For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II

smithsonian magazine ^ | Mike Dash

[GodfearingTexan]

"beside a stream there was a dwelling. Blackened by time and rain, the hut was piled up on all sides with taiga rubbish—bark, poles, planks. If it hadn't been for a window the size of my backpack pocket, it would have been hard to believe that people lived there. But they did, no doubt about it.... Our arrival had been noticed, as we could see."

[azishot]

Bump.

[FreedomPoster]

Rummel puts the number for the USSR at ~60 million, FWIW. I know many were killed after Stalin’s time, but think it quite likely that as many as 2/3rds were in his era.

[Daffynition]

Riveting. Preppers take note and don't forget...

[fso301]

In my opinion this is a story about how a manic delusion led a family into decades of isolation and deprivation.

You may call it extreme but they survived. How many others didn't? Such was the Red Terror.

[fso301]

Religion? Try learning a bit of history. The Old Believers split from the Orthodox church in a dispute about the spelling of Jesus’s name and the position of the fingers during the sign of the cross. Its a sect as squirlly as Heavens Gate.

Try not revising it either. The article says the family fled into the wilderness to escape the Red Terror.

Many people suffered through communism without returning to the stone age.

Tens of millions didn't.

The old man and his wife were crazy and they raised a brood of kids in the Neolithic.

How can you call someone crazy that survived for over 40 years under conditions you, or I wouldn't last a season in?

[fso301]

I am struck by the father’s inability to make a bow and arrow or a spear. In our information laden society nearly everyone has a pretty good idea how to begin to build weapons and trial and error would eventually lead you to success.

This was Russia in the first half of the 20th century. The Lykov's were probably of peasant stock which meant they had limited education and probably knew little to nothing of stone knapping. We in America on the other hand have some knowledge of stone knapping due to Indians being a stone age people right up until the dawn of the 20th century.

[muir_redwoods]

If you admire the choice this asshat made, more power to you. Old Believers are some of the craziest loons in the realm of religion; not much different from scientologists in terms of connection to reality. His behavior of moving into the woods of Siberia is perfectly consistent with his hundred year old grudge about 900 lbs of potatoes someone failed to donate to his church. This is a story about a profoundly mentally ill man and his equally ill family.

[fso301]

Probably more Ukrainians than Russians.

The Red Terror didn't fully descend upon the Ukraine until the 1930's. The first reports I recall reading of cannibalism were circa 1920 from farther east in the Volga region.

[fso301]

If you admire the choice this asshat made, more power to you.

Do you also call Japanese holdouts from WWII asshats?

Old Believers are some of the craziest loons in the realm of religion; not much different from scientologists in terms of connection to reality. His behavior of moving into the woods of Siberia is perfectly consistent with his hundred year old grudge about 900 lbs of potatoes someone failed to donate to his church. This is a story about a profoundly mentally ill man and his equally ill family.

You are correct, when the communist patrol came, a more "rational" person could have claimed to be an atheist... a loyal red and told the communists where some Christians were and thereby increased his odds of living.

[muir_redwoods]

The Japanese hideouts are adequately described as asshats

Why am I not the least surprised that you are unable to imagine a reasonable middleground between an insane return to the Neolithic and a complete suck-up to the communists; you know, the way 99% of Russians got by without losing either their souls or their minds? You are free to admire the insane if you choose.

[Fightin Whitey]

Even reasonable estimates put the number of Russians killed by Stalin at 20 to 50 million.

And you are claiming 99% of Russians cut and ducked and ran and informed and, as you so blithely put it, “got by”?

How many people do you think LIVED in the Soviet Union during the Communist era?

Were you by any chance one of the asshat statisticians who used to work for Stalin, reporting tremendous crop harvests, tremendous productivity, tremendous advances in science, and so on?

Because that’s what you sound like, asshat.

[muir_redwoods]

Okay I’m the asshat (how very original of you) but you’re the one who wants to move yo the Neolithic. I’ve got you pretty well figured out. Here’s your sign. Original, eh?

[texas booster]

BTTT