Thursday, January 31, 2013

For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II

Via Daily Timewaster

 
Agafia Lykova (left) with her sister, Natalia.

In 1978, Soviet geologists prospecting in the wilds of Siberia discovered a family of six, lost in the taiga 

Siberian summers do not last long. The snows linger into May, and the cold weather returns again during September, freezing the taiga into a still life awesome in its desolation: endless miles of straggly pine and birch forests scattered with sleeping bears and hungry wolves; steep-sided mountains; white-water rivers that pour in torrents through the valleys; a hundred thousand icy bogs. This forest is the last and greatest of Earth's wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia's arctic regions as far south as Mongolia, and east from the Urals to the Pacific: five million square miles of nothingness, with a population, outside a handful of towns, that amounts to only a few thousand people.

When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short months it can seem almost welcoming. It is then that man can see most clearly into this hidden world—not on land, for the taiga can swallow whole armies of explorers, but from the air. Siberia is the source of most of Russia's oil and mineral resources, and, over the years, even its most distant parts have been overflown by oil prospectors and surveyors on their way to backwoods camps where the work of extracting wealth is carried on.

Thus it was in the remote south of the forest in the summer of 1978. A helicopter sent to find a safe spot to land a party of geologists was skimming the treeline a hundred or so miles from the Mongolian border when it dropped into the thickly wooded valley of an unnamed tributary of the Abakan, a seething ribbon of water rushing through dangerous terrain. The valley walls were narrow, with sides that were close to vertical in places, and the skinny pine and birch trees swaying in the rotors' downdraft were so thickly clustered that there was no chance of finding a spot to set the aircraft down. But, peering intently through his windscreen in search of a landing place, the pilot saw something that should not have been there. It was a clearing, 6,000 feet up a mountainside, wedged between the pine and larch and scored with what looked like long, dark furrows. The baffled helicopter crew made several passes before reluctantly concluding that this was evidence of human habitation—a garden that, from the size and shape of the clearing, must have been there for a long time.

It was an astounding discovery. The mountain was more than 150 miles from the nearest settlement, in a spot that had never been explored. The Soviet authorities had no records of anyone living in the district.

10 comments:

  1. Quite a story. I had never heard of the Old Believers. Check out the link in the story about them. There are a large number in this country.

    Terry
    Fla.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are a large number in this country.

      I didn't know that.

      Delete
  2. They almost sound like the Russian version of the Amish. Most of the Amish near me could live in the North Maine woods just like these folks did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Most of the Amish near me could live in the North Maine woods just like these folks did.

      Hearty souls and I just posted the 3 videos also.

      Delete
  3. Why run just to die a slow death? If you run, you would want your line to live on.

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    Replies
    1. I didn't get that. You mean that they shouldn't have run because their line will shortly die off?

      Delete
    2. What I meant, was if you are going to run, what is your reason? Is it to fight another day? Is it to let your lineage survive? Is it to spread your knowledge to others?

      By refusing to return to the village, they let their lineage die out. They did at least get their story out though.

      I'm trying to put this into perspective for myself, if I were to run, for what purpose? I would not think running with my family, only to die 40 years from now without contact with anyone else would be what I would look to gain by running.

      Amazing story by the way.

      Delete
    3. By refusing to return to the village, they let their lineage die out.

      Yes, that was a shame. Makes you think of the ruling families of yore where brothers and sister married.
      ============
      I'm trying to put this into perspective for myself, if I were to run, for what purpose? I would not think running with my family, only to die 40 years from now without contact with anyone else would be what I would look to gain by running.

      I'm not going anywhere, but if I were younger, it might be a different story as I love to travel.

      Delete
  4. IS THERE A WAY TO TRANSLATE INTO ENGLISH?

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    Replies
    1. I don't believe there is a way for the videos. Too bad they don't have subtitles.

      Delete