Out of the impasse. Igor Prokudin, Deputy Director of the Khakassky Nature Reserve


The Siberian hermit Agafya Lykova announced that she was running out of food and asked for help. She told the Krasnoyarsk regional historian about this in a telephone conversation.

“She wanted to say something else, I'm worried that something happened to her. I wanted to contact doctor Nazarov, who had been observing her for several decades. With friends we will think what to do. It is necessary to equip a helicopter or decide something through the Khakassky reserve, ”the documentary filmmaker told the“ 360 ”TV channel.

He recalled that Lykova has had a satellite phone for three years already - this is a gift from TV journalists from Krasnoyarsk. They asked the hermit to call only in case of emergency.

According to Grishakov, the Siberian woman has repeatedly contacted the employees on the alarming line. “And she tortured the rescuers so much that they cut Agafya out of their lives,” the local historian noted.

According to the editor of the Krasnoyarsk Rabochy newspaper Vladimir Pavlovsky, who contacted the hermit's longtime acquaintance Nikolai Sedov, Lykova's situation is not so critical.

“There is no tragedy. The connection is interrupted in cloudy weather, the phone works well only in the sun. There are two batteries, solar recharging. There is not enough food There is not enough hay and compound feed. An eternal problem. On occasion, before the New Year will be thrown. Goats eat willow bark and spruce needles well. The most important thing is that the bear lay in its den, and he often disturbed him in the summer and autumn, ”Pavlovsky explained.

Meanwhile, in Kuzbass and in Krasnoyarsk, they launched a collection of assistance for Agafya Lykova. 300 kg of hay and mixed feed, 100 kg of flour, 60 kg of cereals, as well as baked milk and honey were delivered to the Mi-8 helicopter. “I bought the necessary things. Nails, candles, threads, needles, food. I took fruit - she loves pomegranates and grapes very much, ”Nikolay Sedov added in a conversation with.

Together with the food on board, the head of the Kemerovo region, Sergei Tsivilev, flew to the hermit. According to the press service of the regional administration, the helicopter took off at 8:00 Moscow time.

As stated in the message of the regional administration, during a meeting with the governor, the hermit spoke in detail about her problems. According to her, a bear prevents her from living in the taiga. She also complained of pain in her arm. The doctor, who was on board with Tsivilev, examined the woman and left her with several ointments. The governor, in turn, gave the hermit a puppy.

The head of the region examined old books and family relics of Lykova. The hermit took the official through her garden, and also showed her father's grave. “This is a unique person, so we will never leave her, and we will help and patronize Agafya Karpovna in every possible way,” the governor said.

The family of Agafya Lykova has lived in isolation since 1937 and tried to protect themselves from the influence of the external environment. Geologists managed to discover the Old Believers in 1978.

At that time, there were five people in the Lykov family. However, several years later, two brothers and sister of Agafia died. Subsequently, the hermit lived with her father Karp - until he died on February 16, 1988.

Two years later, Lykova began to live in an Old Believer convent, where she was tonsured as a nun. But a few months later, the hermit began to complain of ill health and ideological differences with the nuns and decided to return home.

Since then, Lykova has been living in the taiga without a break. During this time, journalists, writers, travelers, as well as representatives of religious communities came to her. For some time the monastic novices lived with the hermit, who helped her with the housework.

Lykova was actively helped by the ex-head of the Kemerovo region. However, after his departure from office, the situation changed. “In 1980-1990, helicopters flew like flies, buzzing over her. And fire protection, and forest protection, and from Krasnoyarsk, the guys just flew to her, and then suddenly all gasoline ran out, "- said local historian Andrei Grishakov.

In November 2017, during a direct line with the residents of Khakassia, the regional governor Viktor Zimin called the actions of the Kemerovo authorities, which had been patronizing Lykova for many years, as PR. The fact is that she actually lives on the territory of Khakassia.

“He forbade [flying in helicopters to Lykova], he said, once again the board will come from there - you have violated the law of the country. You have no right to sit there or fly there. And there is no need to dishonor us, in the part that we ... And they [the authorities of the Kemerovo region] are the breadwinners there, ”he stressed.

According to him, spending large funds from the state budget on a hermit is unfair.

“Of course, maybe not all life is measured by money, but it is sometimes measured by justice. Every resident of the republic would like to have such living conditions, free supplies, flights, communications, aviation, ”said the head of Khakassia.

In his view, Lykova is a "big burden" for the region. Zimin noted that she was repeatedly offered to move to a city or village. “My mother, the kingdom of heaven to her, was always indignant and said: son, this is unfair, I have worked all my life for the state, but helicopters do not fly to me. And these people did not work for the state for a day, but left, and even hid from the war. I don't really like grandmother Agafya, ”the governor summed up.

The next day, the administration of the Kemerovo region announced that they would continue to help Lykova, despite the discontent. “I think we will find a way to continue this good tradition. How can you prevent friendships? If the authorities of Khakassia provided systematic assistance, responded to the problems and rare requests of Lykova, then Kuzbass would not need to intervene, ”the regional government explained.

Grandmother on the load: why the hermit Agafya Lykova caused the anger of the head of Khakassia

A burden for many, a reason for PR and just an unremarkable person - the head of Khakassia, Viktor Zimin, walked sharply through grandmother Agafya, a hermit from a remote Siberian taiga living on the territory of his republic. "360" decided to figure out how the paths of the elderly woman and the head of the region crossed.

The first question on the "direct line" of the head of Khakassia, Viktor Zimin, was a request from a resident of the Kirov region to help him get to Agafya Lykova. Zimin did not like the appeal very much, but he answered it in detail: he told about his dislike for the hermit and forbade him to fly to her from neighboring regions.

"It's not fair"

Granny Agafya is already a great workload for many. She lives in a conservation area, and no one can go there. My mother, the kingdom of heaven, said: "Son, this is unfair, I have worked for the state all my life, but helicopters do not fly to me"

- Victor Zimin, quoted by the Khakassia news agency.

From the words of Zimin it follows that he does not like how the family of hermits Lykovs once "hid from the war" and did not work a day for the state. And also that the staff of the reserve actually work for Agafya - for example, they chop her firewood.

As for the helicopters, we are talking about the help provided to the hermit of the Kemerovo region - on the personal order of the governor of the region, Aman Tuleyev, helicopters periodically arrive at her taiga capture with food supplies, useful household items and even household helpers.

Lykova is not shy about asking the authorities for help - she often sends letters with various requests to geologists and travelers. The piquancy of the situation is that the grandmother's place is located on the territory of the Khakassky reserve, whose administrative affiliation is obvious, but the hermit sends letters to the head of the neighboring Kemerovo region.

She first met Aman Tuleyev in 1997 during his personal visit to a remote taiga region. They became so friends that Lykova congratulates the governor on the holidays and sends gifts made with her own hands: Old Believer rosary, woven belt, mittens. Tuleyev, as far as is known, did not refuse a single request to his grandmother and not only sends food supplies, but also helps people.

When last year her leg joints hurt, Tuleyev ordered a helicopter to be sent for her and taken to a hospital in one of the cities of Kuzbass for examination. The Old Believer Lykova was even provided with a special meal "according to her convictions," the press service of the regional administration noted. At the end of August, the press service reported, the Kemerovo region sent a helicopter with a load of half a tonne to help the hermit - supplies for the winter. In addition to cereals, fruits and vegetables, candles, batteries and compound feed for goats were brought, which had also been delivered earlier on behalf of Tuleyev. By helicopter, 10 students flew back to help an elderly woman prepare for the winter.

RIA Novosti / Mikhail Klimentyev

PR banned

As the head of Khakassia emphasized, visits to the reserve without special permission are prohibited. He considered flights from the neighboring region to be PR, and the hermit herself was not worth special treatment. “I don't really like grandmother Agafya, but I have great respect for the Old Believer faith<…> Granny Agafya is not the bearer of any great deeds, "RIA Novosti Zimin is quoted as saying.

Every resident of the republic would like to have such conditions for living free of charge: supply, flights, communications, aviation, and even neighbors sometimes advertise<…> Forbidden, he said, once again the board will come from there - you have violated the law of the country. You have no right to sit there or fly there. And there is no need to dishonor us.

- Victor Zimin.

Resettlement to the city can kill an old woman, said Dmitry Zhuravlev, director general of the Institute of Regional Problems, in an interview with 360. “The Lykovs lived apart, in a world without 99% of modern diseases, she has no immunity against them. What are you going to do, give her all the vaccines in a row? Then she will die from the injections. Let the old sick woman calmly live out her life. If she wanted, she would have come to the city long ago, ”the expert explains.

There is no enmity between Kuzbass and Khakassia, but there is competition, which could have served as a reason for Zimin's words, Zhuravlev argues: “Zimin loves to compare himself with his neighbors in addition - this is a leader who does not hesitate to express his personal perception of reality.”

"How can you forbid friendships?"

Zhuravlev admitted that the statement of the head of Khakassia could lead to some enmity between the two influential regional politicians. “We must remember that the degree of influence and authority of Tuleyev and Zimin in their regions is almost absolute. Tuleyev was very seriously ill, but he was not released into retirement, Zimin is not going to leave, but I suspect that his departure would also change the whole configuration in the region, ”the expert adds.

The authorities of the Kemerovo region will help the hermit Agafya Lykova in any case, Interfax reports with reference to the regional press service. “I think we will find a way to continue this good tradition. How can you prevent friendships? If the authorities of Khakassia provided systematic assistance, responded to the problems and rare requests of Lykova, then Kuzbass would not need to intervene, ”the representative of Kuzbass stressed.

The Kemerovo region will continue to help the hermit, agrees in a conversation with "360" the former mayor of Kemerovo Valery Ermakov. “How not to help a person in such conditions? Just think, flights will be banned - you can get there by another type of transport, by snowmobiles, but by anything - our guys will get there anyway, ”he expressed his opinion.

RIA Novosti / Dmitry Korobeinikov

Not of this world

Grandmother Agafya is the last representative of the ancient family of Old Believers of chapel accord. In the late 1930s, a young family of Old Believers Akulina and Karp Lykov decided to leave the "big world" in order to preserve their usual way of life. In the deep taiga, they built a farm, later nicknamed "Taiga deadlock".

The discovery of the Lykovs nearly 40 years later, when a party of geologists stumbled upon them, caused a furor in the Soviet press. The children of the first generation of hermits have lived their entire conscious life outside of civilization and communication with other people. By that time, his mother had died, and Karp ran the household with his daughters Agafya and Natalya and sons Savvin and Dimitri. Articles, books, scientific works were written about them, documentaries were released.

The collision with the modern world was not in vain - apparently, the Lykovs' immunity could not stand the collision with infections brought from outside, and all the offspring of the family, with the exception of Agafya, died of a serious illness (apparently pneumonia) in 1981.

Father Karp lived to a ripe old age and died in 1988. Since then, Agafya has lived alone in the old house of her ancestors - she spent several months in the Old Believer monastery, but soon fled home from there. Since then, she has been living in the “taiga dead end” without a break.

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An 80-year-old Patimat walks along an old street on the outskirts of the village with old binoculars, sits down on a boulder and starts looking around. It would seem that you can look there for hours?

Patimat Abakarova, a local resident: “The view here is good, you can see everything, the binoculars are strong, even the Soviet border guards used to wear them. Sometimes I am lucky, the villagers stage real performances. Laughter happens! "

From the height of her past years, the pensioner talks about her youth, family, children and her deteriorating health in recent years. For 30 years now, a woman has been living alone on the top of a mountain. Of the benefits of civilization, there is only electricity and mobile communications. The house was built by the great-great-grandfather Patimat three centuries ago. The entourage in the rooms has hardly changed since then: a minimum of furniture, an earthen floor and stone walls. Now it is the only residential building in an empty village. The houses in the neighborhood have long since fallen into ruins.

From the outside it may seem that there is no need to build villages in such inconvenient, inaccessible, and sometimes simply dangerous places. As found out nTV correspondent Omar Magomedov, the highlanders took care of the flat plots of land for arable land, which are worth their weight in gold in these parts, and they themselves settled on the rocks or cliffs of the mountains. This aul is no exception.

Patimat flatly refuses to offer children and grandchildren to move to them. It seems that only the stubbornness of an elderly person saves this aul from the final fall into the sad statistics of abandoned villages.

Abakar Rajabmagomedov, head of the administration of the village of Koroda: “There is no work for young people, everyone is drawn to the city from idleness. Now people have financial problems. "

Mountain dwellers are leaving their homes in search of work and a better life. Dozens of once noisy auls turned into ghosts, and their only inhabitants into real hermits.

For urban dwellers, the Patimat house is a real museum. At first, the hostess did not really understand why people travel hundreds of kilometers to see her place of residence. This is how she recognized the unfamiliar words "tourism", "guide", "operator".

Olesya Leshchenko, tourist: “For residents of the central part of Russia, it's like getting into another century, getting into another civilization. The people here are absolutely amazing. You need to feel it. Everyone who has been here has not yet left without positive emotions. "

Patimat receives dozens of tourists per day. Now the pensioner is thinking about introducing a symbolic entrance fee. She independently conducts a tour of all the rooms, takes the girls to the side and shows her most intimate - a chest with a dowry, then be sure to give everyone tea.

Patimat is sure that thanks to travelers and tourists, life still glimmers in the village. Several families have already announced that they intend to return to the ancestral sakli in order to transform their guest houses.


In the early 1980s. a series of publications about the family appeared in the Soviet press hermits-Old Believers Lykovwho spent 40 years in self-imposed exile in the Sayan taiga, abandoning all the benefits of civilization, in complete isolation from society. After they were discovered by geologists and journalists and travelers began to visit them, three family members died from a viral infection. In 1988 the father of the family also died. Only Agafya Lykova survived and soon became the most famous hermit in the country. Despite her advanced age and illness, she still refuses to move from the taiga.





The Old Believers Karp and Akulina Lykovs with their children fled to the taiga from the Soviet regime in the 1930s. On the bank of a mountain tributary of the Erinat River, they built a hut, were engaged in hunting, fishing, picking mushrooms and berries, weaving clothes on a homemade loom. They left the village of Tishi with two children - Savvin and Natalya, and two more were born in secret - Dmitry and Agafya. In 1961, her mother, Akulina Lykova, died of hunger, and 20 years later Savvin, Natalya and Dmitry died of pneumonia. Obviously, in conditions of isolation from society, immunity was not developed, and they all became victims of a viral infection. They were offered pills, but only the younger Agafya agreed to take them. This saved her life. In 1988, at the age of 87, her father died and she was left alone.



They began to write about the Lykovs back in 1982. Then the journalist Vasily Peskov often came to the Old Believers, after which he published several articles in Komsomolskaya Pravda and the book Taiga Dead End. After that, the Lykovs often found themselves in the center of attention of the press and the public, their story thundered throughout the country. In the 2000s, the Lykovs' settlement was included in the territory of the Khakass reserve.





In 1990, the seclusion of Agafya for the first time stopped for a while: she was tonsured in an Old Believer convent, but a few months later she returned to her house in the taiga, explaining this by "ideological differences" with the nuns. She also did not have a good relationship with relatives - they say that the hermit's character is quarrelsome and complex.





In 2014, the hermit turned to people for help, complaining of her weakness and illness. Representatives of the administration, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, journalists and the niece of Alexander Martyusheva went to her, trying to persuade her to move. Agafya gratefully accepted food, firewood and gifts, but refused to leave her home.





At the request of the head of the Russian Old Believer Church, Metropolitan Korniliy, an assistant was sent to the hermit - 18-year-old Alexander Besshtannikov, who came from a family of Old Believers. He helped her with the housework until he was drafted into the army. For 17 years, Agafya's assistant was former geologist Erofei Sedov, who settled with her next door after retirement. But in May 2015, he passed away, and the hermit was left completely alone.







In January 2016, Agafya had to break off her seclusion and again turn to people for help - her legs ached badly, and she called a doctor on the satellite phone left by the local administration for emergency calls. She was taken from the taiga by helicopter to a hospital in the city of Tashtagol, where they were examined and found out that Agafya had an aggravation of osteochondrosis. The first measures were taken, but the hermit refused long-term treatment - she immediately began to rush back home.



Considering Agafya Lykova's advanced age and the state of her health, everyone again tried to persuade the hermit to stay among people, to move to her relatives, but she flatly refused. After staying in the hospital for just over a week, Agafya returned to the taiga again. She said that it was boring in the hospital - “just sleep, eat and pray, but the house is full of things.”





In the spring of 2017, the staff of the Khakassky Nature Reserve traditionally brought food, things, letters from fellow believers to the hermit and helped with household chores. Agafya again complained of pain in her legs, but again refused to leave the taiga. At the end of April, she was visited by a Ural priest, Father Vladimir. He said that the assistant George lives with Agafya, whom the priest blessed to support the hermit.



The 72-year-old hermit explains her reluctance to move closer to people and civilization by promising her father never to leave their homes in the taiga: “I will not go anywhere and will not leave this land by force of this oath. If it were possible, I would gladly accept co-religionists to live and transfer my knowledge and accumulated experience of the Old Believer faith. " Agafya is confident that only far from the temptations of civilization can a truly spiritual life be led.



They became the most famous hermits in the country:.

A hermit living in the Khakassky nature reserve reported that she was running out of food supplies and asked for help, the TV channel "360" reports with reference to the Krasnoyarsk documentary filmmaker.

Grishakov said that the woman called him and said that she was "running out of everything, running out of food." He added that after this phrase, the connection was interrupted.

“She wanted to say something else, I'm worried that something happened to her. I wanted to contact doctor Nazarov, who had been observing her for several decades. With friends we will think what to do. It is necessary to equip a helicopter or decide something through the Khakassky reserve, "the TV journalist noted.

Previously, Lykova was actively helped by the now former head of Kuzbass, but after his resignation, the authorities stopped helping her. The hermit has a satellite phone, and before with her problems, even insignificant ones, she called employees on the alarm line. Because of the frequent calls, the rescuers began to ignore her.

Agafya Lykova is the only surviving representative of the family of Old Believers hermits. It was found by a group of Soviet geologists in the Western Sayan Mountains in 1978. Then the woman was 37 years old and she lived in the taiga in isolation with her father, sister and two brothers. They all have already died, and Lykova lives alone in the forest.

Hermit Agafya Lykova, who was left without food, was given a puppy

The Siberian hermit Agafya Lykova was visited by the governor of the Kemerovo region, Sergei Tsivilev, after she reported that she had run out of food supplies. Agafya made a call on Monday to the Krasnoyarsk documentary filmmaker Andrei Grishakov, and he has already informed the authorities. After that, Tsivilev decided to personally fly to the hermit by helicopter with a large supply of food and hay.

“I visited Agafya Lykova today. Although she lives in Khakassia, in our region she has long been considered hers - Kuzbass. Agafya Karpovna is a unique person, strong, but we will not leave her alone, we will help! It's cold in the hut - steam comes down from the mouth, you need to insert good windows. We also ran out of food for the goats, they brought it in, ”wrote Sergey Tsivilev on his VKontakte page.

But the gifts for Agafya did not end there. Along with a supply of food, the governor brought with him an unusual gift for the hermit - a puppy. As it turned out, she had long dreamed of having a dog.

“Not to be bored alone. Affectionate, it will be more fun for two, ”Tsivilev explained.

Agafya Lykova is 74 years old. She is a famous Siberian hermit, the only surviving member of the Lykov family of Old Believers, found by geologists in 1978 in the Western Sayan Mountains. Agafya lives on the Lykovs' hut in the forest of the Abakan ridge of the Western Sayan (Khakassia).

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