What one 40-year "bug-out" looked like

Hi All -

I found this story very interesting, because it shows what one family in Russia's situation became, after they left cities and towns precipitously.

Article

Especially interesting to me, to have a story that mentions what actually became very hard for them to have or maintain:
- salt
- metal (tea kettle, etc.)
- method of trapping / hunting / killing animals

I also found it interesting that they were able to get a method of cloth production going (hemp).

Mariamne

There was a great documentary about this family from VICE a couple years ago.

Wow! Thanks, Devin!
Mariamne

Mariamne Ingalls wrote:Wow! Thanks, Devin!
Mariamne

Your welcome, and thanks for posting the article. This is an amazing story. Truly awe inspiring how this family was able to survive so long on their own.

As you mentioned without a sustainable way to gain wild game. You would think they would have figured out how to hunt and trap, but they seemed not to have the knowledge and skills to achieve it. I know after the first year of not having meat and being in perpetual malnutrition, I would be working on how to trap and hunt. And I would keep working on it till I figured it out. Even if it took me a decade to get good at it.

Salt is a huge thing that many smart preppers suggest stocking up on, and/or learning how to mine it from the ground or process from sea water. It is such a valuable resource if living a more primitive way that having a large supply and knowing how to resupply from nature is a very valuable skill. It is funny how much we take salt for granted in our society, but for most of human existence salt was one of the most valuable and useful commodities out there.

Not a lot you can do about metal, unless you have a decent knowledge about mining ore and have a decent blacksmith forge set up. And a lot of metal work has the necessity of already having metal. Oh that topic, I found this PDF on the topic A Long Term Survival Guide Scrounging Metal and Survival Blacksmithing http://blacksmithingtutorials.com/long-term-survival-guide-scrounging-metal-survival-blacksmithing/ to be a quite interesting and helpful guide to building up a forge and sourcing metal in a possible post collapse scenario.

As for hemp, it is such a useful plant for homesteading. I hope that the US legalizes industrial hemp use soon. I know there was some limited legal experimental Hemp farming the last couple years in several states, to see if it was something the government would allow on larger scale. I seriously hope it does get legal as it would be a wonderful plant to add into the permaculture mix.

Another amazing story was the one of the partisans of Belarus.

Ray Mears did a fantastic episode on it



and there was the 2008 movie about them called Defiance.



They weren't as cut off from everything like the Siberian family was. The Belarus Partisans raided the Nazi's and got assistance from villages. However that they were able to survive in the wilderness while being hunted by military is an amazing story.

These are great, Devin! Thanks again! Mariamne