The last of the Lykov line of hermits: Why Agafya refuses to move from the taiga to people
The last of a line of hermit Old Believers Lykov Agafya. Photo by D. Korobeinikov | Photo: iz.ru
In the early 1980s. In the Soviet press, a series of publications appeared about the Lykov family of Old Believers hermits, who spent 40 years in voluntary exile in the Sayan taiga, abandoning all the benefits of civilization, in complete isolation from society. After they were discovered by geologists and journalists and travelers began to visit them, three family members died from a viral infection. In 1988, the father of the family also died. Only Agafya Lykova survived, who soon became the most famous hermit in the country. Despite her advanced age and illness, she still refuses to move from the taiga.
Old Believers Karp and Akulina Lykov and their children fled to the taiga from Soviet power in the 1930s. On the banks of a mountain tributary of the Erinat River, they built a hut, hunted, fishing, collected mushrooms and berries, weaved clothes on homemade machine. They left the village of Tishi with two children - Savvin and Natalya, and in secret two more were born - Dmitry and Agafya. In 1961, mother Akulina Lykova died of hunger, and 20 years later Savvin, Natalya and Dmitry died of pneumonia. Obviously, in conditions of isolation from society, immunity was not developed, and all of them became victims of a viral infection. They were offered pills, but only the youngest Agafya agreed to take them. This saved her life. In 1988, at the age of 87, her father died, and she was left alone.
Agafya Lykova and Vasily Peskov | Photo: oursociety.ru
They began writing about the Lykovs back in 1982. Then journalist Vasily Peskov often came to the Old Believers, who subsequently published several articles in Komsomolskaya Pravda and the book “ Taiga dead end" After this, the Lykovs often found themselves in the center of attention of the press and public, their story thundered throughout the country. In the 2000s, the Lykov settlement was included in the territory of the Khakass Nature Reserve.
Agafya Lykova
In 1990, Agafya’s seclusion temporarily ceased for the first time: she took monastic vows in the Old Believer convent, but a few months later she returned to her home in the taiga, explaining this by “ideological differences” with the nuns. She also did not have a good relationship with her relatives - they say that the hermit’s character is difficult and difficult.
In 2014, the hermit turned to people for help, complaining about her weakness and illness. Representatives of the administration, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, journalists and niece Alexandra Martyushev went to see her and tried to persuade her to move. Agafya gratefully accepted the food, firewood and gifts, but refused to leave her home. 
Zaimka Lykov. Photo by A. Panteleev | Photo: kp.ru
At the request of the head of the Russian Old Believer Church, Metropolitan Cornelius, an assistant was sent to the hermit - 18-year-old Alexander Beshtannikov, who came from a family of Old Believers. He helped her with housework until he was drafted into the army. For 17 years, Agafya’s assistant was former geologist Erofei Sedov, who settled next door to her after his retirement. But in May 2015 he died, and the hermit was left completely alone. 
Erofey Sedov is a former geologist who, after retirement, settled in the Lykov estate | Photo: kp.ru
In January 2016, Agafya had to interrupt her seclusion and again turn to people for help - her legs hurt badly, and she called a doctor using the satellite phone left for her by the local administration for emergency calls. She was taken from the taiga by helicopter to a hospital in the city of Tashtagol, where she was examined and found out that Agafya had an exacerbation of osteochondrosis. The first measures were taken, but the hermit refused long-term treatment and immediately began to rush back home.
Agafya's hut. Photo by D. Mukimov | Photo: birdinflight.com
Considering Agafya Lykova’s advanced age and the state of her health, everyone again tried to persuade the hermit to stay among people and move in with relatives, but she flatly refused. After staying in the hospital for just over a week, Agafya returned to the taiga again. She said that it was boring in the hospital - “you just sleep, eat and pray, but there’s a lot to do at home.” 
Agafya Lykova in a helicopter before being sent home, 2016. Photo by D. Belkin | Photo: kp.ua
In the spring of 2017, employees of the Khakass Nature Reserve, according to tradition, brought food, things, letters from fellow believers to the hermit and helped with housework. Agafya again complained of pain in her legs, but again refused to leave the taiga. At the end of April, she was visited by a Ural priest, Father Vladimir. He said that assistant Georgy lives with Agafya, whom the priest blessed to support the hermit.
In the spring of 2017, the hermit was visited by employees of the Khakass nature reserve | Photo: prmira.ru
The 72-year-old hermit explains her reluctance to move closer to people and civilization by saying that she promised her father never to leave their home in the taiga: “I will not go anywhere again and by the power of this oath I will not leave this land. If it were possible, I would gladly accept fellow believers to live with me and pass on my knowledge and accumulated experience of the Old Believer faith.” Agafya is confident that only away from the temptations of civilization can one lead a truly spiritual life.
Nikolai Sedov, Agafya, assistant Georgy and father Vladimir, spring 2017 | Photo: ruvera.ru
While humanity was experiencing the Second world war and launched the first space satellites, a family of Russian hermits fought for survival in the remote taiga, 250 kilometers from the nearest village. They ate bark, hunted and quickly forgot what basic human amenities like a toilet or hot water were. Smithsonianmag magazine recalled why they fled from civilization and how they survived the collision with it, and on the portal BIRD IN FLIGHT Material based on this article has been published:
"Thirteen million square kilometers of wild Siberian nature seem to be an unsuitable place to live: endless forests, rivers, wolves, bears and almost complete desertion. But despite this, in 1978, while flying over the taiga in search of a place to land a team of geologists, a helicopter pilot discovered traces of a human settlement here. At an altitude of about 2 meters along the mountainside, not far from an unnamed tributary of the Abakan River, wedged between pines and larches, there was a cleared area that served as a vegetable garden. This place had never been explored before, Soviet archives were silent about the people living here, and the nearest village was more than 250 kilometers from the mountain. It was almost impossible to believe that someone lived there.
Having learned about the pilot's discovery, a group of scientists sent here to search for iron ore, went on reconnaissance - strangers could be more dangerous in the taiga wild beast. Having placed gifts for possible friends in their backpacks and, just in case, checking the serviceability of the pistol, the group led by geologist Galina Pismenskaya headed to a site 15 kilometers from their camp.
The first meeting was exciting for both sides. When the researchers reached their goal, they saw well-kept vegetable garden with potatoes, onions, turnips and piles of taiga rubbish around a hut, blackened by time and rain, with a single window the size of a backpack pocket. Pismenskaya recalled how the owner hesitantly looked out from behind the door - an ancient old man in an old burlap shirt, patched trousers, with an unkempt beard and disheveled hair - and, looking warily at the strangers, agreed to let them into the house.
The hut consisted of one cramped, moldy room, low, smoky and cold, like a cellar. Its floor was covered with potato peelings and pine nut shells, and the ceiling sagged. In such conditions, five people lived here for 40 years. In addition to the head of the family, old man Karp Lykov, his two daughters and two sons lived in the house. 17 years before meeting the scientists, their mother, Akulina, died of exhaustion here. Although Karp's speech sounded intelligible, his children already spoke their own dialect, distorted by life in isolation. “When the sisters spoke to each other, the sounds of their voices resembled slow, muffled cooing,” Pismenskaya recalled.
The younger children, born in the forest, had never met other people before, the older ones forgot that they once lived a different life. The meeting with the scientists sent them into a frenzy. At first, they refused any treats - jam, tea, bread, muttering: “We can’t do this!” It turned out that only the head of the family had ever seen or tasted bread here. But gradually connections were established, the savages got used to new acquaintances and learned with interest about technical innovations, the appearance of which they had missed. The history of their settlement in the taiga has also become clearer.
Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Orthodox community who worshiped religious ceremonies in the form in which they existed until the 17th century. When power fell into the hands of the Soviets, scattered communities of Old Believers, who had fled to Siberia from persecution that began under Peter I, began to move further and further from civilization. During the repressions of the 1930s, when Christianity itself was under attack, on the outskirts of an Old Believer village, a Soviet patrol shot and killed his brother in front of Lykov. After this, Karp had no doubt that he needed to escape. In 1936, having collected their belongings and taking with them some seeds, Karp with his wife Akulina and two children - nine-year-old Savin and two-year-old Natalya - went into the forests, building hut after hut, until they settled where geologists found the family. In 1940, already in the taiga, Dmitry was born, in 1943 - Agafya. Everything the children knew about outside world, countries, cities, animals, other people, they drew from the stories of adults and biblical stories.
But life in the taiga was also not easy. For many kilometers there was not a soul around, and for decades the Lykovs learned to make do with what was at their disposal: instead of shoes, they made galoshes from birch bark; they patched clothes until they decayed from age, and sewed new ones from hemp burlap. The little that the family took with them during their escape - a primitive spinning wheel, parts of a loom, two teapots - became unusable over time. When both kettles rusted, they were replaced with a birch bark vessel, and cooking became even more difficult. By the time they met the geologists, the family's diet consisted mainly of potato cakes with ground rye and hemp seeds.
The fugitives constantly lived from hand to mouth. They began to use meat and fur only in the late 1950s, when Dmitry grew up and learned to dig trapping holes, pursue prey for a long time in the mountains and became so hardy that he could all year round hunt barefoot and sleep in 40-degree frost. In lean years, when crops were destroyed by animals or frost, family members ate leaves, roots, grass, bark and potato sprouts. This is exactly how I remember 1961, when snow fell in June and Akulina, Karp’s wife, who gave all the food to the children, died. The rest of the family members were saved by chance. Having discovered a grain of rye that had accidentally sprouted in the garden, the family built a fence around it and guarded it for days. The spikelet yielded 18 grains, from which the rye crops were restored for several years.
Scientists were amazed by the curiosity and abilities of people who had been in information isolation for so long. Due to the fact that the youngest in the family, Agafya, spoke in a singsong voice and drawled simple words in polysyllabic ones, some of the Lykovs’ guests at first decided that she was mentally retarded - and they were very mistaken. In a family where calendars and clocks did not exist, she was responsible for one of the most complex tasks- I kept track of time for many years.
Old man Karp, at the age of 80, reacted with interest to all technical innovations: he enthusiastically received the news about the launch of satellites, saying that he noticed a change back in the 1950s, when “the stars began to quickly walk across the sky,” and was delighted with the transparent cellophane packaging: “Lord, what did they come up with: glass, but it wrinkles!”
But the most progressive member of the family and the favorite of geologists turned out to be Dmitry, an expert on the taiga, who managed to build a stove in the hut and weave birch bark boxes in which the family stored food. For many years, day after day, he independently planed boards from logs, he spent a long time watching with interest the fast work of a circular saw and a lathe, which he saw in the geologists’ camp.
Finding themselves separated from modernity for decades by the will of the head of the family and circumstances, the Lykovs finally began to join progress. At first, they only accepted salt from geologists, which was not in their diet for all 40 years of life in the taiga. Gradually they agreed to take forks, knives, hooks, grain, pen, paper and an electric torch. They accepted every innovation reluctantly, but television, the “sinful thing” they encountered in the geologists’ camp, turned out to be an irresistible temptation for them. Journalist Vasily Peskov, who managed to spend a lot of time next to the Lykovs, recalled how the family was drawn to the screen during their rare visits to the camp: “Karp Osipovich sits right in front of the screen. Agafya looks, sticking her head out from behind the door. She tries to atone for a sin right away - she will whisper, cross herself and stick her head out again. The old man prays afterwards, diligently and for everything at once.”
It seemed that acquaintance with geologists and their useful gifts for the household gave the family a chance to survive. As often happens in life, everything turned out exactly the opposite: in the fall of 1981, three of Karp’s four children died. The eldest, Savin and Natalya, died due to kidney failure resulting from years of harsh dieting. At the same time, Dmitry died of pneumonia - it is likely that he caught the infection from geologists. On the eve of his death, Dmitry refused their offer to transport him to the hospital. “We can’t do this,” he whispered before his death. “I will live as long as God gives.”
Geologists tried to convince the surviving Karp and Agafya to return to their relatives who lived in the villages. In response, the Lykovs only rebuilt the old hut, but native place refused to leave. In 1988, Karp passed away. Having buried her father on the mountain slope, Agafya returned to the hut. “The Lord will give, and she will live,” she then told the geologists who helped her. This is what happened: last child Taigi, a quarter of a century later, continues to live alone on a mountain above Abakan.
In March of this year, employees of the Khakassky Nature Reserve arrived by helicopter to the Lykov Zaimka site and for the first time since last fall visited the famous taiga hermit, the press service of the reserve said. According to 71-year-old Agafya Lykova, she endured the winter well; the only unpleasant surprise was the November frosts.
The hermit feels well, complaining only of seasonal pain in her legs. When asked if she wants to move closer to people, Agafya Lykova invariably answers: “I will not go anywhere else and by the power of this oath I will not leave this land.” State inspectors brought the woman her favorite gifts and letters from fellow believers, helped with housework and told her worldly news, added the Khakassky Nature Reserve.
In 2016, Agafya Lykova left the taiga for the first time in many years. Because of severe pain in her legs she needed health care and medicines. To get to the hospital, the Old Believer had to use another benefit of civilization - a helicopter.
As the inspectors themselves say, security department employees regularly visit Agafya. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often. Due to the inaccessibility of the area in winter and in early spring It is possible to get to the village only by helicopter, and in the summer only by boats along mountain taiga rivers.
In 2015, Agafya’s only neighbor, geologist Erofey Sedov, died. He participated in an expedition that discovered a family of hermits. After his retirement, Sedov settled not far from Lykova’s estate.
Blogger Denis Mukimov, who visited the village a year before Sedov’s death, described the relationship between Lykova and Sedova as follows: “There is little that connects the good-natured Erofey and the strict Agafya. They greet each other but rarely speak. They have a conflict based on religion, and Erofey is not ready to follow Agafya’s rules. He himself is a believer, but he does not understand what God can have against canned food in iron cans, why polystyrene foam is a devilish object and why the fire in the stove must be lit only with a torch, and not with a lighter.”
Agafya buried Sedov and has lived completely alone since then.
I was lucky enough to visit the Lykov farm more than once. For many years we have been sending expeditions there and organizing events to help Agafya Karpovna. And, of course, we very much value the reader’s attention to the publications dedicated to her. I received another touching message the other day from Norway: “Good afternoon! Jan Richard writes to you, who is impressed by the life of Agafya Lykova. I want to make a book about her. I’ve been dreaming of going for several years, but it’s probably too far. I can get to Abakan, but I can’t afford to order a helicopter further! Maybe representatives of the reserve fly there and it’s possible to join them? Maybe it's not so expensive? As I understand it, she plans to spend this winter in the taiga too? I have prepared a package with chocolate..."
According to Zimin, his mother was “always indignant” at the injustice shown by the state in caring for Agafya and sending her helicopters, while her family, as the governor noted, did not work a day and hid from the war.
But the most progressive member of the family and the favorite of geologists turned out to be Dmitry, an expert on the taiga, who managed to build a stove in the hut and weave birch bark boxes in which the family stored food. For many years, day after day, he independently planed boards from logs, he spent a long time watching with interest the fast work of a circular saw and a lathe, which he saw in the geologists’ camp.
How does the 73-year-old owner of the village feel, “registered” at the mouth of the Erinat, where the Western Sayan merges with Mountain Altai? What worries does he live with? Eyewitnesses testify.
Political scientist Sergei Komaritsyn considers Viktor Zimin’s statement irrational. “Such a statement to Zimin, who announced his desire to run for a new gubernatorial term, will not add any political bonuses,” said Mr. Komaritsyn. Viktor Zimin's powers expire next year. Previously, the head of Khakassia spoke extremely positively about Aman Tuleyev. During the same direct line, the head of Khakassia also criticized the heads of Khakassian municipalities. “Cook the stew and sell it at the market,” said Mr. Zimin. - Concentrate the grandmothers. You live in the taiga, pick the berries and sell them.”
Many chapels kept the so-called Reserve Gifts, i.e. Bread and Wine, consecrated by the priest during the Liturgy. Such Spare Gifts were usually hidden in various hiding places, built into books or icons. Since quantity Since the shrine was limited, and the Gifts themselves, after disappearing from the chapel priests, were not replenished in any way, these Old Believers received communion extremely rarely - once or twice in their lives, as a rule, before their death.
Far away in the Sayan taiga, the hermit Agafya Lykova has been living for many years - the last representative of her family. Getting to her place is not so easy: you need to walk for several days through the taiga or fly for several hours by helicopter. That’s why Agafya Lykova doesn’t receive guests often, but she’s always happy to see them.
The Lykovs made contact with civilization in 1978, and three years later the family began to die out. In October 1981, Dimitry Karpovich died, in December - Savin Karpovich, 10 days later Agafya's sister - Natalia. After 7 years, February 16, 1988, the head has passed away family Karp Osipovich. Only Agafya Karpovna remained alive.
According to the head of the region, millions are spent on creating conditions for the hermit. He did not provide specific amounts. RIA Novosti writes that Zimin has already banned flights to the reserve.
But to prove this, it is not enough to refer to the example of ancestors who now lived in the increasingly distant 19th and 20th centuries. The Old Believers must already today, now generate new ideas, set an example of living faith and active participation in the life of the country. As for the unique experience of Agafya Lykova and other Old Believers hiding from the temptations of this world in the forests and clefts of the earth, it will never be superfluous.
Where and how the hermit Agafya Lykova lives now, the latest information. Fresh material as of 02/02/2018
However, Agafya stayed in the chapel monastery for only a short time. There were significant disagreements religious views with the nuns of chapel agreement. Nevertheless, during her stay in the monastery, Agafya went through the rite of “covering”. This is what the chapels call tonsure as a monk. Subsequently Agafya also had her own novices, for example, Muscovite Nadezhda Usik, who spent 5 years in the Lykov monastery.
Nevertheless, Agafya not only did not succumb to these persuasion, but became even more convinced that she was right. That's how the Lykovs are - once they've made a decision, they don't go backwards. Talking about disputes with the Bespopovites, Agafya says:
The Lykov family, like many thousands of other families of Old Believers, moved to remote territories of the country mainly due to unprecedentedly long persecution by the state and official church. These persecutions, which began in the second half of the 17th century, continued until the early 90s of the twentieth century.
At one time, a wolf wandered off to capture the Lykovs. He lived in Agafya's garden for several months and even fed himself with potatoes and everything else that the hermit gave him. Agafya does not have the usual city dwellers’ fear of the taiga, forest animals and loneliness. If you ask her if it’s scary to live alone in such a wilderness, she answers:
Once the women went to the taiga for a long time to collect pine cones. Suddenly, not far from where they were staying, a strong crunching sound was heard - a bear was walking nearby in the forest. The beast walked and sniffed around all day, despite the fire and blows to metal utensils. Agafya, having prayed the canons to the Mother of God and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker by heart, ended them with the words: “Well, don’t you hear the Lord, or something, it’s time for you to leave already.” As a result, the danger passed.
“How can you forbid friendship? If the authorities of Khakassia provided systematic assistance, responded to the problems and rare requests of Agafya Lykova, then Kuzbass would not have needed to intervene,” the administration’s press service commented on Viktor Zimin’s statement Kemerovo region. The press service also added that the head of the Tashtagol region, Vladimir Makuta, together with volunteers and journalists, has been flying to Agafya Lykova since 2013. Visits are usually combined with overflights of the taiga territory of Mountain Shoria. According to the press service representative, flights are “linked” to emergency signals, when information appears about deforestation or a forest fire.
The terrible truth from Agafya, fresh information. Fresh material as of 02/02/2018
They are objected to: history knows not only the fleeing and hiding Old Believers, but also the advancing enlightened, passionate ones. This is the Old Believers of industrialists and philanthropists, writers and philanthropists, collectors and discoverers. Undoubtedly, this is all true!
Despite the fact that Peskov came to the forest farm for four years in a row and spent many days and hours visiting the Lykovs, he was never able to correctly identify their religious affiliation. In his essays, he mistakenly indicated that the Lykovs belonged to the wandering sense, although in fact they belonged to the chapel consensus (the groups of Old Believer communities united by a similar faith were called groups of Old Believer communities - editor's note).
Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Orthodox community that practiced religious rites as they existed until the 17th century. When power fell into the hands of the Soviets, scattered communities of Old Believers, who had fled to Siberia from persecution that began under Peter I, began to move further and further from civilization. During the repressions of the 1930s, when Christianity itself was under attack, on the outskirts of an Old Believer village, a Soviet patrol shot and killed his brother in front of Lykov. After this, Karp had no doubt that he needed to escape. In 1936, having collected their belongings and taking with them some seeds, Karp with his wife Akulina and two children - nine-year-old Savin and two-year-old Natalya - went into the forests, building hut after hut, until they settled where geologists found the family. In 1940, already in the taiga, Dmitry was born, in 1943 - Agafya. Everything that children knew about the outside world, countries, cities, animals, and other people, they learned from the stories of adults and biblical stories.
Old man Karp, at the age of 80, reacted with interest to all technical innovations: he enthusiastically received the news about the launch of satellites, saying that he noticed a change back in the 1950s, when “the stars began to quickly walk across the sky,” and was delighted with the transparent cellophane packaging: “Lord, what did they come up with: glass, but it wrinkles!”
This is the fifth year that students and I have been helping her harvest. At first, our volunteer landings by catamarans and boats traveled from Abaza for more than a week, and last August the Kemerovo residents were dropped off by helicopter from Tashtagol. In ten days, the guys cut firewood, cut five haystacks, and completed a flock of chickens. AND New film removed. The first one, without any advertising, received more than 100 thousand views on the Internet.
Karp Lykov and his family went to the Sayan taiga in 1938. Here he and his wife built a house and raised children. For 40 years, the family was cut off from the world by impenetrable taiga, and only in 1978 did they meet geologists. However, the whole country became aware of the family of Old Believers a little later, in 1982, when a journalist spoke about them “ Komsomolskaya Pravda» Vasily Peskov. For three decades, he talked about the Lykovs from the pages of the newspaper. Currently, only Agafya remains alive from the family. She is now 72 years old, and on April 23 she will turn 73. The hermit refuses to move closer to civilization.
In addition to their own household affairs, they carefully monitored the calendar and maintained a complex schedule of home services. Savin Karpovich Lykov, who was responsible for church calendar, calculated the calendar and Easter in the most accurate way (apparently, according to the vrutseleto system, that is, using the fingers of the hand). Thanks to this, the Lykovs not only did not lose track of time, but also followed all the instructions of the church charter regarding holidays and days of fasting. Prayer Rule It was performed strictly according to old printed books that were in the family.
Who is Lykava Agafya and what is she famous for? Recent events.
Agafya Lykova is the only surviving representative of a family of Old Believers found by geologists in 1978 in the Western Sayan Mountains. The Lykov family lived in isolation since 1937. long years hermits tried to protect their family from influence external environment, especially in relation to faith. By the time geologists discovered there were five taiga inhabitants: the head of the family, Karp Lykov, sons Savvin (45 years old), Dimitry (36 years old), and daughters Natalya (42 years old) and Agafya (34 years old). In 1981, three of the children died one after another - Savvin, Dimitry and Natalya, and in 1988 the Lykovs’ father passed away. Currently, Agafya Lykova lives alone in the taiga.
I will not go anywhere again and by virtue of this oath I will not leave this land. If it were possible, I would gladly accept fellow believers to live with me and pass on my knowledge and accumulated experience of the Old Believer faith,” says Agafya.
Video news Agafya Lykova in 2018. Everything that is known at the moment.
How scary are you living in cities?
Agafya was born into a family of Old Believers who left people and authorities for the taiga in 1938. In the early 1980s, thanks to journalist Vasily Peskov, the entire Union learned about the Lykovs. Now, if they remember, it’s rare. But Agafya is alive.
In 1961, Akulina dies of hunger. Agafya will say about her: “Mom is a true Christian, she was a strong believer.”
The youngest Lykova was 17 years old when the hungry year began in the taiga: “Mom couldn’t stand it during Lenten. Fishing was no longer possible - the water was too big. They didn’t make sure there was cattle, they couldn’t hunt. They crushed the bergenia root and lived on a rowan leaf.”
Agafya decides herself with whom to communicate: there were cases when a woman simply went into the taiga until the unpleasant guests left. And her character is difficult.
Agafya in photographs recent years dressed identically: two scarves, a cotton dress, a black spade - that’s what she calls her coat. Smoothes out a dress with her hand - she sewed it on her hands three years ago:
The fabric is called cucumber.
Now for Easter I want to sew something new, the fabric is so beautiful. Previously, we lived on our own: we spun and weaved. Sister Natalya taught me a lot; she was my godmother.
Agafya remembers well the names and details of what happened to her. The conversation easily moves from events ten to twenty years ago to the present. Once again he takes out the letter.
They’ve been writing letters for three years now, but what about coming?
Agafya is waiting married couple to visit, last year I even planted more potatoes, but no one came. Photos of palm trees and turquoise water fall out of the envelope. Agafya asks to read what is written on the back. “The country of Peru, the ocean, there are sea animals here, both great and small. I do not eat anything from this according to the Father’s commandment.”
Agafya Lykova received New Year's gifts
Old Believer hermit Agafya Lykova and her assistant monk Gury were given New Year's gifts.
Group of government representatives nature reserve“Khakassky”, which included an adviser to the rector of the university of the Moscow Technological University (MIREA), visited Agafya Lykova’s taiga farm on December 20. The trip to the hermit was planned - specialists, at the request of Roscosmos, monitored the situation in the area protected area after the recent launch spaceship from Baikonur.
The route for launching spacecraft into low-Earth orbit passes, among other things, over inaccessible territories Khakassia. It turned out that the space launch did not disturb the hermits.
In addition, members of the expedition delivered half a bag of freshly frozen and ungutted fish to the Taiga Dead End - on certain days of fasting it is allowed to be eaten. It is noted that all gifts were accepted “ with humility and gratitude».
Tuleyev spoke about his first meeting with the hermit Agafya Lykova
“It was by accident - in 1997 I flew around the region and didn’t even understand what it was. Eternally wild taiga, windfall, impassable dead wood. On the one hand it's simple sheer cliff there is a river running, there is a hut - and a woman lives. She's so fragile. And what surprises her is that she is such a deeply religious person, such real faith in her that it somehow becomes ashamed. She lives in nature, she even has an unusual voice,” said Tuleyev.
“Well, you come up, she either says hello to you, or move on. And so we went down in a helicopter, I’m standing there crumpled - I’m serious! After a short time passes, she comes up and gives me a handful of pine nuts. So, that’s it, you’re to my liking,” he said.
“It happens that we met and she fell into my soul. At first glance, the relationship began,” Tuleyev added.
He said that he often corresponds with Agafya Lykova, she sends him gifts.
“She writes letters to me, she knits a lot of socks from goat’s down, she gave me an embroidered shirt. By the way, I wore it once - it’s comfortable! And she did it herself. Apparently, if you feel good about the product you are giving as a gift, this will be passed on to the person. The village is very comfortable, as if it should be so. In general, these feelings are good, normal, kind, and I really admire her,” he said.
Tuleyev gave the hermit Agafya Lykova a bouquet of roses and a scarf on March 8
Governor of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleyev congratulated the taiga hermit Agafya Lykova on Women's Day on March 8 with a bouquet Red roses and a smart scarf, the regional administration told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.
According to authorities, on Tuesday a group of volunteers from the Moscow Technological University went to Lykova’s home for the sixth time. On behalf of Tuleyev, the expedition was accompanied to the capture by the head of the Tashtagol region, Vladimir Makuta.
On behalf of Tuleyev, the expedition was accompanied to the capture by the head of the Tashtagol region, Vladimir Makuta.
According to him, Aman Tuleyev was recently conveyed the request of Agafya and her assistant, monk Guria, who is with her with the blessing of the Patriarch of the Old Believer Church, Cornelius. They asked Tuleyev to help with hay and feed for goats, bring wheat, cereals (millet, buckwheat, rice, barley), flour, frying pan, ladle, cable, chains, rope and swivels, mousetraps, flashlights, batteries, salt, brooms and broom , tops, glass jars, fruits.
“Makuta gave Agafya Karpovna from Aman Tuleyev congratulations on the spring holiday, a bouquet of roses, an elegant scarf and all the things she needed in the household. The hermit thanked the governor and said that she always prays for him and all residents of the Kemerovo region. Lykova also said that everything was fine with her household and praised Guria for his hard work and loyalty to the canons,” the regional administration said.
As the department explained, the purpose of the volunteers’ trip is to help with housework, and at the same time a new experience of communicating with a woman who sets an example of spiritual integrity, loyalty to the traditions of her ancestors, and remains a unique bearer of Old Slavic culture. Volunteers managed to find funds to charter a helicopter and get to the village. They will stay with the hermits until Saturday.
While humanity was experiencing the Second World War and launching the first space satellites, a family of Russian hermits fought for survival in the remote taiga, 250 kilometers from the nearest village. They ate bark, hunted and quickly forgot what basic human amenities like a toilet or hot water were. Smithsonianmag magazine recalled why they fled from civilization and how they survived the collision with it, and the BIRD IN FLIGHT portal published material based on this article:
“Thirteen million square kilometers of wild Siberian nature seem to be an unsuitable place for life: endless forests, rivers, wolves, bears and almost complete desertion. But despite this, in 1978, while flying over the taiga in search of a place to land a team of geologists, a helicopter pilot discovered traces of a human settlement here. At an altitude of about two meters along the mountainside, not far from an unnamed tributary of the Abakan River, wedged between pines and larches, there was a cleared area that served as a vegetable garden. This place had never been explored before, Soviet archives were silent about the people living here, and the nearest village was more than 250 kilometers from the mountain. It was almost impossible to believe that someone lived there.
Having learned about the pilot's find, a group of scientists sent here to search for iron ore went on reconnaissance - strangers in the taiga could be more dangerous than wild animals. Having placed gifts for possible friends in their backpacks and, just in case, checking the serviceability of the pistol, the group led by geologist Galina Pismenskaya headed to a site 15 kilometers from their camp.
The first meeting was exciting for both sides. When the researchers reached their goal, they saw a well-groomed vegetable garden with potatoes, onions, turnips and piles of taiga rubbish around a hut, blackened by time and rain, with a single window the size of a backpack pocket. Pismenskaya recalled how the owner hesitantly looked out from behind the door - an ancient old man in an old burlap shirt, patched trousers, with an unkempt beard and disheveled hair - and, looking warily at the strangers, agreed to let them into the house.
The hut consisted of one cramped, moldy room, low, smoky and cold, like a cellar. Its floor was covered with potato peelings and pine nut shells, and the ceiling sagged. In such conditions, five people lived here for 40 years. In addition to the head of the family, old man Karp Lykov, his two daughters and two sons lived in the house. 17 years before meeting the scientists, their mother, Akulina, died of exhaustion here. Although Karp's speech sounded intelligible, his children already spoke their own dialect, distorted by life in isolation. “When the sisters spoke to each other, the sounds of their voices resembled slow, muffled cooing,” Pismenskaya recalled.
The younger children, born in the forest, had never met other people before, the older ones forgot that they once lived a different life. The meeting with the scientists sent them into a frenzy. At first, they refused any treats - jam, tea, bread, muttering: “We can’t do this!” It turned out that only the head of the family had ever seen or tasted bread here. But gradually connections were established, the savages got used to new acquaintances and learned with interest about technical innovations, the appearance of which they had missed. The history of their settlement in the taiga has also become clearer.
Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of a fundamentalist Orthodox community that practiced religious rites as they existed until the 17th century. When power fell into the hands of the Soviets, scattered communities of Old Believers, who had fled to Siberia from persecution that began under Peter I, began to move further and further from civilization. During the repressions of the 1930s, when Christianity itself was under attack, on the outskirts of an Old Believer village, a Soviet patrol shot and killed his brother in front of Lykov. After this, Karp had no doubt that he needed to escape. In 1936, having collected their belongings and taking with them some seeds, Karp with his wife Akulina and two children - nine-year-old Savin and two-year-old Natalya - went into the forests, building hut after hut, until they settled where geologists found the family. In 1940, already in the taiga, Dmitry was born, in 1943 - Agafya. Everything that children knew about the outside world, countries, cities, animals, and other people, they learned from the stories of adults and biblical stories.
But life in the taiga was also not easy. For many kilometers there was not a soul around, and for decades the Lykovs learned to make do with what was at their disposal: instead of shoes, they made galoshes from birch bark; they patched clothes until they decayed from age, and sewed new ones from hemp burlap. The little that the family took with them during their escape - a primitive spinning wheel, parts of a loom, two teapots - became unusable over time. When both kettles rusted, they were replaced with a birch bark vessel, and cooking became even more difficult. By the time they met the geologists, the family's diet consisted mainly of potato cakes with ground rye and hemp seeds.
The fugitives constantly lived from hand to mouth. They started using meat and fur only in the late 1950s, when Dmitry grew up and learned to dig trapping holes, pursue prey for a long time in the mountains and became so hardy that he could hunt barefoot all year round and sleep in 40-degree frost. In lean years, when crops were destroyed by animals or frost, family members ate leaves, roots, grass, bark and potato sprouts. This is exactly how I remember 1961, when snow fell in June and Akulina, Karp’s wife, who gave all the food to the children, died. The rest of the family members were saved by chance. Having discovered a grain of rye that had accidentally sprouted in the garden, the family built a fence around it and guarded it for days. The spikelet yielded 18 grains, from which the rye crops were restored for several years.
Scientists were amazed by the curiosity and abilities of people who had been in information isolation for so long. Due to the fact that the youngest in the family, Agafya, spoke in a singsong voice and stretched out simple words into polysyllabic ones, some of the Lykovs’ guests at first decided that she was mentally retarded - and they were very mistaken. In a family where calendars and clocks did not exist, she was responsible for one of the most difficult tasks - keeping track of time for many years.
Old man Karp, at the age of 80, reacted with interest to all technical innovations: he enthusiastically received the news about the launch of satellites, saying that he noticed a change back in the 1950s, when “the stars began to quickly walk across the sky,” and was delighted with the transparent cellophane packaging: “Lord, what did they come up with: glass, but it wrinkles!”
But the most progressive member of the family and the favorite of geologists turned out to be Dmitry, an expert on the taiga, who managed to build a stove in the hut and weave birch bark boxes in which the family stored food. For many years, day after day, he independently planed boards from logs, he spent a long time watching with interest the fast work of a circular saw and a lathe, which he saw in the geologists’ camp.
Finding themselves separated from modernity for decades by the will of the head of the family and circumstances, the Lykovs finally began to join progress. At first, they only accepted salt from geologists, which was not in their diet for all 40 years of life in the taiga. Gradually they agreed to take forks, knives, hooks, grain, pen, paper and an electric torch. They accepted every innovation reluctantly, but television, the “sinful thing” they encountered in the geologists’ camp, turned out to be an irresistible temptation for them. Journalist Vasily Peskov, who managed to spend a lot of time next to the Lykovs, recalled how the family was drawn to the screen during their rare visits to the camp: “Karp Osipovich sits right in front of the screen. Agafya looks, sticking her head out from behind the door. She tries to atone for a sin right away - she will whisper, cross herself and stick her head out again. The old man prays afterwards, diligently and for everything at once.”
It seemed that acquaintance with geologists and their useful gifts for the household gave the family a chance to survive. As often happens in life, everything turned out exactly the opposite: in the fall of 1981, three of Karp’s four children died. The eldest, Savin and Natalya, died due to kidney failure resulting from years of harsh dieting. At the same time, Dmitry died of pneumonia - it is likely that he caught the infection from geologists. On the eve of his death, Dmitry refused their offer to transport him to the hospital. “We can’t do this,” he whispered before his death. “I will live as long as God gives.”
Geologists tried to convince the surviving Karp and Agafya to return to their relatives who lived in the villages. In response, the Lykovs only rebuilt the old hut, but refused to leave their homeland. In 1988, Karp passed away. Having buried her father on the mountain slope, Agafya returned to the hut. “The Lord will give, and she will live,” she then told the geologists who helped her. And so it happened: the last child of the taiga, after a quarter of a century, continues to live alone on the mountain above Abakan.
In March of this year, employees of the Khakassky Nature Reserve arrived by helicopter to the Lykov Zaimka site and for the first time since last fall visited the famous taiga hermit, the press service of the reserve said. According to 71-year-old Agafya Lykova, she endured the winter well; the only unpleasant surprise was the November frosts.
The hermit feels well, complaining only of seasonal pain in her legs. When asked if she wants to move closer to people, Agafya Lykova invariably answers: “I will not go anywhere else and by the power of this oath I will not leave this land.” State inspectors brought the woman her favorite gifts and letters from fellow believers, helped with housework and told her worldly news, added the Khakassky Nature Reserve.
In 2016, Agafya Lykova left the taiga for the first time in many years. Due to severe pain in her legs, she required medical attention and medication. To get to the hospital, the Old Believer had to use another benefit of civilization - a helicopter.
As the inspectors themselves say, security department employees regularly visit Agafya. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often. Due to the inaccessibility of the area in winter and early spring, getting to the village is possible only by helicopter, and in the summer only by boat along mountain taiga rivers.
In 2015, Agafya’s only neighbor, geologist Erofey Sedov, died. He participated in an expedition that discovered a family of hermits. After his retirement, Sedov settled not far from Lykova’s estate.
Blogger Denis Mukimov, who visited the village a year before Sedov’s death, described the relationship between Lykova and Sedov as follows: “There is little that connects the good-natured Erofey and the strict Agafya. They greet each other but rarely speak. They have a conflict based on religion, and Erofey is not ready to follow Agafya’s rules. He himself is a believer, but he does not understand what God can have against canned food in iron cans, why polystyrene foam is a devilish object and why the fire in the stove must be lit only with a torch, and not with a lighter.”
Agafya buried Sedov and has lived completely alone since then.
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