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Slavic Children That Grew Up Like Animals

Photo: Oxana Malaya

Ready for some scary stories? We didn’t have any such paranormal stories for quite some time, so we brought you up some interestingly weird stories about children that grew up like animals in Slavic countries. This is no effort to bash on of the named countries because in fact there are such stories almost in all countries in todays world, however we filtered only the ones that come from our lands in this story. So grab your popcorn and let us see what happened here, but we just need to warn you to keep calm because some of these stories are very traumatizing! More info: juliafullerton-batten.com | AmazonFacebook (h/t:featureshoot) | via

Oxana Malaya, Ukraine, 1991

Oxana was found living with dogs in a kennel in 1991. She was eight years old and had lived with the dogs for six years. Her parents were alcoholics and one night, they had left her outside. Looking for warmth, the three year old crawled into the farm kennel and curled up with the mongrel dogs, an act that probably saved her life. When discovered she behaved more like a dog than a human child. She ran on all fours, panted with her tongue out, bared her teeth and barked. Because of her lack of human interaction, she only knew the words “yes” and “no.”
Intensive therapy aided Oxana to learn basic social and verbal skills, but only with the ability of a five year old. Now 30 years old, she lives in a clinic in Odessa and works with the hospital’s farm animals under the supervision of her carers.

Prava (The Bird Boy), Russia, 2008

Prava, a seven-year-old boy, was found in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment, living with his 31-year old mother – but he was confined in a room filled with bird cages, containing dozens of his mother’s pet birds, bird feed and droppings. She treated her son as another pet. He was never physically harmed, she neither beat him nor left him without food, but she never spoke to him. His only communication was with the birds. He could not speak, but chirped. When he wasn’t understood he would wave his arms and hands bird-like.
Released into child care by his mother, Prava was moved to a centre for psychological care where doctors are trying to rehabilitate him.

Madina, Russia, 2013

Madina lived with dogs from birth until she was 3 years old, sharing their food, playing with them, and sleeping with them when it was cold in winter. When social workers found her in 2013, she was naked, walking on all fours and growling like a dog.
Madina’s father had left soon after her birth. Her mother, 23 years old, took to alcohol. She was frequently too drunk to look after for her child and often disappeared. She would frequently invite local alcoholics to visit the house. Her alcoholic mother would sit at the table to eat while her daughter gnawed bones on the floor with the dogs. Madina would run away to a local playground when her mother got angry, but the other children wouldn’t play with her as she could hardly speak and would fight with everyone. So dogs became her best and only friends.
Doctors reported that the Madina is mentally and physically healthy despite her ordeal. There is a good chance that she will have a normal life once she has learned to speak more in line with a child of her age.

Ivan Mishukov, Russia, 1998

Ivan was abused by his family and ran away when only 4 years old. He lived on the streets begging. He developed a relationship with a pack of wild dogs, and shared the food he begged with the dogs. The dogs grew to trust him and eventually he became something of a pack leader. He lived for two years in this way, but he was finally caught and placed in a children’s home. Ivan benefited from his existing language skills that he maintained through begging. This and the fact that he was feral for only a short time aided his recovery. He now lives a normal life.

Pretty scary right?

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