Via Neatorama:
Escaping Russian persecution in 1936, the Lykov family settled in a spot 150 miles from the nearest village and lived alone, cut off from the outside world until 1978. The youngest two had never seen any person outside their own family.

From Smithsonian:
Isolation made survival in the wilderness close to impossible. Dependent solely on their own resources, the Lykovs struggled to replace the few things they had brought into the taiga with them. They fashioned birch-bark galoshes in place of shoes. Clothes were patched and repatched until they fell apart, then replaced with hemp cloth grown from seed.

The Lykovs had carried a crude spinning wheel and, incredibly, the components of a loom into the taiga with them—moving these from place to place as they gradually went further into the wilderness must have required many long and arduous journeys—but they had no technology for replacing metal. A couple of kettles served them well for many years, but when rust finally overcame them, the only replacements they could fashion came from birch bark. Since these could not be placed in a fire, it became far harder to cook. By the time the Lykovs were discovered, their staple diet was potato patties mixed with ground rye and hemp seeds.

A new update from Interfax:
January 24, 2013 - An elderly Old Believer who has lived alone in the Siberian taiga since 1988 has been awarded a medal by a district administration.