The Lykov family (Russian: Лыков) was a Russian family of Old Believers. The family of six is known for spending 42 years in complete isolation from human society in an otherwise uninhabited upland of Abakan Range, in Tashtypsky District of Khakassia (southern Siberia). Since 1988, only one daughter, Agafia, survives.
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History
In 1936, their religion was under threat. After Karp Lykov's brother was killed by a communist patrol, Karp and Akulina Lykov with their two children, Savin and Natalia, fled their hometown of Lykovo (Tyumen Oblast) eastward. Two more children, Dmitry and Agafia, were born during the isolation. They ended up in a dwelling in the taiga, near Yerinat River (Abakan river basin), 250 kilometres (160 mi) from any settlement. In 1978 their location was discovered by a helicopter pilot, who was flying a geological group into the region. The geologists made contact with the family, but the Lykovs decided not to leave the place.
Akulina died of hunger in 1961.
Three of the children died in 1981. Karp died in 1988. He is survived by his daughter Agafia Lykova who continued to live in isolation until 16 January 2016 when she was airlifted out to a hospital in Tashtagol, Russia, from her remote location near Kazakhstan's and Mongolia's borders. Her condition is related to cartilage deterioration in her lower extremities, and is said to be remaining in hospital care until at least 23 January 2016.
Family members
Parents:
Children:
Publishings
The story of the Lykov family was told by the journalist Vasily Peskov in his book Lost in the Taiga: One Russian Family's Fifty-Year Struggle for Survival and Religious Freedom in the Siberian Wilderness (1994). Peskov had written a series of reports on the family in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in 1982. The book became a bestseller in France, and the film rights were acquired by director Jean Jacques Annaud.
Far Out: Agafia's Taiga Life is a documentary film about Agafia Lykova at the age of 70.