Living alone in the wild Siberian forest
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http://travel.ninjito.com/images/2018-03-15-Siberia/qx-baika...
Inspired by the sheer beauty, I went back next year, found another abandoned fisherman's cabin and spent 2 weeks .. existing.
What is definitely true is that your days are very quickly filled with important tasks: skate 5km every other day to get water, trek across the forest to get wood, cut wood, maintain your fire, etc.
Completely astounding experience to be so isolated and independent in nature.
Sylvain Tesson made a documentary about his experience, "Alone, 180 Days on Lake Baikal", https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2127242/
"Happy People: A Year in the Taiga":
The original 4-part documentary, with English narration, is available on the original Russian director's YouTube channel:
It may be better than herzog's version, but it's still inauthentic propaganda. A better view would be a youtube/tiktok/etc of an ordinary person living in the area. It still is limited, but far more authentic and real than any documentary. There are lots to hate about social media is one of the positive aspects is the ability to follow people's authentic lives across the world in their vlogs, etc. One of my favorite documentaries was the 7-up series. But with social media, it killed any and all enthusiasm I had for the series because social media exposed it as manufactured and inauthentic view of one man. Better to follow brits on social media to get a better understanding of british life.
With this point of view. Every single motion piece is propaganda. Every single social media post.
It is impossible to not impregnate your creation with elements of what you dream to create. There is no such thing as following people's authentic lives, unless you stalk someone 24/7 with a camera, and post the complete footage, unadulterated, without cuts or edits.
Thanks for sharing!
I also remember seeing an informational sign somewhere near Baikal that said there are about 400 individual bears on the 600km coast of Baikal, and in the winter the are hibernating, and they don't do that on the frozen surface of the lake.
I've learned to listen to the (not-unfriendly) advice of groups of locals anywhere, when it comes to animal behavior at least. Maybe the bears didn't find enough food in the summer.
Is it so shallow you can’t just make a hole in the ice?
ps: your pics are stunning
What type of wild life did you encounter?
How did you manage to find and rent the cabin?
Did you travel solo?
Also - wooden shutters? What's the point of cellophane when it's dark outside? Just make a shutter and mount it in the evening? Surely that would help?
Also the attic of the cabin is open at both ends, just making a rough screen would mean that there was no airflow and make that space more insulating.
not to mention dried wood produces more heat than wet wood, so he can spend less time overall chopping wood.
If you leave the easy wood near the house, it's there when you're snowed in ... or break a leg.
I agree that the rest of the house has questionable design choices though.
In my home city in south-west Siberia temperature thresholds are these: normal tempratures in winter 0..-25 C, from -25 to -30 C schools shut down depending on wind speed. -30 C and below is extreme that lasts just several days in a year. -40 C happens not every year and only at night, and I only saw -45..47 C once in my whole lifetime -- in 2001, when such extreme cold lasted a week.
And no, life there (South Siberia) isn't a toil, houses are heated well, outdoors positive temperatures come in March, and in June-August day temperatures are above +20 C.
I guess the respective temperatures for Yakutia would be -45 to start shutting down schools, -50 is very cold and people prefer staying home, and -60 is a very rare occasion, not happening every year.
Also why'd we all end up watching this same video before HN had it up?
The ice from the lake versus snow seems weird to me. Can anyone comment on “freezing lake removing impurities and being safer than snow”?
He does need a better window though, I’m happy to provide this via go fund me or something. He would definitely make a bunch of money documenting his life and posting to YouTube, enabling him to get proper insulation.
Regardless, this is great if this is the life he desires. I feel horrible for those poor dogs though. They seem to be underfed and if he suffers any issues they will freeze to death or starve. I hate that.
if you're dehydrated you're not going to pass on snow in search of ice
In that situation, either younfind warm fairly quick or die. Which makes it different situation then long term survival for years.
Could very well be the only thing/routine that’s able to keep him going/alive. Being alone with your thoughts & not staying active at all is pretty severely bad for your health. Given that he states his entire family died when he was young & he doesn’t feel as if he can fit in with society, he’s probably quite traumatized & it wouldn’t surprise me if this were the case.
>>I feel horrible for those poor dogs though. They seem to be underfed and if he suffers any issues they will freeze to death or starve. I hate that.
As much as it may suck to those of us living in modern societies, animals are tools. Especially dogs. They have been appropriated as such for presumably all of human history. In the urban US they tend to be tools for the owners feel good emotions nowadays - essentially ornaments/living trinkets. Like the poor brachycephalic Frenchie of somebody I’m currently living with that can’t breathe & slobbers all over itself 24/7. If it ever got out of the house by itself, it would be eaten in around 10 minutes by any one of a few dozen coyotes that inhabits my desert neighborhood.
If you want to be sad about animals, direct that towards your local chain animal shelter that non-humanely euthanizes & incinerates them by the 55 gallon drum. Not some lonely hermits only companions & day-to-day assistance.
Oh boy. I’m being a buzzkill. I really do hope he’s able to get a proper window that will hold up in that environment through this social media exposure & perhaps some sort of security/lifeline for if he were to suddenly fall ill.
Anyways - I was very much reminded of the Lykov family upon seeing this story. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family
Meanwhile I have a friend who doesn't work, lives at home, never leaves the house, watches Twitch/YouTube + scrolls Twitter all day.
Two different people living completely opposite worlds, and interestingly enough both of them probably think the other has it wrong and they have it right.
How can something as massive as "entire lifestyle choice" be so open for wildly varying interpretations?
It's interesting to look at what both don't do.
People who have to work everyday to survive are going to have an experience that others who also have to work everyday won't have. Their lives are filled with unique experiences including life and death situations which can be thrilling stories. If you have seen one of these people, all you have seen is one of them.
It's this weird henry Thoreau transcendental nonsense from people who have never actually had to rough it.
All I am saying is that people who just stare at a screen all day, do not make for interesting stories. People whose situation could easily lead to their death have far more interesting stories. I don't want to live like the man in the video, but his story was absolutely engrossing.
How many books have you read where the main character sleeps, eats, goes to the bathroom, stares at a screen and nothing else? Compare that with stories where people get out, risk life and limb to accomplish something.
Other than watching my friend become an incel who is self-proclaimed "redpilled" and "based"
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=redpilled
He's a big Andrew Tate fan
That’s about the same familiarity-level as all of us have with the lifestyle of the lone cabin survivalist.
I’ve gone backpacking and hiking for multi-day trips and it’s really enjoyable, but there aren’t usually tons of stories after the first few times. Sometimes we’ll see new animals or something but it’s not thrilling. It may be different every time but it starts to rhyme.
Btw, engrossing videos about mindlessly staring persons, that's very close to a mirror.
Those dogs would probably be already dead if it wasn't for him. I don't think strays survive those harsh winters.
Pretty sure he has some emergency stash to be used when he is sick. Unless of course at some point he becomes too frail and would rather prefer for nature to take care of the matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss
[edit: originally stated he was an Army engineer, but turns out he had various hands-on jobs, one being a Navy carpenter during the second World War.
And I'm sure Dick Proenneke, if he were doing it today, would have a bank of solar panels and satellite Internet.
And I couldn't help but shake my head at the naïveté / shallow internet lauding that this is some idyllic rustic life. This guy is actively choosing to live in harsh, most unforgiving conditions that require all his daily energy, hours from any kind of help. And he's going to die there as well unless something changes, and probably without anyone knowing.
As others have said, maybe he wants this because of some unresolved emotional problems. All I see is someone who is making his own life purposely hard. Perhaps there is a little to be admired here -- the unusual nature of it, and the perseverance. But this life isn't something to be desired by anyone, and I don't join in the reflexive cooing over how awesome it is once you get over the unusualness.
There was one fellow in an early season who thrived so well that after setting up camp the first day and establishing his food and water sources for the season, out of boredom he started building tables and shelves.
Eventually he would have assembled a fusion reactor from tree bark but he tapped out after 21 days?
The show said he missed his wife.
I saw on Reddit someone mention the guy was never planning to be on the show more than 21 days and reluctantly got talked into appearing in the first place. The wife excuse was just something the producers made up.
That ruined the magic for me.
The guy was days away from raising a wolf army and conquering Victoria, BC with hand-made trebuchets. He had no reason to tap out.
I highly recommend island of the sea wolf (Netflix documentary) if you haven't seen it!
On a personal level it wasn't great, but the childhood my kids got, camping in actual wilderness instead of car camping, boating every day after I got off work, camping at wilderness boat only campsites where we had to swim our gear to shore from our anchored boat, catching brook trout with grasshoppers simply tied to the end of reeds (I was amazed that worked, though the stream was so packed with trout they could've just grabbed them though that would be illegal), seeing every wild animal with the exception of porcupines (this frustrated my son no end. Also, scariest animal to the kids? Grouse and beavers (when swimming), and yeah, wolves howling at night when camping). Picking huckleberries having to wear bear bells. Skiing all winter (kids unlimited pass was like $125 so cheaper than seeing a movie every weekend in winter, and it included the bus pass from the bottom of the mountain so we could just drop them off in the morning and meet up with them for some night skiing at the end of the day). I like to think while I messed up a lot that that gift of a childhood was special.
But it is a harder transition than you would think, especially for someone who in not comfortable with themselves. Funny thing about going away and finding yourself, you have to be ok with... yourself. Or else self loathing and self destruction sets in.
The video is about a hermit. More interesting to me is the normal village Yakut. Kiun has made many videos about that, like how amazingly adapted their houses are:
The Russian stove to me is a true engineering marvel! I've read a few books on simple Western fireplaces, and there's a lot of engineering and a lot of guesswork involved in these pathetically simple contraptions. The Russian stove looks like the Space Shuttle in comparison!
The fact that they are wearing t-shirts inside these houses in winter is proof of how deceptively efficient these houses are, heated only by the wood they have to carry themselves - another proof of efficiency.
There is also the fact that these houses must withstand extreme temperature variations every year, staggering -90oF to +90oF, with all the material stresses, different rates of expansion and contraction, and humidity that this implies. To be comfortable to live in. For many decades. With do-it-yourself repair capability. And 100% reliability, because this is truly mission critical - death is possible if the heating or shelter fails.
I see these features as unique and therefore I think these houses are very well adapted. I think there is a lot of specific knowledge hidden inside these deceptively simple houses. Since I haven't found much written in English, I like these videos because I can spy on them and maybe extract the little secrets, like the moss, or the many layers until you reach the core of the house.
Another important part for me is how they use the house. That's why I particularly like Kiun's videos. There are also https://www.youtube.com/@LifeinYakutia/videos . I always mix the two in my head.
Cheers!
That is because western countries has full infrastructure by now, so they use fireplace mostly for atmosphere or temporary warming up. It is not the same as in poor Russian areas.
> The fact that they are wearing t-shirts inside these houses in winter is proof of how deceptively efficient these houses are, heated only by the wood they have to carry themselves - another proof of efficiency.
The real feat of insulation is when you can stop the fire and the place stays consistently warm for long time. The wood generates a huge heat around the fire, you get sweaty quickly. Pretty much every wood warmed house I have been into has been very warm inside the cooking area. House efficiency shows up when you stop burning much wood.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dersu_Uzala_(1975_film)
I had read about the film several years ago. Not seen it.
The part that stayed with me the most was when Dersu expresses his surprise to Arsenyev that people in cities actually have to pay for water.
or welfare? Having $0 income probably makes you eligible for something.
There are many fundamental decisions he could have done differently ... but that sort of person won't decide to live like this in the first place.
Living in the forrest does not have to imply great wisdom in everything. Sometimes it is just poverty and being a social issue.
> We didn't know that he doesn't have proper windows, we were shocked as well. It was our first time meeting him and he doesn't have any mobile connection. It's very difficult to reach his place, it took us 3 hours by car and 1 hour by snowmobile (which got broken while we were filming). Thank you for your concern, we will replace his windows soon.
This video is about a man, who is keep making poor decisions and living consequences. Why is living 5 hours away from civilization? He could have build a hut an hour away, which would be more convenient (and safer). Why doesn't he installed a proper window, which would keep his house warmer and require less trips for the wood. Why doesn't he have a job, which could pay for food, instead of wasting the whole days gathering for food.
This is reminding me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAq-r2dm9Tw
In such villages there's no bureaucrat around to be bothered by this.
Highly likely. He lives just far enough out that they can't be fucked dealing with him.
Some geological team found a familly of those guy and gal in the 80s.
They were doing surprisingly well. ( to an extend )
But I doubt that they did well. They complained to the geologists that their metal dishes were wearing out to holes. They still did have some sickles to cut some crops, but I'm sure they'd get out of order within a decade too.
Apparently, in such a small number of people it's impossible to produce metal and tools.
There's a better example: "Happy People" documentary [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbhPIK-oBvA], about a village of hunters on the Yenissei river, with only river transport to the civilization. It looks very romantic untill the end where you see nunters selling furs cheaper than they hope, and they still depend on tools and fuel.
You mention sickles, they were aware that they were running low on barley and we’re actively preserving seeds instead of eating it.
Little details like that make me think they had a good command of living where they were.
This reeks of jumping to conclusions & victim blaming. Would you treat somebody with schizophrenia the same way?
fwiw, dude seems like he was traumatized by losing his family & whatever else & this was his only way of coping with life. That’s definitely jumping to conclusions from my POV… but perhaps a better guess than victim blaming.
In this day an age cancel culture has everyone pointing fingers and blaming everyone for just having opinions. Who cares man.
All I care about is that those questions are legit. Why does he live so far and why no window? There's some suggestions as to why... but those suggestions aren't satisfactory imo.
Anyway the point is, his questions are valid. I myself wonder and just like you have the right to mind your own business, I have the right to ask questions.
OP was using question format, but the goal was not information seeking. The goal was to tell us all that OP thinks guys made bad choices, deserves suffering and it is not valid to be interested in mini document about him. It was about voicing anger.
And that is exactly what people are reacting to.
The difference between my stance and others here is that he is getting attacked because his post has the potential to "hurt feelings" and be "judgemental". There's a cancel culture-esque attitude that pervades the responses where people just sort seem like they enjoy getting offended or defending someones "identity".
Does a question that is "judgemental" and that "hurts feelings" should be ask-able on HN? Which is more important truth? Or the hurt feelings of a person who likely will never read this.
I'll be frank, it is pretty stupid to do what that man is doing. We're missing information here and the parent is asking the right question, albeit a liittle too harshley. But again who cares about the harshness. Just address the question and topic instead of protesting his "impoliteness" or his "judgement".
But that’s literally excommunication
Maybe it made people question what is actually essential. And it’s crazy (like wow) that he has done this for 20 years, I don’t think people will choose to go live in the middle of nowhere after watching this.
> who is keep making poor decisions and living consequences.
A statement without (his) context.
To add to your other questions: why did he choose to do this? Does he enjoy this? Etc.