‘Mowgli’ girl who survived 12 nights in Siberia at the age of five by clinging to her puppy for warmth now hopes to become a doctor 10 years later
Ten years after Mowgli girl Karina Chikitova, then five, survived alone for almost two weeks in a Siberian forest full of bears and wolves, she has revealed she wants to become a doctor.
Karina made headlines around the world in 2014 for clinging to her faithful puppy Naida for warmth.
The little girl slept on a bed of long grass and ate wild berries to miraculously stay alive after becoming lost in the remote Russian taiga.
The dog eventually went to call for help and rescued Karina after 12 days and nights in the wild.
Shortly afterwards, a statue was erected in her and her bastard’s honor in the regional capital Yakutsk, the coldest city in the world.
Since then, a popular children’s book has been written about the girl and a major film ‘Karina’ has also been released.
She won a Mini Miss beauty pageant and was accepted into the northernmost professional ballet school in the world.
But now, aged 14 and being interviewed primetime on Russian state television, she reveals a change in direction, abandoning her dancing career despite a real talent and keen to focus on medicine as a doctor.
Karina Chikitova (pictured) made headlines around the world in 2014 for clinging to her faithful puppy Naida for warmth
She gave an interview in the TV program Let Them Speak on Russian Channel 1
Karina revealed that she now has no memory of her amazing survival ordeals after erasing them from her memory.
She was asked, “Don’t you remember anything?”
“No,” she replied.
But she showed a picture of her dog.
“This is my dog Naida,” she said.
‘She was with me in the forest, but I don’t remember how I played with her, (how she saved me)…’
Her earliest memory is being in the first grade at school, which is seven years old in Russia, she said on the TV show Let Them Speak on Russian Channel 1, after flying six time zones west to Moscow for the interview.
‘I no longer study at the ballet school in Yakutsk.
Despite the intensity of the ordeal, she says she remembers little about it
Naida (pictured, left) helped the little girl survive her terrible ordeal
“I moved to Arylakh… and am studying at another school.”
She was asked, “What do you want to be?”
She received warm applause from the audience when she replied, “A doctor.”
But the Mowgli girl insisted that she did not like her fame.
The TV presenter said: ‘Look, 14 years old, you are already a legend. You are a star.
‘There is a monument for you…’
“Is that how you feel?”
She replied, “No, I don’t like the attention.”
She was an avid ballet dancer and studied at the Yakutsk Ballet School before leaving that world behind
The girl said she got lost after following her father into the woods without him realizing it
In 2014, Karina – from the indigenous Siberian Evenks ethnic group – had followed her father into the dangerous forest, but he did not realize she had followed him.
The bastard finally left her in her makeshift bed of long grass after nine nights to call for help.
When she was finally found, her rescuer Artyom Borisov said, “She was sitting deep in the deep grass, completely still.
‘I didn’t actually notice her.
‘She saw me and stretched her arms forward.
‘I picked her up, she was so small, so light, like fluff.
‘She had no shoes on.
“Her face, legs and arms were bitten to blood (by mosquitoes). She was terrified.
Karina is now 14 years old and says she wants to become a doctor
The little girl was rescued after spending almost two weeks alone
Her rescuer Artyom Borisov (pictured) admitted he could barely hold back his tears when he found her
‘She immediately asked for water and food and burst into tears.
“To be honest, I could barely hold back the tears.”
Later, little Karina said: ‘It was Naida who saved me. I was really scared.
“But when we went to sleep, I hugged her, and we felt warm together.”
When Karina was reunited with the dog, her first words to her faithful pet were, “Why did you leave me?”
The dog’s action in finding her way back to the family’s village almost certainly saved the child’s life by giving rescuers confidence that she was alive.