Month-long search for Isa Bakaev

Rescuers have been searching the mountains of Krasnoyarsk Krai for a month for a tourist who disappeared without a trace. Isa Bakaev, 45, originally from Chechnya, set out on a route in Ergaki Nature Park as part of a group of four on 29 August. Two days later, rescuers received word the tourists could not return from the route. Three people were found, but Isa’s whereabouts remain unknown. Relatives have announced a reward of 1,000,000 rubles ($11,000 at current rates) for help in finding him. An NGS24.RU correspondent spoke with the missing man’s family and reconstructed the chronology of events.

«Your companion is missing»

It was Isa Bakaev’s wife, Irina, who told our newsroom that a man has been unsuccessfully sought for weeks in Ergaki.

— We are doing everything we can to reach out to the media and journalists so the work is done properly — not just a perfunctory note and then forgotten, — the woman says.

The missing man’s wife feels her husband is not being searched for thoroughly enough. She recalls that when her husband and his friends did not return from the hike on 1 September, as promised, she did not immediately realize something was wrong.

— I waited for them at home all day, but they didn’t return, and there was no call from them. I called my husband; the phone didn’t answer — the subscriber was unavailable. I thought maybe they decided to stay there, maybe they were delayed — I figured anything can happen, so I didn’t raise the alarm. But 2 September came — and still no people. I was worried for all of them, and on 2 September I called the official visitor center of Ergaki. I asked whether such a group had even entered. They told me they had, that it was registered to one of the friends who was going in, that they hadn’t come out, but everything was under EMERCOM control. I calmed down — I thought, fine, EMERCOM is overseeing it. But I called all of Isa’s relatives — his sister, his brother… They reassured me, said everything was okay, that it would all work out. «They’ll come out, don’t worry, nothing terrible», — Irina recalls.

On 3 September, she called the visitor center again.

— They told me the group had partially come out, and one person was missing. I panicked, — the woman says. — I asked for Leonid’s number (the person under whose name the group had been registered), called him, and he said: “Now, just a minute,” and hung up. From then on, only Alexander — his brother — spoke with me. I called Alexander; he immediately replied to me in a harsh tone: «Your companion is missing».

Brutal weather on the first of the month

The four friends — three men and one woman — entered their route in Ergaki Nature Park on 29 August. They planned to pass by Lake Raduzhnoye, cross Khudozhnikov Pass (Artists’ Pass), stop at Lake Khudozhnikov, and return on 1 September. They registered their route at the Ergaki Nature Park visitor center. But on 1 September, none of the group exited the park on their own, searchers say.

— According to staff of the South Siberian Search and Rescue Unit, they received a report on the first of the month that two tourists could not get out on their own, that they were near Lake Lazurnoye and were trying to head toward the visitor center, but were tired, exhausted, and could not make it alone. Rescuers set out. On the way, they met another tourist from the group, reached the two who were in trouble, and led all three out. They reported there had been four of them, and the fourth — our missing man — was still on the route, — says Olesya Kushner, head of the regional office in the Republic of Tuva of the National Center for Assistance to Missing and Affected Children (Natsionalny tsentr pomoshchi propavshim i postradavshim detyam), “SAYANYSPAS”.

The missing man is 45-year-old Isa Bakaev. For a month, nothing has been known about his whereabouts. He is being sought by relatives, rescuers, police, investigators, and volunteers.

— On the first, the weather was dreadful. In the mountains it began to snow, there was rain, fog — zero visibility (NGS24.RU reported that on 1 September it snowed in the south of Krasnoyarsk Krai). Our missing man moved ahead. At first the information was that he had fallen behind, but then it turned out he had run ahead of the group, — says Olesya Kushner. — There, when you go along the ridge from Lake Lazurnoye, you need to go about five kilometers to get out. If you turn earlier, you drop straight into the taiga, and we think he turned off that ridge too early. In principle, he would have come out along that ridge, but he still had to keep going, and apparently, in the bad weather, he mistook the turn and ended up in the taiga.

The message to the search team’s hotline came in on 4 September at 13:15 local time.

— From the fourth, we had almost daily deployments to Ergaki Nature Park. Many relatives of the missing citizen Bakaev arrived, — the searchers say. — Several times we conducted large-scale searches together with staff of the South Siberian Search and Rescue Unit and officers of the Shushenskoye Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).

Delirium, hysteria, panic

After learning of Isa’s disappearance, the man’s brothers flew to Krasnoyarsk Krai to join the search. The missing man’s elder brother, Bukhari, last spoke with Isa in late August — a few days before the hike. He says his brother was not a great fan of the taiga and likely went on the mountain hike to keep his friends company.

— He wasn’t enthusiastic about it. And on that very day — Friday — he also didn’t want to set out in the morning (his wife Irina told me this). For Muslims, Friday is considered a day when one should not work in the morning, and if there is some urgent matter, then only after noon, — Bukhari says.

But, the man says, his brother’s friends likely persuaded him.

— You can’t blame those friends for that. It’s a personal choice. I’m not going to accuse anyone over it — there’s no point, — says the missing man’s elder brother.

The only thing he now insists on, and demands from law enforcement, is that the family be given data on Isa’s movements and those of his friends.

— These people had phones and, I think, they had apps installed — routes and the like that, regardless of network or SIM card, show the entire route, the whole way, and we would like to see those maps, those routes, and my brother’s route. Our modern technology, it seems, has advanced to the point that even without a SIM card you can track a phone until it is completely discharged, — the man explains.

The family learned that Isa had gone missing on 3 September; on 4 September, his brothers flew to Krasnoyarsk Krai, and on the 5th they joined the search.

— We did receive help — a helicopter was allocated. We procured quadcopters ourselves — we flew drones, but it didn’t help. The helicopter flew over too, but if he’s under a fir or somewhere in a crevice among kurums (boulder fields), the helicopter won’t see him, — Bukhari says of the so-far unsuccessful search.

Isa is not physically weak, his brother says, but he has a bad knee and does not tolerate cold well. The missing man has a younger sister and three brothers. One of them — Musa — is his twin.

— He dreams of him, and they feel each other. And I’ll tell you, twins can even be more attached to each other than to their parents. They are very attached to one another, — says Bukhari. — He’s in delirium, hysterical, panicking, searching for his brother, running around. All sorts of versions, all sorts of nightmares in his head. A conspiracy, not a conspiracy — everything.

«He was somewhere deep in the forest, and I was yelling by the road»

— It seems to me EMERCOM is doing too little, which is why we can’t find him. I’m just tired of this… I call these services every time, and it’s always the same thing, in circles, — says Isa’s wife Irina. — Either the weather conditions are bad, or they need approvals, or they have this, or they have that.

Irina came to Ergaki Nature Park on 4 September.

— I started asking EMERCOM what was happening with my husband, whether searches would be conducted. They told me searches would not be conducted because EMERCOM had wet clothing and they would not go out to look for him that day. In a panic, I started rushing along the highway, from Tanzibey to Ergaki (Krasnoyarsk Krai), trying to call out to him, to shout, but of course that didn’t help at all. He likely wouldn’t even have heard me from there — he was probably somewhere deep in the forest, and I was shouting by the road.

Irina knew the friends with whom Isa set out — the photographer brothers and another woman — but she did not communicate closely with them. The group had already done this hike together — in June 2023, along the same route. That is also why, by her own account, she did not immediately raise the alarm. She saw her husband’s friends the day before the hike — she noticed nothing strange. She says she only noted that one of the brothers “was taciturn and withdrawn.” What bothered her more was that the friends did not tell her her husband had gone missing when they themselves came out of the forest.

— I found Leonid (on social media). I see that at 2 a.m. on 2 September he’s on VKontakte — online. Do you understand? And I’m sitting there at night worrying. I think, how is it that he’s online and my husband is nowhere. Maybe they came out, and my husband just got delayed or went to their apartment, and they’re not telling me he arrived, — Irina recalls.

Irina still does not know exactly what falling-out occurred on the route among the friends. She says the friends helped with the search for a time and then went home.

— «He disappeared, and that’s that» — that’s their explanation. They also say my husband is to blame for everything. In recent weeks, all they’ve done is blame Isa — that he’s at fault, that his character changed abruptly — they started blaming him for everything. In the last week before they left, they immediately began blaming him for everything, — the woman says.

«If we don’t find him before the snow, it will be almost impossible to find him»

Friends of the family also joined the search for Isa Bakaev. One of them — Viktor — is a former hunter. He is familiar with the Ergaki area.

— Tourist trails run along the other side. Here, at Vershina Kebezha (Kebezh Summit) — there’s nothing of interest for tourists, — says Viktor. — And Isa headed here toward Kebezh. Harsh weather conditions forced him to descend here.

According to Viktor, there are no random people in these places — mostly fishers and hunters — and he calls the terrain “tough”.

— If you have no experience being in such difficult places, it will be hard for anyone to get out. Another difficulty is the weather. In one day, in a single moment, it was summer in good weather — it’s warm outside, and he’s dressed in sneakers, in light clothing — and then winter arrives all at once, — the man explains.

The search is further complicated by the missing man’s clothing blending into the surroundings.

— He’s wearing a green raincoat — the color of moss, the color of bergenia. The grass has already yellowed by now, but the moss and bergenia are green. And the raincoat is such a color that it conceals him, — says Viktor. — Such clothing is suitable for hunters or the military to remain inconspicuous. But for tourists you need bright clothing — if it had been bright, the search might have ended long ago.

— From the first day I followed the tracks, I immediately understood he was not alive, — says Viktor. — I knew this person, I knew his physical condition, and we spent quite a bit of time talking. I understood the first day that he was not alive. And the difficulty here is that on the first day we were looking for a bright backpack, a bright tent, and we didn’t find the backpack. My nephew found the backpack literally a week later. We had passed it by accident — it was twilight. It’s the taiga — difficult walking conditions — and we had to repeat that path to understand whether the person had spent the night.

The search for the man continues. Relatives have announced a reward — one million rubles ($11,000 at current rates) — for anyone who helps find Isa Bakaev.

— Snow is falling in the mountains, but in the lowlands where we are searching it still melts. Of course, if we don’t find him before the snow, it will be almost impossible to find him afterward, — says Olesya Kushner, head of the regional office in the Republic of Tuva of the National Center for Assistance to Missing and Affected Children, “SAYANYSPAS”.

«So where did Daddy hide?»

On 15 September, investigators opened a criminal case under the article “Murder”. The Investigative Committee of Russia (SKR) told an NGS24.RU journalist that opening a case when a person goes missing is standard procedure to establish all the circumstances through investigative means.

Earlier, information appeared that the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, had taken the “search process” under his personal oversight. As the outlet “Grozny-Inform” reported, Kadyrov tasked State Duma (Gosduma) deputy Adam Delimkhanov with the matter.

— We hope to find him alive, but it’s hard, of course, — says the man’s elder brother, Bukhari.

Isa Bakaev’s family lives in Abakan (Republic of Khakassia, neighboring Krasnoyarsk Krai). The spouses had planned to travel to relatives in the Caucasus after the three-day hike.

— We used to live in Grozny, — says Irina. — We wanted to go back to Grozny now — to visit, to see everyone there. He has a household back home — he wanted to put it in order. And I wanted to go on vacation to visit relatives with our child. We had planned it so that he would go to the mountains and then go to Grozny, and later, during my vacation, I would come with our child and see the relatives.

Irina and Isa have a son, two and a half years old. They are still waiting for his father at home.

— He asks me every day where Dad is, — says Irina. — We have a second floor at home — he leads me up there. All his things are there, and he says: «So where did Dad hide?» I say: «Dad isn’t here», and we go downstairs. He brings me some broken toy car — either he breaks it on purpose or by accident, I don’t know — he brings it and says: «Let Dad fix it». I say: «Let me fix it». I try to fix it, and I can’t.