Originally published on January 25, 2026 Reading time: 46 minutes
Menkvi
I
“Mansi. Mansi. Mansi. This word has been coming up more and more in our conversations lately.”
So Zina wrote in the logbook, trying to conserve her body heat as they waited for the scout. They were making their way along the frozen bank of the Auspiya River, but in just a few minutes, a small snowstorm had reduced visibility to less than two meters. Since they all had very heavy backpacks, they were forced to proceed slowly using the “relay” method: the person at the front of the line, leaving their pack with the others, would scout ahead for ten minutes, blazing a trail; then they would return, rest briefly, and all together, they could set off again, following the newly made path.
It had been two days since they had left the last real civilized settlement behind. The diary entry was dated January 30, 1959, a week after their departure from Sverdlovsk (now known as Yekaterinburg) in central Russia. They were a group of young hikers, almost all of them university students at the Ural Polytechnic Institute. They were between 20 and 24 years old, their studies ranging from engineering, economics, and geotechnics to radio engineering. A united and lively team of nine, dreamers but with a practical and mathematical approach to daily life and mountain excursions. It was this shared passion for outdoor trips that had brought them together a few weeks earlier at the local Sports Association headquarters to decide on a destination worthy of an adventurous holiday.
Igor Dyatlov immediately proposed himself as the expedition leader; he had a wealth of experience despite his young age. In particular, he had a captivating charisma and a way about him that inspired confidence and courage in everyone—he was a born leader. For this reason, the others had no objections: even Aleksander, who was a year older and had participated in other challenging climbs, was carried away by Igor’s words and gladly accepted his leadership.
After a few dozen minutes of chaos and overlapping voices, with a constant exchange of charts and maps, the team made a decision: they would set out for Mount Otorten, partly for the appealing challenge and partly because they were amused by the numbers—the peak was 1,234 meters high.
The group spent the following days carefully preparing the itinerary and planning the details: they took two large military tents, cut them, and sewed them together to form a larger one. They also arranged to carry an entire metal camp stove, a rather common practice in those climates, to use wood and keep the structure warm in the cold Russian winter. The nighttime temperature could easily drop to thirty degrees below zero.
It was at their fourth weekly meeting at the Club that they received a surprise visit. The discussion was quite lively; they were debating how many pairs of boots each person should bring. Many of them had the same shoe size, so it would have been possible to save some weight by bringing fewer boots, but some disagreed, believing safety was more important.
Yurka, the tallest among them, excluded from the discussion due to his enormous shoe size, was about to leave the large room to stretch his legs, but at the doorway, he ran into a man who was staring at them, perhaps undecided whether to knock or not.
Meeting the young man’s gaze, he introduced himself immediately: his name was Sasha, he was a mountain guide with a lot of experience, and he had heard, by chance, of their intention to climb the mountain; the news had spread all the way to the city headquarters of the Communist Party Committee. He wished to join their expedition to add it to his list of achievements and finally attain the highest rank of Master Guide.
He was introduced to the others, who greeted him politely but couldn’t accept his request with enthusiasm. There was something strange about this individual that they didn’t trust, but perhaps it was just his appearance: he was 37, almost twice their age. Dyatlov, in particular, was apathetic at first: an older guide would surely want to take control of the group, emphasizing his greater experience.
However, they were accommodating and welcomed him, agreeing to his request with quiet cordiality. It certainly wasn’t the end of the world, but they were afraid that the “fun and games” atmosphere they were looking forward to would be somewhat diminished. They didn’t know that, fortunately, all their doubts about this man—so serious at first glance but actually very affable—were almost completely unfounded.
The first weeks of 1959 flew by as the group organized the final details and prepared for their departure to a destination that was anything but hospitable, starting with its name: literally, Otorten means “Don’t go there.”
II
On January 23, the ten adventurers took the train to Serov; from there, they set off again for Ivdel, 340 kilometers to the north. The next stop was planned in a village called Vizhay, but from there on the towns began to be identified by numbers instead of names.
They indulged in the luxury of watching a few films at a tiny local cinema, a dark room in the back of a house where five families lived. It was during those shows, sitting on the floor, that Yudin, one of the economics students, began to feel pain in his sciatic nerve.
The hours flew by quickly: they loved to joke, discuss philosophical themes like friendship and love, and they took a few photos now and then. They used the breaks and travel time to write in their diaries; in their free time, they playfully drafted the first issue of their own newspaper on a blank sheet of paper, titled “The Evening Otorten,” in which they decided to write down the most interesting discussion topics.
In the evenings, Rustik would play the mandolin, and everyone would sing ballads around the fire. What a surprise it was to learn that the “old man” Sasha knew new songs! They were so fascinating, especially since many were forbidden by the government. As the days went by, the presence of the intruder was finally welcomed by everyone: he proved to be a kind, helpful person who tended to keep to himself, a quality highly appreciated by Dyatlov.
On January 26, they moved from Vizhay toward Settlement 41. The journey was not comfortable on the wooden benches of a train; instead, they had to take a ride sitting in the back of a military truck with no brakes. In that small cluster of houses, inhabited almost exclusively by young workers, Lyudmilla was very fascinated by a young geologist with a red beard, which sparked Yudin’s jealousy (and perhaps contributed to the worsening of his pain).
January 27 was the first real day of hiking, with only a few shacks, or izbas, ahead of them and very few traces of civilization. They continued toward Settlement 2, accompanied by a former Lithuanian prisoner released three years prior. That area, given its remote location, was quite frequented by people with similar pasts: when Stalin ordered the closure of the labor camps in ‘56, the prisoners were released en masse; not being welcome in larger cities, they were forced to remain on the fringes of civilization.
This person, affectionately called Uncle Slava, owned a horse-drawn sleigh, which made walking through the ice almost pleasant without the weight of their backpacks. The downside was the poor beast’s slowness, as it struggled to advance along the banks of the Ushma River.
When they arrived at the settlement, they rested, but Yudin’s condition worsened. His fever began to rise and did not break all night. They gave him penicillin, but he was in no condition to continue such a long journey. To everyone’s great sadness, on January 28, the young man left the group, heading back with Uncle Slava the way they had just come. The team was thus left with nine people, and none of them would be as fortunate as their friend to retrace that path.
Two days later, Yurka’s 21st birthday was celebrated. He had been in a relationship with Zina, the second and last girl in the group, but they had broken up some time ago, and she was currently being courted by Dyatlov. The relationship among the three seemed quite peaceful, free of tension, but that evening in the tent, the birthday boy boasted a bit too much about his past conquests, causing some embarrassment in the group.
Nick intervened to change the subject, asking the others’ opinions on the Mansi drawings that marked the trail they were following. The conversation shifted to this people, who lived in the central part of the Urals and had always been a source of more or less fascinating legends. They spoke their own language and were said to have a deep connection with nature and the various creatures that inhabited the mountains, so much so that they managed to ride moose into battle instead of regular horses—or so it was said.
The group loved stories and discussed the Mansi until it was time for bed. The only one who didn’t seem to appreciate the topic was Sasha, seemingly due to his older age and being less prone to fantasizing. The truth, however, was that he was already familiar with most of those tales, and hearing them spoken of reopened a wound that he had never managed to heal.
III
Sasha and Semyon were childhood friends. Having met at just six years old, they spent their entire lives together. Semyon no longer had a father, but he had two sisters, so the other boy was like a brother to him until the end of their teenage years. They were two good boys, respected and loved by everyone, always ready to lend a hand.
Sasha married at 17 and immediately became the father of two children. He was starting to work as a laborer in a local textile factory, but the Army called him to arms in 1941. In his anguish at the thought of not being able to see his family, he had the good fortune of being summoned to the same unit as Semyon. Perhaps it was destiny that the two boys should remain close, or perhaps just luck. For three years they remained battalion comrades, supporting each other and making it their primary duty to protect the other before themselves.
In November 1943, a company of nearly fifty soldiers, including the two friends, was sent to the central Urals as a defensive picket due to the great strategic and geographical importance of the mountain range. The German advance was slow, and it was an altogether quiet deployment. Their brigade was stationed near a Mansi settlement. It was here that the two boys, in close contact with the mountain people for several weeks, learned of their legends.
One that fascinated Sasha most was about a stone that could predict the future: when the snows melted, around May, the tribe’s hunters would go near the mountain Kholat Syakhl. They used the powers of this boulder to easily find families of deer in the following weeks, which were dedicated to hunting. However, that place was considered cursed: years earlier, a group of nine hunters had been found dead under mysterious circumstances; the Mansi believed the cause of the massacre was the menkvi, a snow monster that featured in their other fantastic tales. In any case, the two soldiers were more interested in the story of the magic rock: “That stone would really come in handy,” Sasha commented, “to get by with those two children to feed. I could become a fortune-teller or bet on horses and live off the winnings!”
February 1, 1944, was Semyon’s twenty-third birthday, a cold day like any other that began even more grimly due to the inconvenient guard duty from midnight to six in the morning. At the change of watch, with the sun still well below the horizon, Sasha climbed the reinforced wooden tower to replace him. He went to meet him, greeted him, and handed him a small, carefully wrapped package: it was a wooden carving of a deer. “This will bring you luck hunting with the Mansi,” his friend joked as he affectionately placed a hand on the birthday boy’s shoulder. Semyon hugged him and thanked him warmly, then walked away toward the dormitory, turning the little statue over in his hands.
He had just taken off his boots and laid his head on the pillow when a whistle rapidly grew in intensity, ending in a hiss and an explosion a few dozen meters away. A mortar! He hastily put his boots back on, rushed out of the wood-and-sheet-metal building with the others, and… He saw that the blast had scored a direct hit on the watchtower.
While the others ran toward the southwest slope of the mountain, he sprinted as fast as he could to the north, toward the smoking remains of the structure where he had left his brother just moments before. The scaffolding was very basic, made of a few interlocking logs: it took only a few seconds of searching to find a lifeless arm under the rubble. He pulled his friend’s lifeless body out in tears, desperate. He had always feared the arrival of that moment, but he had been convinced it would never come: he and Sasha were special.
Instead, reality hit him with all its crudeness and bitter irony: it wanted to show them that they were made of flesh and blood like anyone else and that any day could be their last. Something inside Semyon grew dark that day. He managed to emerge from that dark period of History that was the Second World War, but he never fully recovered from the loss of perhaps the most important person in his life. He was so determined to honor his name that he first chose to make it his own: from 1946, he began to go by the name Sasha.
When he learned of the university students’ expedition heading right for the summit of Otorten, just a few kilometers from Mount Kholat Syakhl, at the very end of January, he saw it as a sign and was filled with enthusiasm. It was the fifteenth anniversary of his best friend’s death, and he was tired of spending another birthday alone, lost in melancholy.
He was sitting at the Communist Party Committee, planning the itinerary for another trip to a completely different destination, when he heard the stationmaster telling the others present that a student had bought nine round-trip tickets to Serov, the last destination that normal people would consider. The boy had explained their final destination to the railwayman, and the latter, being a chatterbox, was busy spreading the word.
The next day he introduced himself to the students with some embarrassment, but he didn’t let the age difference discourage him and promised himself to be as accommodating as possible. After all, he hadn’t lost his natural kindness, and he took an immediate liking to the diverse group.
The weeks leading up to their departure seemed endless: he was waiting for the end of January with all his being, and his eagerness to leave was starting to become almost suspicious to the others. However, they were unaware of his past and believed he simply wanted to finish the hike as soon as possible to obtain the highest rank of mountain guide.
It was the Mansi’s talk, after Yudin’s departure, that reawakened the painful memories of that sad, unforgettable birthday from so many years ago. However, he never would have expected to stumble upon one of those legends he had listened to with wonder back then, almost obliterated by the pain of his loss.
IV
On January 30, they woke up early and continued along the Auspiya River. They rose to a beautiful, clear sky, but they would soon have proof that, in the mountains, the weather could change all too quickly. As they were finishing breakfast with tea and biscuits, Zina asked, “Hey Aleksander, isn’t it your birthday today?”
The man nodded, feigning nonchalance, and immediately it was a party again: they started singing, some hugged him, and others patted him on the back. Any excuse was a good one to keep their spirits up in that inhospitable environment. It wasn’t actually his real birthday, but in Russia, some people preferred to celebrate their “true” birth by remembering special occasions. He had no desire to tell the story to those who didn’t already know it, and luckily Nick changed the subject by pulling something out of a pocket of his backpack: a yellow-orange sphere 5–6 centimeters in diameter. “I was saving this for Krivo’s birthday in eight days, but I didn’t know we were celebrating again! This is for you, then… it’s a mandarin orange!”
That fruit was alien to most of them; they had only read about it in books. It was so fragrant; its soft texture and the smoothness of its peel were irresistible… it was a shame to eat it! Aleksander peeled it carefully, then divided the fruit into eight segments and offered them to the others, thanking them for the unexpected gift. Krivo protested, joking that he would have eaten such a precious fruit all by himself, but Sasha then pointed out that, with the fame that would follow the feat they were about to accomplish, he could have all the mandarins he wanted. At those words of encouragement, Igor was the first to stand up to make a toast with his mess tin full of tea—spiked with a drop of vodka—and the others immediately followed. That moment of complete serenity marked Sasha’s full integration into the group.
A storm that broke out just before lunchtime forced them to proceed very slowly using the leapfrog technique. They were still following the trail marked by the Mansi with carvings on the trees: it was their ancient way of navigating in the woods, and they used it to indicate both the path to follow and the proximity of shelters or settlements. It wasn’t the Cyrillic alphabet, but graphic symbols that looked like a mix between cuneiform writing and stylized illustrations.
The hour was getting late; it was already four in the afternoon, and they hadn’t covered even three kilometers. According to their plans, they should have covered at least triple that distance. Igor consulted with Sasha to figure out the best course of action: the maps showed they were still a few kilometers from the summit of Kholat Syakhl, the only peak separating them from Otorten, but it was not wise to continue in the evening with such bad weather.
They decided to stop in the forest and split into groups: Krivo, Nick, Lyudmilla, and Zina took care of setting up the tent, while Rustik prepared the fire. The others, meanwhile, went into the woods to look for firewood, splitting up to cover a wider area. The sky was still light, and there was no danger of getting lost.
Sasha headed east, moving two hundred meters away from the path. For this reason, believing he was in a less traveled area, he was surprised to find a tree with Mansi carvings. The signs they had been following until just before had indicated continuing north, not east. Intrigued, he advanced another fifty meters, keeping his eyes peeled so as not to miss any more signs.
What he found instead was a sort of white hemisphere in the middle of a tiny clearing. As he got closer, he discovered it was a pile of stones a meter and a half high. It was covered in snow, and that white blanket gave it the appearance of an igloo. Walking around it, he saw instead that it was the entrance to a small cave, a sort of underground chamber closed with a rudimentary wooden door, carved with what looked very much like more Mansi drawings.
Intrigued, he looked around for his companions. He had gone too far; there was no one but snow, trees, and a few bushes covered in more snow. He could only hear the wind whistling through the branches, both relaxing and menacing. He grabbed the door, which he discovered was only wedged between the rocks, pulled it toward him, and leaned it to the side. Inside the dark antechamber, he could see almost nothing due to the contrast with the whiteness of the outside environment; it took him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust.
The cave descended only three or four meters and seemed to be no more than ten meters long. He didn’t have a flashlight, but the light coming from outside illuminated the ground enough to walk without tripping. Sasha crossed the threshold and noticed that there were clothes and accessories on the sides: a headdress, knives, some bows with arrows… it must have been some kind of shelter for hunters.
At the far end was what appeared to be an altar. It was covered with thirty- to forty-centimeter-tall wooden statuettes depicting colorful animals: deer, squirrels, marmots… but there was something abnormal about the features of these figures: some had slightly elongated heads or an unnatural curve to their backs… Perhaps it was a typical trait of the carver.
Placed in the center of these icons, resting on an embroidered and colored cloth, was a stone about twenty centimeters wide. Looking at it up close, it seemed to emit a very faint glow.
Could it be… the stone the Mansi had told him about during the war? Overcome with curiosity, he grabbed it. It was rather light for its size, very smooth, and had no signs of carving. At first glance, apart from that impression of luminescence, there was nothing strange about it at all.
He decided to take it outside into the now-fading sunlight to study it better: he walked out the door and lifted it to face level. It was gray with white and ochre streaks; out there, the glow was not visible, assuming he hadn’t imagined it before. He turned it over in his hands, trying to feel, with his senses on high alert, something abnormal, any strange sensation… but he perceived nothing. He was about to turn around and put the rock back on its altar, but for a moment it seemed that the stone structure had disappeared!
He dropped the rock, surprised, but realized he must have been seeing things: the cave was there, with the door leaning to one side just as he had left it. And yet, for a moment, he had only seen the fir trees behind it. Confused, he picked up the rock, and before taking another step… the phenomenon repeated itself: half of the structure vanished, shimmering before him, and then reappeared more stably.
With his heart suddenly racing, he tried to find an explanation. After several minutes of experiments—touching the structure with the stone in his hand and then leaving it on the ground—he thought he understood how it worked: by looking near the rock, the reality observed in the immediate vicinity seemed to change, but the stones actually remained in their place. Perhaps this was indeed the phenomenon that the Mansi, years ago, had described to him as “seeing the future”… if this structure were to be demolished in a year, he thought, there would indeed be just an empty space in the clearing, as shown by this strange event.
Thrilled, he tucked the stone between his jacket and sweater, then closed the cave door and headed back toward the camp, intending to show his discovery to the others.
V
His enthusiasm was immediately dampened by the sight he found outside the tent: a fight had broken out. Igor was holding Rustik by the collar, while Aleksander was sitting on the ground with a bloody hand in front of his nose. It seemed to be over, but Dyatlov was visibly bitter.
Tactfully asking the other boys, it turned out that the topic of Yurka and Zina’s relationship had come up again. Rustik had made a foolish joke with some double entendre, and Igor had reacted badly. After a few punches without any serious consequences, Aleksander intervened to separate the pair, but all he got was a punch in the face. After that, the fight subsided, but Sasha didn’t get a chance to show the others his amazing discovery. After dinner, he hid his treasure in his backpack and decided to wait until the next day, trying to sleep on it—with poor results.
On the morning of January 31st, almost everyone woke up in a good mood except for Zina, who was tired of the nonsense that ended up ruining everyone’s day, and Sasha, who had slept very little and couldn’t wait to show the others what he had found. Something inside him, however, insisted he wait a little longer. It wasn’t the right time to make the find public; maybe they would want to return the stone to its sanctuary or, even worse, try to take it for themselves! They all seemed like very honest people… but they were strangers, after all. He couldn’t risk having a memento of these last days with his best friend taken from him.
Following the usual Mansi trail, they left the valley of the Auspiya River and began the ascent towards the mountain. They were again forced to proceed in relays, despite the clear sky, to avoid struggling with their backpacks in the deep snow. The fir trees gave way to birch woods, then to vast, white open spaces.
The afternoon came quickly, and they decided to make camp around four o’clock. They also decided to build a raised shelter in a tree, where they could unload part of their equipment and then come back for it three or four days later, on their way back.
Sasha was restless and decided to keep his discovery to himself. Around eight o’clock, just a few hours before his birthday and the anniversary of his blood brother’s death, while the others were singing outside around the fire, he went back into the tent. He took the rock from his backpack and held it up to his eyes for another look. He could see a stretch of white snow bordering the stone, as if there were a huge tear with indefinite edges in the fabric through which he could see outside.
The sky of that valley, however, was not theirs: while the stars were visible outside the tent, he could make out a stormy sky and snow falling towards the ground. He saw the flakes flying towards him, but they didn’t land on his face. Right there, next to a padded sleeping bag, through that strange opening, he could distinctly see footprints. He was surprised, but then he realized that if he was seeing the future, it was plausible they were their own tracks… but, looking at them carefully… they were left by bare feet! He could distinguish the toes and the heel quite clearly; moreover, they were tremendously large, at least thirty centimeters!
Shaken by that image, he put the artifact back in its hiding place and went out again with the others. To make up for the lost time, they would have to get up before sunrise the next morning, but they got a little too carried away by the music, the campfire spirit, and probably the liquor. They went to bed late and couldn’t wake up by dawn, so they missed their last chance to see one.
Being ready to leave only after eleven in the morning, on February 1st the group advanced only two kilometers to the north, stopping on the slopes of Mount Kholat Syakhl and a few hours’ walk from the summit of Otorten.
Igor was ashamed of this meager progress and such an unproductive day. The weather worsened further, and by mid-afternoon, with visibility practically at zero, they were forced to pitch the tent in the middle of the slope because they didn’t know how far the valley to the northeast was: it could be a hundred meters or three kilometers; with that blizzard, it was impossible to get their bearings with the map. Furious, he asked Sasha if he agreed to stop in that awkward position; the other objected that they could be easy targets for an avalanche, but the young man was not entirely wrong: they were blind in all directions, and it was better not to risk making the situation worse.
It was therefore decided to set up camp, but spirits were rather low. One of the worst aspects, besides the location itself, was the almost total lack of firewood: there were no trees to be seen nearby. So two volunteers, Krivo and Yurka, set off blindly, compasses in hand, hoping to reach a forest as soon as possible.
The two boys returned after almost an hour with some wood: after twenty minutes of very slow descent due to the blizzard, they managed to reach the edge of a forest and retrieve some wet branches. They set to work lighting the camp stove, but due to the dampness of the fuel, the results were very slow to come: more was needed, so four of the boys set off to get more, while the sky grew darker and darker.
The hours passed in general gloom, amidst complaints about the expedition’s delay and the condition of the stove, which only began to emit a satisfying warmth after dinner. After eating, in fact, everyone sat in a circle around that pleasantly warm fire, finally cranked up to the maximum to try to get as much comfort as possible from it. They had stripped off their soaked clothes, which were drying, hung on the tent’s frame.
Krivo, sitting near the entrance of the tent, looked past his companions towards the back of the shelter and after a while asked, “Is there a hole in the fabric?”
The others turned, alarmed: they didn’t feel any draft, and everyone, when moving, was always careful not to damage the precious canvas that separated them from the burning ice. However, Krivo continued, “There, near the backpacks, I see snow swirling.”
An alarm bell rang in Sasha’s head, but he said nothing. He got up and approached his luggage, observing it carefully: it was true, it seemed that some snowflakes were entering the tent from the side wall, but he knew it was the optical illusion caused by the stone. He hadn’t noticed that its radiation was visible even through the fabric of the backpack! He then decided to reassure his companions and tell them everything.
At first, they didn’t seem particularly impressed by the seemingly insignificant rock, but when Sasha brought it closer to the stove for a better look, everyone finally saw its effects firsthand. Their reactions were varied: Lyudmilla and Aleksander were fascinated, while Igor looked at it as if it were the embodiment of evil. Krivo and Zina backed away slowly, trying to keep as far away from the object as possible, while Yurka and Rustik approached with their mouths agape. Nick, on the other hand, jumped to his feet to try to observe it by walking around it.
Startled by his companion’s sudden movement, Sasha spun around towards him and, stepping back, tripped over his own backpack. He lost his balance and fell backward, tumbling over Aleksander and Rustik. The stone slipped from his hands, bounced off the metal plate of the stove, and then ended up in the fiery mouth of the heater, amidst the red-hot logs.
The man who had just fallen let out a cry of surprise as he got up to try to retrieve the rock. It was impossible; the flames were too high. Nick, feeling guilty for what had happened, started to go outside to get a bucket of snow to try to extinguish the embers, but just before crossing the threshold, he heard a scream and turned around abruptly. Zina’s eyes were wide, and she was pointing a finger at an indistinct spot above the heads of the boys sitting in front of her.
At first glance, everything seemed normal to Nick, but then someone else screamed. A flurry of snow hit Igor’s face, who suddenly took on a shocked expression, as if he had received an unexpected slap. A pile of snow materialized out of nowhere at Lyudmilla’s feet, who was sitting on her sleeping bag; yet there was no trace of any tear in the tent’s canvas. They were wondering how the hell it was possible when a strong gust of icy wind, lasting two or three seconds, froze everyone present and then vanished unexpectedly, just as it had appeared.
The boys began to exchange alarmed glances: what was happening? The tent was perfectly intact, yet the lantern hanging from the ceiling was swaying and had snow stuck to its side. Nick started walking towards the stove again, but he froze, noticing that the others were covering their ears, pulling their heads between their shoulders while continuing to open and close their mouths. Then he heard it too: a buzzing sound was growing in the air, extremely loud and annoying. That explained the others’ funny gesture: they were trying to “pop” their ears, like when a train enters a tunnel.
He looked around but couldn’t figure out the source of the whistle. He then shifted his gaze to the right, following Zina’s eyes, and was stunned: the fabric of the tent was coming and going, disappearing from view and reappearing before his eyes. What scared him most, however, was that he could feel the snow settling on his face, as if that protection were disappearing.
The group of students jumped to their feet almost in unison, seized by panic. They didn’t understand what was happening, and no one rationally thought that the stone could be the cause of the problem, but they are not to be blamed: no one in their situation would have ever imagined what was about to happen.
The tent continued to vanish and reappear faster and faster, while the people inside didn’t know how to react. Without thinking too much, Igor took Zina by the hand and dragged her outside. They were followed closely by Rustik and Yurka, who jumped into the icy snow without remembering to grab heavy clothes. They were all dressed only in wool sweaters, pants, and socks. They hadn’t even put on their shoes in the confusion of the moment, because none of them would have ever expected what was about to happen: a few seconds after Yurka went out, the tent disappeared with all the occupants still inside, leaving four bewildered and half-naked kids in complete darkness and at the mercy of the elements.
VI
Suddenly, the trembling and whistling stopped. Krivo, Sasha, Aleksander, Lyudmilla, and Nick looked at each other with racing hearts and shortness of breath. What had happened? Sasha approached the stove, which was still burning with the stone inside. It emanated a peculiar glow, similar to the one observed in the cave but much more intense. There was no alternative; he had to wait for the fire to go out to retrieve it.
Nick walked toward the tent door again, went out, and was taken aback: there was no trace of the others, nor of their footprints. Looking up, he noticed that the sky was extremely clear, whereas he would have expected stormy weather. They had established that the weather could change quickly, but it was impossible for it to have cleared up like that in just a few hours.
Calling their friends outside as well, they did a quick tour around the tent and found no explanation: they were on the same slope as before, but it seemed completely different. There was no trace of any human passage for dozens of meters; their skis, which they had planted outside, were also missing.
They got dressed, unlike their unfortunate friends, and decided to go down into the valley toward the woods where Krivo and Aleksander had gone to get firewood: thanks to the light of the moon and stars, it was now clearly visible from their position. It seemed the only sensible destination. Moreover, they knew that the others hadn’t taken any clothes to protect themselves from the cold, so they were well aware that they had to find them as soon as possible.
They were unaware, however, that the light from the lantern hanging in the tent had attracted the curiosity of someone else—or something else—from hundreds of meters away, who decided to investigate the strange appearance.
They were freezing. The most suitable piece of clothing for their condition was the single boot that Rustik had grabbed while running outside. Someone was wearing a light sweater, but most of them had a thin undershirt and little else. Lyudmilla, with two pairs of socks, could consider herself lucky.
They were alone on the side of the mountain, with only their skis a few meters away, beyond the spot where the tent had stood until a short time before. It was a shame that, without snowshoes and boots, that equipment was useless. They walked in circles for almost a minute, looking for clues, but found nothing. It seemed as if the camp had never been pitched. The blizzard had subsided, but the sky was far from clear. Every now and then a gust of wind made them shiver even more than the freezing temperature, which must have been twenty degrees below zero or lower.
Within ten minutes, they would lose their toes if they didn’t find a solution. Igor then seized the opportunity, reminding himself that he was the team leader: he had to save these kids. They could only find shelter in the forest to the northeast. He hadn’t been there, but Yurka had. He asked him to lead the way, so they set off as fast as they could down the slope.
With every step, they sank into the snow up to their groins. They could no longer feel their thighs and feet, and they kept obsessively opening and closing their hands for fear of losing sensation in them permanently. They ran desperately, but they sank too deep into the high snow. After a little over ten minutes, they reached the line of the first trees of the forest, composed of cedars and birches.
After a few more meters, they turned around in search of traces of their missing friends, but they saw no lights, nor… Out of the corner of her eye, near the first trees, Zina thought she saw something, but immediately after, she thought she was mistaken. However, as she approached with difficulty, an image appeared before her, blurry and incomplete, of five people wandering in the woods, looking around. They were indistinguishable from one another, their faces only hinted at.
Was it them? How could it be? They were there, just a few meters away, yet they didn’t see her. She tried to scream, but they didn’t hear her. Hearing the girl’s voice, however, Igor and the others approached, full of hope. Those other, almost invisible individuals, however, did not seem to notice the young woman who was waving her arms. Exhausted, she threw herself against those ethereal figures and passed through them as if they were made of smoke.
Under that clear sky, visibility was excellent thanks to the snow that covered everything. And yet, there was no sign of their friends. They had hurried to the woods, but the others had evidently not gone in that direction. There were no tracks of any kind on the ground. Where could they have gone, if not there? The only alternatives were the road they had come from, which was out of the question, and the mountain peak—madness!
The five youths, led by Sasha, scouted the woods for a few minutes, then decided to turn back. They headed uphill, following their own tracks back toward the tent. Watching that illuminated shape about three hundred meters away, they suddenly saw the light from the lamp hanging from the ceiling darken, as if a person had passed in front of it. Aleksander was the first to point it out: “Did you see that? There’s someone inside! They’re back!”
They quickened their pace, and within five minutes were near the camp. They approached from the northeast, while the entrance faced south. This way, they could clearly see several gashes in the side wall of the structure, which had absolutely not been there when they left. Why on earth had they made them?
Just as they were passing along the side, they saw the fabric stretch slowly, more and more, until the tip of a knife pierced it and began to move horizontally for about forty centimeters. The blade disappeared inside, and immediately after, there was a grim sound, a cackle of guttural laughter coming from inside the tent; it was definitely not one of the expedition members. Whoever was responsible for the cut seemed amused by it.
Stunned, the youths froze, remaining in total silence. That something in there was rummaging through their things: they could hear backpacks being opened and some bulky object being lifted, perhaps the folding table. Sasha decided to summon his courage and, moving very slowly, approached the entrance. The door was ajar, the buttons undone. He peeked inside, and his face, already chilled, turned even paler: the stove in the center was still burning fiercely; beyond the glow of the fire, a creature covered in gray fur was squatting while devouring their supply of dried meat. Luckily, it wasn’t looking toward the door! It was enormous; squatting, it was as tall as a man, and standing, it must have been over two and a half meters. It had almost human features, but it was more like a primate than a Homo sapiens. Was it perhaps the menkvi, which the Mansi believed was responsible for the killing of those nine hunters? Nine, exactly like them.
Trying to move as slowly as possible, Sasha returned to his companions, motioned for them to move away from the camp, and then explained the situation in a mere whisper. The others were incredulous, thinking it was a joke, but the cuts in the tent, that laughter… it was all very strange. Above all, however, it was the look of sheer terror on the experienced mountain guide’s face that convinced them of his sincerity.
They set off once more toward the woods, moving slowly so as not to make a sound. Fortunately, the crackling of the wood in the stove must have been covering their footsteps. After a quarter of an hour, they were back among the trees and considered their options: they couldn’t return to the base, and they were without equipment. They had to wait for the creature to leave and hope it wouldn’t follow their tracks, which, by the way, were quite obvious… but it was too cold; in the meantime, they had to build a shelter. It was only ten at night; they couldn’t spend the whole night outdoors.
They decided to split up: Krivo would stay behind to keep watch near the trees, observing the tent from a distance; thanks to the excellent visibility, he would be able to see the monster approaching well in advance. In that case… well, maybe they could hide in the trees… but there was no point in thinking about that now. The other four headed west to find a clearing and start digging a shelter.
VII
It was not an unusual practice: in extreme cases, if forced to spend the night outdoors, one of the best tactics was to try to dig a proper den in the earth or snow. With a bit of luck, if you also had a fire, you could likely survive thanks to the heat retained by the cramped space.
All the youths on the expedition were well trained and knew this technique, so much so that it was the decision Igor, Zina, Yurka, and Rustik also made when they saw those five phantoms seem to head toward the road they had just descended.
Disheartened, Dyatlov explained to the others that they had to try to stay warm: their priority was to dig a burrow. They all knew what that meant, so they set off deeper into the woods to the west and decided to start using their bare hands and makeshift tools. Speaking of luck, Yurka couldn’t believe his eyes when he found a lighter in his trouser pocket. All was not lost!
They had been working for what felt like hours, but the results were poor. Luckily, there were four of them, but with only bare hands and wooden sticks, it was almost impossible to reach an acceptable depth. If they continued like this, their skin would get frostbitten and their entire bodies would become numb, one little piece at a time, until it reached a vital organ. Fortunately, if they wanted to live, the youths had no time to dwell on those gruesome yet frighteningly real details.
Suddenly, they saw the phantoms return: there were four of them. They crouched about fifteen meters away and began to dig as well, or so it seemed, because the snow didn’t move a millimeter. They knew it was useless to try to communicate with them, but Zina didn’t want to give up.
There were indeed four of them, so one man was missing. While the girl tried to kick up snow to get the shadows’ attention, Yurka offered to go back and check if the tent had reappeared, so he headed east. Reaching the tree line, he looked hopefully up the slope, but there was nothing. No trace of their camp.
Out of the corner of his eye, however, behind a cedar tree, he saw the fifth phantom, which seemed to be hiding by the tree. The half-frozen student approached and tried to shout, to shove it, but it was all useless. It was a whitish, semi-transparent figure, unstable and faceless. Then he had an idea: if he couldn’t communicate with it directly, maybe he could get it to notice a fire.
About twenty minutes had passed. Krivo was behind a tree, leaning out to get a better look at the tent. Every so often, the light would dim, probably because the figure was passing in front of the lantern, but he believed they were quite safe there in the woods. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of digging.
His gaze was caught by a small spark, a faint little light that appeared at the base of the cedar. It was a very pale yellow. At first, it looked like a frozen butterfly that flapped its wings and landed on the snow, but then it slowly expanded with strange, flame-like movements, flaring up for a moment toward the sky and then vanishing. It was a small, pale-colored bonfire, spontaneously lit right there at the base of that tree, and it was growing steadily. Could it be a will-o’-the-wisp? Now he could truly say he had seen it all! Unfortunately, however, it did not occur to him that someone else might also have been able to see that curious light in the darkness.
Yurka had managed to light the fire quite easily with some branches he found nearby. “How is it that last night they were all wet, but tonight they’re so dry?”
Once it was lit, he ran to call Igor, Zina, and Rustik. He had no voice left, and making himself heard from that distance was unthinkable. Those flames could save their lives!
The digging work continued, but Krivo was anxious because he wanted with all his heart to return to the tent. Their tent, which they had sewn with their own hands. That milky fire, which gave off no heat, filled him with a deep nostalgia for the stove they had managed to light with so much effort.
It had been such a slog to make that journey to find wood like that… his thoughts were interrupted by a vision as fascinating as it was terrifying: a distinct dot was growing rapidly below their camp. It was following their tracks and descending the slope at a good pace, moving on all fours.
It was clearly the creature occupying their settlement; it was enormous and completely unknown. It could have been a large ape, perhaps one of the gorillas he had seen illustrated in biology books, but this was not exactly their habitat.
“Damn it, the fire!” he exclaimed instinctively, but there was no time to warn the others: that abomination was too fast. He decided to climb the tree as high as possible, hoping the creature wouldn’t notice him.
The sparse branches of the cedar allowed Krivo to see it clearly as it approached: it was covered in gray, almost silvery fur from the reflection of the snow, all over its body except for its face. It supported its weight on its powerful front limbs, similar to long human arms, as it ran much faster than a man. It was imposing, almost three meters tall, and it made leaps of at least three times its height.
The menkvi came within twenty meters of the strange flame and stopped. It looked around, then began to circle the tree, wary, its gaze always fixed on the pale fire. It must have been a novelty for it. The youth in the tree remained as still as he could, every muscle in his body tense and aching from the effort. He could only hear his own heart beating, the creature’s muffled steps on the snow, and his constant thought: “Go away, go away, go away, go away, go away…”
The monster’s attention was then drawn to something else. It turned to the west, hearing the sound of a breaking branch and distant voices near the digging site.
VIII
Nick was the first to notice the silence that enveloped the small clearing. There was one last hiss of the wind, then nothing. He felt watched, and he was right: when he looked up, he saw, just twenty meters away, a gigantic, powerful being with a far-from-benevolent air staring at them, leaning on its front legs. It resembled an enormous primate, but its face was elongated, almost human, and its eyes were a bright blue he had never seen before.
First Sasha, then Lyudmilla stopped to check on Nick, who was suddenly still and silent, and when they followed his gaze, they nearly fainted: that beast couldn’t be real! They turned abruptly so as not to show their backs, but this sudden movement triggered the being, which rose to a bipedal position and puffed out its chest in a threatening gesture.
Sasha, the only one who had seen it before in the tent, tried to stand up slowly, but his legs wouldn’t obey him. He reached for the stick he had been digging with, but perhaps the menkvi perceived this gesture as a threat, and with a leap, it was in front of him.
It grabbed the man by the torso and lifted him as if he were a doll, observing him carefully. Sasha could feel the beast’s breath on his face, emitted from enormous nostrils that flared rapidly. It could have been a signal of dominance, of possession, a way of saying “I have you under control,” but those eyes held a spark of intelligence. Perhaps there was some chance to communicate… but Lyudmilla’s sharp scream completely shattered the balance that might have been created.
Shrieks arose from all directions, and the monster panicked, confused by the sounds, its gaze constantly shifting from one man to another. After a few moments, it decided it had had enough: it tightened its grip on the victim’s chest and shattered his ribs. Then it took his head in its jaws and, holding it almost delicately between its enormous fangs, twisted the hand holding his body, cleanly breaking his neck bone. Meanwhile, it sucked violently with its mouth, and one of the poor boy’s eyeballs popped out of its socket. The pseudo-gorilla neatly severed the optic nerve with its teeth, then threw the mountain guide’s lifeless body onto the snow.
It then turned towards the others, who were watching the scene, petrified, and, with a lightning-fast movement, grabbed the skulls of Nick and Alexander with its two enormous hands. It lifted them off the ground and, from its swollen chest, emitted what sounded like a roar mixed with a war cry, almost articulating words in an unknown language, then smashed the two skulls together with terrifying violence, shattering them.
Finally, it turned its attention to Lyudmilla, who had never stopped screaming. Perhaps it was this annoying detail that earned her the worst treatment. First, she was seized in an almost romantic embrace, with one huge hand gripping her shoulders and the other clutching her head, then the beast sank its horrifying canines into her temples, first sucking out her eyes, then tearing out her tongue.
Afterward, it studied the scene for a minute or two, observing the lifeless bodies and the hole they had been trying to finish digging. Finally, still confused by the appearance of these creatures unknown to it, it headed back towards the fire at the foot of the tree.
Krivo, meanwhile, was in tears, having heard and glimpsed everything from the top of his hiding place. He was sobbing, desperate, not knowing what to do. He was alone, but he couldn’t risk running towards the tent. That monster would surely catch him if it saw him. And besides, what had happened to Igor and the others?
He wiped the frozen tears from his eyes and, when he reopened them, a scream of pure terror escaped his mouth: at the foot of the tree, next to the bonfire, the beast had appeared—it was looking up, right into his eyes! The boy thought he would die on the spot from fright; he had never felt so much fear. He was sure he had no escape, yet he tried to pull himself up and climb even higher onto the upper branches.
Without ever taking his eyes off that abomination below, Krivo began to climb. After little more than a meter, however, the branch he was holding onto with both arms disappeared. It didn’t break; it just vanished, and his hands closed around nothing. Looking up, he noticed that all the tree’s branches had changed position around him. It was as if it were another tree, or perhaps it was the same but different.
Without a firm grip, he fell onto a lower branch, but he wasn’t ready for the impact: he lost his balance and slipped down, crashing ruinously against other branches and scratching his hands and face. Finally, he took a free fall of more than four meters and landed right on Yurka, who was crouched with the others around the fire.
The newly fallen body slid into the flames, singeing some hair on his temple, but Igor promptly pulled him away. It was Krivo! Where had he come from? Looking up at the branches and trying to make sense of the sudden appearance, Dyatlov put some snow on the burn on his head, but then, touching his neck, he felt no pulse. Meanwhile, Zina had rushed to assist Yurka, who was also unconscious: he was breathing with difficulty, but he was alive. He had probably cushioned the fall with his back and had fractured some ribs, if not worse.
Rustik, the last of the group, was exhausted. He was trying to understand what he had just witnessed, but he could barely connect his thoughts. He looked around, staggering, and saw a faint light halfway up the slope towards the summit of Kholat Syakhl: the tent! It had reappeared! He tried to alert the others, but no sound came from his mouth. So he tapped Igor on the shoulder with what, until an hour ago, had been his hand, now completely numb, and pointed to the light up there.
They looked at each other: they were devastated, their faces frostbitten, their lips chapped, and their eyelids almost glued shut by the cold. However, they couldn’t stay there by the fire: they had neither the strength to gather more wood nor to continue digging the shelter.
Determined to make one last, impossible effort, they set off, but after not even thirty seconds, sunk up to their waists in snow, they realized they would never reach the tent. They had spent too much time half-naked in extreme sub-zero temperatures. To have made it this far was a miracle… or perhaps a curse.
Those three boys probably met the worst end of their group: with the false hope of an intangible salvation, they fell one after another into the snow, almost in single file, extinguishing like the flames of that bonfire that was capable of being seen by the inhabitants of other worlds.
Zina was the hiker who got closest to the tent, coming within nine hundred meters of her goal. But even if she had made it, if she had managed to set one foot past that threshold, it would have been useless: by then the stove had grown cold, and so had the strange stone inside it.