A small garden planted on a remote mountainside, miles from any known settlement.
Landing to investigate, they found a crude hut and a family of six, the Lykovs, who had been completely cut off from the world for over 40 years.
The family’s patriarch, Karp Lykov, had fled with his wife Akulina and their two children in 1936. As Old Believers, a traditional branch of the Russian Orthodox Church, they were escaping religious persecution under the atheistic Soviet regime.
For four decades, they survived against all odds. They built their own shelter, made clothes from hemp, crafted shoes from tree bark, and lived on what they could grow, hunt, or forage. 
Two more children were born in the wilderness. None of the children had ever seen another human being outside of their immediate family. They were completely unaware of World War II, the moon landing, or plastic.
Their world was defined by the Bible, which their mother had taught them to read from, and the unforgiving rhythms of nature. 
Contact with the outside world brought both help and heartbreak. The geologists brought gifts of salt, knives, and other essentials. But their arrival also introduced diseases the family had no immunity to.
Akulina had already died of starvation in a harsh winter back in 1961. But in 1981, three of the adult children also passed away from illness. The father, Karp, died in 1988.
This left only the youngest daughter, Agafia Lykova. Despite offers to move to civilization, she chose to remain in the home her family had built.
Agafia continues to live in the Siberian wilderness today, a testament to her family’s incredible story of faith and survival.
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, ‘Lost in the Taiga’ by Vasily Peskov #SurvivalStory #SiberianTaiga #FaithAndIsolation #fblifestyle