Indian police found a Russian woman in a cave who had lived there for several years with her two children (video)

In one of India’s caves, law enforcement officers found a Russian citizen who had been living there for a long time with her two daughters. As the woman explained, she longed for a spiritual life, but now she is threatened with deportation. About this informs The New York Times.
The incident occurred while on patrol in a forest area near the town of Gokarna in southern India, an area prone to landslides. Police Inspector Sridgar came across a statue of a Hindu deity, and when he got closer, he saw the entrance to the cave, covered by homemade curtains made of red saris. Inside he found a woman with two little girls.
The discovery sparked a days-long investigation as police and officials tried to figure out how she ended up in the area. The identified woman is 40-year-old Nina Kutina, a citizen of Russia. According to her, she lived in the cave with her two daughters aged 4 and 6 for a week. There she practiced yoga, meditated by candlelight, cooked on a wood-burning stove, and decorated the cave with images of Hindu deities.
Law enforcement officers tried to convince Kutina to leave the dangerous area due to intense rains and the threat of poisonous snakes. However, she replied that she was “interested in staying in the forest and worshiping God.” Eventually, the woman and her children were taken to a women’s shelter.
There, Kutina charged her phone and informed her relatives:
“Peaceful life in the cave is over – our cave home is destroyed. Through years of living outdoors in harmony with nature, we know that no snake or animal has ever harmed us.”
Her appearance also raised other questions — including where she had been since entering India nine years ago. In 2016, Kutina reportedly arrived in the country on a six-month visa and stayed in Goa, a region popular with foreigners seeking spirituality.
It later emerged that she overstayed her visa by a year, but was allowed to leave the country in 2018. Then she went to Nepal, where she stayed for 90 days on a tourist visa, and left the country in September of the same year.
According to Indian intelligence, since early 2020, Kutina returned to India on a multiple-entry tourist visa along with her two sons and a daughter. Her older son died in 2024 in a bicycle accident, and the whereabouts of her younger son, who is 11 years old, remain unknown. She gave birth to her eldest daughter in Ukraine, and her youngest daughter in India.
On Monday, Kutina and her daughter were transferred to the immigration office in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state. The authorities ordered to keep her under “close supervision” and began the process of deportation to Russia. The woman and her children are currently being transferred to a detention center in another city.