The Tunguska Event: Eyewitness Account

Bushkov, Evenk from the Khatangsk region

Interviewed by G. P. Kolobkova[1], November 1959.

The eyewitness [i.e., Bushkov] saw in the sky a big ball of white flame, “the size of a house,” out of which there flew sparks. In the Khatangsk region, where he lived at the time, the thunder whas such that it seemed that it had fallen somewhere within 1.5 km. There was intense heat, and then smoke. There was good weather that day. The thunder was terrifying, the people all became frightened, they thought that the end of the world had begun.

Right after that some old men went there: his [Bushkov’s] father, Zakhar Ivanovich Salatkin, and Il’ya Semyonovich (or Pavlovich) Cheronchin. They all died long ago. [Bushkov’s father?] recounted that they found nothing, other than felled forest and swamps. The Evenki got very sick after that, blisters broke out on their body, they suffered intensely, then died.

— translated by Bill DeSmedt

[Notes and Further Reading]

[1] G. P. Kolobkova was a member of the Soviet's 1959 Tunguska expedition, who stayed behind in Vanavara to work as a geography teacher and who, in 1959-60, collected a number of new testimonies.[Return to text.]

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