Solitude in the Wilderness

     I stumbled across an interesting article in The Week magazine titled “Alone in the taiga.” The article is about a Russian family that fled into the Siberian wilderness in 1936 to avoid persecution. The Lykov’s were members of the Old Believers, a Russian Orthodox sect, that was being persecuted by the Bolsheviks in the 30s. In 1978 a group of scientist flew over the taiga and discovered a clearing 6,000 feet up the mountainside and a human habitat. Four geologist who were in the district were sent to investigate and found Karp Lykov and his four children Savin, Natalia, Agafia, and Dmitry living in a hut. Lykov’s wife, Akulina, died of starvation in ’61  when a hard frost killed everything in their garden. Agafia and Dmitry were born in the wilderness and all they knew of the outside world they learned from their parents. Akulina used the Bible to teach her children how to read and write; they used sharpened birch sticks dipped into honeysuckle as pen and ink. The Lykov’s had taken with them modern amenities such as kettles and a spinning wheel but in time the kettles rusted and they had no way to repair or replace the metal parts of the spinning wheel. The family struggled to survive in the wilderness and ate potato patties mixed with ground rye and hemp seeds. When Dmitry reached adulthood he began trapping and hunting animals but, more often then not, there was no meat. Interestingly, the scientist found Dmitry and Agafia, the two born in the wilderness, “more approachable and open to change” (41). Agafia is noted as being “markedly intelligent” and took charge of keeping time. Dmitry was described as “an outdoorsman who knew all the taiga’s moods” and was greatly intrigued by the technology he encountered, especially the sawmill, at the Soviets’ camp. Initially, the family only accepted the gift of salt, which Karp said had been “true torture,” but overtime the family acquired “knives, forks, handles, grain, and eventually even pen and an electric torch” (41). Unfortunately, after establishing contact with the outside world three of the four children died within a couple of days of one another. Savin and Natalia died of kidney failure and Dmitry died of pneumonia which most likely began as an infection he contracted from the scientist. Karp and Agafia refused to leave the wilderness and when the geologist helped Agafia bury her father she return to the wilderness. 

            The Lykov’s story was fascinating because it was not in the remote past. It seem inconceivable that a family would abandon the comforts of the “modern world” or “civilization” and flee into the wilderness, but I guess the “modern” and “civilized” world was proving to be hasher and more dangerous than the wilderness. The family adapted to the harsh conditions of the taiga and managed to survive. They were able to survive because they had each other. I find myself wondering about Agafia and her life alone in the wilderness. How long did she manage to survive by herself? This lead to think about Frankenstein’s creature and how lonely he was. The creature had no one to sustain him or rely on.