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Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years (Full Length)

7 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
4 HN users recommended this documentary4 months2014–2023 score 4.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

It is linked in threads about the Lykov family as an on-location look at the environment they survived in.

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.

“I highly recommend it for anyone interested.” (HN, 2014)

1 strong recommendations · 3 recommendations · 5 citations · 1 critical · Documentaries

10 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@verylittlemeat Dec 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Early humans may have survived the harsh winters by hibernating
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]
Family fled into the taiga for 70 years.
@Rendello Sep 2023 Recommends
on HN thread Yenish people
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]
Family that escaped to the taiga in 1936.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@dogma1138 Aug 2015 Cites it
on HN thread A Russian Family Was Isolated for 40 Years, Unaware of WWII (2013)
VICE has made a documentary about Agafia who is still alive and is still living in the wilderness. [this video] It's quite amazing that some one at 72 who grew up malnourished and without access to modern medicine can still be in a good enough shape to survive in one of the harshest environments man has ever lived.
Documentary on Agafia, still living in the wilderness.
@Pyxl101 Aug 2015 Cites it
on HN thread A Russian Family Was Isolated for 40 Years, Unaware of WWII (2013)
Read more
You take such a mature and balanced approach toward content on the site. The content is interesting and thought provoking. It's why HN is my primary source of daily news. Please keep it up! I'm now watching the 35 minute documentary about Agafia and surviving in the Siberian wilderness. [this video] A metaphor just occurred to me: Hacker News is like a better Internet version of what the Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel used to be in their golden days (back when MTV played music videos, before reality TV). HN is much better than that, since those were still TV, and did not cover business and leadership, but that's the best analogy I can come up with at the moment. I get far more out of reading HN-provided links and comments for hours than I ever did TV.
35 minute documentary on surviving in Siberian wilderness.
@Strom Mar 2016 Cites it
on HN thread Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?
Isolated families surviving does happen indeed. A good example is the Lykov family who were completely isolated for over 40 years. [1][2] However they brought with them tools made by others before starting their isolated life, like steel axes. They also imported education & language. I haven't heard of any isolated family success stories that start without any external help. -- [1] [link] [2] [this video]
@dominotw Jul 2016 Cites it
on HN thread The new science of cute
>Supposedly cats are technically not domesticated I have a Siberian cat from a breeder and I've compared him to pictures of Siberian cats that live in Siberian forest(in videos of [link] , i saw some of her cats. You can see one here [this video] ) and mine's definitely much more "cuter" .
@crispyambulance Jan 2021 Pushes back
on HN thread Stop the “Hard Work” Obsession
Read more
> 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!

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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