Soviet immigrant in Australia Michael Fomenko, famous for living in the wild for decades and called Tarzan by the local residents, passed away at the age of 88, local media reported on Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Soviet immigrant in Australia Michael Fomenko, famous for living in the wild for decades and called Tarzan by the local residents, passed away at the age of 88, local media reported on Tuesday.
Fomenko's sister Inessa Fomenko confirmed his death to the Cairns Post newspaper.
Fomenko, a son of a former Georgian princess and a university lecturer, was born in Georgia, then part of the Soviet Union, in 1930. His family emigrated to Japan in late 1930s and later moved to Sydney.
The Soviet immigrant, who died on Friday, was said to have been inspired by Homer's Odyssey and despite early promise of athletic success he was tapped to participate in 1956 Olympics chose to run away from home and live an isolated life.
He moved to the Australian Far North in the 1950s, was caught by the police and committed to a psychiatric institution in 1964. In 1969, Fomenko returned to the wild and spent several decades there.
Fomenko's life was the stuff of legends as he reportedly once took canoe from Daintree to West Papua and may have taken on boars and crocodiles armed only with a machete.
In 2012, he moved to Cooinda Aged Care Centre, but in early 2018 returned to the Far North, to the municipality of Babinda in the Cairns Region.
