Category: Russia

Hermitary readers will be familiar with Agafia Lykov, the Siberian hermit and Old Believer. (Find more on Agafia in this blog, photos in Features, video in Films, and a review of the book Lost in the Taiga.)

RT visited Agafia and prepared a summary “Agafia’s Story: Old hermit lives alone deep in Siberian forest, seeks help” in preparation for premiering a documentary film.

URL: http://rt.com/news/188532-russia-agafia-siberian-forest/

An additional item with an emphasis on the difficult straits of Agafia expected in the upcoming winter months is presented by <i>Siberian Times</i> as “Bear threatens the loneliest woman in Russia who begs for a companion to join in hermit lifestyle.”

URL: http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/bear-threatens-the-loneliest-woman-in-russia-who-begs-for-a-companion-to-join-in-her-hermit-lifestyle/

This article has apparently been removed from the original site at EnglishRussia.com.

The website “English Russia” features “Russian Hermits” from a photo gallery of images from  Danila Tkachenko’s project titled “Escape.” Here are hermits and their dwellings, an the editor notes: “It’s hard to say how many hermits are in Russia today. People go to live in a forest due to different reasons: someone wants to grow his own type of ginseng, another one just wishes to pray in a cave for some months.” One commenter suggests they are homeless former inmates. But the eremitic tradition has a strong cultural presence in Russia, and the men in these photos are clearly living in solitude, indefinitely.

URL: http://englishrussia.com/2014/02/24/russian-hermits/

URL of photographer’s project: http://www.danilatkachenko.com/projects/escape/

An article in the Daily Mail (UK) describes the experiment of 24-year old Pavel Sapozhnikov living in a wilderness farm in Russia as a medieval hermit, meaning that he uses only the technology of the tenth century. The eight-month experiment will end in May. Here are some details of the project:

At the start of the project, Pavel Sapozhnikov was given the chance to document a day in the life using a camera and notepad, and this was posted on the project’s blog. According to this blog, Sapozhnikov spends the morning milking his goats and eating breakfast. He then chops wood for the fire and collects water from the well. The rest of the day is spent either hunting for food, or carrying out manual labour on the farm. This includes insulating the house with manure, maintaining his house and outbuildings, and other tasks around the farm. To prepare for the mission, Sapozhnikov spent months learning how to prepare animals, including chickens. He also became skilled in using the ancient tools and familiarised himself with ancient fire-building and washing techniques. He is only allowed to leave the farm to find food, and is forbidden from any form of communication.

The theory behind the experiment is “to trace the social and psychological changes in personality and learn how important the support of others is to modern humans.” With help from expert archaeologist, Alexander Fetisov, the farm was built using only materials and techniques that would have been used by ancient Russians. Sapozhnikov must also furnish his home in the same way. This includes fire lights that burn on linseed oil, wooden beds, animal fur clothes and bedding and a calendar scratched into the wall of the house. Construction on the farm began at the start of 2012, and Sapozhnikov moved in at the start of September 2013; the project is expected to run until May. During this time, temperatures in the region can drop as low as minus 30°C and this time period was deliberately chosen to highlight exactly how difficult Russian ancestors would have found living and hunting in the conditions.

URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2546660/Could-YOU-live-Middle-Ages-24-year-old-spends-eight-months-living-freezing-Russian-wilderness-medieval-hermit.html

Earlier URLs: http://rbth.ru/society/2013/09/28/volunteer_will_spend_winter_in_the_medieval_era_30061.html
http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20130923/183672406.html

Succeeding reports about the Old Believer Siberian hermit Agafya Lykova have recently appeared on the web. News agency Interfax indicates that she

has written a letter to the newspaper Krasnoyarsky Rabochy, asking for help. According to the letter, which was four pages long and was couriered over to the paper, Lykova is looking for a person to help her about the house. “I need help with firewood, about the house, with my garden, to mow hay. I am old, sick, and I feed giddy. I have a lump on my right breast. I have become very weak. I don’t know if God will let me live through the winter,” Lykova said in her letter. The hermit says she is feeling poorly and is freezing. “There is no firewood in the house, I need to log firewood every day, and I read psalms when I do it. I get short of breath, and I get very cold in the frost, my hands and my feet are cold. And I also have work about the house, in addition to the firewood,” Lykova said in her letter.

URL: http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=11035

The web site Focus-Fen follows up with news that

Russian authorities said they will dispatch a helicopter with food and other supplies to an elderly dweller of the Siberian taiga who had no contact with civilization until she was 33, RIA Novosti reported. Agafya Lykova, 68, pleaded for help in a letter she managed to send out from her riverside hut to the Krasnoyarsky Rabochy regional newspaper. The letter is written in block letters and employs obsolete pre-revolutionary orthography, according to a photocopy on the newspaper’s website. Lykova claims in the letter that her health is deteriorating, which made it hard for her to prepare supplies for another cold season in the taiga. Temperatures in the area of the Abakan Ridge in the republic of Khakassia average minus 19 degrees Celsius (minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit). A helicopter will fly next week to Lykova’s residence, carrying food, thread, 20 bales of hay and other necessities, the press service of Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev said

URL: http://www.focus-fen.net/news/2014/01/18/324403/siberian-hermit-to-get-food-delivery-by-helicopter.html

The governor of the province dispatched a helicopter with food, seeds for spring planting, and nature reserve personnel. The personnel hauled forest logs closer to Agafya’s home. An accompanying doctor examined Agafya but could not persuade her to visit a hospital for more thorough testing. Although usually reticent, the 68-year old hermit was pleased to receive the visitors and smiled a lot.

URLs: http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/emergency-services-arrive-to-save-life-of-hermit-agafiya-lykova-russias-loneliest-woman/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544932/The-hermit-decided-people-person-Woman-lived-26-years-Siberia-appeals-live-shes-lonely.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Reuters features a photographer’s blog entry by Ilya Namushin highlighting Viktor, a Siberian hermit living near the Yenisai River. Though affable, Viktor revealed few personal details about his motive and past except to indicate that he once was a bargeman.

Viktor is 57 and lives alone in a small hut that he made himself. He doesn’t only live there over the summer, but during the harsh Siberian winter too. He told me that he feels weak in the winter because the forest doesn’t give him energy then; he says the forest is resting. Therefore, Viktor rests too during the winter. He eats fish, mushrooms, and berries that he saves up during the warm season. If he’s ill, he treats himself with wild medicinal grasses, which he collects in the woods.

Despite being a hermit, Viktor is by no means unsociable. He does not mind kind visitors, and local fishermen and tourists come to see him every once in a while. He also crosses the wide Yenisei River from time to time to sell fish and buy essentials, like flour, salt, matches, and gasoline for his boat’s motor.

On the western bank of the Yenisei River there is a road and people come and go. On the eastern bank, where Viktor lives, there is nothing. No signs of civilization: no roads, no electricity lines, no buildings. Only steep, rocky banks and untouched forest.

Includes several photographs.

URL: http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2013/10/25/at-home-with-a-hermit/