Children of the Taiga
In 1978, a helicopter flying over the taiga – an immense wilderness stretching from the furthest tip of Russia’s arctic regions to as far south as Mongola – spotted something unusual below: a clearing, 6000ft up a mountain. They concluded that it was evidence of human habitation though it was 150 miles from the nearest settlement and authorities had no records of anyone living there.
Led by Galina Pismenskaya an investigative group “chose a fine day and put gifts in our packs for our prospective friends”—though, just to be sure, she recalled, “I did check the pistol that hung at my side”. Making their way up the mountain they came across signs of human activity: a rough path, a staff, a log laid across a stream, and a small shed filled with cut-up dried potatoes. Then:
“a very old man emerged … Barefoot. Wearing a patched and repatched shirt made of sacking … He looked frightened … We had to say something, so I began: ‘Greetings, grandfather! We’ve come to visit!’ … Finally we heard a soft, uncertain voice: ‘Well, since you have travelled this far, you might as well come in.’”
Over several visits the story of the family emerged. The man was Karp Lykov, an Old Believer – a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthadox sect, worshiping in a style unchanged since the 1600s. Old Believers had been persecuted since the days of Peter the Great, and Lykov talked about it as though it had happened only yesterday. Ever since they had retreated further and further from civilization.
There were four children. Two had been born in the wild and had never seen a human being who was not a family member. They were educated using prayer books; were not aware that WWII had occurred, and lived permanently on the edge of famine. Karp’s wife died of starvation in 1961, choosing to see her children eat after snow in June ruined their crops.
Karp was delighted by the innovations the scientists showed him, and though he steadfastly refused to believe that man had set foot on the moon, he adapted swiftly to the idea of satellites. They had noticed them as early as the 1950s, when “the stars began to go quickly across the sky,” and Karp conceived a theory that: “People have thought something up and are sending out fires that are very like stars.”
Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Lykovs’ strange story was the rapidity with which the family went into decline after they re-established contact with the outside world. In the fall of 1981, three of the four children died within a few days of one another. Their deaths were not, as might have been expected, the result of exposure to diseases to which they had no immunity.
When they had been buried, the geologists attempted to talk Karp and his daughter into leaving the forest but neither would hear of it. Karp died in his sleep in 1988 and was buried on the mountain. His daughter would stay, she said—as indeed she has. 25 years later, now in her seventies, this child of the taiga lives on alone, high above the Abakan.
[This is a heavily edited version of a Smithsonian Magazine article and I highly recommend you read the whole thing. Thanks to Vintage-Royalty]
![Typhoid Mary
Mary Mallon [foreground above] was born in Northern Ireland in 1869 but emigrated to the USA in ‘84. She worked as a cook in New York, where, within two weeks of her first employment, the residents developed typhoid fever. After this, each family for whom Mary worked invariably became ill with typhoid. Wherever Mary went outbreaks followed her. When one family she worked for rented a house in Oyster Bay for the summer, six of the eleven people in the house came down with typhoid, a disease said by local doctors to be “unusual” at that time.
Typhoid researcher George Soper was hired to investigate. He published his results saying he believed soft clams might be the source of the outbreak and that:
“It was found that the family changed cooks … about three weeks before the typhoid epidemic broke out. She remained in the family only a short time, leaving about three weeks after the outbreak occurred. The cook was described as an Irish woman about 40 years of age, tall, heavy, single. She seemed to be in perfect health.”
No one knew her whereabouts but eventually Soper traced her to an active outbreak in a Park Avenue penthouse. When Soper approached Mallon she adamantly rejected his request for urine and stool samples.
The New York City Health Department sent Dr. Sara Josephine Baker to talk to Mary but still she refused to cooperate, believing she was being persecuted because she was an immigrant. A few days later, Baker arrived at Mary’s workplace with several police officers who took her into custody. Cultures of Mary’s urine and stools, taken forcibly with the help of prison matrons, revealed that her gallbladder was teeming with typhoid salmonella. She refused to have her gallbladder extracted or to give up her occupation as cook, maintaining stubbornly that she did not carry any disease.
She was held in isolation for three years until, in 1910, she agreed that she “[was] prepared to change her occupation, and would give assurance by affidavit that she would upon her release take such hygienic precautions as would protect those with whom she came in contact”. Upon release, Mallon was given a job as a laundress, which paid lower wages, so she changed her name to Mary Brown and returned to her previous occupation as a cook. For the next five years, she went through a series of kitchens, spreading illness and death, keeping one step ahead of Soper.
In 1915, a serious epidemic of typhoid erupted among the staff of a hospital, with twenty five cases and two deaths. City health authorities investigated, learning that a portly Irish-American woman had suddenly disappeared from the kitchen help. The police tracked her to an estate on Long Island. Mary spent the rest of her life in quarantine until, aged 69, she died of pneumonia.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/0e0d04b65299d5f39a7972999dee6b46/tumblr_mgzwrivqj91rnseozo1_1280.jpg)
![Fur-Bearing Trout
The fur-bearing trout is a fictional creature native to northern regions of North America. The basic claim is that the waters of lakes and rivers in the area are so cold that a species of trout has evolved which grows a thick coat of fur to maintain its body heat.
In reality, a possible source may have been a simple misunderstanding. A 17th century Scottish immigrant’s letter to his relatives referring “furried animals and fish” being plentiful in the New World, followed by a request to procure a specimen of these “furried fish” to which the mischievous Scotsman readily complied by making one up, is often cited. In fact, the “cotton mold” Saprolegnia will sometimes infect fish, causing tufts of fur-like growth to appear on the body.
The hoax can be unequivocally documented to go back to at least the 1930s. Following is an excerpt from an article in the Pueblo Chieftain dating back to November 15, 1938:
“Old-timers living along the Arkansas River near Salida have told tales for many years of the fur-bearing trout indigenous to the waters of the Arkansas … Tourists and other tenderfoot in particular have been regaled with accounts of the unusual fish, and Salidans of good reputation have been wont to relate that the authenticity of their stories has never been questioned—in fact, they’re willing to bet it’s never even been suspected.Then, last week, out of Pratt, Kansas, where water in any quantity large enough to hold a trout—fur-bearing or otherwise—is a rarity, came an urgent request for proof of the existence of the furry fin flappers. Upon the sturdy shoulders of Wilbur B. Foshay, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, fell the delicate task of informing the credulous Kansan, without detracting from the obvious tourist-attracting qualities of the pelted piscatorial prizes. With admirable diplomacy, and considerable aplomb, Foshay dispatched posthaste a photograph of the fish, obtained from a Salida photographer and told the Kansan to use his own judgment as to the authenticity of the species. The photograph sent has been available in Salida for some time.”*
Stuffed and mounted specimens of these fish can be found in a number of museums of curiosities. These are made-up; the Saprolegnia ”fur” cannot be preserved by taxidermy. [Source]
* The use of the English language in this paragraph is beautiful!
[Credit MUST be given to The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things for this, an impeccable blog filled with all kinds of ridiculously interesting things..!]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me5zga9gus1rnseozo1_500.jpg)
