40-year-old Russian woman found living with daughters in India cave
Authorities in India have found a Russian woman and her two young daughters living inside a cave in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka during a routine patrol following a landslide.
According to Hindustan Times, clothes hanging outside the cave led officers to discover 40-year-old Nina Kutina and her daughters, aged six and four.
The family was found on 11 July “unharmed and in reasonably good health”.
Kutina had installed a statue of Rudra inside the cave and reportedly spent her days meditating and worshipping the Hindu deity.
However, the family slept on plastic sheets and ate instant food, added Uttara Kannada Superintendent of Police M Narayana.
Woman’s visa reportedly expired in 2017
It was found that Kutina previously worked as a Russian language and literature tutor in Goa, which shares a border with the Indian district where the family was found.
According to the Hindustan Times, the woman obtained an exit permit in 2018 after her visa expired a year earlier.
She then briefly went to Nepal, but ultimately returned to India and started living in forests.
However, Kutina told ANI that the family’s visa had expired only recently and that the family had travelled to four countries before returning to India.
She also said the family simply loves nature, and she herself has lived in forests in more than 20 countries over the past 15 years.
Source: The Indian Express
Kutina also told the news agency PTI that her children were born in “different places”.
“I delivered all of them myself, without hospitals or doctors, because I know how to do it,” PTI reportedly quoted her saying.
Meanwhile, a New York Times report stated that Kutina arrived in India in 2020 with two sons and a daughter.
Her eldest son reportedly died at the age of 21, while it is unknown where her 11-year-old son is.
Father wants shared custody
Kutina and her daughters have been moved to a woman’s reception centre while authorities begin their deportation proceedings.
The Indian Express reported that Kutina sent a message to a friend amid this, saying:
Our cave life is over. Our cozy comfortable house was broken. And we were placed in a prison without sky, without grass, without a waterfall, with an icy hard floor on which we now sleep to ‘protect’ us from rain and snakes.
“Not a single animal attacked us. For many years, the only thing we feared was people,” the message also read.
Source: The Indian Express
Meanwhile, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) tracked down the children’s Israeli father, Brar Goldstein.
He now demands shared custody of his daughters and expressed concern regarding their separation if the kids are deported to Russia.
“I just want to be able to see my daughters a few times a week and take care of them, too. My concern is that if they go to Russia now, it will get tougher to keep in touch with them. So, I wish they could stay in India,” he reportedly told PTI.
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Featured image adapted from The Indian Express.
