"Soviet Tarzan": a man who lived for 60 years in the wild north of Australia
The world has accumulated a huge number of amazing stories about extraordinary people and their way of life, which are downright shocking when you hear about them for the first time. Such will be the story of the “Russian Tarzan”, who spent 60 years wandering in the wild forests of northern Australia, encountering either crocodiles or wild boars along the way. How did he manage to survive and where is this man now? We will tell you about it in the…
10 PHOTOS
1. Meet this man's name is Mikhail Fomenko and he is the son of the Georgian princess Elizaveta Machabeli and champion athlete Daniil Fomenko. Mikhail was born, respectively, in Georgia, which at that time was part of the USSR. Around the end of the 1930s, little Misha's family fled to Japan, but the attempt to establish a stable life again failed. Three years later, after the Japanese invasion of China, the Fomenko family was again forced to flee - this time to Sydney.
Michael was not the only child in the family. In addition to him, there were three more younger sisters, who found it much easier to get along in society due to the lack of a language barrier. Mikhail, in fact, was the only foreigner in the school, which is why his position in society was always supposedly one step lower.
2. Nevertheless, the young man was physically well-built and often won medals in decathlon competitions. Moreover, he was even a candidate for participation in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne!
3. 60 years ago, overnight, Mikhail decided to abandon the blessings of modern society and went to the far north of Austria, where he lived, or rather survived, with the natives, hunting crocodiles and killing wild boars with his bare hands!
4. Soon this brave man managed to cut down a cedar canoe with his own hands and alone, guided only by the stars, sailed 600 km along the Torres Strait to reach the coast of New Guinea.
5. In 1959, local residents found Mikhail, half-starved and exhausted from illness, and saved him, handing him over to his father. He moved his son back to Australia, but Mikhail, having barely recovered, again preferred to choose the path of freedom and left his father's house.
6. At the request of Mikhail's mother, the police often caught a man on the streets of the city - half-naked, dressed only in a loincloth ... In 1964, the wanderer was arrested for vagrancy and indecent behavior, and then he was completely declared crazy and locked up in a mental hospital, where he was subjected to electroshock therapy.
7. In 1969, doctors released Mikhail from the hospital, but as soon as he returned to civilization, he immediately set off to flee into the wild, only briefly lingering at his mother's funeral in 1988.
8. Mikhail had to survive in the wildest places in Australia, walking 25 km a day. Once every two weeks: the man still went out to receive social benefits and stock up on the necessary food. Most often, according to sellers in local stores, Mikhail bought flour, chocolate, Coca-Cola, and powdered milk.
9. In the wild, among the natives and countless predators, Mikhail lived until 2012, when he fell ill on the way to his sister, who lives in Sydney. Until his death, namely at the age of 89, the "Russian Tarzan" lived in one of the Australian nursing homes. The nurses noted his cheerful spirit and joyful mood about being in this place but also admitted that the elderly man was not friends with anyone and did not even really communicate.
Keywords: Soviet Tarzan | Tarzan | Wild north | Australia | Life stories | Extraordinary people | Lifestyle | Forests | Northern Australia