WHEN Mykhailo Polyakov set out to introduce the world’s most remote tribe to modern life with a can of Coke, he knew he could be arrested.
Mykhailo Polyakov spent three weeks behind bars sleeping on a concrete floor after risking his life in a “reckless” bid to reach a remote Indian Ocean island – which is home to a killer tribe.
Sign up for The Jattvibe newsletter
Thank you!
Mykhailo Polyakov documented himself trying to reach the remote North Sentinel Island to gift the solitary tribe a can of diet Coke Credit: YouTube
The 25-year-old was later arrested by Indian police and spent three weeks in jail Credit: Police Handout
The 25-year-old amateur documentary maker made headlines after self-captaining a blow-up dinghy to North Sentinel Island.
He wanted to “introduce” the world’s most isolated tribe “to modernity and history” with a can of diet Coke.
After landing on the prohibited island and unable to contact Sentinelese tribe members, he filmed himself throwing the fizzy drink into the sea just off the shoreline before making the 21-mile journey back to the Andaman Islands, an Indian archipelago between India and Myanmar.
After returning to Port Blair – the capital of South Andaman Island – he was taken into custody by police for entering a banned tribal reserve area.
KILLER CLAN
Terrifying secrets of ‘lost’ island tribe who KILL visitors on sight
KEEP OUT
Isolated island where visitors banned for 70 years & trespassers are killed
The tribe is known to attack outsiders who try to contact them Credit: Unknown
Mykhailo made his way to North Sentinel island, leaving in the dead of night Credit: Police Handout
After documenting a three-part series on his YouTube channel, Mykhailo told The Jattvibe he knew there was “around a 30 or 40 per cent chance” he would get caught – and he “wasn’t shocked at all”.
Following his arrest in March last year, Mykhailo was slammed by critics as “reckless and idiotic”.
He launched his boat in the dead of night and kept torch light low in a bid to go undetected.
After an hours-long journey, Mykhailo saw the island on the horizon and compared himself to the literary castaway Robinson Crusoe, before saying “let’s land on this b***h”.
During his short stint on the island, he captured the wild, untouched environment Credit: Mykhailo Polyakov / @Neo-Orientalist
His entire journey was documented for his YouTube channel, now published in a three part series Credit: YouTube
Experts said it was unsafe for Mykhailo and the tribe – but he hit back and claiming the “risk was pretty overblown”.
“[When I landed] I was absolutely s*****g my pants,” he said, adding that he’d avoided doing anything too reckless because he “wasn’t trying to die out there”.
“The adrenaline was a different octane.”
Once he’d parked the boat and walked around the beach, he admitted he expected the moment to feel “a little more climactic”.
He said: “I knew the risk I was taking, I’d already made my peace with all the potential outcomes.
“In my situation, the risk was very low. I was more worried about crocodiles and the sea than the actual Sentinelese people.
“I won’t deny the risk was there, but people read headlines like ‘cannibal island’, and it shapes their perception of what’s going on.
“It’s a little bit more nuanced than that.”
Eight years ago, the North Sentinelese tribe killed 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau when he landed on the island in an attempt to convert them to Christianity.
Despite knowing the tribe’s reputation for attacking and killing outsiders, the missionary had believed it was “his calling to journey to the most forbidden places on Earth“.
Fishermen who illegally ferried him to the island said Chau had walked through a shower of arrows before tribe members captured him, tied a rope around his neck and dragged him away.
His remains were on the beach the following morning.
Mykhailo spent three weeks behind bars after cops caught up with him in Port Blair
He said the uncertainty of the legal process was the most challenging part of the ordeal Credit: Police
Mykhailo insisted his trip “was not comparable” with Chau – because the missionary’s trip had been “more risky”.
He said: “He got warned off by the tribe twice before he came back. The third time he was killed.”
Behind bars in India for three weeks, Mykhailo said he shared a cell with two Burmese nationals and a Brit man.
“I always had a friend or someone I could hang out with,” he said.
But he also witnessed bizarre genital modifications – known as pearling – as status symbols and slept on a concrete floor without a mattress.
“They surgically insert these beads into the shafts of their penises,” he explained.
“It was very shocking, but it’s an Asian prison culture thing. They were keen to show me… it’s like a status thing. One man had dozens of beads. He claimed they were made of gold.”
So-called pearling, or genital beading, can signify gang affiliation or prison time, according to the Journal of Urology.
Mykhailo is no stranger to risk after he spent time with the Taliban in a previous video Credit: YouTube @Neo-Orientalist
He said he would like to break into television one day Credit: Not known, clear with picture desk
Mykhailo was also rubbing shoulders with murderers and child molesters.
He said: “I’d imagined it would be terrible. Things were relatively clean and it was very much an outdoor sort of plan, not like a closed jail block in a multi-storey, like in the movies – it’s not claustrophobic.”
After his release Mykhailo was keen to do two things – call his parents, and sleep in a real bed.
But the waiting game that followed proved to be a challenging hurdle.
“The way bureaucracy works in India … there were delays,” he said. “That [caused] a lot of frustration.”
Despite the backlash to the tribe trip and previously spending time with the Taliban, Mykhailo revealed he has three more projects in spin.
He said: “If I can make a full-time career out of this, that would be optimal, but nothing is guaranteed.
“So let’s go for it and see what happens. I’m trying to do things people haven’t done before. My aim is to be creative and make it special.”
Mykhailo used a blow-up boat and motor that he had brought in his checked luggage Credit: YouTube
Christian missionary John Allen Chau, 26, was killed by the North Sentinel tribe eight years ago Credit: Reuters
