[1] The family of six spent 42 years in partial isolation from human society in an otherwise uninhabited upland of Abakan Range, in Tashtypsky District of Khakassia (southern Siberia).
[2] Their story became well known following the 1994 publication of Lost in the Taiga: One Russian Family's Fifty-Year Struggle for Survival and Religious Freedom in the Siberian Wilderness by journalist Vasily Peskov.
He is survived by his daughter Agafia Lykova, who has over the years accumulated a herd of goats and flock of chickens and has built herself a decent hut.
[8][citation needed] In that same year, Agafia received a helper, 53-year-old Georgy Danilov from Orenburg, who came to her residence answering an open letter she had written requesting such.
[citation needed] In 2016, she was airlifted out to a hospital in Tashtagol, Russia, from her remote location near the Russian borders with Kazakhstan and with Mongolia.
[citation needed] During her isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, author Elizabeth Gilbert heard about the family and was inspired to write a novel, The Snow Forest.