Hermit Meets 21st Century After Being Flown To Siberian Hospital
A 70-year-old hermit who has spent her entire life in the
Siberian wilderness has been introduced to the 21st century after being
airlifted to a hospital for leg pain. Agafya Lykova was born in the wilderness after her family
fled civilization in 1936, The Guardian reported. On Wednesday she called for help
using an emergency satellite phone and said she had pain in her leg, according
to a release from the Kemerovo regional government.
She found her physical movements dangerously restricted from
the pain, amid winter temperatures that can dip to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. A helicopter flew her to Tashtagol hospital, about 600 miles
north of Kazakhstan and the Mongolian border. The region's governor, Aman
Tuleyev has long provided aid to the hermit, whose last family member died in
1988.
Lykova's remarkable story first surfaced in the late 1970s
after geologists flying overhead discovered her remote family, the Siberian Times reported. When contacted, her
family reportedly had no idea World War II had started or ended. The family of six had relied solely on the land after her
father, mother and two oldest siblings fled civilization to escape the
Stalinist USSR and religious persecution roughly 80 years ago. The family are
"Old Believers," a sect that split off from the Russian Orthodox
Church. In the wilderness, Lykova's parents had two more children; Lykova was
the youngest of two boys and two girls.
"The Old Believers were being killed because of their
beliefs. Children were losing their fathers," she told Vice News during an interview at her home in
2013. "That's when we removed ourselves from materialistic society and
stopped any contact with it." With her father’s death in 1988, she became her family's
sole survivor. Then last May, her one friend, neighbor and fellow hermit,
77-year-old geologist Yerofei Sedov, died, leaving her entirely alone. Sedov’s son told the Siberian Times that Lykova helped bury him.
“She did the right thing. He died but it was rather warm
weather so I’m sure she didn’t have to wait until someone arrived to take his
body. I'm grateful for that, since now he will forever be on his treasured
Yerinat,” he told the paper. Lykova is expected to remain at the hospital for evaluation
for a week before returning home, according to local papers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/siberian-hermit-21st-century_569b9eb5e4b0b4eb759eabad?section=india