The "world’s loneliest woman" is coming into the modern age after living most of her life like “an 18th century peasant”.
Hermit Agafya Lykova, 77, is getting a solar panel to provide electricity to power a satellite phone to enable her to summon help to her remote home hundreds of miles from anywhere in Siberia.
She has accepted the technological gadgetry amid concerns for her health in the remote snow forest - where temperatures plunge to minus 50C in winter .
Agafya is the sole survivor of a family that in 1936 fled into the wilderness - where she was born - to avoid religious persecution and death squads under Stalin.
The Lykov family of devout Orthodox Old Believers remained undiscovered in the harsh wild for four decades staying out of sight for the Second World War and Yuri Gagarin’s landmark first manned mission to space.
They lived - as she still does - guided by an old bible in the Western Sayan Mountains in an area where wolves and bears roam.
This year also saw a new one storey timber prefabricated home brought to her mountainside, replacing the tumbledown shack built by her father and brothers, where she was born.
Soon after it was built, a fire partially destroyed her old home.
Viktor Nepomnyashchiy, director of the Khakassky Nature Reserve, made a helicopter visit to the hermit to check on her wellbeing as the deepest winter sets in.
“We delivered parcels, letters, presents and a solar panel, which was installed by volunteers,” he said.
“Agafya showed me the new house.
“These days she has six goats, three cats and a dog called Tsvetochek (Flower).”
Agafya has refused repeated attempts to persuade her to move to “civilisation” in a town or city.
The improvements in the iconic Russian woman’s life have been funded by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, say reports.
It was in 1978 that her lost family were spotted by Soviet geologists flying over the remote mountains.
Special measures are being taken to avoid Agafya catching Covid-19 from occasional visitors, not least because it was the contact with Soviet people after four decades that led to her family members catching infections that killed them.
“We all take extreme care when visiting Agafya,” explained local official Alexander.
“Virus or no virus - she is like a Mowgli who has never come across modern day infections and diseases.
“We know how disciplined and cautious we must be in making sure she stays safe.”
Agafya was the fourth child of Karp and Akulina Lykov, and for the first 35 years of her life she had no contact at all with anyone outside her family.
Her mother died in 1961, her father passed away in 1988.
Old Believers split from the Orthodox Church in 1666 after protesting against reforms, and many moved to remote areas of Siberia in tsarist times.
