Agafya Lykova, The ‘World’s Loneliest Woman’ Who Lived In The Siberian Wilds For 70 Years
@arina_travels/Instagram76-year-old Agafya Lykova has lived isolated in the Siberian mountains for her entire life.
For her entire life, Agafya Lykova has lived in an isolated settlement in the remote wilds of Siberia. Her parents were Orthodox Old Believers and built their remote homestead in 1936, when they took to the forest to escape religious persecution under Joseph Stalin.
The site was roughly 150 miles from the nearest village.
It wasn’t until 40 years later, however, that the Russian government even became aware of the homestead. Soviet geologists accidentally discovered it while surveying the area in 1978.
Lykova’s father, her last surviving family member, died in 1988, but she continued to occupy the family hut on her own, growing crops and raising livestock. As a result of her extreme isolation, many took to calling her “the world’s loneliest woman.”
Over the years, her home fell into disrepair — until it caught the attention of a Russian influencer by the name of Arina Shumakova, who received public criticism for visiting Lykova during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and admitting to giving the elderly woman a hug.
The extra attention, however, seemed to be a blessing in disguise for the elderly hermit. The public pleaded for someone to step in and help restore her home. Eventually, Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska rose to the occasion and offered to help fund a new cabin for Lykova.
While it is a simple cabin by anyone’s standards, it is well-insulated in a way that Lykova’s previous cabin was not — and for her, that’s more than enough.
After reading about some of the world’s most reclusive hermits, learn all about California’s Slab City, where people go to live way off the grid. Or, read about the recent discovery of the “fairly mummified” bodies of a family who tried to live off the grid.
