I remember my uncle telling me about them when I was growing up in the 90s. He was an officer responsible for the environmental impact assessment of the Baikonur rocket launches and visited Lykovs a couple of times. They lived really close to the area where Proton rocket boosters are supposed to fall down. Couple of years ago I found out that V. Peskov even mentioned my uncle in his 'Lost in the Taiga' book about the Lykov family.
Primitive Technology is really interesting. This guy is super good at it : <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA</a><p>He's trying to get iron smelted right now, but that's really hard. It seems the problem the Lykovs ran into was that their metal items rusted after a while and they couldn't repair them. It's really hard to live without pots, and knives.
Another interesting place, though not nearly as isolated, is Lukomir, Bosnia. It was remote enough during the Yugoslavian war that the war never really made it up there (though there was little reason to probably).<p>You have to drive an hour and a half from Sarajevo to a small village. From there, Lukomir is another six miles up into the hills at ~2,500 meters elevation. You can now drive up there, but I strongly recommend hiking: you will feel like the IceMan walking around Europe 5,000 years ago, at least I did.<p>The people there live very simple lives, as you can imagine: shepherding livestock during the day in the surrounding hills, mostly sheep, for instance.<p>On top of this is the fact that the village is on the edge of a canyon, so has spectacular views from a cliff next to it.<p>If you're ever in Sarajevo you should check Lukomir out!
Vice did a fun piece on this family a few years back that - on location - captures the environment they survived in -><p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68</a>
Earlier discussion on the same article on HN, few years back:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5134023" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5134023</a><p>Edit: On HN, you occasionally see <i>can't forget</i> articles, every once in a while. This is one of those..
I remember reading this a while back on HN, for those interested in the discussion, here's the link: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10125523" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10125523</a>
If anyone is interested, the Lykovs were part of a group of 'Old Believers' (староверы) a sect of the Russian orthodox church. The primary reason many people who shared their faith fled major cities was because of Communist religious purges (an attempt to solve the problem of 'Religion is the opium of the people')<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers</a>
A fascinating story from 2013.<p>There was an interesting short follow up from the Siberian Times a year after the Smithsonian piece - the last surviving member was seeking help, or maybe just tiring of isolation, in her 70s.<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/agafya-lykova-asks-for-help-2014-1?IR=T" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/agafya-lykova-asks-for-help-2...</a>
Isolated, but not as isolated as:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island</a><p>Forget being unaware of WWII. Try being unaware of what a car or phone or airplane or office building is, let alone the idea of a "world war".<p>Look how primitive they behave.<p><a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/tWY1o" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/gallery/tWY1o</a><p>Imagine taking one of these tribesman on a tour through Times Square NYC.
Highly recommend Happy People: A Year in the Taiga <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1683876/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1683876/</a>
Another article about this family said they died of kidney failure not because of their harsh diet, but because of the reintroduction of salt [citation needed]. Similar but not as unavoidable. Then again they craved salt but it's plausible their body couldn't handle it.
The three siblings are believed to have died from pneumonia.<p>Yerafei expresses doubt, saying "how could they get infected from us if they never took anything? For a long time, they didn't take our water, our food. If anything, Agafia should have gotten sick. Why? Well, I once grabbed her and kissed her."<p>Kissing facilitates the exchange of microbiota[0] and that exchange can strengthen the immune system. Might be that kiss saved her life.<p>[0 - Shaping the oral microbiota through intimate kissing](<a href="https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2049-2618-2-4" rel="nofollow">https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...</a>)
This reminds me to the Hun village in the Swiss Alps:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anniviers" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anniviers</a> or
<a href="http://archive.worldhistoria.com/the-hunnic-swiss-valley-val-d%E2%80%99anniviers-origin-hun-or-hungarian_topic7796.html" rel="nofollow">http://archive.worldhistoria.com/the-hunnic-swiss-valley-val...</a><p>Because the difficult landscape, these villages were isolated and kept the culture and some of the language. Funny to see the motifs on my mom's table cloths or the ornaments on my far relatives' main gatein Transylvania are exactly the same.
Previous discussion, almost exactly 1 year ago:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10125523#10126308" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10125523#10126308</a>
Some photos from 2013: <a href="http://shpilenok.livejournal.com/193005.html" rel="nofollow">http://shpilenok.livejournal.com/193005.html</a>