezing wind, the nine stumbled away first, making a fire from tree branches and getting so close to the flames that their meager clothes and frozen flesh were scorched. Yuri and Giorgi succumbed to the cold first, with Georgi madly gnawing at his own hand as frostbite took hold. The survivors then split up, with three stumbling back against the wind for the tent and four hoping to dig a shelter in the snow. The spot they picked for that shelter couldn't have been worse. Situated in a ravine above a still running stream, the diggers appeared to have caused a tunnel cut by the flowing water to collapse. Tons of snow then crushed four hikers against the stony riverbed. Decomposition or the feeding of animals accounts for for the damage to the faces of young Ludmiller and the old man of the group Semyon. And as for the radioactivity detected on their clothes. Though not Openly discussed, in 1959 the Soviet nuclear industry in the Urals did not have a stellar safety record. Georgi had probably been contaminated by thanks to a recent explosion at his nuclear plant that rivalled the much more famous Chernobyl disaster. It's no surprise that his clothes set off the chirping of a Geiger counter. This explanation of what happened on Holotziakho in January 1959 seems sane and sad. Sane because the avalanche experts supplied mathematical formulas combining things like shear stress and snow dynamic friction values to prove that a slab avalanche could have happened that night. You can't apply such scientific rigour to say, the Russian Yeti theory. And sad, because it was all such bad luck. Had Dyatlov kept closer to his planned route, they'd have avoided the avalanche prone slope. And ironically, even in that same spot, a less experienced team might not have feared a second avalanche and felt such an urgency to flee the tent. Staying inside the semi collapsed shelter might not have been fun, but it wouldn't be fatal. After doing exactly the right thing to survive a big avalanche, Dyatlov clearly realised his mistake, but lost his race against the cold to make it back to the tent. If you ever go to Holotziakhlist, and many do visit it as a spooky tourist attraction, you'll see that the path has been renamed in the team leader's honour. It's now Dyatlov Pass. The memories of the dead are also kept alive by a foundation established by their friends and relatives and those simply intrigued by the events of that night. The foundation takes a dim view of the avalanche theory, believing instead that some still secret weapons test killed the hikers. And who can really blame them? The Soviet Union certainly tried to keep bigger secrets. And for all their formulas, what do two guys in Switzerland know about snow movements on a mountain six decades ago? Nothing's ever that simple or straightforward, is it? Vladimir Putin's fire hose of falsehoods has been successfully exported around the world. Some of that torrent of content still comes from inside Russia, but much is now produced in America and the UK too. Its effect is not to make us favour one form of government over another, communism over capitalism, democracy over autocracy, but to render us impotent, indecisive and distrustful in the face of events. It wants us to believe only that everything is rigged, that no one is decent or trustworthy, and that all mysteries must be a conspiracy. We're becoming cynics. Authoritarian leaders love it, says the Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. When people don't trust, sure, they might not trust the authoritarian leader, but they also don't trust each other enough to get together and do anything about it. The nine deaths on Holatziakho were very nearly 10. Student Yuri Yudin was part of the expedition until nerve pain prompted him to abandon the trek and head home. As an old man, he was asked what he thought had killed his friends. If they really were killed by a natural force, then there would be no secret, he said, and we wouldn't be talking about it all these years on. And logic like that is music to the conspiracy peddler's ear. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes@timharford.com Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fiennes and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Alice Fiennes and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Karl Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Ben Nadaff Haffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, Masaya Munroe, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Keira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us. And if you want to hear the show ad free, sign up to Pushkin plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin fm. Plus.
- [50:59]
Narrator
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