What was the fate of the most famous hermits of our time

The police of the city of Rome in Maine, USA, after decades of fruitless searches in April 2013, were able to detain a mysterious Hermit from the Northern Pond. Christopher Knight lived for 27 years in a remote forest, practically without coming into contact with humanity. And if he went out to people, it was only for the purpose of theft: in recreation camps, shops, private homes and other places, he got food, clothes and other household items. By the time he came to justice, Knight was suspected of involvement in a thousand similar crimes.

Let's get acquainted with other hermits who, despite their remoteness from civilization, were able to become famous all over the world.

Christopher Knight was born in 1965, and lived in the woods from 1986 to 2013. He grew up in a prosperous family, according to his own words, and planned to study as a computer specialist (as evidenced by a photo dated 1984).

But I got tired of civilization and began to live in the forest. Later, when the police detained him, Knight said that he made the decision after the Chernobyl accident, but the hermit did not directly link the act with the disaster, saying that he just wanted to be alone.

During the investigation, the police found that while Knight lived in the woods, he committed more than a thousand burglaries. But these measures were necessary — for the extraction of books and food.

On October 28, 2013, Knight was sentenced to seven months in prison, which he had already served in pre-trial detention.

He had to give fifteen hundred dollars to the victims of his raids.

Christopher McCandless is one of the most famous hermits of our time. He had an excellent education, but by conviction he was an ardent anti-globalist and an opponent of consumer society. For this reason, he went into self-imposed exile and traveled around North America.

Chris' parents hired a private detective, and he found out that their son had transferred 24 thousand dollars for OXFAM (Oxfam), an international association of 17 organizations whose goal is to solve the problems of poverty and related injustice around the world.

In his wanderings, the man got to Alaska, where he found an abandoned bus, in which he stayed to live. However, in August 1992, an accident occurred — after spending 113 days on the bus, McCandless died from poisoning by unknown berries.

The probable date of the hermit's death is August 18, 19 days before the appearance of six Alaskans at the bus who found the body inside.

A documentary novel "In the Wild" was written about McCandless's travels, and Sean Penn made a film of the same name.

Masafumi Nagasaki once worked as a photographer, but left civilization more than 20 years ago and lives on the tiny uninhabited island of Sotobanari, which is part of Okinawa Prefecture.

He is 78 years old. Until recently, the old man looked quite strong, smoked, ate rice and walked around his possessions naked. Every week Nagasaki goes to the nearest village to buy fresh water and rice, for which his relatives send him money.

Nagasaki believes that he does not do what society dictates to him, but follows the laws of nature. After all, man is not capable of defeating nature, so the only thing we can do is completely submit to it. He realized this as soon as he moved to the forest, and he feels good there.

"Someone thinks that it is normal to die in a hospital or surrounded by family. I chose nature. Is it possible to come up with something better?" - Masafumi told about his lifestyle.

Maxim Kavtaradze has been living on top of the 40-meter Katskhi Pillar in Georgia since 1997. Kavtaradze has monastic orders, food and water are delivered to him by novices from the Chiatura monastery. The hermit comes down to them no more than twice a week to pray.

As Maxim himself says, hermithood is a reckoning for former sins. Previously, the monk drank a lot, was engaged in the sale of drugs, for which he ended up in prison. After his release, he rethought his life and turned to God.

Kavtaradze spent the first winter in the crypt. In 1999, the Ministry of Culture restored the church of the X century at the foot of the Katskhi Pillar.

In 2005, the top of the pillar was almost completely cleared. The monastery complex was restored. The ruins were carefully dismantled and reassembled.

Timothy Treadwell, or, as he is also called, the Grizzly Man, lived away from civilization in Alaska for 13 years. An environmental activist, bear advocate and filmmaker promoted a healthy life away from cities. He was born in New York, and has been interested in sports all his life.

In college, he became depressed after he was not approved for a role in a youth series. He started drinking, used drugs, and it was from them that he escaped to nature.

Unfortunately, in 2003, the scientist and his girlfriend Amy Hugunard died — they were eaten by the same grizzlies with whom they loved to communicate so much.

As the media wrote later, bears do not like fresh flesh, and the fact that they ate two people at once suggests that they were very hungry. The remains of the clubfoot were hidden in the ground, they were discovered by a forester. A video recording of the incident, made by chance, also remained on the spot.

The local forester, by the way, was not surprised, and admitted that he had foreseen such an outcome. "The question was not whether a tragedy would happen, but when it would happen," sighed the forester, who had watched Treadwell's crazy runs across the steppe more than once.

In 2005, director Werner Herzog made a documentary about the Grizzly Man.

Carp and Akulina Lykovs went to the taiga in the 30s of the XX century. Before that, they lived in the village of Tisha near the Bolshoy Abakan River. When collectivization reached these places and it became clear that they could not see a quiet life, the Lykovs went to live in the Sayan taiga, where they got a large family.

We stopped near the shore of a mountain tributary of the river Еринat, built a hut made of wood. We hunted, fished, gathered mushrooms and nuts in the forest, made a vegetable garden. Fire was extracted with flint and steel, clothes were sewn from hemp on a homemade machine.

They were accidentally discovered by geologists in 1978. The Lykovs did not know that the Great Patriotic War had broken out and ended, about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about plane crashes and other events that shook the world for 40 years while they were out of civilization.

But their hermit's fate ended sadly. They lost their immunity to diseases common in the rest of the world and became infected with the virus — probably from the same geologists. In 1988, the old man Karp died. Of the whole family, only their daughter Agafya, who is now 74 years old, survived.

Agafya still lives in the taiga. She was awarded the medal "For Faith and Goodness". Just the other day, Agafya got sick and asked for a blessing to get rid of the ailment with the help of medicines.

David Glashin is a former millionaire who left civilization after the stock market crash in 1987, when he lost 6.5 million pounds.

After such a collapse, he had money left for a rainy day, and in 1993 he decided to rent a tiny island of Revival (Restoration Island) near the northeast coast of Australia for 43 years. It costs him 13 thousand pounds a year.

Even living in the wilderness, the entrepreneur continues to trade securities via the Internet, and spends money to pay for the lease of the island. And in order to have Internet on the island, the man installed solar panels to charge the computer and got a satellite connection.

Glashin also grows vegetables, catches fish and crabs, collects coconuts and brews beer for himself.

Together with David, his dog Quasi and a female mannequin, which Glashin calls a Mermaid, live on the island.

The former rich man does not want to leave the island. "I want to die here, where else? This is my paradise on earth."

Theodore John Kazinsky received from the FBI the nickname Unabomber, formed from UNiversities and Airlines BOMbings (UNiversities and Airlines bombing).

Before he left the world for a long 24 years, he was known as a child prodigy: at the age of 20 he graduated from university, at the age of 26 he became a doctor of mathematical sciences. But at some point he was overcome by depressive psychosis, there was a fear of modern technology.

After working for some time in Berkeley, he quit, moved to the mountains of Montana, where he built himself a plywood house on a forest plot. He created his own ideology, stopped using electricity and any tools. And in his work, instead of using a computer, he used a typewriter.

As a result, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism: starting in 1978, he sent homemade bombs by mail to universities and airlines in the United States in order to "stop progress killing nature."

A total of 16 parcel bombs were delivered. The explosions killed three people and injured 23 more. He chose scientists, entrepreneurs and advertising business figures as victims.