The Story Of A 20th Century Swiss Family Robinson...In Siberia

Imagine this: a family of six, living for more than 40 years in an isolated tiny cabin on the vast Siberian Taiga. If this were the 19th century, it might not be so far-fetched. But, it was 1978 when four geologists prospecting for iron discovered the Lykovs. Patriarch Karp Lykov and his wife, Akulina, fled the Soviet purges of the 1930s and headed for the forest where they raised their children, completely unaware of WWII, the moon landing, the cold war, or the advent of television.

Author Mike Dash wrote in the Smithsonian Magazine about the life the Lykov family chose to live before and after their so-called “re-discovery.”