‘We painted, sang songs': the Russian woman found living in Indian cave with daughters
Buried deep in the forests of Gokarna, a coastal town in southern India, they had woken 'up with the sun, swam in rivers and lived in nature'.
'I cooked on a fire or gas cylinder, depending on the season, and got groceries from a nearby village. We painted, sang songs, read books and lived peacefully,' Kutina said, according to Indian media reports.
Then the police arrived.
The story of how the 40-year-old Russian woman and her daughters, aged six and four, came to be living in a damp cave in the state of Karnataka has gripped the country.
The family was discovered by police on 9 July during a patrol of the hilly forest area, which is popular with tourists, when officers spied a curtain of red saris hanging in the trees. Moving closer, they realised it was covering the entrance of a cave.
A statue of a Hindu god was visible, as were scattered items of clothing. Then a blond child emerged. Behind her, the police were astonished to find Kutina, asleep with another child by her side.
Kutina told officers she had moved to the cave for meditation and prayer, and to get herself and her children away from modern urban life and into nature.
She had cooked vegetable curries and roti on a small gas stove and they had bathed in waterfalls and slept on plastic mats.
Police believe she had been there for at least a week when they found her and had spent several stints living in the cave over the past nine months.
Kutina dismissed the officers' warnings that it was a highly dangerous place to live, especially during the monsoon, telling police that 'animals and snakes are our friends' and that it was only humans who were dangerous.
Despite her objections, police insisted on removing the family from the cave and taking them back to the town, where they were placed in a shelter after Kutina had a hospital checkup. M Narayana, a local superintendent of police, said Kutina appeared 'deeply disillusioned with human society, yet still compassionate and spiritually grounded'.
Kutina messaged a friend after being taken from her 'big and beautiful cave', saying her family had been 'placed in a prison without sky, without grass, without a waterfall, with an icy hard floor on which we now sleep for 'protection from rain and snakes'…. Once again, evil has won.'
According to immigration records cited by Indian officials, Kutina first travelled to India in 2016, ending up in Arambol Beach, in Goa, a destination popular with Russian travellers. A year later, she had begun a relationship with an Israeli man, Dror Goldstein. After overstaying her visa in 2018, Kutina was deported to Russia and travelled to Ukraine, where she had their first daughter. She already had two older sons from a previous relationship.
In 2020, Kutina returned to India with her children. She reunited with Goldstein in Goa and became pregnant again, making money as an art and language teacher.
According to Goldstein, who spoke to Indian media, Kutina began withdrawing from him and would disappear for long periods with their two daughters. Then, in October last year, her eldest son, 21, was killed in a motorcycle crash in India. After Goldstein travelled to Nepal to renew his visa, he returned to Goa to find Kutina and their daughters had disappeared.
He filed a police report in December but had heard nothing until reports of their discovery emerged this week.
Asked by journalists why she had remained in India without any valid documents, Kutina said there were 'many complicated reasons'.
'First, there were multiple personal losses – not just the death of my son, but also a few other close people. We were constantly dealing with grief, paperwork and other problems,' she said.
Kutina claimed her son's ashes were among the belongings removed from the cave.
With no valid documents to remain, the family were moved to a detention centre and police are arranging for Kutina's deportation to Russia.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
6 minutes ago
- BBC News
Tribute to 'caring' mum killed when car crashed into Coventry house
A woman who died after a car crashed into her house was "caring" and "glamorous," her family has Howard, 78, died from her injuries in hospital after a car struck her house in Coventry just before 17:00 BST on Midlands Police said there had been a collision between a Jaguar car and a VW van at the junction of Shilton Lane and Lentons Lane before the crash, and the Jaguar then hit the force has appealed for anyone with CCTV or dashcam footage from the area at the time to get in contact. In a tribute, Ms Howard's family described her as "caring, sharing, glamorous, and stunning" and said she was "someone who loved life"."Dancing mother of Debbie and Julie, our best friend was taken in the most horrific way," they added in a statement."We love her to the moon and back."Officers spoke to both drivers at the scene of the crash and inquiries continue."We are urging anyone with information or footage to get in touch with us," a spokesperson added. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Indian police arrest man accused of running fake embassy
Indian police have arrested a man accused of running a bogus embassy from a rented residential building near Delhi and recovered cars with fake diplomatic plates. The suspect impersonated an ambassador and allegedly duped people for money by promising overseas employment, said the senior police officer Sushil Ghule of Uttar Pradesh state's special taskforce in northern India. According to police, Harshvardhan Jain, 47, claimed to have acted as an adviser or ambassador to entities such as 'Seborga' or 'Westarctica'. Police recovered multiple doctored photographs showing Jain with world leaders, and fake seals of India's foreign ministry and nearly three dozen countries, Ghule said. Jain was also suspected of money laundering through shell companies abroad, Ghule said. He also faces charges of forgery, impersonation and possessing fake documents. Police recovered four cars bearing fake diplomatic plates and nearly 4.5m Indian rupees (£38,000) and other foreign currencies in cash from Jain's rented premises near the capital, which were adorned with international flags of several nations. Jain or his lawyer could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Remains of some British Air India crash victims wrongly identified, lawyer says
The repatriated remains of some of the British victims of the Air India crash were wrongly identified, a lawyer has said, with grieving families left struggling to say goodbye to their loved ones. The London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a medical college shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport on June 12, killing 241 people on board. Some 169 Indian passengers and 52 British nationals were killed, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in terms of the number of British fatalities. Aviation lawyer James Healy-Pratt, whose firm Keystone Law is representing more than 20 British families who lost loved ones in the disaster, said relatives of one victim found out a casket contained 'co-mingled' remains, while a different family were told a coffin contained the body of someone else entirely, not their loved one. Mr Healy-Pratt, who is a partner at the firm, said the mistakes emerged after the 'sterling efforts' of senior coroner for Inner West London, Dr Fiona Wilcox, who 'picked up DNA anomalies' at the beginning of the repatriations. 'In the first two caskets that were repatriated, in one of the caskets, there was co-mingling of DNA which did not relate to the deceased in that casket or the casket that accompanied it and so that's what alerted her and her team to the fact there was a serious problem,' he told the PA news agency. 'My understanding was that the co-mingling was at the very beginning, which alerted Dr Wilcox to the fact that she had to be 100% assiduous about checking the identification of the incoming remains. 'She was then able to determine that one particular loved one was not at all who the family thought they were.' The family of three British victims who were buried in India after the crash said there was a 'clear lack of transparency and accountability' in how the identification and repatriation of victims was handled. Relatives of Akeel Nanabawa, his wife Hannaa Vorajee and their four-year-old daughter Sara Nanabawa said in a statement: 'Recent developments have only confirmed what many feared: that serious mistakes may have been made, and that the dignity and rights of victims and their families were not safeguarded as they should have been. 'In our case, we are confident that we received the correct bodies, based on the hospital's assurances, autopsy reports, their clothing and the personal belongings we recovered. 'But our concern now is not limited to ourselves. We are deeply troubled by what this means for other families who may still be searching for certainty and closure. 'This isn't just a personal tragedy; it is a collective one. And the mishandling of such a sensitive process speaks to a wider failure between the British and Indian authorities to act with care, co-ordination and respect.' It is understood no blame is being put on any UK agency for the blunders, Mr Healy-Pratt told PA. 'We know that they were not allowed anywhere near the DNA identification chain of custody link to the caskets,' he said. 'That was the Indian authorities, that's what we understand. 'But nobody's actually laid that out formally for families to look at and review, and that's what we want – explanations by the Indian government about who was in charge of that chain of custody, why were there the massive mistakes that were made and, the important thing, how do the families know that there aren't other remains of their loved ones in a fridge in an Indian hospital?' The lawyer said he believes the mistakes will be on the agenda for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Wednesday and Thursday. Mr Healy-Pratt added: 'Somebody has to take responsibility in India for this massive screw up and then they actually have to ensure that they can give proper assurances to the families that the job has been completed and done properly. 'The hierarchy of needs of these families in air crashes, it's always the same. 'The first thing they want is their loved ones back so they can say goodbye to them; the second thing is they want to know how their loved ones died; third thing, they want to prevent further deaths so that all depends on getting number two right; and then number four, it will be some form of financial justice.' His firm has demanded a written explanation from Air India, including on the involvement of their contractors Kenyon International Emergency Services. PA has approached Air India's parent company, the Tata Group, and Kenyon Emergency Services for comment, as well as No 10 and the Foreign Office. Mr Healy-Pratt understands 12 bodies have been repatriated to the UK. He is investigating the identification mistakes but is also tasked with representing families at inquests, investigating the causes of the accident, taking High Court legal action in England against Air India and taking action against Boeing in the US courts. Besides those on board AI171, another 19 people also died and 67 were seriously injured. The only surviving passenger on the plane was Briton Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who previously told The Sun it was a 'miracle' he was alive but felt 'terrible' he could not save his brother Ajay. A preliminary report into the incident from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau found both of the plane's fuel switches moved to the 'cut-off' position 'immediately' after take-off, stopping fuel supply to the engine. It has sparked questions over whether the crash was deliberate.
