In 1978, Soviet geologists in the remote Siberian taiga on the territory of the Khakass Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic found the Lykov family of Old Believers, who had lived as hermits for over 40 years. In 1923 the settlement of the Old Believers was destroyed and several families moved further into the mountains. Around 1937, Lykov with his wife and two children left the community, settled separately in a remote place.
At first, the Lykov family consisted of four people: Karp, his wife Akulina; son Savin 9 years old and Natalia, daughter who was only 2 years old. They fled into the taiga, taking only seeds. They settled in this very place. A little time passed and two more children were born, Dmitry in 1940 and Agafya in 1943. They were the ones who never saw other people.
Everything that Agafya and Dmitry knew about the outside world, they learned from the stories of their parents. But Lykov's children knew that there are places called "cities" in which people lived in cramped quarters in high-rise buildings. They knew there were countries other than Russia. But these concepts were rather abstract. They only read the Bible and church books that their mother took with her. Akulina could read and taught her children to read and write using pointed birch branches, which she immersed in honeysuckle juice. When Agafya was shown a picture of a horse, she shouted: “Look, dad. Horse!".
They made galoshes from birch bark, and sewed clothes from hemp, which they grew up. They even had a yarn machine that they made themselves. Their diet consisted mainly of potatoes. And there were pine nuts all around, which fell right on the roof of their house. Nevertheless, the Lykovs lived constantly on the brink of starvation. Without weapons, they could only hunt by making pit traps. Dmitry grew up surprisingly hardy, he could hunt barefoot in winter, sometimes he returned home after several days, spending the night outside in 40 degrees below zero, and at the same time brought a young elk on his shoulders. But in reality, meat was a rare delicacy. The fish was salted, harvested for the winter, fish oil was extracted at home.
Wild animals wiped out their carrot crops, and Agafya remembered the late 1950s as "time of famine." Roots, grass, mushrooms, potato tops, bark, mountain ash … We ate everything and felt hunger all the time. They constantly thought about changing places, but they stayed …
In 1961, it snowed in June. A severe frost killed everything that grew in the garden. It was in this year that Akulina starved to death. The rest of the family were saved, fortunately the seeds sprouted. The Lykovs set up a fence around the clearing and guarded the crops day and night.
Promotional video:
The family strictly observed all religious rites, keeping a strict record of the days of the calendar.
The cruel irony is that it was not the difficulties of taiga life, the harsh climate, but contact with civilization that turned out to be fatal for the Lykovs. All of them, except for Agafya Lykova, died soon after the first contact with the geologists who found them, having contracted infectious diseases from aliens, hitherto unknown to them.
Karp died on February 16, 1988. After the death of her father, Agafya got in touch with her relatives, relations with whom, however, did not work out.
In 1990, Agafya Lykova moved to an Old Believer nunnery, owned by the chapel, and went through the rite of “covering” (tonsure as a nun). However, after a few months, Agafya returned, citing her ill health and ideological differences with the nuns of the chapel agreement.
From that moment on, Agafya lives practically without a break at the Lykovs' settlement.