VICE
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2014–2023
35:45 · 8.2M views · Apr 9, 2013
A VICE documentary that visits Agafia Lykova, last surviving member of the Lykov family of Old Believers who fled into the Siberian taiga in 1936. It shows how she lives in remote isolation and the outside world encroaching on it.
It is linked in threads about the Lykov family as an on-location look at the environment they survived in.
10 comments from Hacker News
In case you haven't seen it, Vice made and excellent documentary about Agafia's life in Siberia. It's a sad yet inspiring story, I highly recommend it for anyone interested. Heres the link: this video
Some people might find this video interesting. Family that fled into the siberian taiga for 70 years to avoid religious persecution. One thing that stands out in my memory is how they said their main form of entertainment was sharing and analyzing their dreams. this video
There's a fascinating family of old believers who escaped to the Russian Taiga in 1936 to escape persecution, with the surviving daughter living there to this day: [LINK] this video
Vice did a fun piece on this family a few years back that - on location - captures the environment they survived in -> this video
> Why can’t I just walk away from social strata to begin with, and live my life happily as a “lower class” citizen living in the woods if I want? That's certainly an idealistic or romantic idea but it's not in any way realistic. Being poor, depending on where you live, also means having no social safety net. It means you can't educate your children, it means you and your family are vulnerable to all the social ills that afflict those who are in poverty. Being poor gives you the short end of the stick in almost every way that matters. It's not like everyone (or anyone, really) can live like the family in the film "Captain Fantastic", isolated in the woods, yet somehow thriving, more fit, and better educated. There's a documentary about people that lived for generations in the woods in Siberia for religious reasons. It was fanatic Christian sect called "True Believers" (can't find the documentary, but here's the Vice News story, this video ). Definitely not an attractive lifestyle!