For most of her life, 77-year-old Agafia lives like an 18th-century peasant, guided by the old Bible.
This year has brought some major changes in the life of the Siberian hermit.
Agafia moved into a new home after years of living in an old hut built by her father 80 years ago.
She also agreed to accept a solar panel to keep her satellite phone charged, the only way to communicate with the outside world in the remote corner of the Western Sayan Mountains.
Information about Agafia’s life came from Viktor Nepomnyashchy, director of the Khakass Nature Reserve, after a recent helicopter flight to the recluse.
‘We delivered parcels, letters, gifts and a solar panel, which was installed by volunteers. Agafia showed me the new house. Now she has six goats, three cats and a dog named Flower.”
Priest Georgy from Orenburg will be staying with Agafia to help her through the winter months,” said Viktor.
Agafia Lykova was the last survivor of a family of Orthodox Old Believers who went into the woods in 1936 to escape religious persecution in Stalinist Russia.
Hermit Agafya Lykova pictured in early 1980s
Hermit Agafya Lykova gets a solar panel to keep her satellite phone charged. For most of her life Afafya, 77, has has lived as a peasant from the 18th century, guided by an old Bible
Hermit Agafya Lykova pictured in early 1980s
Hermit Agafya Lykova gets a solar panel to keep her satellite phone charged. For most of her life Afafya, 77, has has lived as a peasant from the 18th century, guided by an old Bible
Aerial view of Agafya and her late parents house in the remote corner of the Western Sayan Mountains
Hermit Agafya Lykova with her father Karl (left) and Krasnoyarsk professor Igor Nazarov (right)
Hermit Agafya Lykova pictured aged 72
They were discovered decades later in 1978 when a group of geologists spotted them from the air on a remote mountainside near the Yerinat River in the Abakan Range in southwestern Siberia.
When they were found, they had no idea that World War II had begun or ended.
Agafia was the fourth child in the family of Karp and Akulina Lykov, and for the first 35 years of her life she had no contact at all with anyone outside her family.
Her mother died in 1961 and her father died in 1988.
Agafia’s new home, a simple one-story wooden hut, a solar panel, and a recent helicopter trip to a remote part of the Sayan Mountains were paid for by businessman Oleg Deripaska.
