As members of a Russian doomsday cult gradually emerged from the muddy cave where they have been holed up since November, they remained convinced that the Apocalypse is imminent.
"The prophet will be resurrected and the good will live in a world of light," predicted Valentina, 15, as she drew water from a stream near where she has lived with other cult members since leaving the cave last week.
She was one of 35 members of the sect led by the bearded Pyotr Kuznetsov who went into the underground cavern last November to await the end of the world, which he predicted would occur in May.
Like the 11 cult members who remained in the cave, threatening to blow themselves up with gas canisters if police interfere, the 24 who have emerged remain under the spell of their leader and his Apocalyptic predictions.
They began to leave the cave reluctantly last week after parts of the water-soaked roof began to collapse, forcing them to move into two ramshackle houses in the nearby village of Nikolskoye, some 700 kilometres southeast of Moscow.
"They will live on their own as they consider they are living out their last days," said Alexander Yelatontsev, a friend of the sect who is living with 10 cultists, eight women and two children, in one of the houses.
With a large wooden Orthodox cross on the roof and crosses scrawled in chalk on its doors, the house is the old prayer house of the sect leader.
A skinny dirty-white kitten, who also spent five months in the cave, ran in and out of its yard on Friday as five riot police kept throngs of journalists at bay.
After five dark months in the cave, the sect members initially hid away in their houses, only venturing into the yard one by one and covering their faces with Bibles or their hands when journalists tried to take their photographs.
Dressed mainly in black, wearing long skirts and headscarves, the mainly female cult members finally spoke on Friday.
"There is no need to teach us," said Natasha, a middle-aged woman, shuffling the dirt on the ground with her bare feet. "We can confirm every word (of Pyotr's predictions) by the scriptures."
"The end of the world is coming," she said, though it might take three more years for it to "finally die."
She said gas, electricity and tax numbers were all evil and urged everyone to seek salvation in the Bible.
Another woman, who called herself God's Slave Nina, was seen weeping outside the house on Wednesday after Kuznetsov was found beating himself over the head with a log in what officials said was a suicide attempt.
A local prosecutor said he was motivated by the fact that the world showed no sign of ending on schedule.
Kuznetsov, who did not join his followers in the cave, was allowed out of a psychiatric hospital as a concession to the cult members, but has been readmitted after the suicide attempt.
His followers have not lost faith, some claiming Kuznetsov had actually died and been resurrected.
"Pyotr is reborn," Nina said, glowing with a deep satisfaction after returning from a visit to see Kuznetsov in hospital.
Their emergence has not changed the cult members' minds about modernity or the end of the world, however.
When a local social services official brought food to the house, the members, who believe that bar codes are the work of Satan, refused to take juices and other packaged products.
The local government has provided a cow to help them support themselves.
One of those helping the cult said they would not sow any crops as they did not expect to be around for the harvest.
The sect has irritated some residents in Nikolskoye, a poor farming village where half the 20 or so houses are deserted, roads are nothing but muddy tracks and most people survive on what they grow themselves.
"We should all go underground then we might get a cow," said Tatyana Aleinikova, 37, a farmer who lives a hundred metres from the sect followers.
Meanwhile, the 11 remaining sect members in the dug-out said they would stop negotiations with authorities trying to persuade them to come out and maintain a vow of silence, said Penza region vice-governor Oleg Melnichenko.
"The ones who are left are the most hardy," said Larisa Tretyakova, the daughter of one of the cult members. "They can live there for several years."
One expert warned the sect members might follow their leader's example and attempt to kill themselves.
"Suicide attempts by cult leaders are typical especially when their prediction of Apocalypse ends in a fiasco," said Alexander Kuzmin, an expert on cults. "There is a threat that the cult will not be apocalyptic but suicidal."
