On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 12:50 AM, Linda <linda_shewan@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> That would correspond to what Anastasia says in the Ringing Cedar Series -
> it amazes me how much of the unbelievable stuff is written in those books
> that then seem to be scientifically discovered or I read articles about...
> Linda
>
"A couple of kettles served them well for many years, but when rust finally
overcame them, the only replacements they could fashion came from birch
bark. Since these could not be placed in a fire, it became far harder to
cook. By the time the Lykovs were discovered, their staple diet was potato
patties mixed with ground rye and hemp seeds".
In some respects, Peskov makes clear, the taiga did offer some abundance:
"Beside the dwelling ran a clear, cold stream. Stands of larch, spruce,
pine and birch yielded all that anyone could take.... Bilberries and
raspberries were close to hand, firewood as well, and pine nuts fell right
on the roof."
Yet the Lykovs lived permanently on the edge of famine. It was not until
the late 1950s, when Dmitry reached manhood, that they first trapped
animals for their meat and skins. Lacking guns and even bows, they could
hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the
animals collapsed from exhaustion. Dmitry built up astonishing endurance,
and could hunt barefoot in winter, sometimes returning to the hut after
several days, having slept in the open in 40 degrees of frost, a young elk
across his shoulders. More often than not, though, there was no meat, and
their diet gradually became more monotonous. Wild animals destroyed their
crop of carrots, and Agafia recalled the late 1950s as "the hungry years."
"We ate the rowanberry leaf," she said,
*roots, grass, mushrooms, potato tops, and bark, We were hungry all the
time. Every year we held a council to decide whether to eat everything up
or leave some for seed.*
Famine was an ever-present danger in these circumstances, and in 1961 it
snowed in June. The hard frost killed everything growing in their garden,
and by spring the family had been reduced to eating shoes and bark. Akulina
chose to see her children fed, and that year she died of starvation. The
rest of the family were saved by what they regarded as a miracle: a single
grain of rye sprouted in their pea patch. The Lykovs put up a fence around
the shoot and guarded it zealously night and day to keep off mice and
squirrels. At harvest time, the solitary spike yielded 18 grains, and from
this they painstakingly rebuilt their rye crop."
That was in 1936, and there were only four Lykovs then—Karp; his wife,
Akulina; a son named Savin, 9 years old, and Natalia, a daughter who was
only 2. Taking their possessions and some seeds, they had retreated ever
deeper into the taiga, building themselves a succession of crude dwelling
places, until at last they had fetched up in this desolate spot. Two more
children had been born in the wild—Dmitry in 1940 and Agafia in 1943—and
neither of the youngest Lykov children had ever seen a human being who was
not a member of their family. All that Agafia and Dmitry knew of the
outside world they learned entirely from their parents' stories. The
family's principal entertainment, the Russian journalist Vasily Peskov
noted, "was for everyone to recount their dreams."
The Lykov children knew there were places called cities where humans lived
crammed together in tall buildings. They had heard there were countries
other than Russia. But such concepts were no more than abstractions to
them. Their only reading matter was prayer books and an ancient family
Bible. Akulina had used the gospels to teach her children to read and
write, using sharpened birch sticks dipped into honeysuckle juice as pen
and ink. When Agafia was shown a picture of a horse, she recognized it from
her mother's Bible stories. "Look, papa," she exclaimed. "A steed!""