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Noble Blood
Exit Strategy: They Vanished Into Siberia for Over 40 Years [from Very Special Episodes]
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- [00:00]
Dana Schwartz
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Guaranteed Human Amazon Health AI presents painful
- [00:08]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
thoughts I I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm, yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud.
- [00:24]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
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- [01:05]
Coldwater Creek Advertiser
You know what quality feels like. You can see it in the way a fabric moves, recognize it in a flawless fit, and appreciate it in the details that make our styles unique. It's the standard Coldwater Creek has honored for over 40 years, derived from a rich Mountain west heritage and designed for today in styles that are distinctively Coldwater Creek. For a wardrobe you can count on season after season, visit coldwatercreek.com, shop new arrivals and SA on purchases. $75 or more with code iHeart.
- [01:35]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
When Kohler, Global design leader and luxurious kitchen and bath products, asked me to be their ambassador for timeless, elegant, durable cast iron, I said, I'm in. Soon after, I was in their Kohler Wisconsin foundry, watching molten iron, poured enamel applied by hand, and the beautiful finished pieces ready to ship. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron has been crafted by incredible artisans, and and seeing it firsthand gave me a whole new appreciation for their craftsmanship. Now I'm proud to lend my stamp of approval to my favorite Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty, and enduring style. Shop my curated picks@kohler.com as the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say, long live cast iron. In the summer of 1978, in the heart of Siberia, a team of four young Soviet geologists made an astonishing discovery. Flying in a helicopter over a remote stretch of forest more than 150 miles from the nearest human settlement, they spotted what looked like a clearing below Inside that clearing was a large garden plot with rows of potatoes. Next to it was what looked like a shelter.
- [03:04]
Jens Meuling
Yeah, it must have been very much a surprise for these geologists when they crossed the taiga in a helicopter in the 1970s and suddenly saw a vegetable plot in the middle of the taiga, in a place where this was basically unthinkable.
- [03:20]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Were people actually living out there? Deep in the Siberian woods, one of the most unforgiving landscape on Earth? The geologists didn't see anyone, but they marked the mysterious location on their map and promised to return a few weeks after making camp at a nearby river, the geologists decided to investigate. It was a 10 mile hike through thick strands of birch and Siberian pine. Absolutely pristine, undisturbed wilderness.
- [03:57]
Jens Meuling
Very slow walking, because the forest floor is not very solid. It's covered with layers and layers of fallen trees. And basically you have to balance on trees all the time while you sink into the ground with your boots. And then there are stretches where you can't really walk. You're basically walking along a river and you know that if you fall, the river will carry you hundreds of meters downstream before you manage to reach the coast and get out of the water. So, kind of nerve breaking, that whole hiking trip.
- [04:27]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
But as the geologists approached the spot marked on their map, they found signs of life. First, a footpath, well worn and straight. Then a walking stick leaning against a tree. There were definitely people living out there, but who were they? In remote places like Siberia, running into another person could be more dangerous than running into a bear. The leader of the geologists was a woman named Galina Pismenskaya. In her backpack she brought some gifts for their new friends, but on her hip she carried a revolver. The geologists arrived at the clearing and sure enough, there was the garden, green with summer life. Potatoes, onions, turnips. But where were the gardeners? They approached a ramshackle cabin blackened by years of rain and cooking fires. There was only one tiny window to let in the sunlight. Slowly, a low door swung open and out stepped an old man. He had a wild head of graying hair, a thick beard and bare feet. His rough hewn clothes were patched and repatched. He looked like a figure straight out of a fairy tale, a relic of a distant past. They all stared at each other, somewhat stunned. Galena Piesminskaya broke the silence. She said, greetings, Grandfather. We've come to visit. In his younger days, the old man might have chased the geologists away or run off into the hills at the first sign of their arrival. But the wild haired hermit was tired now. He didn't have the energy to fight or flee. Instead, he spoke in a soft, raspy voice.
- [06:36]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Well, since you have traveled this far, you might as well come in.
- [06:41]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
It would take several more visits for the shocking reality to sink in. The four Soviet geologists were the first outsiders this family had seen in more than 40 years. Welcome to Very special episodes, an iHeart's original podcast. Your host, Dana Schwartz. And this is Exit Strategy, the family who vanished into Siberia for over 40 years.
- [07:18]
Dana Schwartz
Hey.
- [07:18]
Jason English
Welcome back to Very Special Episodes. I am Jason English. I'm joined as always by Dana Schwartz and Zarin Burnett.
- [07:25]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Hi.
- [07:25]
Agafia Lykov
Hi.
- [07:26]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Yo.
- [07:27]
Jason English
You know when we first started talking about this show, which is like 20, 23, that's two Olympics ago, that's 75 plus episodes ago. But this story was one that's always been on the list of, oh, we gotta tell that story in Siberia about the people who went uncontacted for 40 years. So I'm really glad we're doing it today.
- [07:48]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
I found this fascinating. There's a few stories in history that I've come across of supposed people who lived in isolation. And spoiler alert, most of those are just hoaxes. Most stories about people who live in complete isolation are not actually true. So this was genuinely fascinating because it's like, oh, no, this actually happens.
- [08:08]
Jason English
I had never heard of this, but
- [08:09]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
I was blown away by them just raw, dogging humanity like they did.
- [08:16]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
When news made it to Moscow that there was a family living alone in Siberia, cut off from the world for four decades, it was like someone had discovered a walking woolly mammoth. Here were people living in the late 1970s who didn't know anything about World War II, the moon landing, or television. They had more in common with 19th century peasants than modern Russians. The old man's name was Karp Lykov. His daughters were Natalia and Agafya. At first, the geologists had a hard time understanding what they were saying. They were definitely speaking Russian, but their words were strange old, like the way people talked in the Middle Ages. And their voices were strange too, more like singing than speaking. After some stilted conversation, Pismenskaya finally asked the question that was on the geologists mind from the moment they spotted the clearing in the forest. How did you come to live here so far away from other people? Without hesitation, Karp explained that he and his wife came out here because they were commanded by God.
- [09:38]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
We are not allowed to live with the world.
- [09:41]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Karp's wife had died many years ago, but he and the family faithfully soldiered on. In addition to Natalia and Agafia, Karp had two grown sons, Sevin and Dimitri, who lived a few miles away in their own cabin. They would all meet soon. A few years after the geologists first made contact with the Lykov family, a journalist named Vasily Pieskov flew out to Siberia to meet them. He wrote about the Lykovs in a series of newspaper articles and a book that captured Russia's imagination.
- [10:21]
Jens Meuling
When I heard about that story, I found it fascinating, not only because it's a unique story, like there's probably. I couldn't think of any other people who had this kind of experience, like being completely isolated in a remote forest area in Siberia for almost 40 years, or more than 40 years. But the story was also interesting because so many things in Russian history had to happen for Agafia to end up in the place where she is now.
- [10:54]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
That's Jens Meuling, a German journalist who lived for years in Moscow and wrote a book about his travels called A Journey into Russia. The Lykovs were members of a long persecuted religious sect known as the Old Believers. Old Believers trace their origins to a contentious split with the Russian Orthodox Church centuries ago. In the 1600s, a priest named Nikon became the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. He caused an uproar by changing some religious practices to better align with the Greek Orthodox Church. Nikon's wildest move was to change the way that Russian Orthodox Christians made the sign of the cross. Instead of holding up two fingers like they'd always done, Nikon wanted them to use three fingers. Three fingers? Who did he think they were, Greeks? There was huge outcry over these changes. And Nikon had a powerful ally in Russia's Tsar Alexei, who turned Nikon's new rules into law. People who refused to perform Nikon's three fingered salute became enemies of the state. The result was a schism, a rupture within the Russian Orthodox Church.
- [12:17]
Jens Meuling
And the people who came to be known as the Old Believers basically rebelled against all of these changes, including the political changes that were going on and all of the things that suddenly entered Russia from the West. They were not happy about that. They thought it was against their traditions. They thought it was all the work of Satan. And that's where they decided not to follow the reforms of their patriarchy and decided to basically break away from the church. And the Orthodox Church henceforth referred to them as the Old Believers because they stubbornly stuck to their old dogmas. They never called themselves the Old Believers. They called themselves the True Believers because they consider themselves the only like the tolledsperers of traditional Orthodoxy.
- [13:02]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
There's a famous Russian painting of a woman known as the Boyarina Morozova. She was one of the original Old Believers. The painting shows the Boyarina, a wealthy and dignified woman, being dragged through the muddy streets of Moscow on a horse drawn sledge. As she's carted off to prison, the Boyarina holds two defiant fingers in the air.
- [13:29]
Jason English
She basically spat in the Tsar's face, spat in the face of the church and defiantly went to her death maintaining the faith.
- [13:39]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
That's Peter DeSimone, a historian of Russian Old Believers. He says entire communities chose mass suicide rather than give in to Nikon and Tsar Alexei, who they called the Antichrists. Other Old Believers tried to escape persecution by fleeing to remote corners of the Russian Empire like Siberia.
- [14:04]
Jason English
And so that had been this kind of approach for a lot of early communities was get out to the outskirts where they can't find us because look what they are doing to us when they catch us. In the late 1600s, very early 1700s, we don't want that to happen and we don't necessarily want to have to kill ourselves either. And so maybe we can spread out and we'll be safe that way and we can preserve our way of life.
- [14:25]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
That's how the ancestors of the Lykov family originally came to live in Siberia. They were one of these Old Believer families that fled into the wilderness to practice their religion undisturbed. Any intrusion from the outside world would set them running deeper into the forest. Soon they became known as runners. Karp Lykov, the patriarch the geologists met, grew up in an Old Believer family outside of the Siberian town of Abakan. But at some point, the Soviets discovered their settlement.
- [15:03]
Jens Meuling
What happened in the 1930s is that Soviets planning teams came into these remote settlements and told people they could no longer live the way that they had been living. They told the Old Believers that they had to send their children to state schools. And they also told them that things that they were planting and the fish that they were catching no longer belonged to them, but to the state. And for the Old Believers, of course, that was inacceptable.
- [15:26]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
So the Lykovs and four other families ran moving higher into the mountains. But in less than a decade, they were discovered again. Stalin sent troops into the Siberian preserve to look for deserters. Karp Lykov and his brother were out collecting wood when they were spotted by a soldier. According to Karp, his brother, tried to run away and the soldiers shot him in the back, killing him. The Lykov's worst fears were realized. The Russian government was still persecuting and killing Old Believers. The Antichrist was still alive and well in the form of Stalin. The only solution was to break away from society entirely and hide away with God in the mountains. By that time, Karp Lykov had married his wife Akulina, and had two young children. Rather than risk living among the other Old Believers, they made the bold decision to strike out on their own.
- [16:37]
Jens Meuling
They thought they didn't have any alternative. They thought if they don't run away from everything, then eventually they would be found and they would be forced to give up their lives and the way they had been living their lives. So for them, it was kind of the only way out was to hide deep in the forest and try to isolate themselves completely from a world which they thought had completely lost its way.
- [17:00]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
The Lykovs chose to run one last time. They stopped running hundreds of miles from the nearest human being in a ramshackle cabin along the Abakan River.
- [17:12]
Jens Meuling
Basically, their family considered themselves to be the only true Christians left in the world at that time. The family consisted of Kaablikov, the father, his wife and two children. And then after they left and established their little hut in the woods, they had two more children. In this isolation, deep in the taiga and there for more than 40 years without basically any contact with the outside world,
- [17:43]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
the journalist Vasily Pieskov was one of the very few people who got to know the Lykov family. Far from being backwater hillbillies as it's easy to imagine them, each member of the Lykov family had a distinct personality and a particular role to play in the family's survival. Carp Lykov papa was approaching 80 when the geologists met him, but still strong and healthy. Carp was the undisputed leader of the family's tiny forest kingdom. He even wore a special monk's hat that was taller than the others. Karp was the prayer leader, chore giver, and chief protector of the family from the world. With the outsiders, Carp was good natured and friendly, but also quick to lay down the law when something wasn't allowed. According to Carp's Old Believer code, a lot of things weren't allowed. Eating food with the geologists, accepting their medicine, or watching their small tv. The oldest Lykov son was Savin, the rule keeper of the family. Savin knew the Bible and Old Believer rituals by heart and would even correct his father if he misread a prayer or didn't bow low enough to the ground. Savin was also a master leather worker. He built his own tools for transforming elk and deer hides into handcrafted belts and sleep slings. Natalia was the second oldest. When the children's mother died from starvation in 1961, Natalia took on her mother's many difficult responsibilities, like making the family's clothing from scratch. They grew and harvested hemp, whose rough fibers could be turned into thread. It's a super labor intensive process that's hard enough with the right tools and downright backbreaking with the improvised methods Natalia had to work with. The next Lykov child was Agafia. Unlike her older siblings, Agafya was born after the Lykovs entered their Siberian isolation. So the forest and her family were all that she knew. Filmmaker Rebecca E. Marshall recorded Agafia's birth story for her 2024 film The Forest. In me,
- [20:25]
Agafia Lykov
I was born here in the spring. I was christened in the Llerena River. I was christened by my father. My sister Natalia was my godmother.
- [20:38]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Agafia quickly became a favorite among the outsiders. She was childlike in her enthusiasm and curiosity about everything the geologists told her about their world. But Agafia was also deeply knowledgeable about her forest home and eager to show off her skills to the geologists. Agafia says her family used everything they could find from the forest. Roots, hay, grass, birch roots.
- [21:10]
Agafia Lykov
That's how we lived. We used everything. Roots, hay, grass of all kinds and birch roots.
- [21:17]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Agafia was also the family's official timekeeper. Without clocks or calendars, Agafia inherited a system invented by Savin to keep track of the hours, days, months, lunar cycles, seasons and years. Based on biblical arithmetic, every day started with a statement of the date and year. According to Agafia, the geologists arrived on June 2, 7486.
- [21:50]
Jens Meuling
She was the one who was responsible for counting the days, making sure that they knew, knew on what day they had to pray, which prayer and what holiday of the Orthodox calendar it was. And it was very important for them not to get confused and not to lose single day, so that their lives would stay within the rhythms that had been defined. For the Orthodox believers, it was very important for them to pray the correct prayer on each day and to celebrate the correct saints on each day.
- [22:22]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
The youngest Lykov child was Dimitri, another favorite among the geologists and journalists before Dmitri. The Lykovs didn't eat meat because carp wasn't a hunter. But as the youngest Lykov grew, it was like he became one with the taiga. Dmitri had incredible endurance. He could chase a Siberian deer forever, hours or even days on foot, until the animal collapsed from exhaustion and he killed it with nothing more than a sharpened stick. Dimitri would fish barefoot in the partially frozen Abakan River. To keep his feet from getting frostbitten, he'd stand on one leg like a flamingo, then switch. Dimitri was also the family carpenter and craftsman. He could build anything. A cook stove, a lathe for planning boards, a woven net for fishing. But his specialty was making tusa, traditional Siberian containers made entirely out of birch bark. With origami like skill, Dmitri could make tusa as large as a washbasin or small enough to hold a handful of pine nuts. Dimitri was the most curious about the geologist's modern tools and gadgets. He was blown away by the speed of their saw as it cut and planed boards. Same with the chainsaw. Even a battery powered lantern was a thing of wonder for the younger Lykovs. The sudden appearance of the geologists was like aliens arriving from another planet. They were fascinated by the newcomers, but also afraid. For their entire lives, Karp Lykov had taught his family about the dangers of the world. The entire reason they lived this way, in total isolation and separation, was to avoid spiritual and physical contamination from the evils of the modern world. But now the modern world was at their doorstep. Would they have to run again? Where could they even go? The biggest question the Lykovs had to answer was, were the outsiders harbingers of doom or their salvation?
- [24:50]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts I
- [24:56]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm, yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud.
- [25:09]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI. Chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24. 7 Healthcare just got less painful.
- [25:20]
Coldwater Creek Advertiser
You know what quality feels like. You can see it in the way a fabric moves, recognize it in a flawless fit, and appreciate it in the deep details that make our styles unique. It's the standard Coldwater Creek has honored for over 40 years, derived from a rich Mountain west heritage and designed for today in styles that are distinctively Coldwater Creek. For a wardrobe you can count on season after season, visit coldwatercreek.com, shop new arrivals and save 15% on purchases. $75 or more with code iHeart streaming
- [25:50]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
May 22 on Paramount. From executive producer Lena Waithe, the acclaimed series the Shy reaches its final chapter. For seven seasons, these stories, these streets, this community have stayed with us. Now it all leads to this. Will Tiff uncover who killed Rob? Will Victor and Shad find their freedom? And can Keisha and Emmett survive? What's ahead? As friendships are tested, families evolve, and secrets refuse to stay buried, one thing is certain. The shot is more than just a series. It's a legacy. Say goodbye to the Shy. Don't miss the final season. Streaming May 22nd on the Paramount Premium plan.
- [26:34]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
When the Soviet geologists discovered the Lykovs in 1978, they had so many questions. They learned why the Lykovs had chosen this self isolation. For them, spiritual survival meant complete separation from the modern world. But how about the how? How exactly did a family with four children survive for nearly four decades in one of the most extreme environments on Earth?
- [27:05]
Waniya Tebow
You have to really be methodical. You have to really prioritize. So there's, you know, there's a structure of needs. There's a hierarchy of needs, right? Keeping maintaining your body at 98.6. That's huge, especially somewhere like Siberia. So you have to have firewood, you have to have clothes in decent repair. You have to have a way to keep your toes from getting frostbite.
- [27:27]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
That's Waniya Tebow. She was the first female champion on Alone, the History Channel's wilderness survival Challenge. Waniyah also holds the record on Alone for total time spent out in the wild. 123 days. Wanaya also competed on an extra challenging season of the show set in the Canadian Arctic. So she knows better than most people what it feels like to live completely off the grid, to be wholly reliant on nature and your own skills to survive.
- [28:02]
Waniya Tebow
I would say that a lot of the mundane and a lot of the petty concerns start to fall away because everything, there's no room for abstractions. It's really just what is before you every day. And your whole focus is warmth, shelter, food, water. So it really brings you to the heart of what it is to be human, to be an animal. And that's the kind of clarity. It's very easy to see what's important and what's not important from a place like that. And I find a lot of beauty in it.
- [28:41]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
The central preoccupation for the Lykovs was, of course, food. Growing food, foraging for food, hunting and fishing for food, and then preserving and storing enough of that food to sustain them through the endless Siberian winter. Potatoes were essential to the Lykov family's diet. They kept a two year store at altar times. Without potatoes, a single crop failure would mean certain death. To keep the stored potatoes from rotting, they cut them into disks and dried them in the sun on sheets of birch bark. The Lykovs ate boiled potatoes, fresh or dried with every meal. Even their version of bread was mostly potatoes. They took dried potatoes, rye berries and hemp seeds and ground it all up into a thick paste. They formed the paste into patties and cooked them on a wood fired griddle. The result, in Pieskov's words, looked like fat black pancakes. When Karp first met the geologists, he refused all of their gifts from the outside world, except for salt. That was the only thing that he missed in his nearly 40 year isolation. Imagine all of those meals of boiled potatoes and black bread without a grain of salt. True torture is how Karp described it. Foraging was only possible during the few months when the taiga wasn't blanketed in snow. There were wild onions and nettles in the spring, mushrooms, raspberries, huckleberries and currants in the summer. And finally in late August, pine nuts. The Lykovs could always be found with a pocket full of pine nuts. Agafia said they gnawed on them like squirrels all day long. Without pine nuts, the Lykovs wouldn't have had enough protein in their diet, even with Dimitri's hunting skill. Elk meat was a rare luxury, and fish were only available in the summer and fall before the Abakan river froze over. The Lykov family knew what would happen if they didn't have enough food. They spoke in hushed tones of the summer of 1960. A late June snow and heavy rains killed everything in the garden. On top of that, the pine trees failed to produce their life saving seeds. Over the long winter, the Lykoves finished the last of the dried potatoes from their stores. Then the situation turned desperate. They ate straw, they ate bark, they ate their leather belts. They went weeks without real food. That's when their mother Akulina died of starvation. The rest of the family barely surviving until the spring. What happened next was a small miracle. They had run out of rye seed because the last crop had failed. But when the snows melted, a single green blade of rye grass sprouted in the garden. It was their only hope for rebuilding the rye crop. The Lykoves built a special fence around that Lynn lone blade of rye grass and guarded it desperately against squirrels and mice. By the end of the season. The single sprig produced 18 grains of rye. The Lykovs saved those 18 seeds, planted them the next spring, and slowly crawled back from the brink. It was four years before the Lykops had enough rye to make their black bread. Wynaya says, most of us have never experienced true hunger. But the Lykovs would have understood what all wild animals know instinctively, that in nature there are times of plenty and times of scarcity. And like all animals, humans are built for survival.
- [32:58]
Waniya Tebow
Hunger is uncomfortable, but it's also very natural. We evolved to go through deep periods of famine and abundance. And granted, the Siberian taiga is a far more extreme environment than most of our ancestors did it in. There have been humans doing this from the entirety of human evolution. And the fact that you sometimes go without means that you are so incredibly appreciative of it when it is there in a way that people who have not known that level of lack really can't understand. It's not intellectual. It's not easy to verbalize. It's deeply, deeply visceral.
- [33:44]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
For the Lykovs, life in the taiga wasn't all toil and trouble. The Old Believer calendar was filled with holidays and feast days dedicated to saints. On these days off, the Lykovs would read from the Bible, sing special prayers, and the family would sit down to a lavish meal of rye porridge, a real treat, maybe with some strips of dried meat or fish. Without a TV or radio, the Lykovs entertain themselves by retelling and reliving their own family history. There was the great panic when Agafia temporarily lost track of time. There was the time that Karp fell out of a pine tree. He was fine. The year seven made everyone a pair of leather boots. And the time when a huge bear scared Agafia so badly that she stayed in bed for six months. Even the Lykov's dreams took on a life of their own. One of the family's favorite stories was the time Agafia dreamed that she found a massive pinecone as big as the cabin. Dimitri had to pick out the massive pine nuts with an axe. Each delicious seed was big as a boulder. But life in the wilderness, its beauty and devastation, was always lurking around the corner. In 1981, just a few years after their first contact with the outside world, three of the Lykov children died in rapid succession. The youngest, Dimitri, was the first to go. It was October, and he contracted pneumonia after setting fish traps in the nearly frozen river. The Lykovs rarely got sick. When they did, they healed themselves with nettle tea, rhubarb root and lots of prayer. But that didn't work this time. When the geologists learned that Dimitri was burning up with fever and gasping for breath, they offered to call in a helicopter and send their doctor with antibiotics. But Dimitri refused, saying that wasn't allowed. A man lives for however long, God grants. Dimitri died that night. Seven was the next to go. After his brother's death, Sevin complained of stomach pains and diarrhea, but refused to eat. Then one bitter cold December day, he insisted on helping the family dig up the last of the potato harvest before the ground froze. He then collapsed in his bed, never to rise again. Natalia stayed by Seven's bedside as his condition worsened. When he passed away, Natalia was despondent. She said she would die next of grief, and she did. Ten days later, after helping Barry Seven in the frozen earth, Natalia took to her bed and lost consciousness. Her final words to Agafia were, I pity you. You are left alone. Ten years later, Natalia's words came true. In 1988, Agafia's father died. Her whole family was gone now, and Agafia was left to fend for herself in the Siberian wilderness. How could she possibly survive on her own?
- [37:28]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Amazon Health AI Presents Painful Thoughts I
- [37:34]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm, yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type then say out loud.
- [37:48]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24. 7 Healthcare just got less painful.
- [37:58]
Coldwater Creek Advertiser
You know what quality feels like. You can see it in the way a fabric moves, recognize it in a flawless fit, and appreciate it in the details that make our styles unique. It's the standard Coldwater Creek has honored for over 40 years, derived from a rich Mountain west heritage and designed for today in styles that are distinctively Coldwater Creek. For a wardrobe you can count on season after season, visit coldwatercreek.com, shop new arrivals and save 15% on purchases. $75 or more with code iHeart streaming
- [38:29]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
May 22 on Paramount from executive producer Lena Waithe, the acclaimed series the Shy reaches its final chapter. For seven seasons, these stories, these streets, this community have stayed with us. Now it all leads to this Will Tiff uncover who killed Rob? Will Victor and Shad find their freedom? And can Keisha and Emmett survive? What's ahead? As friendships are tested, families evolve, and secrets Refuse to stay buried. One thing is certain. The SHY is more than just a series. It's a legacy. Say Goodbye to the Shy. Don't miss the final season. Streaming May 22nd on the Paramount Premium Plan.
- [39:12]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Agafia, the youngest Lykov daughter, stayed in the family's remote Siberian encampment after the deaths of her mother, siblings, and finally her father. For 35 years, she was completely alone.
- [39:31]
Agafia Lykov
During the storm. I covered my face with the cloth and lay face down on the other side with my back to the wind, my face to the ground.
- [39:42]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
That's Agafia Lykov remembering a severe storm. From the film the Forest in Me by British filmmaker Rebecca Marshall. Rebecca first read about Agafia in 2013 and was instantly captivated as a person
- [39:58]
Dana Schwartz
who, like many of us now, feels quite surrounded by lots of images and busyness all the time and pressure from a million things going on every single day. Reading a story about a family who had fled into the forest and when they were discovered in 78, didn't even know really that the war was over. And then realizing that they have actually lived in total isolation with no technology, no modern technology. It was this kind of combination of a total nightmare, scary nightmare, as well as actually maybe a slice of heaven.
- [40:41]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Rebecca wanted to go and visit Agafia, but she quickly learned you can't just go and visit Agafia. Agafia Lykov has become something of a national treasure in Russia, a protected species. There's a whole bureaucracy. Rebecca sent application forms to the mayor of Abakan and the officials who ran the nature reserve where Agafia lived. After waiting a year for approval, Rebecca and her film crew began their journey into the wilderness. They flew from London to Moscow. Then they took a seven hour flight from Moscow to Novosibirsk, a Russian city on the edge of Siberia. Then another 7 hour train ride to Tashtagul, a remote mining town outside of the Altai Nature Reserve. By that point, Rebecca felt like she had traveled to the ends of the earth. But they weren't done yet. The last leg could only be made by helicopter, a rickety old Soviet model. It was noisy, but offered an amazing view.
- [41:56]
Dana Schwartz
Just the trees just spread out as far as the eye can see. Just thousands and thousands and thousands of trees, greens, browns, a silver river that just kind of reflects the sun at the tiny points. Just snow on all the trees. It just looks pristine. You kind of think you're going to see signs of human life down there somewhere, but you just don't. We flew for two hours through the most incredible landscape, wearing these headphones to protect us from the noise of this just massive old helicopter. And we finally landed and sunk down to a flat area near the river. And I was so nervous to see Agafia because I'd obviously kind of read so much about her and I didn't know how she, you know, want to talk to us too much or how she would be. And we were getting out of the helicopter and then she appeared through the trees, you know, from her homestead, with a great big grin on her face. It was incredible.
- [43:08]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
In 2015, Agafia was in her 70s, close to her father's age when the geologists first discovered the Lykovs in 1978. Like her father, Agafia was healthy and full of energy. The entire time Rebecca filmed her, Agafia chittered away in her sing song voice and never stopped working. In Rebecca's film, Agafia talks about her daily survival, beginning always with prayer.
- [43:42]
Agafia Lykov
Pray daily, get up and read the midnight prayer, Palu Nacnica. Then in the morning hours, you pray on the move. There is so much to do.
- [43:53]
Dana Schwartz
I realize the concept of leisure time and free time just that doesn't really exist. Gaffia was busy going, you know, all these activities that she had to do all the time, stay alive. It's like early September, there were fish, so she was catching fish in this kind of trap and then opening them up and smoking them to preserve them. And what I understand is each part of the season there's like really important job to do, as any farmer knows. I'm also not a farmer, but there's certain things have to be done and if they are not, later in the year she would starve. Everything's very much weighted.
- [44:39]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Rebecca and her team came dressed for the unpredictable Siberian weather with fleece and flannel and Gore Tex. They peeled off layers as the frost melted in the afternoon sun and bundle up again for the frigid nights.
- [44:54]
Dana Schwartz
Agafia was so agile, prancing around in. She seemed to wear similar clothes all the time. Like these layers of kind of weighty looking dark colored fabrics, cotton, old, patched, and a headscarf wrapped around her head inside a headscarf.
- [45:13]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
When the Lykovs first visited the geologists camp, the Soviets offered them use of their shower, hot water, soap, everything. But the Lykovs refused. It wasn't allowed. Their ideas of cleanliness and sanitation were decidedly pre modern. Handwashing was a ritual performed after coming in contact with something from the world, like a miniature baptism to Be washed free of sin, not to remove dirt.
- [45:45]
Dana Schwartz
So Agafia had this kind of real hardiness to her hands, to her face, to all her visible skin, to her teeth, her lips. There was a real. It was an ingrained kind of soil. I don't even want to say dirt, because that kind of sounds like something dirty, but it wasn't. It's like there's nothing kind of dirty out there. It's just natural stuff of the forest. And she was harvesting carrots, the biggest carrots you've ever seen. I mean, she did wear gloves sometimes, but then when she took the gloves off, her fingers were black, her nails were black and hard, black cracks in the skin. But her face had this beautiful purity and, you know, like these amazing wrinkles that you just thought, oh, my goodness, we are ridiculous, with all our potions and face creams and concerns about our ideas of beauty as well. You know, it was just refreshing to be in her presence.
- [46:53]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
But the most striking thing about Agafia is that she's truly alone out there. Her family is dead. The geologists moved away decades ago. Every few months, a park ranger checks in on her and brings her a few supplies. She has animals now, dogs, chickens, a family of goats, and way too many kittens. But isn't Agafia lonely? Doesn't she need human companionship and conversation like all of us? Of course she does. But the thing is, Agafia doesn't think of herself as alone. Her family is always with her, especially her father, with whom she lived for several years after her siblings died. Agafia says that her father still visits her in her dreams.
- [47:47]
Agafia Lykov
He comes to me in dreams. I see him less so lately, in the winter, I saw my father twice. One time I saw him he hugged me and put me me on his knee. The second time, we were sitting somewhere
- [48:03]
Dana Schwartz
when she talked to me about her father visiting her. In dreams. She talks about it as though it's a real thing. She says the last time my father visited me is less these days, but he used to come very often, and he was sitting down on a branch and the berries were glowing, and it was. He broke a branch off for me. Her dreams are very vivid to her, and I don't really know where the line between whether she thinks that those visits in her dreams are not real or real.
- [48:41]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Agafia also prays constantly. She prays day and night over her dusty old Bible. She writes down prayers and carries them in her pockets to recite while fishing or fetching wood. She's in constant conversation with God and also with the angels who watch over her and record her every thought and deed.
- [49:04]
Dana Schwartz
She feels the presence of those angels so vividly. I believe that she has that faith that keeps her from feeling so lonely. And also what I sensed layered on top of that is this kind of intimate relationship with that landscape that she is so deeply rooted in, that she would be talking to us and then she would turn away and kind of carry on talking. And she talks about the fish have eyes that see her. This animistic kind of relationship that I think we can barely really conceive of.
- [49:43]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Rebecca filmed Agafia in 2015 for a documentary called the Forest in Me. All of the clips you've heard of Agafia talking are from Rebecca's film. She was very generous to let us use them. Ten years later, Agafia is still out there. As of this recording, she's 80 years old, the last surviving Lykov. Since 1988, Agafia had many offers to leave her Siberian outpost. In the 1980s, Agafia accepted an invitation to visit some long lost cousins in an Old Believer community in Russia. Papa was against it, but in a rare show of disobedience, Agafia ignored him without hesitation. She boarded a helicopter. She rode in a train for the first time, then her first car. She spent a month with her newly discovered family. She ate real bread, fruit and chocolate. She slept in a real bed. She held a newborn baby. It was 40 years ago, and she still remembers what it felt like when the baby felt fell asleep in her arms.
- [51:09]
Agafia Lykov
I took her in my arms, I sat her on my lap and she just fell asleep right there.
- [51:16]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Agafia's cousins begged her to stay with them. They offered to build her her own cabin in the woods outside of town. She could come and go as she pleased. Agafia thanked them, but kindly refused. It was not her home. She was born in the Siberian taiga and felt one with the forest in ways that none of us can understand. Unless, of course, your name is Wanaya tebow. In season six of Alone, Wanaya was one of only two contestants left when the producers pulled her out after 73 days. She had lost a dangerous amount of weight. But if Wanaya had her way, she wouldn't have quit, she wouldn't have left. And she thinks she understands why Agafia, at 80 years old, would still rather live alone in Siberia than anywhere else.
- [52:12]
Waniya Tebow
Yeah, I really wanted to stay. Had I not already signed a contract and understood that I would be extracted once it got really dire, I really Felt like I would have chosen to stay. And, yeah, I think that a lot of people in her place would choose that, because while there's a lot of deprivation, there's also incredible freedom in that life. There's something so beautiful and so pure and so deep about it. And it is really hard, I'm gonna say impossible, to find that when embedded in modern culture. And just all of the kinds of stresses that we encounter in modern life, they're not what our evolution prepared us for.
- [52:59]
Coldwater Creek Advertiser
Right.
- [52:59]
Waniya Tebow
There's a reason why there's so much depression and stress disorders and such a slew of health issues that our ancestors never dealt with, because we're not made to live the lives we do. We're made to live that life that they were living, are living, that she is still living.
- [53:18]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
To Agafia Lykov, the forest is family, the angels are watching, and the world as she knows it still goes on.
- [53:35]
Jason English
Okay, to start, I want to just call out one sentence that I really loved. Even their version of bread was mostly potatoes. And brought me back to when we used to pull out band names from random phrases in the episodes. I think mostly potatoes is going to go on there for me.
- [53:53]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
I love that. I didn't realize people could eat so many potatoes.
- [53:57]
Jason English
40 years, just potatoes. And I like potatoes.
- [54:01]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
And keeping it to your stockpile, too, I mean, they're running deep in potatoes.
- [54:05]
Jason English
We had a bear incident here in New Jersey not too long ago, where the schools, they didn't dismiss the kids, and we didn't know why. And this era, like, that's a little scary. Then we found out, like, well, it is scary, but for another reason. There's a giant bear roaming the school. And finally, you know, 45 minutes later, they do release the kids. There's no real announcement that things are safe, but we come home, we live about a mile from the school, and I look out my window and I see the bear, and it is just going to town on my garbage.
- [54:40]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Jason, what did you do?
- [54:42]
Jason English
Yeah, I called the police. And, I mean, the police could not have been less interested in this. They're like, do you want us to send someone? I was like, what do you do? You closed down the whole school because of this? And now, like, I have to get to my car. And so we waited them out, and that's what they did in the story, too. They waited them out six months. It was probably. Probably an hour for me.
- [55:06]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
But they didn't send out the dog catcher.
- [55:09]
Jason English
Yeah, I think animal control was not gonna control this animal. And my garbage was they were ready to sacrifice that.
- [55:18]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
We're city people.
- [55:20]
Jason English
Saren I think this would be too tough to cast.
- [55:23]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Oh yeah, it's a very specific ethnic group.
- [55:26]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
Yes.
- [55:27]
Jason English
And she's still alive.
- [55:28]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
I don't know enough Russian actors to be quite honest. And yes, she's still alive. Like, let's let her play herself in the movie. I did have a very special moment though. I absolutely loved them sitting around retelling their family history over and over and over again and then also including the retelling of dreams. I thought that was just fantastic.
- [55:47]
Jason English
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people. This show is hosted by Dana Schwartz, Sarah Burnett and Jason English. Our senior producer is Josh Fisher. Today's Episode Episode was written by Dave Roos. Editing and sound design by Chris Childs. Mixing and mastering by Chris Childs. Thanks to our voice actors Katie Matty and Chris Childs. Original Music by Elise McCoy. Show logo by Lucy Quintanilla. Our executive producer is Jason English. I also want to give a very special thanks to the filmmaker Rebecca E. Marshall for letting us use some audio from her document documentary the Forest in Me. We will put a link to that in the show notes so you can go and check it out. Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart podcasts.
- [56:43]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
I'm U.S. transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. We all get distracted when we drive,
- [56:49]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
whether it's from our phones or kids
- [56:52]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
in the backseat bickering.
- [56:54]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
But how we handle these distractions can be a matter of life or death. Before you get on the road for your next road trip, please put your phones on silent and take a mental
- [57:06]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
note to focus on driving.
- [57:09]
Narrator/Host Dana Schwartz
Paid for by nhtsa.
- [57:12]
Sponsor/Advertiser Voice
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- [57:44]
Coldwater Creek Advertiser
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- [58:41]
Agafia Lykov
Guaranteed human.