In the early 1960s, in the small-circulation publication "Information Materials of the Commission for the Study of the Bigfoot" edited by B. F. Lieutenant Colonel of the Medical Service V. S. Karapetyan, recorded by Porshnev during a large expedition to the Pamirs in the 50s.
Here's the story:
“In October-December 1941, our separate rifle battalion was transferred from Lankaran to the mountainous region of Dagestan. We were about 30 km in the direction of the mountains from Buinaksk … It was a cold winter time, there was 1.5 meters deep snow.
Once the representatives of the local authorities asked me as a military doctor to examine a person caught in the area in the mountains and taken to the regional center: it was necessary to establish whether this strange person was a disguised saboteur, whether there was a disguise …
Drawing of a wild man as described by V. S. Karapetian
… We entered the shed together with two or three employees of the local authorities … Before us stood a man, male, naked, barefoot. It was, undoubtedly, a man, for all his forms were human. But on his chest, back and shoulders his body was covered with fluffy dark brown hair (it should be emphasized that all the locals are black-haired); this wool resembled a bear, it was 2-3 cm long.
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Below the chest, the coat was thinner and more delicate. The hands are rough with sparse hair, the palms and soles of the feet are hairless. On the contrary, the hair on the head was very long, up to the shoulders, partly covering the forehead as well; the hair on the head was very stiff to the touch. There was no beard or mustache, there was a slight hairiness all over the face, the hair around the mouth was also not long, small.
… Height - above average, about 180 cm. All very large, broad-shouldered, muscular. He stood like a hero, powerfully exposing a developed, mighty chest. The hands are very thick, strong fingers, unusually large. In general, he was much larger than the local residents. The shape of the face is oval (chubby). The nose is large. No monkey features were noticed in the face, but the complexion was unusually dark, not human; as said, the whole face was covered with light hair. The eyebrows are very thick….
His gaze was silent, dull, empty. It was a purely animal look. And in general he gave the impression of an animal. He stood looking at one point, rarely blinking, showing no activity.
As it turned out, during his stay in captivity, this man did not take any food or drink, did not ask for anything, did not speak; in a warm room he was sweating profusely … When they pushed him, he took a few steps and stopped again, making faint humming sounds under his breath …
I was struck by and especially remembered the profuse head lice on the chest, neck and especially on the face of this man. Whole chains of lice were on his eyebrows and around his mouth. These lice cannot be attributed to any of the three types of lice found on humans; in shape they are closer to body lice, but of an unusually large size.
I must say that at that time I did not have any complete thought about the nature of this creature. I was invited to answer the direct question of whether there was a disguise, and all my attention was directed to this side of the matter. Therefore, I did not pay special attention, for example, to the sizes and proportions of the front parts, etc.
I gave an oral conclusion that this is not a disguised person, but some kind of wild one. The authorities told me they would report everything to the center. Then I returned to my unit and never again received information about the fate of this creature."
For some reason, none of the cryptozoologists who have repeatedly quoted this story paid attention to the note to it in the same Information Materials: “It is believed that a rare case of hypertrichosis (excessive hairiness) in a modern person in combination with dumbness and some other pathological features."
According to Karapetyan, the creature he saw was no different from a normal person, except for the "fluffy" hair that covered the body. His behavior, indifferent to everything, was absolutely different from the behavior of any wild creature that fell into captivity. Almost certainly this man was not just dumb, but deaf and dumb, and also mentally disabled.
The fact that his body was covered with hair is a very rare, but not unique case (remember the "hairy man Ivan Evtikhiev", whose images appeared even in school textbooks, and "the bearded woman Julia Pastrana" from the same place; both were shown at fairs as a curiosity) … It can be assumed that this man was kept by one of the local residents as a working animal (now, after our Caucasian troubles, it is known that slavery has not been eradicated in the Caucasus at all).
This explains his powerful physical development. And the fact that he does not look like local residents is understandable. At 41, he was probably at least 20 years old. Let us recall what chaos was happening in the Caucasus 20 years earlier - and imagine, as a hypothesis, the birth of a deaf-mute child, also covered with wool, in one of the refugees.
In all versions - it was just a person, and not something humanoid, and a careful note directly hints at this. Well, let's leave the "unknown species of lice" on the conscience of the lieutenant colonel of the medical service, amazed at the sight of modern Mowgli.
The story told by Karapetyan had a continuation, as Porshnev mentions in his book. September 13, 1959 in the newspaper "Dagestanskaya Pravda" a letter appeared. Minister of Internal Affairs of the Dagestan ASSR G. A. Abakarov.
Apparently, documents were found about the further fate of the unfortunate. He was shown to other doctors, who admitted that he was pretending to be insane, "taking on a feral appearance", that is, a fake, hiding from conscription. Probably, he was treated according to the laws of wartime …
Based on materials from the book "Incredible Zoology", Vitaliy Tanasiychuk