On average, Russians (and residents of other countries, to be honest) live 70 years. Older pensioners, unfortunately, are less and less common. However, the inhabitants of the Tuymazinsky district, apparently, have long known the recipe for the elixir of youth.
Every tenth here is over 70 years old, and for 130 thousand of the population there are already 540 centenarians. These are those who have crossed the 90-year mark (and those who are over 100, there are 11 people here). In terms of a thousand inhabitants, there are 4.6 of them - four times more than, for example, in Ufa or Moscow. Anomaly!
I DO NOT SPEND ON MEDICINES
A resident of the village of Kandry Kafiya Sakaeva recently celebrated her 101st birthday. But I don't dare call her "age-old" grandmother. Kafia looks much younger than her years, but feels, in her own words, even 18: lively, funny, loves to meet guests, she sets the table herself.
The grandmother lives in an old ramshackle house with her granddaughter and two great-granddaughters who look after her. True, as relatives assure, the grandmother does not cause any trouble, on the contrary, she is the main assistant.
Fellow villagers say that at one time Kafiya was the only female combine operator in the entire district. And she always sang songs at work.
“I have never taken any medicine,” the pensioner admits. - Because I have never been ill. Generally. I drink a lot of tea, I love it very much. I drink with honey, with various useful herbs - matryoshka, St. John's wort.
Promotional video:
- How do you feel now? A hundred years is still no joke.
- Very well! I still have a lot of strength.
EXPLORING WATER AND AIR
Since our grandmother loves tea so much, drinks a lot of water, maybe the secret of longevity lies in the local H2O? We took water samples from the house of Kafiya Sakaeva and sent them for research.
The water was tested for several parameters. Determined the hardness, mineral saturation. Local researchers have confirmed that the local water really does have some peculiarities. It is slightly tougher than it should ideally be, and it contains more minerals.
“Before, our water was even tougher,” says Rumiya Galimova, head of the laboratory at Tuimazy Vodokanal LLC. - But after a new well was opened, it improved significantly, approached the requirements of Sanpin. Our water is artesian, it does not undergo any purification, we do not add reagents there. And so it is completely ordinary.
It turns out that this water can hardly be called healing. And the air too. There are more than 160 enterprises in the region, and they smoke - be healthy!
“Of course, compared to Ufa or Sterlitamak, there is no large industry in Tuymazy,” says Nina Nikandrova, a representative of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Republic of Bashkortostan. - Nevertheless, any enterprise pollutes the air in one way or another. Therefore, one cannot say that it is crystal clear here. Or maybe the zone is abnormal?
- I feel that time flows more slowly here. It slows down its run, - stretching out its arms in front of itself and closing its eyes, says psychic Mikhail Safin. - This is what affects the human body. Self-aging is slower than elsewhere …
"Time flows more slowly" - No, I will go to look for more convincing arguments.
FOR TEN GIRLS ON STATISTICS THREE GUYS
It turned out that not only Kafiya Sakaeva loves to sing here. It looks like this is a craze for all retirees. Maybe this is the secret? There are many long-livers in the Tuymazin club "Living History". But it seems that only women have the secret of longevity. There are noticeably more of them here. Yes, even in general in the district for ten "girls" over seventy there are only three "guys". - I say: there are no men at home, and there are no men here! - sighs the chairman of the club Valentina Dergacheva.
Among long-livers, the competition is fierce. The main thing here is not to fall out of the cage: one has only to get sick, another has already captured the male attention. So you have to keep your finger on the pulse, and in the literal sense.
- If you lie down, you will lie down - you won't have any strength at all, - the “club ladies” share. - Better move. Sometimes, you know, you put on your lips, your head is spinning, and you walk, and people look and think: "What a young, beautiful, lively grandmother is coming!"
LOVE TOM WINE
On the day when we were in Tuymazy, only three men came to the "Living History" club, but what kind - fire! One of them - a veteran of the Great Patriotic War Kasim Davletshin - stubbornly refuses to name his real age - 44 years old and that's it. But then, however, he quietly adds: "Two times."
Instead of talking about old age, he, leaving the cane against the wall, cheerfully starts: “Oh, I went on a spree, I went on a spree! Kasim is young, young! In a white shirt, so cute! Artist, in a word. By the way, in the club of veterans, he met his love. When they got married, the groom was 78 years old, and the young one was only 70.
“There are a lot of girls in the club, all of them are so beautiful, good,” says grandfather Kasim. - And suddenly I saw Sania Akhmetovna. We talked with her, discussed everything, and she agreed. They made such a wedding for us! We met, surrounded, everything went beautifully. We still live in love and harmony.
OPINION OF SPECIALISTS
"The secret of a long and happy life is in the person himself"
Larisa Kurapova, Head of the Republican Geriatric Center:
- Why guess here? The secret of a long and happy life lies in the person himself. The state of mind, a benevolent attitude towards others - all this can affect human health. Well, the fact that a large number of centenarians were concentrated in Tuymazy, I think, was influenced by several factors: this is the good heredity of Tuymazians, so to speak, the longevity gene, which scientists have been talking about more and more often in recent years; the influence of physical and intellectual stress (many centenarians attend the university of the third age. - Ed.). The ecology in rural areas is, of course, better than in megacities. Medical care also plays an important role - apparently, here it is at the level.
"There has never been such a number of pensioners in Russia."
Rifhat Galin, Professor, Leading Researcher, Department of Socio-Economic Research, BAGSU:
- Now the generation of the sixties is becoming pensioners. This is the first time Russia has encountered such a number of elderly people. In modern terms, these are the consequences of the baby boom that occurred in the post-war years. For example, in 1926 in Russia the proportion of people over 60 years old was only 5.9% of the population.
Today there are more than 18% of them, and by 2030 there will be even more - almost 28%. And since the percentage of the elderly population increases, the percentage of the working-age population decreases accordingly. However, there are many pensioners who are able to work, so the authorities are increasingly raising the topic of raising the retirement age.