According to general ideas, there are two types of classical hermits: Robinson Crusoe, who fell on a desert island as a result of a shipwreck, and people who became hermits of their own choice. In the Russian tradition, voluntary hermitage is associated with the Orthodox faith, and most often they become monks. In the 70s, in the Sayan taiga, they found a family of Russian Old Believers Lykov, who had gone into the wilderness from a world that had lost faith. The last representative of the family, Agafya Lykova, might have decided her life differently, but history does not turn back.
Different discoveries of geologists
The development of taiga in Russia has always gone its course, and usually slowly. Therefore, the huge forest is now the edge where you can easily hide, get lost, only difficult to survive. Some difficulties are not scared. In August 1978, helicopter pilots from a geological expedition, flying over the taiga along the Abakan River Gorge in search of a place to land, unexpectedly discovered a cultivated piece of land - a garden. The helicopter pilots reported the find to the expedition, and soon geologists came to the place.
From the Lykovs' place of residence to the nearest settlement 250 kilometers of impenetrable taiga, these are still little explored lands of Khakassia. The meeting was striking for both sides, some could not believe in its possibility, while others (Lykovs) did not want to. Here is what the geologist Pismenskaya writes about the meeting with her family in her notes: “And only here we saw the silhouettes of two women. One fought hysterically and prayed: "This is for us for sins, for sins …" The other, holding on to a pillar … slowly sank to the floor. The light from the window fell on her widened, mortally scared eyes, and we realized: we should go outside sooner. At that moment, the head of the family, Karp Lykov, and his two daughters were in the house. ” The whole family of hermits numbered five people.
Lykovs History
By the time of the meeting of the two civilizations in the taiga wilderness in the Lykov family, there were five people: father Karp Osipovich, two sons - Savin and Dmitry, two daughters - Natalya and the smartest Agafya Lykova. The mother of the family died in 1961. The history of seclusion began long before the Lykovs, with the reformism of Peter I, when a schism began in the church. Russia has always been a faithful believer, and part of the population did not want to accept clergymen who brought changes in the dogmas of faith. So there was a new caste of believers who were later called "chapels." The Lykovs belonged to them.
The family of Sayan hermits did not immediately leave the “world”. At the beginning of the twentieth century, they lived on their own farm in the village of Tishi, on the river Big Abakan. Life was secluded, but in contact with fellow villagers. The way of life was peasant, imbued with a deep religious feeling and the inviolability of the principles of primary Orthodoxy. The revolution did not immediately reach these places, the Lykovs did not read newspapers, therefore they did not know anything about the situation in the country. They learned about global state changes from runaway peasants who were moving away from requisitions into a remote taiga corner, in the hope that the Soviet government would not get there. But, one day, in 1929, a party worker appeared with the task of organizing an artel from local settlers.
The majority of the population belonged to the Old Believers, and did not want to endure violence against themselves. Some of the inhabitants, and with them the Lykovs, moved to a new place, not far from the village of Tishi. Then they talked with the locals, took part in the construction of a hospital in the village, went for small purchases to the shop. In the places where the then still large Lykov clan lived, a reserve was formed in 1932, which precluded any possibility of fishing, plowing the land, and hunting. Karp Lykov at that time was already a married man, the first son appeared in the family - Savin.
40 years of solitude
The spiritual struggle of the new authorities took more radical forms. Once on the edge of the village where the Lykovs lived, the elder brother of the father of the family of future hermits was killed by security forces. At this point, the daughter of Natalia appeared in the family. The community of Old Believers was defeated, and the Lykovs went into the taiga even further. They lived without hiding, until in 1945, detachments of border guards who sought deserters left for the house. This caused another relocation to a more remote section of the taiga.
At first, as Agafya Lykova told, they lived in a hut. It is difficult for a modern person to imagine how to survive in such conditions. In Khakassia, snow melts in May, and the first frosts come in September. The house was cut down later. It consisted of one room in which all family members lived. When the sons grew up, they were resettled for a separate apartment eight kilometers from the first housing.
In the year when geologists and Old Believers crossed, the eldest Lykov was approximately 79 years old, the eldest son Savin was 53 years old, the second son Dmitry was 40 years old, the eldest daughter Natalya was 44 years old, and the youngest Agafya Lykova had 36 years behind. The age figures are very approximate, no one is taken to name the exact years of birth. First, the mother was engaged in family reckoning, and then Agafya learned. She was the youngest and most gifted in the family. All the ideas about the outside world the children received mainly from their father, for whom Tsar Peter I was a personal enemy. Storms swept over the country, tectonic changes took place: the bloodiest war was won, radio and television were in every house, Gagarin flew into space, the era of nuclear energy began, and the Lykovs had a pre-Petrine era with the same reckoning. According to the Old Believer calendar, they were found in 7491.
For scientists and philosophers, the family of Old Believers hermits is a real treasure, an opportunity to understand the Old Russian Slavic way of life, already lost in the historical course of time. The news of a unique family that survived not in the warm climate of banana islands, but in the harsh reality of untouched Siberia, spread throughout the entire Union. Many rushed there, but as happens almost always, the desire to decompose a phenomenon into atoms to gain understanding, to bless or bring their vision into someone else's life brings misfortune. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions, ” I had to remember this phrase a few years later, but by this time the Lykovs had lost three.
Closed life
Geologists who found Lykov at the first meeting presented the family with useful things that are necessary in a harsh region. Not everything was taken unambiguously. Of the products for Lykov, much was "not possible." All kinds of canned food were subject to rejection, ordinary table salt caused great delight. For forty years, torn from the world, she was not on the table, and this, according to Karp Lykov, was painful. Doctors visiting the family were surprised by their good health. The emergence of a large number of people has led to increased susceptibility to disease. Being far from society, none of the Lykovs had immunity to the most, in our opinion, harmless diseases.
The hermits’diet consisted of home-baked bread, it included wheat and dried potatoes, pine nuts, berries, herbs, roots and mushrooms. Sometimes fish was served at the table, there was no meat. Only when the son Dmitry grew up, meat became available. Dmitry proved himself to be a hunter, but in his arsenal there was neither a firearm, nor a bow, nor a spear. He drove the beast into snares, traps or just chasing the game to exhaustion, while he himself could be in constant motion for several days. According to him, without much fatigue.
The entire Lykov family had enviable features for many contemporaries - endurance, youthfulness, hard work. Scientists who monitored their lives and ways of life said that the Lykovs could be considered exemplary peasants who attained the higher agricultural school in terms of their everyday life and housekeeping. The seed stock was replenished with selected samples, soil preparation and distribution of plants on the mountain slopes with respect to the sun were ideal.
Their health was excellent, although they had to dig potatoes out of the snow. Before the cold, everyone went barefoot, in the winter their shoes were pumped out of birch bark, until they learned how to make skins. A set of medicinal herbs and knowledge about their use helped to avoid diseases and cope with diseases that have already happened. The family was constantly on the verge of survival, and they did it with success. Agafya Lykova, according to eyewitnesses, at the age of forty easily climbed to the tops of tall trees to shoot down cones, and covered several kilometers a day between the winters eight times a day.
All the younger family members, thanks to their mother, were literate. They read in Old Slavonic and spoke the same language. Agafya Lykova knows all the prayers from the thick prayer book, knows how to write and knows the score in Old Slavonic, where the numbers are indicated by letters. All who are familiar with her, note her openness, firmness of character, which does not have bragging, stubbornness and the desire to insist on her.
Expanding family dating
After the first contact with the outside world, a closed way of life cracked. Members of the geological party, who first encountered the Lykovs, invited the family to move to the nearest village. The idea did not appeal to her, but the hermits nevertheless came to visit the expedition. Novelties of technological progress aroused curiosity and interest among the younger generation. So Dmitry, who had to deal with construction the most, liked the tools of the sawmill. Minutes were spent on cutting logs on a circular electric saw, and he had to spend several days on similar work.
Gradually, many of the benefits of civilization began to be accepted. They came to the yard of the ax, clothes, simple kitchen utensils, a flashlight. Television caused a sharp rejection as “demonic, ” after a short viewing, family members prayed fervently. In general, prayer and Orthodox holidays, veneration of church rules occupied most of the life of hermits. Dmitry and Savin wore hats that resembled monastic hoods. After the first contact, the Lykovs were already expecting guests and were glad of them, but communication had to be earned.
In 1981, one winter, one after another, three Lykovs passed away: Savin, Natalya and Dmitry. Agafya Lykova in the same period was seriously ill, but her younger body coped with the disease. Some suggest that the cause of the death of three family members was contact with the outside world, from where the viruses came to which they did not have immunity.
For seven years, the writer Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov constantly came to visit them, his stories formed the basis of the book “The Taiga Dead End”. Also, publications about the Lykovs are made by the doctor observing the family, Nazarov Igor Pavlovich. Subsequently, several documentaries were shot, many articles were written. Many residents of the USSR offered their help, they wrote letters, sent many parcels with useful things, many sought to come. One winter, a man unfamiliar to him lived with the Lykovs. According to their memories of him, we can conclude that he was pretending to be an Old Believer, but in reality he clearly suffered from a mental illness. Fortunately, everything was resolved safely.
Last of Lykovs
The biography of Agafia Lykova is unique, perhaps, women in this history can never be found in such a fate. Did the father regret that his children lived without a family, and no one had children, one can only guess. According to Nazarov's memoirs, sons sometimes contradicted his father, Dmitry did not want to accept the last lifetime church ceremony before his death. Such behavior became possible only after the invasion of the seclusion of outer life with its rapid changes.
Karp Lykov died in February 1988, from that moment Agafya was left to live on the land alone. She was repeatedly offered to move to more comfortable conditions, but she considers her wilderness saving for the soul and body. Once, in the presence of Dr. Nazarov, she dropped a phrase about modern medical practice, which boiled down to the fact that doctors treat the body and cripple the soul.
Left alone, she made an attempt to settle in the Old Believer monastery, but discrepancies with the sisters on issues of principle forced Agafya to return to hermitism. She also had experience living with relatives, of whom there were many, but even here the relationship did not work out. Today she is visited by many expeditions, there are private individuals. Many people seek to help her, but often it is more like interfering in her personal life. She does not like photography and video, considering it sinful, but her desire stops few. Her house is now the lonely monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos of Three Hands, where one nun Agafya Lykova lives. Taiga is the best fence from uninvited guests, and for many curious people this is really an insurmountable obstacle.
Attempts to socialize with modernity
In 2013, the hermit Agafya Lykova realized that to survive in the taiga alone is not just difficult, but impossible. Then she wrote a letter to the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Krasnoyarsk Worker V. Pavlovsky. In it, she described her plight and asked for help. By this moment, the governor of the region, Alman Tuleyev, had already taken care of her fate. Food, medicine, household items are regularly delivered to her lodge. But the situation required intervention: it was necessary to harvest firewood, hay for animals, to correct buildings, and this assistance was provided in full.
The biography of Agafia Lykova for a short period blossomed next door to the newly-found hermit. Geologist Erofei Sedov, who worked as part of an expedition that found the Lykovs, decided to settle a hundred meters from Agafya’s house. After gangrene, his leg was taken away. A house was built for him under the mountain, the hermit's lodge was located on the top, and Agafya often went down to help the disabled person. But the neighborhood was not long, he died in 2015. Agafya was left alone again.
