2026-02-23
26 分钟This is The Guardian.
Welcome to The Guardian Long Read,
showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.
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by Sophie Pinkham, read by Olga Koch.
In the summer of 1978,
a team of geologists exploring southern Siberia found something rarer than diamonds.
While searching for a helicopter landing site amid the steep hills and forested canyons of the western Zion Mountains,
their pilot caught sight of what appear to be a garden.
150 miles from the nearest settlement.
Hovering as low as he could, he saw a house.
No people were visible, but someone was clearly tending the garden.
He and his geologist passengers were shocked to find a dwelling in an area long considered too remote for human habitation.
When the four geologists set up camp 10 miles away,
it was the mysterious homestead that was first in their mind.
Who could live here?
Were they inhabitants the last Mohicans of the Brezhnev era?
The geologists ventured to the settlement bearing gifts and a pistol just in case.
They were greeted by a disheveled old man dressed in patched up sacking cloth.
This was Karposipovich Likov, the patriarch of the family.