
For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact - Anon84
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2013/01/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii/
======
georgecmu
_Lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing
prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion._

It's interesting that they stumbled on the persistence hunting technique so
naturally. Indirect evidence to support the Endurance running hypothesis
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis>).

~~~
pav3l
Whoever is interested, here are two very good academic articles about
persistent hunting (subscription required):

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/508695>

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248408...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248408001358)

Also, here is a video of a modern persistent hunter
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o>

~~~
resatori
How do they bring the prey home after hunting it 30km?

~~~
pav3l
Endurance hunting is rarely a straight line race. Here is an example of a
route for one of those hunts (it's from my first link):
[http://www.jstor.org/literatum/publisher/jstor/journals/cont...](http://www.jstor.org/literatum/publisher/jstor/journals/content/curranth/2006/ca.2006.47.issue-6/508695/production/images/large/fg2.jpeg)

As you can see, even though the overall distance is 25.1 km, the straight line
distance between the start and finish is less than a mile.

------
kenjackson
As a boy there was a common game that friends would play, which was -- if
Newton were to come back today, what technology would he be most shocked
about.

I found this quote interesting, and I think shows how hard it may be to
predict such things:

 _"What amazed him most of all," Peskov recorded, "was a transparent
cellophane package. 'Lord, what have they thought up—it is glass, but it
crumples!'"_

~~~
callmevlad
My grandfather was born in Abakan, and published several books on the history
of the region. He visited Agafia several times by helicopter with my uncle,
after the other members of her family had passed.

When I was around 15, he showed me a video of their first encounter with her,
and to this day I cannot get the image of the pure terror on her face out of
my mind. She had multiple visitors before, but something about this visit
scared her so much that she hid inside for hours.

It turned out that this was the first visit where someone in the crew had
brought video equipment (one of those big shoulder-mounted VHS cameras), and
Agafia would later tell my grandfather that she thought this thing would
'steal her soul.' She wasn't shocked in amazement at the new technology, this
was pure fear.

Reminds me of one of the early silent film The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat
Station [1], which allegedly was so realistic that people ran out of the movie
theater screaming.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LArriv%C3%A9e_dun_train_en_gare...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LArriv%C3%A9e_dun_train_en_gare_de_La_Ciotat)

~~~
scoot
_It turned out that this was the first visit where someone in the crew had
brought video equipment, and Agafia would later tell my grandfather that she
thought this thing would 'steal her soul.'_

Sorry? It might as well have been a log on his shoulder.

Now, if it was viewing video of herself on this camera that brought a look of
"pure terror" to her face (that you can't get out of your mind to this day, no
less) I could begin to understand, but if she was watching a video replay on
the camera, then how was it being recorded?

With no prior knowledge of video or photography what basis would she have for
belief that the random equipment on a videographers shoulder would "steal her
soul"?

~~~
callmevlad
The video was shot on approach to her home/shack from the helicopter (which
was a ways off). I called my dad to see if he can locate the video somehow (my
grandfather passed away several months ago), and I'm trying to find the book
he wrote which touches on this experience.

This is vague recollection at this point, but I do believe that the family did
have knowledge of photography (my grandfather visited her 10+ years after this
family became 'famous' through Russian press) and the father did not approve
of their pictures being taken at first. I can see how that, combined with
their deeply religious and isolated world view, could have been a cause for
her superstition.

------
cdjk
Dick Proenneke (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke>) did
something similar in Alaska. He lived alone, but brought supplies in, had a
wood stove, a rifle, and even spent the occasional winter in civilization. He
wrote a book about his first couple years:

[http://www.amazon.com/One-Mans-Wilderness-Alaskan-
Odyssey/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/One-Mans-Wilderness-Alaskan-
Odyssey/dp/0882405136)

It suffers a little from some heavy editing, but is very interesting. There's
also a video that airs on PBS every so often, which is worth watching. He died
in 2003, but left his cabin to the National Park Service.

I've been to his cabin, and it's been preserved as he left it. It's amazing
what he was able to make with simple tools. The door is particularly neat -
the hinges and bear-proof lock are made entirely of wood.

Sometimes it makes me want to move to Alaska and build a cabin. Internet
connectivity is a bit of a problem, but I suppose that's the point.

~~~
avoutthere
As did a man named Sylvan Hart. In the 1930s escaped the Great Depression by
settling in north-central Idaho and lived out his days there alone until his
death in 1980. He put his engineering education to good use, mining ore and
smelting it to make tools, as well as hunting and farming to sustain himself.

[http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1...](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1079108/index.htm)

~~~
tobiasu
Thanks for linking to that, great story!

------
throwmeaway33
"When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short
months it can seem almost welcoming."

Hahaha. This guy has no idea what he's talking about. As someone who has been
in the taiga in the summer, it's absolutely horrible. The air is alive with
mosquitoes. There are clouds of them around you 24/7. The place is just
permafrost and swamps. It's really pretty, but a miserable place to live.
That's why there is no on there.

~~~
grecy
Which is welcoming compared to winter. Trust me, when summer finally comes and
there are actual green things an animals and berries around, mosquitoes can be
tolerated

(I live above 60 degrees north - it's well past -40 here today)

~~~
pyre
Note: -40C == -40F, so grecy doesn't need to specify the units[1]!

[1] Unless he's using Kelvins.

~~~
mcherm
With a reading of -40, I'm fairly certain* he's not using Kelvins.

[*] Sometimes negative temperatures are used to represent temperatures ABOVE
infinity. That's when high-energy quantum states are MORE populated than low-
energy quantum states... it's useful for things like making a laser. But I
still think it's unreasonable to believe that the temperature outside is -40
kelvin.

~~~
gokfar
What do you mean by 'above infinity'?

~~~
defen
In a nutshell, if you put a negative temperature object A in contact with any
object B with a positive temperature, energy will flow from A -> B, regardless
of how high B's temperature is. This is the opposite of everyday positive
temperatures, where energy will flow from the high-temperature object to the
low-temperature one. So in a sense you could say that the temperature of A is
"above infinity".

------
lkrubner
There were 4 children, and one died. I have often wondered why the world's
homo sapien population did not grow faster during the period 200,000 BC to
10,000 BC. In his book Extinct Humans, Ian Tattersall has argued that fully
modern homo sapiens took shape around 200,000 BC and left Africa around
150,000 BC. [http://www.amazon.com/Extinct-Humans-Ian-
Tattersall/dp/08133...](http://www.amazon.com/Extinct-Humans-Ian-
Tattersall/dp/0813339189)

The growth of the population was very slow. Someone suggested that at their
peak there were 100 million bison worldwide, but it seems to have taken most
of human history to catch up with the bison -- we seem to have hit that number
only when we began agriculture. As late as the year 1300, the historian
Fernand Braudel estimates a world wide population of only 500 million people.
We became one of the most successful species in the history of the planet, so
why wasn't there faster growth, for such a long time?

That question interests me, so it also interests me that a family, living
alone, with fanatic Christian fundamentalist beliefs and no access to
contraceptives, still only ends up having 3 surviving children -- not a whole
lot in excess of the replacement rate.

Something similar to this must have been going on for many thousands of years.

~~~
madaxe
Also, don't forget that agriculture only arose recently, in the grand scale of
things - somewhere around 20,000 years ago, and these folks had agriculture -
in fact, their suffering is largely based around the fact that they're
attempting agriculture in isolation, which doesn't really work with a "tribe"
of their scale. You have to have trade, as, as we saw with them, if you lose
your seed stock (carrots, almost rye), you're up the proverbial creek. It took
second generation wilderness upbringing for what sounds like a instinctive
hunting technique - i.e. chase the animal for days until it falls over
exhausted, and kill it - this is how some Sub-Saharan cultures have hunted
(and may in fact still) for millenia - Khoi, for instance, and is likely
actually how humans have hunted since we descended onto the plains. We have no
claws or fangs, just a physiology perfectly adapted for running long, long
distances. I digress.

Another factor is that crops have changed _vastly_ since the start of
agriculture, which is also a major factor in the relative growth rate of human
population (along with disease, which arose hand in hand with agriculture, of
course) - see Teosinte vs. Corn, and Emmer Wheat vs. Durum. Same plants,
shaped by man's hand since time immemorial by selective breeding.

So, yeah. These guys actually had it really well off compared to historic
humans, as they had agriculture, but it doesn't function well in isolation,
particularly in such a harsh environment as the taiga - don't forget the place
used to be inundated with hunter-gatherers before everyone migrated for the
cushy disease and war-ridden life agriculture offers.

Survival was a bitch until we figured out farming and trade - and it's
improved over the last 150 years or so due to modern medicine (lower infant
and adult mortality), improved crops (green revolution), improved productivity
(industrial revolution), and all the rest.

~~~
Androsynth
>before everyone migrated for the cushy disease and war-ridden life
agriculture offers

Cushy unless youre a peasant.

>Survival was a bitch until we figured out farming and trade

I think this is a misconception leftover from earlier eras. But I don't think
it is the commonly accepted scientific viewpoint anymore. see:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society>

------
Florin_Andrei
> _Old Karp was usually delighted by the latest innovations that the
> scientists brought up from their camp, and though he steadfastly refused to
> believe that man had set foot on the moon, he adapted swiftly to the idea of
> satellites. The Lykovs had noticed them as early as the 1950s, when "the
> stars began to go quickly across the sky," and Karp himself conceived a
> theory to explain this: "People have thought something up and are sending
> out fires that are very like stars."_

WOW.

~~~
saalweachter
It makes me a little jealous of the quality of sky they must have had.

~~~
Someone
It isn't that hard to see satellites in the sky. The ISS, in particular, can
be very bright, to the point where you can see it in daylight
(<http://www.hobbyspace.com/SatWatching/>,
[http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2009/06/18/how-to-
se...](http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2009/06/18/how-to-see-the-iss-
in-broad-daylight/))

The 1950 ones would have been a lot harder to spot, of course, but might at
times have reflected the light of the below-the-horizon sun.

~~~
amolsarva
I have seen the ISS. In New York city! Flying past the tops of buildings.
<http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/>

~~~
conradfr
Cool application !

And done with Bootstrap ;)

------
jnhasty
In 2010 Werner Herzog released a documentary about trappers and their families
living in the Taiga. It's called "Happy People":

<http://www.wernerherzog.com/62.html>

I really recommend it. The people survive their arduous living conditions by
continually preparing for the next season. They've done the same things more
or less for generations, always working, and pretty much cut off from modern
civilization. Makes you realize how happiness is a fairly relative value.
Their lives are completely defined by the need to survive, and as long as
that's accomplished things are good.

~~~
shortlived
FYI - for those trying to find this online: The full docu is about 130 minutes
long and has professional English voice overs [1]. There are a few copies on
youtube with subtitles, but they are missing about 30-40 minutes.

[1]
[http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6866374/Happy_People_A_Year_I...](http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6866374/Happy_People_A_Year_In_TheTaiga_x264_AC3_)

------
seanalltogether
I found this post which indicates that Agafia is still alive and now trying to
recruit church followers to live in the mountains with her.
[http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/363063/A...](http://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/363063/Appeal%20from%20Agafia%20Lykova%20of%20L)

~~~
jusben1369
Ouch. Trying to recruit church followers? A bit cavalier with that description
I feel. "With a great big bow to request of all: I need a man as an assistant,
one whom I will not survive, [who] lives so not good, with weeks of being
alone. Do not leave me for Christ's sake. Have mercy upon a wretched orphan,
who is in trouble [and] suffering."

~~~
seanalltogether
Both you and greghinch seem to have a very negative association with that
word. Maybe having grown up in the church, I don't see that word from the same
angle as the two of you.

~~~
jusben1369
Well removing the emotion it's just a very inaccurate way to describe what
appears to be happening.

~~~
brianpan
I believe you misread- he's saying she's writing to the church to ask someone
to join her. The audience is clear- the post is on the church website for
church members to read. He's not trying to say that she's doing the much
harder task of recruiting someone to the church and also to live with her.

> trying to recruit church followers to live in the mountains with her

------
goatforce5
The last 'first contact' with a group of Australian Aboriginals was made in
1984.

[http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/lost-tribe-
happy-i...](http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/lost-tribe-happy-in-
modern-world/story-e6frf7l6-1111112932308)

I had heard a version of that story where the brother who returned to the
traditional life was believed to still be out roaming the desert, and if they
saw smoke in the distance they knew it to be him but they'd stay away and
leave him be.

That version of the story also had someone explained the terror of seeing a
motor vehicle for the first time, followed by (relatively) fat people coming
out - believed to be cannibals (how else could you get so fat?) - and their
first sighting of a white man. That's quite a lot to take in over a few
minutes.

~~~
dorian-graph
I lived in the Philippines for two years and while it seems a good majority of
the population are used to seeing white people I had a few instances where I
was the first white person they had ever seen.

Some children were absolutely horrified and ran away screaming and crying!
They have a very superstitious culture and have many different types of
'aswang' which translates roughly to 'monster'. We had learnt the local
dialect(s) and that terrified them even more, oddly enough, at first. Most of
them warmed up to us pretty quickly though not all.

~~~
ninjafox
Filipinos most likely to incorporate what they see as strange outside their
norms to an Aswang, It so famous that it was used to tame a child if they
misbehave, so as a child here you get 'programmed' for the fear of it...I
started to create a blog about Aswang do check it out
[http://creaturesofmidnight.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-
aswang.h...](http://creaturesofmidnight.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-aswang.html)

------
catch23
_The daughters spoke a language distorted by a lifetime of isolation. "When
the sisters talked to each other, it sounded like a slow, blurred cooing."_

It's interesting how isolation does to a spoken language in only one
generation. I'm guessing they had nobody but themselves to talk to, so any
mispronunciation would be greatly exaggerated.

~~~
ahoyhere
My husband & I lived in Vienna and we were the only people who spoke out loud
to each other on a daily basis (especially in English), and we understand each
other very very well in any case, and we got the point where we often didn't
even speak in complete sentences over a mere matter of months. When we
traveled abroad for a month in an English-speaking country, it took me several
days to feel like I was making sense to strangers again! After that I made
sure never to go so long without talking to other people out loud again.

~~~
dalke
I found that my own English changed after being in Sweden for a few months. I
learned to pronounce 'r's and 't's and make a few other changes so that local
people could understand my American accent better. Then upon returning to the
US I had to unlearn those habits.

~~~
ahoyhere
Me too. It's amazing what you do to get by. You probably simplified your
vocabulary some too, I expect? I know I did. Living in Austria was hell on my
previously prodigious vocab!

------
aeontech
Here's some fairly recent photos of Agafia and her companion Erofei.

[http://www.panoramio.com/photo/7516964?tag=%D0%9B%D1%8B%D0%B...](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/7516964?tag=%D0%9B%D1%8B%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%BA%D0%B0)

------
sakopov
I just glanced at this story. I'm actually familiar with this family and used
to read a lot about them in early 90s. In fact, Peskov used to write pretty
frequently about them in "Komsomolskaya Pravda," a very popular newspaper
publication in Russia, ever since he located the family. He even found
relatives of this family who invited Agafia to live with them, but she
declined. Really interesting and kind of makes you think about the vastness of
Siberian wilderness and that this kind of stuff is even possible in today's
day and age.

------
vardoger
It's absolutely astonishing to me that there could still be people out there,
even in what's termed wilderness, who have never encountered the modernities
of the society we inhabit - that for an all but unknown few the world is still
just what lies outside their front door.

I feel true sadness for the Lykov's, being 'discovered', then somewhat forced
by the intrusion of others to be aware of their greater surroundings and soon
thereafter the father and sister seeing the rest of their family felled in
quick succession.

~~~
unreal37
There is also at least one tribe in South America that has never been
contacted by the outside world.

<http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/brazilfootage>

~~~
will_brown
There are a number of tribes along the Amazon who have never been contacted by
the outside World, for example Brazil actively tries to identify isolated
Indian tribes by fly-over but a policy to not contact them. Here is a story
about drug traffickers massacring one of the documented, but uncontacted
tribes: [http://www.ibtimes.com/uncontacted-amazon-tribe-massacred-
pe...](http://www.ibtimes.com/uncontacted-amazon-tribe-massacred-peruvian-
drug-traffickers-829975)

~~~
nandemo
Just to clarify: in Brazil, those "uncontacted" tribes include many (probably
a majority) that have had contact with the outside world in the past. However,
they currently have no ongoing contact, and the Brazilian authorities don't
have enough data about them from the previous attempt at contact.

In some cases, they might have had a less than pleasant experience when they
were first contacted by explorers or loggers. Nowadays, while they'd be in
danger should they meet illegal loggers and the like, it shouldn't be
dangerous for them to contact the authorities. However, their memory from the
initial encounter might have been passed on for generations.

Also, as you say, the Brazilian agency in charge of documenting and protecting
the Indians has a policy of not forcing contact. So those tribes can remain
uncontacted indefinitely.

The page below has more info. Use your favorite translator.

[http://mundoestranho.abril.com.br/materia/ainda-existem-
trib...](http://mundoestranho.abril.com.br/materia/ainda-existem-tribos-de-
indios-sem-contato-com-os-brancos-na-amazonia)

------
z-factor
Here's a recent video of the last survivor:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWPnm0JWG0>

------
jofo25
It would be cool to isolate yourself just to return and be blown away by all
the technological advancements made. Probably not worth it overall though.

~~~
grecy
I spent two years camping and hiking in remote parts of Central and South
America, and on the plane on the way home I genuinely thought I was looking at
the future when I saw my first iPad.

~~~
lostlogin
I thought (and think) that and I was around the whole time. Then I set a few
up, and realised that until the password situation is resolved, we're stuck
with the present.

------
thinkmorebetter
Latest report in the Russian news. Non-speakers will have to use the crappy
English cc. She's still out there and seems to be doing well. She now has a
neighbor whom she visits once a week to listen to the radio.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQv0mg9TEaY&feature=yout...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQv0mg9TEaY&feature=youtu.be)

------
redwood
Another reminder of the value of hemp.

~~~
leke
If I knew that I was going to live off somewhere remote for the next 40 years,
a handful of hemp seed and the knowledge to weave would be one of my essential
requirements. Well that and Jessica Biel.

------
scrapcode
This is absolutely amazing. This woman is more of a man than any man I know,
living in some desolate valley for all of those years now absolutely ALONE?
One word: Wow.

~~~
cowpewter
Not to start drama, but that's a bit sexist, isn't it? Can't she just be
'stronger than any person you know'? There's nothing inherently 'manly' about
being a strong independent person.

~~~
Xcelerate
> Not to start drama, but that's a bit sexist, isn't it?

There's absolutely nothing sexist at all about the post. It was a compliment,
geez.

> Can't she just be 'stronger than any person you know'?

No, men are generally stronger than women; it's why we have different
classifications in sports. Would you rather we lumped them together?

~~~
seldo
Complimenting a woman by saying she's like a man is pretty much the definition
of sexism.

~~~
Xcelerate
Sheesh... Let me translate the post for you:

"This woman is so good that a certain physical difference between genders that
has historically been regarded a prestigious male trait can be made even more
of a compliment by giving it to a woman".

I don't understand the obsession I find online of people searching for insults
and controversies that don't exist.

~~~
seldo
I know that's what you meant. Regarding male-only traits as prestigious
implies that they are superior to female-only traits. That implication is
sexism. Whether or not you think sexism is insulting -- and it appears you do
not -- it was definitely sexism. And other people find sexism insulting.

~~~
Xcelerate
> Regarding male-only traits as prestigious implies that they are superior to
> female-only traits

Nope. It in no way implies that. That was an assumption you made. _Among_ male
traits, strength has historically been prestigious. How on earth is that
implying female-only traits are inferior? Give me a first-order logic chain or
something here because I'm not seeing the inferences.

> Whether or not you think sexism is insulting

I do think sexism is insulting. His post was not sexism.

------
dmazin
Here's an update from March 2012: <http://www.1tv.ru/news/sport/201780> You
can hear her speak around 50 seconds in. She says she's very sick.

One thing I didn't realise until I talked to my grandma is how famous she is
in Russia, but it makes sense.

------
arb99
May have been posted in another comment (couldn't see it) but apparently this
is the location ( found on a reddit comment) on google maps
[https://maps.google.com/?ll=51.460852,88.427083&spn=0.00...](https://maps.google.com/?ll=51.460852,88.427083&spn=0.002289,0.006094&t=h&z=18)

------
pertinhower
Minecraft LARP.

------
sampo
This book, mentioned in the Sources of the article, is (obviously) a book
length account of the contacts between the Russian geologists and the Lykov
family. Probably translated to several other languages as well.

Vasily Peskov. Lost in the Taiga: One Russian Family's Fifty-Year Struggle for
Survival and Religious Freedom in the Siberian Wilderness. New York:
Doubleday, 1992

------
bdunn
This would have made for a great Lovecraft story.

------
arbuge
One thing you learn from these people is that there certainly is another way
besides the rat race... I mean, for 40 years they had zero income in
conventional terms and survived, if not very comfortably.

ps. YMMV. You could call withdrawal from the rat race a comfort that makes the
lack of physical comforts seem small in proportion.

------
sixQuarks
How did they tell their kids about the birds and the bees? Must have been very
awkward as a teenager.

~~~
freehunter
How so? Humans survived for quite some time indeed without the concept of
hiding sexuality from children. I would imagine in prehistory, the birds and
the bees was explained through visual observation of your elders or just by
figuring it out when the urge arose. Sex doesn't really need to be explained
or defined unless you have a need to put it into context of cultural
acceptance (which doesn't matter in this case).

In this case, with the people being heavily religious (and not knowing much
about their religion), it may have been handled differently. It just didn't
need to be.

~~~
DanBC
> How so?

Because of the incest taboo.

~~~
freehunter
Depending on how their created civilization viewed sexuality, there might not
be this created taboo. There might be the natural aversion to incest, or there
might not be. Since they were religious, there might be religious reasons to
abstain. If the kids are that heavily religious that they are terrified of
modern technology etc, it seems doubtful they would struggle too much with
resisting temptation.

That's just my take on the matter.

~~~
nandemo
They didn't create a new civilization. The couple was born and raised in
Russia. Their religion was a sort of Russian Orthodoxy. Whatever quirks they
had, it's pretty fair to assume that they had an incest taboo (as do
practically all human societies).

On the other hand, it's not obvious at all that resisting breaking that taboo
would be as easy as not using modern technology. This was hinted in one of the
book's reviews on Amazon:

> _A spectra haunted this group, as well as other remote old believers -
> incest! Peskov never can definitely state this is the reason why the two
> brothers established separate dwellings six kilometers from the main housing
> unit, but certainly it is high on the speculation list._

[http://www.amazon.com/review/R2TGXPO509YNC0/ref=cm_cr_dp_tit...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R2TGXPO509YNC0/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0385472099&channel=detail-
glance&nodeID=283155&store=books)

~~~
lostlogin
I'd say that the taboo is now stronger than it has been. I'm half way through
the excellent Montefiore book Jeresulem, the biography, and royal families and
leader mentioned in it definitely didn't have strong taboos here. This may
just be a ruling class thing I suppose. Link to book review as the book is
fascinating. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/16/jerusalem-
biogra...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/16/jerusalem-biography-
sebag-montefiore-review)

------
senthilnayagam
Jarawa tribe which lives in Andaman, face extinction after coming with contact
with civilisation

~~~
LatvjuAvs
Think about it as a transformation. Do not delve into death as some sort of
full stop for entity.

Everyone will extinct at some point, to avoid it, stop fighting it.

------
DanBC
Are there any Google maps urls?

~~~
gameshot911
[https://maps.google.com/?ll=51.460852,88.427083&spn=0.00...](https://maps.google.com/?ll=51.460852,88.427083&spn=0.002289,0.006094&t=h&z=18)

------
habosa
The link seems to be non responsive. Does anyone know of a mirror?

~~~
lambda
Works fro me. But if it's not working for you, you could always try the Coral
Cache link, by adding .nyud.net to the end of the domain:

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com.nyud.net/history-
archaeology/F...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com.nyud.net/history-
archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-
Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html)

~~~
diggan
Myself use Pocket for reading articles but was interested in the link you
provided. However, doesn't seems as it's working. Can't even access the domain
nyud.net.

------
RivieraKid
> having slept in the open in 40 degrees of frost

How can someone survive that?

------
sergiotapia
And I thought Thanksgiving with my folks was bad...

------
itsjustme
Can anyone spot the site on HERE or Google maps?

------
bostonpete
> having slept in the open in 40 degrees of frost

I'm no scientist, but I don't believe frost forms until 32 degrees. Maybe this
was a mistranslation...?

~~~
FireBeyond
I've been reading a book called "Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places
" ([http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Adventures-Worlds-Frozen-
Places/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Adventures-Worlds-Frozen-
Places/dp/B005OHSZ2Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359499768&sr=8-1&keywords=cold)):

"One degree of frost was one degree below freezing Fahrenheit. An explorer
might write in his journal of fifty degrees of frost - negative eighteen
degrees Fahrenheit"

~~~
kalleboo
Fahrenheit just gets more and more confusing

------
photorized
I went to school with their relative in Russia.

CSB

------
RDeckard
Пипец.

~~~
gameshot911
Kick?

~~~
RDeckard
<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pizdets>

------
angersock
To be fair, the plight of the Lisp developer has come a long way since those
dark days.

~~~
gnarbarian
Still no beard combs though.

------
kahawe
It is just baffling to me how they were able to pull that off for 40 years and
raise infant kids as well with practically no experience or training and no
way out, after they had to leave so suddenly - when in comparison, Christopher
McCandless (alex supertramp) barely made it four months with arguably better
equipment, shelter and under overall better weather conditions. And
considerably VERY nearby ways out.

