It sounds like she’s very strict about these modern amenities, but did she have questions for you about the world outside of her home? Or was she not interested?

"I took a map, thinking I could show her where we’d come from. But it did not seem relevant, and she wasn’t really interested. She knows certain things that she’s heard on the radio [that one of her visitors brought along] in the past. She’s heard certain things, but she just felt it was bad things in the news. She has seen TV — and she has been into the town a few times.

"But I think that was the one thing that struck me... Her family asks, ‘Please, if you come live with us, we can help you. You can have a hut a ways away from us.' The Old Believers really live quite purely to their religion. Still, when you go to Agafya’s homestead, it’s so pristine. I have never been anywhere like that. Even when you go to Yosemite or something that’s pretty pristine, there’s still the traces of people. There are pathways, there are still things around, you’re aware of other folk in the vicinity.

"But when you really have gotten that far to her homestead, you're into the forest and your mind almost plays tricks on you. You see a flash of red, and you think it’s some litter or something, but it’s just berries. There’s nothing there. It’s just pristine nature, and it’s so clean and the air and everything is so vibrant. I could really see that if she went from that situation, to even the Old Believers' village, it just feels dirtier. And it feels full of things from the world. I can understand why she chooses to stay, knowing that she’s facing death alone there."