Dyatlov’ s UPI Alumni Friends Join the Group
Not all of Dyatlov’s party were UPI students. There were recent graduates among them. These included Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle, the funny, fun-loving outdoorsman, whose family endured difficulty while his father served time in a Gulag during the Stalin regime. His tall, floppy hat, and lopsided grin lets makes him stand out in all the photos of the hikers. There was Rustem “Rustik” Slobodin, son of a professor and despite being the quiet sort, had a good sense of humor and was skilled at the mandolin. Georgy Krivonischenko, who, like Slobodin and Thibeaux-Brignolle, recently graduated UPI, was friends with Dyatlov and invited on the adventure. He was an engineer at the Mayak nuclear complex, but an artist at heart, playing the mandolin and writing poetry.