Saglana Salciak, just 4 years old, faced the cold of Siberia to try to save her grandmother, who was on her deathbed. The girl became a heroine in the little kojuun Tere-Holiskovo, near Mongolia, accustomed to a slow and quiet life, but also in Russia. The event is unimaginable.
Saglana Salciak lived with her grandparents on an isolated farm in a coniferous forest in the Tere-Holiskovo kojuun on the Mongolian border. One night early last month, the girl found her 60-year-old grandmother motionless. Then her grandfather told her to go and seek help. Blind, he did not see that it was dark outside.
However, the little girl got dressed, put a box of matches in her pocket, and went to the nearest farm, eight kilometers away. Her courage aroused both admiration and amazement, especially as she traveled the eight miles at minus 30 degrees Celsius and under the howls of wolves, who frequently attacked her grandparents’ animals.
Exhausted, Saglana missed the neighboring farm but was found by a local. An ambulance went to Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s farm in Tuva, but the old woman was already dead from a heart attack. Interviewed by the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda about her unusual journey for a four-year-old, Saglana said she had done nothing but “move on”.
She also said that she was not cold, but hungry. The little girl was hospitalized, then placed in a social center, where she will celebrate her fifth birthday. Instead, her mother, who is now in another part of Russia, risks being put behind bars.
The Committee of Inquiry of the Republic of Tuva has opened an investigation into leaving a minor in danger. “She knew that grandparents were unable to ensure the safety of the child,” reads the statement announcing the opening of this investigation. The woman faces up to a year in prison.