The Lykov Family – 42 years in the wilderness

(Members of the Lykov family with one of the surveying team who found them)

During the early 20th century Russia had more than its fair share of problems, and one of these included the violent suppression of various religions. Lykov and his wife were classed as old believers, a religious belief that was in opposition to the atheist Bolsheviks who had recently taken power in the country.

While Lykov was at work one day in his village, a communist patrol came in and shot his brother, and fearing for the safety of his family, he quickly gathered up some supplies and fled with them into the trees.

Instead of hiding for a while before coming back out, Lykov and his family kept running until they found a place that was 160 miles from the nearest settlement, at this time the family consisted of Lykov, his wife, and 2 young children.

The family set up in a nice valley within the Taigi, an area of wilderness in southern Siberia. Amongst their possessions, they had a few tools and some seeds, which they wasted no time in planting. Building themselves a crude log cabin, they had everything they needed to survive for a while.

No one seems to know what the plan initially was, but the family didn’t seem to make any kind of effort to return to their original home, or even make contact with anyone outside their family.

In 1940 another son was born into the family, along with a daughter in 1943, both children of which were delivered at home with no medical supplies whatsoever. Somehow they managed to consistently grow and gather enough food to feed a family of 6, with no major accidents or diseases happening to any of them.

In 1961 due to a bad summer harvest, the family ran out of food during an especially long winter and one of the children died of starvation. The other 3 children died in 1981 and Lykov died in 1988, with the only surviving member of the family his daughter, Agafia who continued to live in isolation until January of 2016.

The most incredible thing about the family’s story is that they survived. The chances of them getting a disease or developing an infection from a wound are very, very high indeed, yet none of them did.

They didn’t exactly have it easy though, as when they were discovered by a helicopter in 1978, they were all in a very sorry state, to say the least. Their diet consisted mostly of Potato patties and rye, as everything else either didn’t grow in the harsh cold climate, or they didn’t have the seeds in the first place.

After the small amount of equipment they had with them rusted, they made birch bark containers and even had a basic spinning wheel to turn hemp into fibers for making clothes. After their tools wore out, they made crude wooden and stone tools to farm with, relying mostly on their hands to pull up the potato crops and snap off rye stems. But somehow they made it, without a single suicide, and even seemed quite happy to stay there, refusing an offer to return them to civilization when they were discovered in 1978.