"In the summer of 1978, a team of geologists exploring southern Siberia found something rarer than diamonds. While searching for a helicopter landing site amid the steep hills and forested canyons of the western Sayan mountains, their pilot caught sight of what appeared to be a garden, 150 miles from the nearest settlement. Hovering as low as he could, he saw a house. No people were visible, but someone was clearly tending the garden."
"When the four geologists set up camp 10 miles away, it was the mysterious homestead that was first in their mind. Who could live here? Were the inhabitants the last Mohicans of the Brezhnev era? The geologists ventured to the settlement bearing gifts and a pistol, just in case. They were greeted by a disheveled old man dressed in patched-up sacking cloth. This was Karp Osipovich Lykov, the patriarch of the family."
In the summer of 1978, geologists surveying the western Sayan mountains discovered a cultivated garden and a house 150 miles from the nearest settlement. The pilot saw a dwelling being tended, prompting the geologists to investigate. They found Karp Osipovich Lykov, an elderly patriarch in patched sacking cloth, and his adult children living in extreme isolation. The family had not interacted with outsiders for decades; some children had never seen bread and refused offered food as forbidden. The family belonged to the Old Believers, a schismatic Orthodox sect that emerged in the mid-17th century after Patriarch Nikon amended the liturgy.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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