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Petrov: A man who lived in the woods of Mendocino County (2022)
- davely 3y agoThis immediately reminds me of a book I read a year ago about a man who walked off into the woods of Maine in 1986 and lived as a hermit for 27 years [1] [1] “Stranger in the Woods” by Michael Finkel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30687200 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30687200
- huytersd 3y agoThe craziest thing about this guy is he spent every Maine winter over those 27 years without lighting a single fire to keep him warm because he thought it would expose him. He would just stay awake all night and start walking around when he thought he was getting so cold it might be dangerous. That really to me is hell on earth. At least Petrov lived in California where it was mostly nice year-round.
- hutzlibu 3y agoBut he did use gas bottles to heat up things and this can make all the difference. Still, not pleasant. Oh - and you automatically stay awake, when it gets too cold. Only when you are really exhausted and sleep in the cold, you will never wake up (from various movies and books I was afraid of this trope when I was younger, but nope, as long as you have energy left, your body automatically wakes you up and starts moving to create heat). Not being able to sleep, because of cold, is one of the less awesome outdoor experiences. On the other hand, the more you enjoy the sun on the next day (if you are lucky and there is sun).
- DaftDank 3y agoI learned this the hard way when I was homeless at 17-18 years old in the middle of Wyoming winters. I had at least had my old Grand Cherokee to sleep in the trunk space, but not enough money for gas to run the heater. I'd pile all my clothes on top of me, but there were always patches where the cold got through and I'd spend so many nights just shaking from the cold. Spent the Christmas of 2004 this way. You are also correct that when it would be sunny (but still cold) the next day, it was an awesome experience. Almost like a ray of hope, as cliche as that sounds. It's crazy what having sunlight can do to improve your mood. That's one reason I loved living in SF later on, there were so many sunny days and I also wasn't homeless lol.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- solardev 3y agoMerry Christmas man, hope this one is better for you! I was also homeless with a car for a while, but in a much warmer climate. It's no fun!
- asimpletune 3y agoI met a self-described “mountain man” in Montana once, and I asked how he stayed warm in the winter. He told me the key was to build an insulated nest, below ground, packed with snow, and then you light a single candle and close up the nest. That this was enough to stay warm even in the Montana winter. It’s hard to know if what he was saying was true or not, but I think I believe it. He also saw my VW and immediately observed that it had been in an accident based on the way the doors hung. So, I feel like he knew some stuff.
- hodgesrm 3y agoThat’s how snow caves are constructed. Tunnel in and up in a snowbank so that the floor of the cave is higher than the ceiling of the entry tunnel. The air in the cave will equalize to 32F once you enter thanks to body heat. As far as I can tell this works well in any temperate climate because the snowpack tends to be warm(er) at the bottom and warmer air rises. At any rate it worked in all my snow caves, which was admittedly not a large sample but included places like Teton pass in Wyoming.
- huytersd 3y agoYou might survive 32F but you can’t possibly make it for very long if you have to be that cold night after night.
- hodgesrm 3y agoActually 32F without wind is no big deal if you have a decent sleeping bag. Plus it gets warmer as you do more stuff inside (e.g., cooking). Igloos have the same design and can get pretty warm. [0] The real problem in my experience is that it's quite humid. Since you are insulating with snow it evaporates and raises the humidity up to the dew point. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo
- huytersd 3y agoI guess it varies from individual to individual. I can be out in 110F weather all day comfortably if I have enough water and a large hat but have very low tolerance for the cold.
- NaOH 3y agoI haven't read Finkel's book on Christopher Knight, but other pieces on Knight were discussed here, with distinct tones to the discussions. Into the woods: how one man survived alone in the wilderness for 27 years - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13878801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13878801 - March 2017 (124 comments) The Strange and Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8205993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8205993 - August 2014 (86 comments)
- 7thaccount 3y agoThis the guy that basically lived in a tent and stole from those in the nearby community for decades right? I agree it must have been difficult in the middle of the night when it was cold, but it's not like he was farming, hunting, or foraging in the forest.
- mc32 3y agoThere is also Daniel Suelo who left everything behind and moved into the caves in and around Antelope Canyon: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/homeless-by-choice-how-to-live-for-free-in-america/254118/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/homeles...
- stevenwoo 3y agoA doctor did this in Hawaii for a while https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/The-tale-of-the-doctor-hermit-Hawaii-17051298.php https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/The-tale-of-the-doctor...
- yieldcrv 3y agoKauai, ok One thing that initially annoyed me about Oahu was that there were people everywhere Remote secluded beach? People. Woods? People. Forbidden, secret trail after ten “no trespassing we’ll shoot you” signs? People. I lived there for 6 months and found more solitude when I wanted it, but also became more exhibitionist
- LastNevadan 3y agoThere was a family in Siberia who went off-grid and lived in the Siberian forest for 42 years. They were discovered by the Soviet authorities in 1978. https://allthatsinteresting.com/lykov-family https://allthatsinteresting.com/lykov-family
- hutzlibu 3y agoThe most interesting bit about this to me is, how fast the daughters developed their own language without intention.
- hyperthesis 3y agoalso https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
- thimkerbell 3y ago(nicaraguan sign language)
- daniel-cussen 3y ago[dead]
- toastedwedge 3y agoThis was a very nice and fascinating (although strange) read with my morning coffee. Thank you for sharing.
- gattr 3y agoI read about them elsewhere; one of the details I remembered is how at some point they started noticing fast-moving "stars" in the night sky and the father realized they must be man-made artificial objects (satellites).
- morkalork 3y agoThey were Old Believers! I've heard of this story before but never picked up on that facet. There's still some living in settlements in Alaska.
- thriftwy 3y agoI believe he's not Petrov but Petro after all (out of options listed in the article) You are unlikely to have no first name and two last names, and Zailenko looks like a last name, so the other one is likely a first name, which would be Petro. Of course there is always a chance that he is Petrov-Zailenko.
- vzaliva 3y ago-enko is a common ending for Ukrainian last names and Petro is Ukrainian first name.
- mehal 3y agoThank you for pointing it out! Name is definitely Ukrainian, so no russian army, because in Second World War the was Red Army of USSR
- thriftwy 3y agoNo Russian Army because he was born around 1914. Otherwise, of course you would find a lot of people with -enko last name in Russian Army in WWI. Not only Russian Empire controlled most of present-day Ukraine but also parts of Poland.
- mehal 3y agoHe was captured by Nazis during Second World War
- justsomehnguy 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38765757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38765757
- huytersd 3y agoI’m always blown away by how people like this managed to eat. I suppose you could live off bottle deposits if you only ate corn and beans. Even at five dollars a day he would’ve had to collect 50 bottles in the best case scenario.
- zxspectrum1982 3y agoHunting and gathering is as old as human beings. It's more difficult in the XXI century but in a large-enough forest (and a natural park that is), you can still do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer
- b112 3y agoIt saddens me to see a comment where finding some way to pay for food, would be the only way to eat. Outside of local edible vegetation, there is smaller game. And as you say, this is how many used to survive. But beyond that, you can plant beans and have a crop in weeks. Even with a lack of pesticides and fertilizer, being able to plant a plant here, a plant there, will result in food not being eaten completely by pests. And the ground is far more fertile, when not monocropping. And yes, seeds can be reused, it's how farming still works today for many farmers. To speak to this, where I grew up, many people would go into the woods, and plant a single pot seed here, another there, always close to trees etc, so overflies by police helicopters wouldn't see a crop. Being rural, some people owned 1000 acres, and plausible denialability exists. Even if some went missing, the scatter method yields results.
- hyperthesis 3y agodo beans need to be in season, or are some varieties year-round?
- fallinghawks 3y agoMany beans can be dried and cooked months or years later.
- sleiben 3y agoAlso an interesting story of a man who lives now for more than 20 years in a mountain cave in Serbia. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/23086418/tiny-cave-home-in-remote-mountains/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/23086418/tiny-cave-home-in-rem...
- bitxbitxbitcoin 3y agoA back to the lander true and true.
- rendall 3y agohttps://archive.is/sqo6S https://archive.is/sqo6S
- winrid 3y agoGreat skies there at night.
- geocrasher 3y ago“And I was a kid, so I thought love could fix anything,” she said, recalling how she hugged him good-bye once, “and he just shook.” Wow. I did not expect to cry at this story, but here I am. How profoundly sad this man must have been.
- sakopov 3y ago> John Melvin said Zailenko was eventually taken to the hospital in Ukiah, and over several days, many different people visited and tried speaking to him in Russian and many other languages, but no one could identify what words exactly he was speaking. I'm assuming it was Ukrainian? Although if someone tried to speak to him in Russian, they'd be able to understand that he was speaking Ukrainian and naturally understand a good majority of it.
- MikePlacid 3y agoMost probably. Petro is the Ukrainian first name, while Petrov is the Russian last name. Zailenko is the Ukranian last name. So the only valid combination is Ukranian. (Do not ask me how I know this. I can’t explain. Just a trained neural network produces these results).
- justsomehnguy 3y agoPetrov/Petroff is a (a very common) surname/lastname in Russian, but never a firstname. -ko is a suffix denoting a lastname of Ukrainian origin though those were spread around even in Russian Empire. There are a lot of people with Zayilenko surname in Russia now and Zalenko and Zelenko is still one in Ukraine now. Given the Wikipedia article on him there is a chance it's just a corruption and he was called Petro Zelenko [0] Petrov "Petro" Zailenko, a.k.a. Pitro Zalenko