When a Soviet geological survey helicopter spotted a tiny clearing deep within the Siberian taiga in 1978, the crew assumed it was impossible that anyone lived there. The nearest settlement lay more than 150 miles away, and the dense forest surrounding the Abakan River had long been considered one of the most isolated places in Russia. Yet tucked into that clearing stood a rough wooden cabin, vegetable plots, and a family that had spent years completely cut off from modern civilization. Among them was Agafia Lykova, then in her 30s, who remains there today at the age of 81. Her family had reportedly fled into the wilderness in 1936 to escape religious persecution under Joseph Stalin, raising their children in isolation without electricity, roads, radio or knowledge of many of the defining events of the 20th century. According to The Guardian , the Lykovs’ remarkable existence only became known after Soviet geologists accidentally discovered their remote homestead during an aerial mineral survey in the Sayan Mountains in 1978.
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