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Sahan Dosova

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Sahan Dosova
Sahan Dosova
Sahan Dosova on her claimed 130th birthday in 2009.
Birth: 27 March 1879?
Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan
Death: 9 May 2009
Aul, Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan
Age: 130 years, 43 days?
Country: KazakhstanKAZ
Longevity myth

Sa(k)han Dosova [Kazakh: Сaxaн Дocoвa] (27 March 1879? – 9 May 2009) was a Kazakh longevity myth. She claimed to have been the oldest person who ever lived.

Biography[]

Sahan Dosova claimed to be born in Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan on 27 March 1879.

In an interview in March 2009, Dosova had said: "I don't have any special secret. I've never taken pills and if I was ill, I used granny's remedies to cure me. I have never eaten sweets. I don't like them." She confessed that she loved kurt, a local delicacy made from salted dried cottage cheese and ground wheat.

According to her eldest granddaughter, Dosova grew up as an orphan during her infant and childhood years. She married twice, and was widowed at the Battle of Stalingrad during the Second World War. Only three of her children remain alive as of 2011, including a daughter (born c.1933).

Around April 2009, Dosova slipped and fell on the bathroom floor of a flat gifted to her on account of her old age. "She broke her hip in the fall and never recovered," one of Sahan's neighbors said.

Sahan Dosova died in the village of Aul, Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan on 9 May 2009, at the claimed age of 130 years, 43 days.

Age Issues[]

Dosova's case was first uncovered during a census in Kazakhstan. However, there are doubts about the claims made on her behalf because she did not have a birth certificate and it was common for people at the time to make up their own date of birth. If her claimed date of birth is correct, Dosova would have lived eight years longer than Jeanne Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 with the longest confirmed lifespan in history, aged 122 years, 164 days.

Another point of contention is that at the time of her alleged 130th birthday her only living daughter was 76 years old, meaning that Dosova would have been 54 years old when she gave birth.

References[]

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