SOVIET SECRETS AND MYSTIC PEOPLE OF THE DEEP URALS

We offer bespoke Ural Tours for private travel parties and lone wolves alike. As a traveller-oriented boutique operator, tailored trips and bespoke adventures are our bread and butter. Get in touch for more info on our customised journeys to the Urals! 

ITINERARY

Hiking Option: please note that the following 4-day tour envisages the use of private helicopters as the main mean of transport to travel between the different legs of the itinerary. If you prefer to cover the route by land, we can arrange for you a longer and slightly challenging (and hence extremely rewarding) 8-day hiking tour across the area. Please contact us to learn more about this option.

DAY 1 - Khanty-Mansiysk

• Meet ‘n Greet at Khanty-Mansiysk Airport (exact meeting time will be communicated well in advance per email in accordance with your flight schedule).

• Introductory briefing about the region, the route and the set of rules to observe while travelling in the Mansi Country.

• Half-day city tour around Khanty-Mansiysk, a once-sleepy and quintessentially-Soviet sub-arctic provincial town that has been recently transformed into a bizarre urban experiment of postmodernist architectonic shapes and kitschy monuments endowed by enormous oil revenues and even larger bad taste in art and aesthetics.

• Khanty-Mansiysk is also the capital of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug aka Yugra, an oil-rich self-governing region originally created by the Bolsheviks as a putative administrative homeland for the aboriginal Mansi and Khanty people, the two Finno-Ugric titular nationalities inhabiting the area since the dawn of time.

• Under Soviet administration the Khanty and the Mansi were settled on collective farms. In addition to the development of the aboriginal economy, such new activities as animal husbandry, fur farming, and agriculture were introduced. Truth to be told, both the Mansi and the Khanty benefited a lot from the highly efficient Soviet system: education, healthcare and housing were provided for free by the state and the life expectancy increased dramatically. On the other hand, Mansi and Khanty cultural traditions such as hunting and shamanism were discouraged or even prohibited: some of them were then irremediably lost.

• During your time in Khanty-Mansiysk you'll have the unique chance to meet with local representants of the Khanty and Mansi ethnicities, who will share with you the fascinating tales and the mystic secrets of their endangered culture.

• Afternoon relax at our hotel’s banya (traditional Russian sauna) and grand Siberian dinner washed down with locally distilled vodka.

• Overnight in Khanty-Mansiysk.

DAY 2 - Man-Pupu-Ner

• Morning drive to the quintessentially Soviet city of Nyagan, a drab urban experiment rising amid the thick forests of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. 

• Soviet-themed city tour, transfer to the local heliport and pre-flight briefing with our USSR-born chopper pilot.

• Two-hour helicopter flight to the Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve in the neighbouring Komi Republic, an autonomous geopolitical entity within the Russian Federation named after the Finno-Ugric people still inhabiting it.

• Our Soviet helicopter will disembark us on the Man-Pupu-Ner Plateau, an heath-covered scenic massif famous for the namesake rock formations rising on top of it.

• Deemed one of the Seven Wonders of Russia, the Manpupuner Pillars (from Mansi: Мань-Пупыг-Нёр ’Small Idol Mountain’) are a set of seven sericite-quartzite schist stone columns ranging between 30 and 42 metres in height and resembling some kind of primordial giants or (more prosaically) a series of inverted beer bottles planted in the ground.

• There are numerous legends associated with Manpupuner as the formations were once considered sacred by the local Mansi and Komi people, and climbing them was regarded as a sin.

• Once on the plateau, we will enjoy a guided tour of the Manpupuner Pillars led by a local expert, who will teach us everything about these awe-striking rock formations: from their geological history to the arguably more interesting tales, myths and legends surrounding them.

• From such an elevated viewpoint you will also be able to admire the Grand Ural Mountain Range in all its glory and get a glimpse of the impossible-to-pronounce holy massif of Pecheryatalakhchakhl, yet another place of reverence and awe for the local Mansi dwellers.

• Depending on your level of fitness, we will spend the rest of the day either hiking around the plateau or simply relaxing in the company of the park rangers: that’s entirely up to you and we can even split if some of you feel lazier than the others!  

• Bonfire dinner and tent overnight in Man-Pupu-Ner.

DAY 3 - Dyatlov Pass

• After an early campsite breakfast, we will board our Soviet helicopter for a further 30-minute flight south along the Ural Range.

• Through the porthole we will be able to see another trump card of the Northern Ural region: Mount Otorten, at the top of which two more stone pillars rise from a Scotland-reminiscent heath vegetation.

• Today’s flight destination is the dreadful and forbidden Kholat-Syakhl (Dead Mountain), where, according to a local legend, nine Mansi hunters died while chasing a mysterious deer-like creature. 

• Many years later, in the very same place, an equally bewildering episode happened; this time, however, it wasn’t neither a myth nor a tale from the local folklore: the Kholat-Syakhl area was, in fact, the theatre of the notorious and yet-to-be-solved Dyatlov Pass Riddle.

• The 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident was a mysterious event where nine Soviet hikers died in uncertain circumstances. The experienced trekking group, who were all from the Ural Polytechnic Institute, had established a camp on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl, in an area now named in honor of the group's leader, Igor Dyatlov. During the night, something caused them to tear their way out of their tents and flee the campsite, all while inadequately dressed for the heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures. After the group's bodies were discovered, an investigation by Soviet authorities determined that six had died from hypothermia while the other three showed signs of physical trauma. One victim had a fractured skull; two others had major chest fractures and the body of one of the group was missing both its eyes. One of the victims was missing his tongue. The investigation concluded that a "compelling natural force" was behind the deaths.

• Numerous scientific and conspiracy theories have been put forward to account for the unexplained deaths, including animal attacks, hypothermia, avalanche, katabatic winds, infrasound-induced panic, random drifters, military experiments, KGB death commando, as well as a few more imaginative conjectures such as UFO landings, a Yeti gone berserk, madness-induced rampage and teleportation.

• On the extremely vast website dyatlovpass.com you can find basically everything directly and indirectly related to the incident, including (but not limited to): victims and rescuers’ background and private stories, details about the search efforts, death theories, camera and case files, diaries, classified docs and much more.

• Our excursion will include a de rigueur pilgrimage to the Soviet-era memorial stele and a short hike to the exact location where the ripped-off tents and the bodies were found by the rescuers.

• After a quick picnic lunch we’ll board again our helicopter for the final flight back to Nyagan, from where we’ll then transfer by minivan to Khanty-Mansiysk with planned arrival around dinner time.

• Traditional Siberian dinner and overnight in Khanty-Mansiysk.

DAY 4 - Flight back home or transfer to further destinations  

• After enjoying a last Mansi breakfast together, we'll take care of your transfer to Khanty-Mansiysk Airport for your trip back home and/or your connection to yet another exciting destination in the region such as the Komi Republic or the Soviet Urals.

• End of the tour.

1790 €