Little girl, aged 3, and her puppy survive 11 days lost in Siberian woods

In the republic of Yakutia, where residents were shocked with the story of a little girl, who got lost in the taiga, but was found alive eleven days later, decided to immortalize such an outstanding event. According to Sakha Media, a sculpture will soon appear at the Yakutsk airport praising the resilience and fortitude of Karina Chikitova, a little girl aged only three, as well as her puppy that was warming the girl on cold nights in the woods.

Photo: Source: yakutia24.ru

At the moment, the girl is being treated at the National Center of Medicine of Yakutia. The management of JSC Yakutsk Airport, to immortalize the love of life and fortitude of the little Yakutian girl and devotion of her puppy, is going to install a sculpture of a girl with a dog in front of the airport building.

In addition, Karina and her mother received two tickets to a sanatorium, where the little girl will be able to receive spa treatment and recover, airport spokeswoman Jana Baigozhaeva said.

The miraculous salvation of the three-year-old girl shocked not only Russian, but also foreign readers. The little girl went missing on July 29 in the village of Olom, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). She was found in the woods on the 12th day of her wandering in the forest, where she had to eat only berries and grass. The baby girl survived owing to the devotion of her puppy that followed Karina into the woods. The puppy was apparently warming the little girl on cold nights. The puppy returned to the village on August 8, which allowed rescuers to better define the part of the taiga, where the girl was lost.

Karina was found the next morning and was immediately flown by helicopter to the local district hospital. Rescuers say that the fact that the girl survived was a miracle. According to them, the child survived because she was not afraid of the woods. Foreign readers said шт their comments to the story that Karina's story looked like a Disney happy-ending cartoon.

Karina Chikitova was found in the woods near the Biryuk River.

The village of Olom, where the girl lives with her mother and grandmother, is 110 kilometers far from the regional center - the town of Olekminsk. The village is home to only eight people, who have almost no connection to the outside world. There is no telephone and road communication either, Sakha Media said. When the girl disappeared, her relatives thought that it was her father who took her. The man, who lives in the neighboring village, visited Karina's settlement the day when she disappeared. However, on August 2nd, the man came to Olom again and said that the daughter was not with him. Then, the villagers noticed that the girl's pet, a puppy, was gone too.

Karina's grandmother, who was supposed to look after the girl, was asleep at the time, when the girl went missing. Her mother was out in the field stocking up hay.

The girl was declared missing only on the fourth day. The helicopter with rescuers arrived one day later. About a hundred people were looking for the little girl. Rescuers used two drones, but they were powerless in the dense taiga. A cynologist with a dog arrived in the Olom, but the dog could not pick up the trail. There was no news about Karina's whereabouts. By August 8, the girl had spent more than a week in the woods, where night temperatures drop to nearly 0 degrees Centigrade.

The puppy, who went missing with Karina, gave rescuers a hope to find the girl. On  August 8, the starved dog went out of the woods. The rescuers determined the approximate direction, from which the dog came, and began to survey the area carefully. On the banks of Biryuk Кiver, they found child's footprints. Soon afterwards, they found the little girl there too. Karina was cold and exhausted, but still alive.

The girl was found by 21-year-old volunteer Artem Borisov. "I've passed that place, but something made me turn around. And I saw her. She was sitting in high thick grass between bumps," he told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Karina was wearing only a T-shirt and ragged tights. She lost her shoes while wandering in the woods. Her legs were badly scratched; she had traces of mosquito bites all over her body.

Rescuers believe that the girl was able to stay warm at night owing to her puppy that was sleeping next to her. During the time that she spent in the woods, the girl was eating blueberries, currants and cranberries. Karina suffered a severe weight loss. A psychologist said that soon after she was found, the girl asked for some juice and an ice cream. At the time of her disappearance, Karina was aged three years and seven months.

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