Recently, with Agafya Lykova in Siberia. The history of the Lykov family - history in photographs
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 the bark, hunted, and quickly forgot what basic human amenities like a toilet or hot water. Smithsonianmag magazine recalled why they fled from civilization and how they survived a collision with it, and on the portal BIRD IN FLIGHT published material based on this article:
“Thirteen million square kilometers of wild Siberian nature seem like an unsuitable place to live: endless forests, rivers, wolves, bears and almost complete desertion. But despite this, in 1978, flying over the taiga in search of a landing site for a team of geologists, a helicopter pilot discovered traces of a human settlement here. At a height of about 2 meters along the mountainside, not far from the nameless tributary of the Abakan River, wedged between pines and larches, there was a cleared area that served as a vegetable garden. This place has never been explored before, the 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 in search of iron ore went to explore - strangers in the taiga could be more dangerous than a wild beast. Having put gifts for possible friends into their backpacks and, just in case, having checked 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 destination, they saw a well-kept garden with potatoes, onions, turnips and piles of taiga rubbish around a hut blackened from 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 uncombed 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, sooty and cold as a cellar. Its floor was covered with potato peels and pine nut shells, and the ceiling sagged. In such conditions, five people huddled here for 40 years. In addition to the head of the family, the old man Karp Lykov, his two daughters and two sons lived in the house. 17 years before the meeting with scientists, their mother, Akulina, died here from exhaustion. Although Karp's speech was intelligible, his children were already speaking their language, distorted by life in isolation. “When the sisters spoke to each other, the sounds of their voices resembled slow, muffled coos,” Pismenskaya recalled.
The younger children, who were born in the forest, had never met other people before, the older ones forgot that they had once lived a different life. The meeting with the scientists drove 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 and 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 missed. The history of their settlement in the taiga has also become clear.
Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of the fundamentalist Orthodox community, performing religious rites in the form in which they existed until the 17th century. When power was in the hands of the Soviets, the scattered communities of Old Believers, who had fled to Siberia from the persecution that had begun under Peter I, began to move further and further away 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 his brother in front of Lykov. After that, Karp had no doubts that he needed to run. In 1936, having collected his belongings and taking some seeds with him, 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 the family was found by geologists. In 1940, already in the taiga, Dmitry was born, in 1943 - Agafya. Everything that the children knew about the outside world, countries, cities, animals, other people, they drew from the stories of adults and Bible 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 sewed galoshes from birch bark; they patched up clothes until they decayed from old age, and sewed new ones from hemp burlap. The little that the family took with them during the escape - a primitive spinning wheel, details of a loom, two teapots - eventually fell into disrepair. When both teapots rusted, they were replaced with a birch bark vessel, and cooking became even more difficult. By the time of the meeting with the geologists, the family's diet consisted mainly of potato cakes with ground rye and hemp seeds.
The fugitives were constantly starving. They began to use meat and fur only in the late 1950s, when Dmitry matured 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 famine years, when crops were destroyed by animals or frosts, family members ate leaves, roots, grass, bark, and potato sprouts. This is how 1961 was remembered, when snow fell in June, and Akulina, Karp's wife, who gave all the food to the children, died. The rest of the family was saved by chance. Having found 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 brought 18 grains, of which rye crops were restored for several years.
Scientists were amazed by the curiosity and abilities of people who have 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, some guests of the Lykovs at first decided that she was mentally retarded - and they were greatly mistaken. In a family where calendars and clocks did not exist, she was responsible for one of the most difficult tasks - for many years she kept track of time.
Old Karp, in his 80s, reacted with interest to all technical innovations: he enthusiastically accepted the news about the launch of satellites, saying that he noticed a change back in the 1950s, when “the stars began to soon walk across the sky”, and was delighted with the transparent cellophane packaging: “Lord, what did they think: glass, but it is crumpled!”
But the most progressive member of the family and the favorite of geologists was Dmitry, an expert in the taiga, who managed to build a stove in the hut and weave birch bark boxes in which the family kept food. For many years, day after day, he independently planed logs from logs, he watched with interest for a long time fast work circular saw and lathe that I saw in the camp of geologists.
Having been cut off from modernity for decades at the behest of the head of the family and circumstances, the Lykovs finally began to join progress. At first, they accepted only 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, a pen, paper, and an electric flashlight. They accepted every innovation reluctantly, but the TV - the "sinful business" that they encountered in the camp of geologists - 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 seeks to atone for sin right away - she whispers, crosses herself and sticks 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 in 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 elders, Savin and Natalya, died due to kidney failure resulting from many years of a harsh diet. At the same time, Dmitry died of pneumonia - it is likely that he picked up 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. “As long as God gives, I will live for so long.”
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 native place. In 1988, Karp passed away. Having buried her father on a mountain slope, Agafya returned to the hut. “God willing, and she will live,” she said to the geologists who helped her at the time. And so it happened: last child taiga, after a quarter of a century, continues to live alone on a mountain above Abakan.
In March of this year, employees of the Khakassky reserve reached the Lykov Zaimka site by helicopter and for the first time since last autumn visited the famous taiga hermit, said the press service of the reserve. According to 71-year-old Agafya Lykova, she endured the winter well, only the November frosts were an unpleasant surprise.
The hermit feels satisfactorily, complains only of seasonal pain in her legs. When asked if she wants to move closer to people, Agafya Lykova invariably replies: “I won’t go anywhere and by the power of this oath I won’t leave this land.” The state inspectors brought the woman her favorite gifts and letters from fellow believers, helped with the housework and told worldly news, - they added in the Khakassky reserve.
In 2016, Agafya Lykova left the taiga for the first time in many years. Due to severe pain in her legs, she needed medical attention and medication. To get to the hospital, the Old Believer had to use another boon of civilization - a helicopter.
As the inspectors themselves say, security officers regularly visit Agafya. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often. Due to the inaccessibility of the area in winter and early spring, it is possible to get to the lodge only by helicopter, and in summer only by boat along the mountain taiga rivers.
In 2015, Agafya's only neighbor, geologist Erofei 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 zaimka a year before Sedov’s death, described the relationship between Lykova and Sedova as follows: “There is little that connects the good-natured Yerofey and the strict Agafya. They greet each other but rarely talk. They had a conflict on the basis of religion, and Erofei is not ready to follow the rules of Agafya. He himself is a believer, but he does not understand what God can have against canned food in iron cans, why Styrofoam is a devilish object, and why the fire in the stove must be kindled only with a torch, and not with a lighter.
Agafya buried Sedov and has been living all alone ever since.
The last of the Lykov hermits: Why Agafya refuses to move from the taiga to people
The last of the kind of Old Believers-hermits Lykov Agafya. Photo by D. Korobeynikov | Photo: iz.ru
In the early 1980s In the Soviet press, a series of publications appeared about the Lykov family of hermits, Old Believers, who spent 40 years in voluntary exile in the Sayan taiga, refusing 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 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.
In the taiga, the Old Believers Karp and Akulina Lykov with their children fled from the Soviet regime in the 1930s. On the bank of the mountain tributary of the Erinat River, they built a hut, were engaged in hunting, fishing, gathered mushrooms and berries, wove clothes on a homemade loom. They left the village of Tishi with two children - Savvin and Natalya, and in secret two more were born - Dmitry and Agafya. In 1961, her mother, Akulina Lykova, died of starvation, 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 younger Agafya agreed to take them. This saved her life. In 1988, at the age of 87, her father died, leaving her alone.
Agafya Lykova and Vasily Peskov | Photo: oursociety.ru
They began to write about the Lykovs back in 1982. Then the journalist Vasily Peskov often came to the Old Believers, who later published several articles in Komsomolskaya Pravda and the book Taiga Dead End. After that, the Lykovs often found themselves in the center of attention of the press and the public, their story thundered throughout the country. In the 2000s, the Lykovs' estate was included in the territory of the Khakasssky Reserve.
Agafya Lykova
In 1990, Agafya's seclusion stopped for the first time: she took tonsure in an Old Believer convent, but a few months later she returned to her house in the taiga, explaining this by "ideological differences" with the nuns. Her relations with relatives also did not work out - they say that the character of the hermit is quarrelsome and complex.
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 Alexander Martyushev's niece, who tried to persuade her to move, went to her. Agafya gratefully accepted food, firewood and gifts, but refused to leave her home. 
Zaimka Lykovs. Photo by A. Panteleev | Photo: kp.ru
At the request of the head of the Russian Old Believer Church, Metropolitan Kornily, an assistant was sent to the hermit - 18-year-old Alexander Beshtannikov, who came from a family of Old Believers. He helped her with the housework until he was drafted into the army. For 17 years, Agafya's assistant was the former geologist Erofei Sedov, who settled next door to her after his retirement. But in May 2015, he died, and the hermit was left all alone. 
Yerofei Sedov, a former geologist who, after retirement, settled in the Lykovs' estate | Photo: kp.ru
In January 2016, Agafya had to interrupt her seclusion and again turn to people for help - her legs ached badly, and she called the doctor using the satellite phone left for her by the local administration for emergency calls. She was taken from the taiga by helicopter to the hospital in the city of Tashtagol, where they conducted an examination and found out that Agafya had an exacerbation of osteochondrosis. The first measures were taken, but the hermit refused long-term treatment - she immediately began to rush back home.
Agafya's hut. Photo by D. Mukimov | Photo: birdinflight.com
Given the advanced age of Agafya Lykova and the state of her health, everyone again tried to persuade the hermit to stay among the people, to move in with relatives, but she flatly refused. After spending a little more than a week in the hospital, Agafya returned to the taiga again. She said that the hospital is boring - "only sleep, eat and pray, but at home there are a lot of things to do." 
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 Khakasssky 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, a Ural priest, Father Vladimir, visited her. He said that the assistant George lives with Agafya, whom the priest blessed to support the hermit.
In the spring of 2017, employees of the Khakass nature reserve visited the hermit | Photo: prmira.ru
The 72-year-old hermit explains her unwillingness to move closer to people and civilization by the fact that she made a promise to her father never to leave their homes in the taiga: “I will not go anywhere and by the force of this oath I will not leave this land. If it were possible, I would gladly accept fellow believers to live and pass on my knowledge and accumulated experience of the Old Believer faith. Agafya is sure 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
I was lucky enough to visit the Lykovs' lodge more than once. For many years we have been equipping expeditions there, organizing actions to help Agafya Karpovna. And, of course, we greatly 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 is writing 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 there 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 is possible to join them? Maybe it's not that expensive? As I understand it, she is going to spend this winter in the taiga too? I prepared a package with chocolate…”
According to Zimin, his mother "always resented" the injustice shown by the state, taking care of 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 was Dmitry, an expert in the taiga, who managed to build a stove in the hut and weave birch bark boxes in which the family kept food. For many years, day after day, he himself planed logs from logs, for a long time he watched with interest the fast work of a circular saw and a lathe, which he saw in the camp of geologists.
How does the 73-year-old mistress of the lodge feel, “registered” at the mouth of the Erinat, where the Western Sayan merges with Gorny Altai? What worries does he live? 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,” Mr. Komaritsyn said. The powers of Viktor Zimin expire in next year. Earlier, the head of Khakassia spoke extremely positively about Aman Tuleev. During the same direct line, the head of Khakassia criticized the heads of the Khakassian municipalities. “Cook the stew, sell it on the market,” Mr. Zimin said. - Grandmothers concentrate. You live in the taiga, pick berries, sell them.”
Many chapels kept the so-called Spare Gifts, i.e. bread and wine consecrated by the priest during the Liturgy. Such Spare Gifts were usually hidden in different hiding places, built into books or icons. Since the quantity Since the number of shrines was limited, and the Gifts themselves, after disappearing from the chapel priests, were not replenished in any way, then 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, the last representative of her family, has been living for many years. Getting to her lodge is not so easy: you need to walk for several days in the taiga or fly for several hours by helicopter. That is why Agafya Lykova rarely receives guests, but she is always glad to see them.
The Lykovs made contact with civilization in 1978, and three years later the family began to die out. In October 1981, Dimitri Karpovich died, in December - Savin Karpovich, 10 days later Agafya's sister - Natalia. 7 years later, February 16, 1988, head passed away Karp Osipovich family. Only Agafya Karpovna survived.
According to the head of the region, millions are spent on creating conditions for a hermit. He did not give specific amounts. RIA Novosti writes that Zimin has already banned flights to the reserve.
But in order to prove this, it is not enough to refer to the example of ancestors who now lived in the ever more distant XIX-XX centuries. The Old Believers should 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 does the hermit Agafya Lykova live now? Fresh material as of 02/02/2018
However, Agafya did not stay in the chapel monastery for long. Significant disagreements of religious views with the nuns of the chapel consent had an effect. Nevertheless, during her stay in the monastery, Agafya went through the rank of “covering”. This is what the chapels call monastic vows. Subsequently Agafya also had her novices, for example, the Muscovite Nadezhda Usik, who spent 5 years in the Lykovs' skete.
Nevertheless, Agafya not only did not succumb to these persuasions, but became even more strengthened in her rightness. Such are the Lykovs - having once made a decision, they do not go backwards. Talking about the disputes with the Bespopovites, Agafya says:
The Lykov family, like many thousands of other families of Old Believers, moved to remote areas 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 strayed to the Lykovs' home. He lived in Agafya's garden for several months and even fed himself potatoes and everything else that the hermit gave him. Agafya does not have the fear of the taiga that is habitual for city dwellers, forest animals and loneliness. If you ask her if it’s not scary to live in such a wilderness alone, she replies:
Once women gathered for a long time in the taiga to collect cones. Suddenly, not far from the place of their parking, a strong crunch was heard - a bear was walking nearby in the forest. The beast walked and sniffed around all day, despite the fire and the blows to the metal utensils. Agafya, having prayed by heart the canons to the Mother of God and Nicholas the Wonderworker, finished them with the words: “Well, are you listening to the Lord, or something, it’s time for you to leave already.” As a result, the danger has passed.
“How can you stop making friends? If the authorities of Khakassia provided system help, reacted to the problems and rare requests of Agafya Lykova, then there would be no need for Kuzbass to intervene, ”the press service of the administration 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 a spokesman for the press service, flights are “tied” to emergency signals when there is information about deforestation or a forest fire.
Terrible truth from Agafya fresh information. Fresh material as of 02/02/2018
They object: history knows not only the fleeing and hiding Old Believers, but also the advancing enlightened, passionate. This is the Old Believers of industrialists and patrons, writers and philanthropists, collectors and discoverers. Undoubtedly, all this is so!
Despite the fact that Peskov came to the forest lodge 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 erroneously indicated that the Lykovs belonged to a wandering sense, although in fact they belonged to a chapel agreement (groups of Old Believer communities united by a similar creed - editor's note) were called opinions and agreements.
Karp Lykov was an Old Believer, a member of the fundamentalist Orthodox community, performing religious rites in the form in which they existed until the 17th century. When power was in the hands of the Soviets, the scattered communities of Old Believers, who had fled to Siberia from the persecution that had begun under Peter I, began to move further and further away 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 his brother in front of Lykov. After that, Karp had no doubts that he needed to run. In 1936, having collected his belongings and taking some seeds with him, 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 the family was found by geologists. In 1940, already in the taiga, Dmitry was born, in 1943 - Agafya. Everything that the children knew about the outside world, countries, cities, animals, other people, they drew from the stories of adults and Bible stories.
Old Karp, in his 80s, reacted with interest to all technical innovations: he enthusiastically accepted the news about the launch of satellites, saying that he noticed a change back in the 1950s, when “the stars began to soon walk across the sky”, and was delighted with the transparent cellophane packaging: “Lord, what did they think: glass, but it is crumpled!”
For the fifth year with students we help her to harvest. At first, our volunteer landings in catamarans and boats traveled from Abaza for more than a week, and last August, Kemerovo residents on a turntable from Tashtagol threw us up. In ten days, the guys sawed firewood, mowed five stacks of hay, completed the flock for chickens. And New film removed. The first without any advertising scored more than 100 thousand views on the Internet.
Karp Lykov and his family left for 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 the impenetrable taiga, and only in 1978 did they meet with geologists. However, the whole country became aware of the family of Old Believers a little later, in 1982, when Vasily Peskov, a Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist, spoke about them. For three decades, he talked about the Lykovs from the pages of the newspaper. Currently, Agafya is the only survivor from the family. Now she is 72 years old, and on April 23 she will turn 73. The hermit refuses to move closer to civilization.
In addition to the actual household chores, they carefully followed the calendar and led a difficult schedule of home worship. Savin Karpovich Lykov, who was responsible for church calendar, most accurately calculated the calendar and Paschalia (apparently, according to the vrutselet 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 performed rigorously according to old printed books available in the family.
Who is Lykava Agafya, what is she famous for. recent events.
Agafya Lykova is the only surviving representative of the Old Believer family found by geologists in 1978 in the Western Sayan Mountains. The Lykov family has lived in isolation since 1937, long years hermits tried to protect the family from influence external environment especially with regard to faith. By the time geologists discovered the taiga inhabitants, there were five: the head of the family, Karp Lykov, sons Savvin (45 years old), Dimitri (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, Dimitri and Natalya, and in 1988 the Lykovs' father passed away. Currently, Agafya Lykova lives alone in the taiga.
I will not go anywhere 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 and pass on my knowledge and accumulated experience of the Old Believer faith, - says Agafya.
Video news Agafya Lykova in 2018. All that is known at the moment.
Surely many have heard about who Agafya Karpovna Lykova is. The domestic press has repeatedly written that in the Russian outback, in harsh taiga conditions, a hermit lives, who ignores all the achievements of civilization and prefers to live according to the laws of the Old Believers. Agafya Karpovna Lykova is the last survivor from an ancient family who for many decades has not recognized worldly fuss and does not want to return to society. At the same time, the hermit's ancestors and family never adhered to the views of religious radicalism, professing moderate Old Believer norms, unlike those who completely renounced everything earthly.
family history
It should be noted that journalists did not always write the truth about the Lykovs, sometimes inventing all sorts of fables about these recluses. For example, that they were "dark" people in the sense that they were absolutely illiterate. However, the wife of Father Agafya Karpovna taught all the offspring to write and read from the Psalter. And Karp Iosifovich himself, after the launch of the first satellite of the Earth in the second half of the 50s of the last century, suddenly declared that "the stars began to walk very quickly across the sky."
The sharks of the pen were also wrong when they accused the Lykovs of being real fanatics of their religious beliefs, and tried in every possible way to convert others to their faith. In fact, family members were even forbidden to think badly about people.
Back in the first half of the 20s of the last century, the authorities destroyed the settlement of the Old Believers, some of whom were forced to go to live in the foothill areas.
In 1937, the Lykovs decided to leave the community and settle separately from their associates in a secluded place. In the mid-40s, a family of hermits was accidentally discovered by a patrol, and Karp Iosifovich with his wife and children again set off to look for a quiet and secluded place to live. And found, only since then his family did not have any contact with the outside world. The Lykovs were fed by what the land, forest and water gave them. The family strictly observed the rules that forbade everyone to communicate with representatives modern civilization. However, living in the wilderness, the Lykovs did not lose track of time and held religious rites.
The last of a family of hermits
Agafya Karpovna Lykova is the only representative of the family of Old Believers. Parents, two brothers and a sister have long since died.
According to the official version of doctors, the cause of death of Lykova's relatives was a shortage immune system resulting from the isolation of the family from the outside world. Unfortunately, contact with representatives of the new civilization turned out to be disastrous for the Old Believers: their bodies could not cope with modern diseases, against which mankind has long found an antidote.
The log house made of wood, in which the hermit lives, is located in the Republic of Khakassia, which is framed by mountain ranges. Since 1988, Agafya Karpovna Lykova has been living in complete solitude, from the moment she buried own father. Family life she didn't work out.
Natural economy
An elderly woman independently manages the household, is engaged in gardening, but every year the cultivation of the land takes more and more strength. She has chickens and goats. The loneliness of an old woman is brightened up by a dog and cats. Lykova Agafya Karpovna reveres family traditions and does not forget about gathering and fishing. They regularly try to bring hay, fruits, vegetables and cereals to her. And even rescuers supply the hermit with firewood. At the same time, Agafya Karpovna Lykova, whose views approve of an exclusively reclusive lifestyle, does not hesitate to use devices from the outside world.
Among them, for example, a clock and a thermometer, the existence of which, until recently, she had no idea. It is noteworthy that, while accepting gifts and useful things from geologists and rescuers, an elderly woman imposes a strict taboo on objects that are marked with a computer barcode, classifying them as devilish attributes.
One day she wrote a letter asking him to send her a man to help with the housework. And one was found. A young man named Alexander, who lives in the Tomsk region, responded and came to the taiga. However, the young man failed to stay in conditions where there is no civilization for a long time: he received a summons from the military enlistment office, and he was forced to go to the army.
Seven kilometers from the hut of Agafya Karpovna lives the former geologist Erofei Sedov, who knows the hermit well, but due to his state of health cannot often meet with her.
Leaving for a monastery
In the early 90s, Agafya Karpovna Lykova, whose biography is familiar to a huge number of Russians, decided to change her fate.
The hermit went to live in the Old Believer convent and even experienced the procedure of tonsure. But a few months later, telling her sisters that she was ill, she went back home. In reality, Agafya Karpovna Lykova, for whom seclusion is the only form of being, left the skete for religious reasons. Grandmother prays every day that the Almighty sends her health and longevity. And she has already overcome the eighth decade, and the forces to manage the household are no longer the same as before. Today she is strong only in spirit and willpower.
Phenomenon
He often visited the father of Agafya Karpovna and interviewed him. The result of these frequent and long trips was a book called "Taiga Dead End". In it, the author spoke in detail about the living conditions of hermits and their religious beliefs.
A few years ago, on the occasion of the Christmas holiday, Agafya Karpovna Lykova, whose photos regularly appeared in the Soviet press, received as a gift a calendar and religious books addressed to her by the Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia (among the Old Believers) Cornelius, and after a while the lord himself visited the famous hermit .
How is she living now?
And what is known today about an elderly woman whose name is Lykova Agafya Karpovna? Latest news indicate that the recluse is not all well with health. What happens to her?
Old affliction
A few years ago, the recluse was diagnosed with breast cancer. The hermit opposed the surgical intervention in every possible way, declaring that it was a sinful act.
And after some time, everyone was pleasantly surprised when the malignant tumor disappeared by itself. The fact is that Agafya Karpovna was treated folk medicine, taking herbal remedies, the amazing properties of which she is well aware of.
Now Siberian doctors are not inclined to dramatize the situation, arguing that for her age the recluse has very good health.
Help arrived just in time
More recently, a woman reported that she began to suffer from terrible pain in her leg. She used the phone, which was left for force majeure, and asked for help. The request was answered by the head of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleev himself, who sent a helicopter for the hermit. She took only spring water and icons with her. Agafya Karpovna was brought to the district hospital in the city of Tashtagol. As it turned out, the hermit had already long time had a disease such as lumbar osteochondrosis. The experts gave her medical care, having carried out a comprehensive examination of the body, and the recluse began to recover quickly. Everyone wished that Lykova Agafya Karpovna would not stay in the medical facility for a long time, 2016 was not an easy year for her.
Lying in a hospital bed, the hermit never for a moment forgot about her pets: dogs, cats and goats. She was especially worried about artiodactyls, because they show excessive obstinacy, not letting anyone in except their mistress. At the time of her absence, one Old Believer novice and a local huntsman volunteered to look after the woman's household.
Currently, Agafya Karpovna Lykova (hermit) is feeling well and has already returned to her beloved pets. Before that, she did not forget to meet with relatives who wished the woman good health.
Conclusion
It should be noted that the case of the Lykov family does not belong to the category of extraordinary. The public became aware of Agafya Karpovna and her close relatives only because the Old Believers themselves made contact with representatives of the outside world, who, in turn, told reporters about the so-called phenomenon. In the Siberian taiga there are a huge number of Old Believers, whose life takes place in monasteries and sketes. And there is no doubt that the death of industrial civilization will not be perceived by them as some kind of apocalypse.
The famous hermit Agafya Karpovna Lykova, who lives in a zaimka in the upper reaches of the Erinat River in Western Siberia 300 km from civilization, was born in 1945. On April 16, she celebrates her name day (her birthday is not known). Agafya is the only surviving representative of the Lykov family of hermits-Old Believers. The family was discovered by geologists on June 15, 1978 in the upper reaches of the Abakan River (Khakassia).
The Lykov family of Old Believers has lived in isolation since 1937. There were six people in the family: Karp Osipovich (born around 1899) with his wife Akulina Karpovna and their children: Savin (born around 1926), Natalia (born around 1936), Dimitri (born around 1940) and Agafya (b. 1945).
In 1923, the Old Believer settlement was destroyed and several families moved further into the mountains. Around 1937, Lykov with his wife and two children left the community, settled separately in a remote place, but lived without hiding. In the autumn of 1945, a patrol came out to their home looking for deserters, which alerted the Lykovs. The family moved to another place, living from that moment in secret, in complete isolation from the world.
The Lykovs were engaged in agriculture, fishing and hunting. The fish was salted, harvested for the winter, mined at home fish fat. Having no contacts with the outside world, the family lived according to the laws of the Old Believers, the hermits tried to protect the family from the influence of the external environment, especially with regard to faith. Thanks to their mother, the Lykov children were literate. Despite such a long isolation, the Lykovs did not lose track of time, they performed home worship.
By the time geologists discovered the taiga inhabitants, there were five - the head of the family Karp Osipovich, sons Savvin, Dimitri and daughters Natalya and Agafya (Akulina Karpovna died in 1961). Currently from that big family only the youngest, Agafya, remained. In 1981, Savvin, Dimitry and Natalya died one after another, and in 1988 Karp Osipovich passed away.
Publications in national newspapers made the Lykov family widely known. Their relatives showed up in the Kuzbass village of Kilinsk, inviting the Lykovs to move in with them, but they refused.
Since 1988, Agafya Lykova has been living alone in the Sayan taiga, on Erinat. Her family life did not work out. Her departure to the monastery did not work either - discrepancies in doctrine with nuns were discovered. A few years ago, the former geologist Yerofey Sedov moved to these places and now, like a neighbor, helps the hermit with fishing and hunting. Lykova's farm is small: goats, dogs, cats and chickens. Agafya Karpovna also keeps a garden in which she grows potatoes and cabbage.
Relatives living in Kilinsk have been calling Agafya to move in with them for many years. But Agafya, although she began to suffer from loneliness and began to leave her strength due to age and illness, she does not want to leave the castle.
A few years ago, Lykova was taken by helicopter to receive treatment on the waters of the Goryachiy Klyuch spring, she twice traveled along railway to see distant relatives, even treated in the city hospital. She boldly uses hitherto unknown measuring instruments (thermometer, clock).
Agafya greets each new day with a prayer and goes to bed with her every day.
Vasily Peskov, journalist and writer, dedicated his book “Taiga Dead End” to the Lykov family
How did the Lykovs manage to live in complete isolation for almost 40 years?
The shelter of the Lykovs is a canyon of the upper reaches of the Abakan River in the Sayans, next to Tuva. The place is hard to reach, wild - steep mountains covered with forest, and between them a river. They were engaged in hunting, fishing, gathering mushrooms, berries and nuts in the taiga. A garden was bred where barley, wheat and vegetables were grown. They were engaged in hemp spinning and weaving, providing themselves with clothes. The Lykovs' garden could become a role model for a different modern economy. Located on the slope of the mountain at an angle of 40-50 degrees, it went up 300 meters. Dividing the site into lower, middle and upper, the Lykovs placed cultures taking into account their biological characteristics. The fractional sowing allowed them to better preserve the crop. There were absolutely no diseases of agricultural crops. To save high yield, potatoes were grown in one place for no more than three years. The Lykovs also established the alternation of cultures. The seeds were carefully prepared. Three weeks before planting, potato tubers were laid in a thin layer indoors on piles. A fire was built under the floor, heating up the boulders. And the stones, giving off heat, evenly and for a long time heated the seed material. Seeds were checked for germination. They were propagated in a special area. The sowing dates were approached strictly, taking into account the biological characteristics of different crops. The dates were chosen optimal for the local climate. Despite the fact that for fifty years the Lykovs planted the same potato variety, it did not degenerate among them. The content of starch and dry matter was much higher than in most modern varieties. Neither the tubers nor the plants contained any virus or any other infection at all. Knowing nothing about nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the Lykovs nevertheless applied fertilizers according to advanced agronomic science: "all kinds of rubbish" from cones, grass and leaves, that is, nitrogen-rich composts, went under hemp and all spring crops. Under turnips, beets, potatoes, ash was added - a source of potassium necessary for root crops. Diligence, common sense, knowledge of the taiga, allowed the family to provide themselves with everything necessary. Moreover, it was a food rich not only in proteins, but also in vitamins.
The cruel irony lies in the fact that it was not the difficulties of taiga life, the harsh climate, but precisely contact with civilization that turned out to be disastrous for the Lykovs. All of them, except for Agafya Lykova, soon after the first contact with the geologists who found them, died, having contracted infectious diseases from aliens, hitherto unknown to them. Strong and consistent in her convictions, Agafya, not wanting to "peace", still lives alone in her hut on the banks of the mountain tributary of the Erinat River. Agafya is happy with gifts and products that hunters and geologists occasionally bring her, but categorically refuses to accept products that have the "seal of the Antichrist" on them - a computer barcode. A few years ago, Agafya took monastic vows and became a nun.
It should be noted that the case of the Lykovs is by no means unique. This family became widely known to the outside world only because they themselves made contact with people, and, by chance, came to the attention of journalists from the central Soviet newspapers. AT Siberian taiga there are secret monasteries, sketes and hiding places where people live, according to their religious beliefs, who deliberately cut off all contact with the outside world. There is also a large number of remote villages and farms, whose inhabitants reduce such contacts to a minimum. The collapse of industrial civilization will not be the end of the world for these people.
It should be noted that the Lykovs belonged to a rather moderate Old Believer sense of "chapels" and were not religious radicals, similar to the sense of wandering runners, who made complete withdrawal from the world part of their religious doctrine. It’s just that the solid Siberian men, at the dawn of industrialization in Russia, understood what everything was leading to and decided not to be sacrificed in the name of no one knows whose interests. Recall that at that time, while the Lykovs were living at the very least from turnips to cedar cones, collectivization, mass repressions of the 30s, mobilization, war, occupation of part of the territory, restoration of the "national" economy, repressions of the 50s, went through bloody waves in Russia, so the so-called enlargement of collective farms (read - the destruction of small remote villages - how! After all, everyone should live under the supervision of their superiors). According to some estimates, during this period, the population of Russia decreased by 35 - 40%! The Lykovs did not do without losses either, but they lived freely, with dignity, masters of their own, on a plot of taiga 15 square kilometers in size. It was their World, their Earth, which gave them everything they needed.
In recent years, we have been discussing a lot about a possible meeting with the inhabitants of other worlds - representatives of alien civilizations that are reaching out to us from space.
About what not in question. How to negotiate with them? Will our immunity work against unknown diseases? Will diverse cultures converge or collide?
And very close - literally before our eyes - a living example of such a meeting.
We are talking about the dramatic fate of the Lykov family, who lived for almost 40 years in the Altai taiga in complete isolation - in their own world. Our civilization of the 20th century collapsed on the primitive reality of taiga hermits. And what? We didn't accept them. spiritual world. We have not protected them from our diseases. We have failed to understand their vital foundations. And we destroyed their already established civilization, which we did not understand and did not accept.
The first reports about the discovery in the inaccessible region of the Western Sayan of a family that had lived without any connection with the outside world for more than forty years appeared in print in 1980, first in the first newspaper Socialist Industry, then in Krasnoyarsk Rabochy. And then already in 1982 a series of articles about this family was published by “ TVNZ". They wrote that the family consisted of five people: father - Karp Iosifovich, his two sons - Dmitry and Savvin, and two daughters - Natalya and Agafya. Their last name is the Lykovs.
They wrote that in the thirties they voluntarily left the world, on the basis of religious fanaticism. They wrote a lot about them, but with a precisely measured portion of sympathy. "Measured" because even then those who took this story to heart were struck by the arrogant civilized and condescending attitude of Soviet journalism, which dubbed amazing life Russian family in the forest solitude "taiga dead end". Expressing approval of Lykov in particular, Soviet journalists assessed the whole life of the family categorically and unambiguously:
- “life and life are wretched to the extreme, a story about current life and about major events in it they listened like Martians”;
- “In this wretched life, the sense of beauty was also killed, by nature given to man. No flower in the hut, no decoration in it. No attempt to decorate clothes, things ... Lykovs did not know songs ”;
- “The younger Lykovs did not have the precious opportunity for a person to communicate with their own kind, did not know love, could not continue their family. Blame it all - a fanatical dark faith in a force that lies beyond being, with the name god. Religion was undoubtedly the mainstay in this suffering life. But she was also the cause of the terrible impasse.
Despite the desire “to arouse sympathy” not stated in these publications, the Soviet press, assessing the life of the Lykovs as a whole, called it “a complete mistake”, “almost a fossil case in human existence”. As if forgetting that we are still talking about people, Soviet journalists announced the discovery of the Lykov family as a “find of a living mammoth”, as if hinting at the fact that the Lykovs, over the years of forest life, have so lagged behind our correct and advanced life that they cannot be attributed to civilization in general.
True, even then the attentive reader noticed the discrepancy between accusatory assessments and the facts cited by the same journalists. They wrote about the "darkness" of the life of the Lykovs, and those, counting the days, for the entire time of their hermit life, never made a mistake in the calendar; the wife of Karp Iosifovich taught all the children to read and write from the Psalter, which, like other religious books, was carefully preserved in the family; Savvin even knew the Holy Scripture by heart; and after the launch of the first Earth satellite in 1957, Karp Iosifovich remarked: "The stars soon began to walk across the sky."
Journalists wrote about the Lykovs as fanatics of the faith - and it was not only not customary for the Lykovs to teach others, but even to speak badly of them. (Let's note in brackets that some of Agafia's words, in order to give greater credibility to some journalistic reasoning, were invented by the journalists themselves.)
In fairness, it must be said that not everyone shared this predetermined point of view of the party press. There were also those who wrote about the Lykovs differently - with respect for their spiritual strength, for their feat of life. They wrote, but very little, because the newspapers made it impossible to defend the name and honor of the Russian Lykov family from accusations of darkness, ignorance, fanaticism.
One of these people was the writer Lev Stepanovich Cherepanov, who visited the Lykovs a month after the first report about them. Together with him were Doctor of Medical Sciences, Head of the Department of Anesthesiology of the Krasnoyarsk Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education, Professor I.P. Nazarov and the head physician of the 20th hospital of Krasnoyarsk V. Golovin. Already then, in October 1980, Cherepanov asked the regional authorities to introduce a complete ban on visits to the Lykovs by random people, assuming, based on acquaintance with medical literature, that such visits could threaten the life of the Lykovs. And the Lykovs appeared before Lev Cherepanov as completely different people than from the pages of the party press.
People who have met with the Lykovs since 1978, says Cherepanov, judged them by their clothes. When they saw that the Lykovs had everything homespun, that their hats were made of musk deer fur, and the means of struggle for existence were primitive, they hastily concluded that the hermits were far behind us. That is, they began to judge the Lykovs from above, as people of a lower grade in comparison with themselves. But then it turned out how they “got away if they look at us as weak people who need to be taken care of. After all, “to save” literally means “to help”. I then asked Professor Nazarov: “Igor Pavlovich, maybe you are happier than me and have seen this in our life? When would you come to the boss, and he, leaving the table and shaking your hand, asked how I could be of help to you?
He laughed and said that with us such a question would be interpreted incorrectly, that is, there was a suspicion that they wanted to meet halfway in some way out of some kind of self-interest, and our behavior would be perceived as ingratiating.
From that moment it became clear that we turned out to be people who think differently than the Lykovs. Naturally, it was worth wondering who else they meet like that - with a friendly disposition? It turned out - everyone! Here R. Rozhdestvensky wrote the song “Where the Motherland Begins”. From that, the other, the third ... - remember her words. And for the Lykovs, the Motherland begins with the neighbor. A man came - and the Motherland begins with him. Not from the primer, not from the street, not from the house - but from the one who came. Once he came, it means that he turned out to be near. And how can you not do him a favor.
This is what immediately divided us. And we understood: yes, indeed, the Lykovs have a semi-subsistence or even subsistence economy, but the moral potential turned out to be, or rather remained, very high. We have lost him. According to the Lykovs, one can see with one's own eyes what side results we have acquired in the struggle for technical achievements after 1917. After all, the most important thing for us is the highest productivity. Here we also drove productivity. And it would be necessary, taking care of the body, not to forget about the spirit, because the spirit and the body, despite their opposite, must exist in unity. And when the balance between them is disturbed, then an inferior person appears.
Yes, we were better equipped, we had boots with thick soles, sleeping bags, shirts that the branches did not tear, pants no worse than these shirts, stew, condensed milk, lard - anything. But it turned out that the Lykovs were superior to us morally, and this immediately predetermined our entire relationship with the Lykovs. This watershed has passed, regardless of whether we wanted to reckon with it or not.
We were not the first to come to the Lykovs. Since 1978, many have met with them, and when Karp Iosifovich, by some gesture, determined that I was the eldest in the group of “laity”, he took me aside and asked: “Won’t you take yours, as they say , wife, fur on the collar? Of course, I immediately opposed, which surprised Karp Iosifovich very much, because he was used to the fact that visitors took furs from him. I told Professor Nazarov about this incident. He, of course, replied that, they say, this should not be in our relations. From that moment on, we began to separate ourselves from other visitors. If we came and did something, then only "for so". We did not take anything from the Lykovs, and the Lykovs did not know how to treat us. Who are we?
Has civilization already managed to show itself to them in a different way?
Yes, and we seem to be from the same civilization, but we don’t smoke or drink. And in addition - we do not take sables. And then we worked hard, helping the Lykovs with the housework: sawing stumps to the ground, chopping firewood, blocking the roof of the house where Savvin and Dmitry lived. And we thought we were doing a very good job. But all the same, after some time, on our other visit, Agafya, not seeing that I was passing by, said to her father: “But the brothers worked better.” My friends were surprised: “How is it, but we sweated ourselves afterward.” And then we realized: we forgot how to work. After the Lykovs came to this conclusion, they already treated us condescendingly.
With the Lykovs, we saw with our own eyes that the family is an anvil, and work is not just work “from” and “to”. Their work is their concern. About whom? About the neighbor. A brother's neighbor is a brother, sisters. Etc.
Then, the Lykovs had a piece of land, hence their independence. They met us without fawning or turning up their noses - on an equal footing. Because they did not have to win someone's favor, recognition or praise. Everything they needed, they could take from their patch of land, or from the taiga, or from the river. Many of the tools were made by them themselves. Although they did not meet some modern aesthetic requirements, they were quite suitable for this or that work.
This is how the difference between the Lykovs and us began to appear. The Lykovs can be imagined as people from 1917, that is, from the pre-revolutionary period. You will not meet such people anymore - we all leveled out. And the difference between us, representatives of modern civilization and pre-revolutionary, Lykovian, one way or another had to come out, one way or another characterizing both the Lykovs and us. I do not reproach journalists - Yuri Sventitsky, Nikolai Zhuravlev, Vasily Peskov, because, you see, they did not try to tell truthfully and without prejudice about the Lykovs. Since they considered the Lykovs victims of themselves, victims of faith, these journalists themselves should be recognized as victims of our 70 years. Such was our morality: everything that benefits the revolution is right. We did not even think about an individual person, we are used to judging everyone from class positions. And Yury Sventitsky immediately “saw through” the Lykovs. He called Karp Iosifovich a deserter, called him a parasite, but there is no evidence. Well, the reader did not know anything about desertion, but what about “parasitism”? How could the Lykovs parasitize away from people, how could they profit at someone else's expense?
For them, it was simply impossible. Nevertheless, after all, no one protested the speech of Yu. Sventitsky in Socialist Industry and the speech of N. Zhuravlev in Krasnoyarsk Rabochy. Mostly pensioners responded to my rare articles - they expressed sympathy and did not reason at all. I notice that the reader has generally forgotten how or does not want to reason and think for himself - he loves only everything ready.
Lev Stepanovich, so what do we now know for certain about the Lykovs? After all, publications about them sinned not only with inaccuracies, but also with distortions.
Let's take a piece of their life in Tishi, on the Bolshoy Abakan River, before collectivization. In the 1920s, it was a settlement "in one estate", where the Lykov family lived. When the CHON detachments appeared, anxiety began for the peasants, and they began to move to the Lykovs. A small village of 10-12 households grew out of the Lykovsky repair. Those who settled down with the Lykovs, of course, told what was happening in the world, they all sought salvation from new government. In 1929, a certain Konstantin Kukolnikov appeared in the Lykovo village with the order to create an artel, which was supposed to be engaged in fishing and hunting.
In the same year, the Lykovs, not wanting to be enrolled in an artel, because they were accustomed to an independent life and had heard a lot about what was in store for them, they gathered and left all together: three brothers - Stepan, Karp Iosifovich and Evdokim, their father, mother and the one who performed their service, as well as close relatives. Karp Iosifovich was then 28 years old, he was not married. By the way, he never led the community, as they wrote about it, and the Lykovs never belonged to the “runners” sect. All the Lykovs migrated along the Bolshoi Abakan River and found shelter there. They did not live in secret, but appeared in Tishi to buy threads for knitting nets; Together with the Tishins, they set up a hospital on the Hot Key. And only a year later Karp Iosifovich went to Altai and brought his wife Akulina Karpovna. And there, in the taiga, one might say, in the Lykovsky upper reaches of the Big Abakan, their children were born.
In 1932 formed Altai Reserve, the border of which covered not only Altai, but also part Krasnoyarsk Territory. The Lykovs who settled there ended up in this part. They were given demands: you can not shoot, fish and plow the land. They had to get out of there. In 1935, the Lykovs went to the Altai to their relatives and lived first on the Tropins' “vater”, and then in a dugout. Karp Iosifovich visited the Counter, which is near the mouth of the Soksu. There, in his garden, under Karp Iosifovich, Evdokim was shot dead by rangers. Then the Lykovs went to Eri-nat. And from that time began for them to go through torments. The border guards frightened them away, and they went down the Bolshoy Abakan to Scheks, cut down a hut there, soon another one (on Soksu), more distant from the coast, and lived on pasture ...
Around them, in particular in Abaza, the nearest town of miners to the Lykovs, they knew that the Lykovs must be somewhere. It was not only heard that they survived. That the Lykovs were alive became known in 1978, when geologists appeared there. They selected sites for the landing of research parties and came across the "tame" arable land of the Lykovs.
What you said, Lev Stepanovich, about the high culture of relations and the whole life of the Lykovs is also confirmed by the conclusions of those scientific expeditions that visited the Lykovs in the late 80s. Scientists were amazed not only by the truly heroic will and diligence of the Lykovs, but also by their remarkable mind. In 1988, who visited them, Ph.D. agricultural sciences V. Shadursky, Associate Professor of the Ishim Pedagogical Institute and Ph.D. agricultural sciences researcher Research Institute of Potato Economy O. Poletaeva was surprised by many things. It is worth citing some facts that scientists have paid attention to.
The Lykovs' garden could become a role model for a different modern economy. Located on the slope of the mountain at an angle of 40-50 degrees, it went up 300 meters. Dividing the site into lower, middle and upper, the Lykovs placed cultures taking into account their biological characteristics. The fractional sowing allowed them to better preserve the crop. There were absolutely no diseases of agricultural crops.
The seeds were carefully prepared. Three weeks before planting, potato tubers were laid in a thin layer indoors on piles. A fire was built under the floor, heating up the boulders. And the stones, giving off heat, evenly and for a long time heated the seed material.
Seeds were checked for germination. They were propagated in a special area.
The sowing dates were approached strictly, taking into account the biological characteristics of different crops. The dates were chosen optimal for the local climate.
Despite the fact that for fifty years the Lykovs planted the same potato variety, it did not degenerate among them. The content of starch and dry matter was much higher than in most modern varieties. Neither the tubers nor the plants contained any virus or any other infection at all.
Knowing nothing about nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the Lykovs nevertheless used fertilizers according to advanced agronomic science: “all kinds of rubbish” from cones, grass and leaves, that is, nitrogen-rich composts, went under hemp and all spring crops. Under turnips, beets, potatoes, ash was added - a source of potassium necessary for root crops.
“Industriousness, sharpness, knowledge of the laws of the taiga,” scientists summarized, “allowed the family to provide themselves with everything necessary. Moreover, it was a food rich not only in proteins, but also in vitamins.
The Lykovs were visited by several expeditions of philologists from Kazan University, who studied phonetics on an isolated patch. G. Slesarova and V. Markelov, knowing that the Lykovs were reluctant to enter into contact with the "newcomers", in order to gain confidence and hear the reading, worked early in the morning with the Lykovs side by side. “And then one day Agafya took a notebook in which “The Tale of Igor's Campaign” was copied by hand. Scientists replaced only some of the modernized letters in it with ancient ones, more familiar to Lykova. She carefully opened the text, silently looked through the pages and began to sing along... Now we know not only the pronunciation, but also the intonations of the great text... So the Tale of Igor's Campaign turned out to be written down for eternity, perhaps the last "announcer" on earth ”, as if coming from the time of the “Word ...” itself.
The next Kazan expedition noticed a linguistic phenomenon among the Lykovs - the neighborhood in one family of two dialects: the North Great Russian dialect of Karp Iosifovich and the South Great Russian dialect (Akanya) inherent in Agafya. Agafya also remembered poems about the ruin of the Olonevsky skete, which was the largest in the Nizhny Novgorod region. “There is no price for genuine evidence of the destruction of a large Old Believer nest,” said A.S. Lebedev, a representative of the Russian Old Believer Church, who visited the Lykovs in 1989. "Taiga Dawn" - he called his essays on the trip to Agafya, emphasizing his complete disagreement with the conclusions of V. Peskov.
Kazan scientists-philologists on the fact of Lykovskaya colloquial speech explained the so-called "nasal" in church services. It turns out that it comes from Byzantine traditions.
Lev Stepanovich, it turns out that it was from the moment people came to the Lykovs that an active invasion of our civilization into their habitat began, which simply could not but cause harm. After all, we have different approaches to life, different types behavior, different attitude to everything. Not to mention the fact that the Lykovs never suffered from our illnesses and, naturally, were completely defenseless before them.
After the sudden death of three children of Karp Iosifovich, Professor I. Nazarov suggested that the cause of their death was in weak immunity. Subsequent blood tests conducted by Professor Nazarov showed that they were immune only to encephalitis. They could not even resist our common diseases. I know that V. Peskov is talking about other reasons. But here is the opinion of the doctor of medical sciences, professor Igor Pavlovich Nazarov.
He says that there is a clear connection between the Lykovs' illnesses, the so-called "colds" and their contacts with other people. He explains this by the fact that the Lykov children were born and lived without meeting anyone from the outside, and did not acquire specific immunity against various diseases and viruses.
As soon as the Lykovs began to visit geologists, their illnesses took on serious forms. “As I go to the village, I get sick,” Agafya concluded back in 1985. The danger that awaits Agafya due to weakened immunity is evidenced by the death in 1981 of her brothers and sisters.
“We can judge what they died from,” says Nazarov, “only from the stories of Karp Iosifovich and Agafya. V. Peskov concludes from these stories that the reason was hypothermia. Dmitry, who fell ill first, helped Savvin put up a zaezdka (fence) in icy water, together they dug potatoes from under the snow ... Natalya washed in a stream with ice ...
All this is true. But was the situation so extreme for the Lykovs when they had to work in snow or in cold water? With us, they walked barefoot in the snow for a long time without any health consequences. No, not in the usual cooling of the body main reason their deaths, but ... that shortly before the illness, the family again visited the geologists in the village. When they returned, they all fell ill: cough, runny nose, sore throat, chills. But it was necessary to dig potatoes. And in general, the usual thing for them turned out for three deadly disease because already sick people were subjected to hypothermia.
And Karp Iosifovich, Professor Nazarov believes, contrary to the assertions of V. Peskov, did not die from senility, although he really was already 87 years old. “Suspicious that a doctor with 30 years of experience could lose sight of the age of the patient, Vasily Mikhailovich leaves out of his reasoning the fact that Agafya was the first to fall ill after another visit to the village. When she returned, she lay down. The next day, Karp Iosifovich fell ill. And he died a week later. Agafya was ill for another month. But before I left, I left her the pills and explained how to take them. Luckily, she figured it out for sure. Karp Iosifovich remained true to himself and refused the pills.
Now about his decrepitude. Just two years earlier, he had broken his leg. I arrived when he long time did not move and was discouraged. Together with the Krasnoyarsk traumatologist V. Timoshkov, we applied conservative treatment and put a plaster cast on. But to be honest, I didn't expect him to pull through. And a month later, in response to my question about how I felt, Karp Iosifovich took a stick and left the hut. Moreover, he began to work on the farm. It was a real miracle. A man at the age of 85 had a meniscus fused, at a time when this happens extremely rarely even in young people, an operation has to be performed. In a word, the old man had a huge supply of vitality ... "
V. Peskov also claimed that the Lykovs could have been ruined by the “prolonged stress” that they experienced due to the fact that meeting with people allegedly gave rise to many painful questions, disputes and strife in the family. “Speaking of this,” says Professor Nazarov, “Vasily Mikhailovich repeats the well-known truth that stress can depress immunity ... But he forgets that stress cannot be long-term, and by the time the three Lykovs died, their acquaintance with geologists lasted for three years. There is no evidence that this acquaintance made a revolution in the minds of family members. But there is irrefutable data from Agafya's blood test, confirming that there was no immunity, so there was nothing to depress stress.
By the way, we note that I.P. Nazarov, taking into account the specifics of his patients, prepared Agafya and her father for the first blood test for five years (!), And when he took it, he stayed with the Lykovs for another two days to follow up on their state.
Hard to understand modern man the motives of a concentrated suffering life, a life of faith. We judge everything hastily, with labels, as judges for everyone. One of the journalists even calculated how little the Lykovs saw in life, having settled in a patch of only 15x15 kilometers in the taiga; that they did not even know that there is Antarctica, that the Earth is a sphere. By the way, Christ also did not know that the Earth is round and that there is Antarctica, but no one reproaches him for this, realizing that this is not the knowledge that is vital for a person. But what is necessary in life is mandatory, the Lykovs knew better than us. Dostoevsky said that only suffering can teach a person something - this is the main law of life on Earth. The life of the Lykovs developed in such a way that they drank this cup in full, accepting the fatal law as a personal fate.
The eminent journalist reproached the Lykovs for not even knowing that “except for Nikon and Peter I, it turns out that the great people Galileo, Columbus, Lenin lived on earth ...” He even allowed himself to assert that because of that "they did not know this, the Lykovs had a sense of the Motherland with a grain."
But after all, the Lykovs did not have to love the Motherland in a bookish way, in words, as we do, because they were part of the Motherland itself and never separated it, like faith, from themselves. The homeland was inside the Lykovs, which means it was always with them and them.
Vasily Mikhailovich Peskov writes about some kind of "dead end" in the fate of the taiga hermits Lykovs. Although how can a person be at an impasse if he lives and does everything according to his conscience? And a person will never meet a dead end if he lives according to his conscience, without looking back at anyone, not trying to please, to please ... On the contrary, his personality opens up, flourishes. Look at the face of Agafia - this is the face of a happy, balanced spiritual person who is in harmony with the foundations of his solitary taiga life.
O. Mandelstam concluded that "double being is an absolute fact of our life." Having heard the story about the Lykovs, the reader has the right to doubt: yes, the fact is very common, but not absolute. And the history of the Lykovs proves this to us. Mandelstam learned this and resigned himself, we with our civilization know this and resign ourselves, but the Lykovs found out and did not reconcile. They did not want to live against their conscience, they did not want to live double life. But the commitment to truth, conscience - this is the true spirituality, which we all kind of bake out loud. “The Lykovs left to live on their report, they left for a feat of piety,” says Lev Cherepanov, and it’s hard to disagree with him.
We see in the Lykovs features and genuine Russianness, what Russians have always made Russians and what we all lack now: the desire for truth, the desire for freedom, for the free will of our spirit. When Agafya was invited to live with relatives in the mountainous Shoria, she said: “There is no desert in Kilensk, there cannot be a spacious life there.” And again: "It is not good to return from a good deed."
What is the real conclusion we can draw from all that happened? Having ill-considered intruding into the reality that we did not understand, we destroyed it. Normal contact with the "aliens of the taiga" did not take place - the deplorable results are obvious.
May this serve as a cruel lesson to all of us for future meetings.
Maybe with genuine aliens... The Lykov's hut. They lived there for thirty-two years.
