Human life is amazing and multifaceted: some love home comfort and sitting in front of the TV, others take care of children, others go to the mountains or the sea to test their strength and fight the elements. However, there are some exceptional people whose life is unlike anyone else's.
For example, the life of Mikhail Fomenko, who was nicknamed "Australian Tarzan", although he was originally from Georgia. Michael has lived all his life in the jungle, because his heart longed for it. He was the son of wealthy parents, had the title of Australian champion in athletics, but left the bustling city and went to the aborigines. Moreover, he often lived not even in a tribe, but in complete solitude in the thickest of the jungle.
Biography
Mikhail Fomenko was born in 1930 in Georgia. His mother, a Georgian woman, was of princely origin, and his father served as a Cossack. For some reason, the Fomenko family did not suit the Soviet authorities, and in order to avoid repression, the parents took their little son to Vladivostok. They lived in this seaside town for a while and then tried to escape to Manchuria through the guarded border. Desperate refugees succeeded in this perilous journey.
Life in Manchuria was hard - there were many refugees and little work. Mikhail's father was a professional athlete, and it was most difficult for him to get a job anywhere. Therefore, they were forced to move to Japan.
Probably, Mikhail's parents were well-adaptable people, because they were able to settle down in a completely alien culture, learn Japanese and get a job. Moreover, the head of the family quickly made a career as a university teacher - it's just incredible. Mikhail had grown up by that time, began to play sports, and quite successfully.
He attended a Japanese school, where the class was mostly refugees. He was a tall, athletic and very active boy, and he quickly became a ringleader in everything. And when he had to fight with Japanese boys, Misha always emerged victorious from any scuffle.
However, this life did not last long - in 1941, the Second World War began, and all Russians or others like them could simply be killed. Fomenko began a new path into the unknown - they went to Australia, to Sydney.
Fomenko Sr. again got a job as a teacher at a college, where Mikhail was also educated. Among the huge number of students of different nationalities, he was the only Russian. In addition, he did not know English well, and this added complexity. But everyone had to adapt and hope that at least here their life would get better.
Call of the jungle
Gradually they got used to life in Australia and could afford to travel around the country. One summer, his parents took Mikhail on an excursion to the Queensland, and there they ended up in the jungle. They went with a guide, and the young man was simply amazed at the exotic plants, trees and all this wildlife.
When they returned home, he conceived an escape plan and one day carried it out. Everyone was surprised: Mikhail was a promising athlete, a capable student and a friendly person. And suddenly - an escape into the unknown, into wild places, to become a hermit.
The parents knew the independent character of their son and did not worry much. They thought he would "run and come back." However, when quite a long time passed, my mother began to worry, and then the father sounded the alarm, but they did not find the son. Then the husband told Mikhail's mother that their son still decided to fulfill his old dream, and they stopped looking.
They found out about Mikhail only in 1958, when the newspapers published photographs of a traveler who sailed in a canoe on the ocean for six months. He went on a long journey alone. The starting point of his journey was the city of Cooktown, and he finished off the coast of Tersdee Island. This six-month journey cost Fomenko a lot of energy, although then he was only twenty-eight years old.
Despite the difficulties of this voyage, Mikhail soon made a second attempt to conquer the water element. This time they knew about his journey, journalists followed him. They wrote that the traveler went to the lands of Merouk. This path was much more risky, but this was the whole interest. When he did not arrive at the designated point, they began to look for him. It turned out that he had lost his bearings and got lost. They searched for him for three months, found him completely exhausted and sent home. However, barely gaining strength, he again went to explore the jungle.
The father supported this hobby of his son, and the mother was worried. When he disappeared again, she reported to the police, and they began to look for Mikhail. He was tracked down in 1964 in the Cape York area. The local population called him "crazy white" because he walked in one loincloth. The police found nothing better than to send Fomenko to an insane asylum. He spent five years there, and then again fled into the jungle.
Personal life
Sometimes journalists were able to interview a hermit and they asked him about women. He said that in total he had three girlfriends in his entire life, but he broke up with all of them very quickly. He said that women are incomprehensible creatures for him and it is very difficult to come to terms with them.
Mikhail Fomenko has been in the jungle for over fifty years. He had to fight with wild animals, with sharks and crocodiles. He once even sent shark teeth to his parents as a souvenir. The natives accepted him as their own, and he often visited them. But mostly he wandered in the jungle and on the water.
In 2015, he nevertheless decided to move to the city and ask for a nursing home - his strength was running out. Unfortunately, his legs gave out, and in recent years he moved in a wheelchair, which made him very upset. Mikhail Fomenko passed away at the age of eighty-two.
