CNN
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There are a selection of locations world wide famed for the longevity of their residents.
In Japan, Okinawa’s sprightly centenarians have earned it the nickname “Land of the Immortals.” Campodimele, Italy’s “Village of Eternity,” is testomony to the Mediterranean weight-reduction plan. Within the sunny Californian city of Loma Linda, a group of Seventh-Day Adventists reaping rewards of fresh dwelling.
There’s one long-lived nook of the globe you received’t have heard talked about as a lot, and it’s dwelling to the world’s solely Museum of Longevity. That’s Lerik in southern Azerbaijan.
The South Caucasus nation is dwelling to a number of areas identified for producing residents who stay to triple-figure ages, together with Lankaran and Nagorno-Karabakh. However one other, Lerik, is reputed to have the very best focus of centenarians.
On this emerald land excessive above the clouds within the Talysh Mountains, reached by loop after loop of a serpentine street, individuals appear to have found a secret to a protracted and wholesome life.
The 2-room Museum of Longevity, inbuilt 1991 and renovated in 2010, holds greater than 2,000 reveals documenting the lives and reminiscences of the area’s oldest inhabitants.
It charts particular person lifespans with the home items that they’ve outlived, equivalent to three generations of clothes irons. There are chests stuffed with headscarves and shirts, silver pitchers and bowls, fantastically knitted socks, and hand-dyed rugs which can be nonetheless brightly coloured regardless of their age.
After which there are the letters, written in each Azerbaijani and Russian – private artifacts so previous that the ink is beginning is fade.
Maybe probably the most fascinating options are the portraits of centenarians that cowl the museum’s partitions. These photos, relationship from the Thirties, had been donated by French photographer Frederic Lachop.
The museum, and official Azerbaijan statistics, outline “centenarian” extra loosely than you’d count on: Right here, it means anybody over 90 years previous.
Nonetheless, again in 1991, there have been greater than 200 individuals in Lerik registered as being greater than 100 years previous, out of a inhabitants of 63,000.
Numbers have been much less spectacular since then, which locals blame variously on radiation from communication towers and environmental decline, however may simply as simply be all the way down to extra rigorous record-keeping.
At the moment, there are 11 individuals greater than 100 years previous, out of a neighborhood inhabitants of 83,800.
Lerik’s present oldest citizen is Raji Ibrahimova, at 105 years. That’s a nice classic, nevertheless it pales compared to the age seemingly reached by space’s most celebrated centenarian, Shirali Muslumov, a shepherd who supposedly lived to be 168.
The phone book of his passport declare that he was born in 1805 and his headstone states that he died in 1973. If true, it will make the the oldest particular person to have ever lived.
Sadly, again within the early nineteenth century, delivery registrations hardly ever happened in such distant villages as his birthplace of Barzavu, so there isn’t a certifable report of when he was born.
Numerous letters despatched from everywhere in the world on his varied birthdays depart little question that he was certainly of a really respectable age, nevertheless it’s maybe greatest to think about a minimal 20-year margin of error.
Amongst these corresponding with Muslumov had been Vietnamese communist chief Ho Chi Minh, who despatched a postcard greeting him with the endearment, “Pricey Grandpa.”
Sitting by the window, wrapped in a scarf, she speaks with a slight accent, switching usually to her native language of Talysh, a dialect spoken by simply 200,000 individuals and labeled as “susceptible” by UNESCO.
She reveals off her passport, which doesn’t listing a month or date of delivery, solely the 12 months: 1924. She could also be 95, however she is totally current, interacting together with her great-grandchildren, and demonstrating her vigorous humorousness. When requested her age, she cheerfully replies, “15.”
“Stillness of the thoughts is a part of their secret,” the museum information says. “They steer clear of stress, eager about life fairly philosophically, dwelling in the future at a time, with out a lot planning or fear for the long run.”
Good vitamin and pure cures
Qambarova’s day begins at daybreak; she doesn’t let herself sleep in. “I rise up as quickly as my eyes open,” she says.
She spends the entire day working within the backyard or round the home. Her room is small, with a thick gentle carpet and pillows on the ground. Many individuals right here desire sleeping on the bottom, with only a skinny blanket as a substitute of a mattress, because it’s believed to be the healthiest option to relaxation the again.
Opposite to widespread perception, the centenarians of Lerik do eat meat, however they inherited a desire for contemporary dairy merchandise equivalent to shor (cottage cheese), butter, milk and the yoghurt drink ayran from earlier centenarians, for whom the abstinence from meat was extra because of financial circumstance.
Qambarova’s daughter-in-law brings in an enormous plate with pears and apples from their backyard and a few fragrant tea.
It’s natural, floral and refreshing. Again on the museum, the information reveals a desk with the assorted herbs native to Lerik.
“The key of lengthy life is nice vitamin, the minerals within the spring water and the herbs that we add to tea to stop diseases, so individuals don’t must take any medication, solely utilizing the pure cures,” says the information. Certainly, Qambarova insists she’s by no means taken any remedy.
Past her home windows, it could appear that the village is quiet and nonetheless. However the bodily work that villagers put in day-after-day is immense. From dawn till sundown they work in gardens and fields in addition to round the home. They sew and knit and deal with massive households.
Such was the approach to life of Mammadkhan Abbasov, a 103-year-old from Jangamiran village. Sitting on the carpet, throughout from the window, the centenarian has virtually utterly misplaced his sight and may barely hear his son telling him that friends have arrived, however when he lastly catches it, he begins singing, providing prayers and good needs.
At Abbasov’s facet is his nice grandson – a century hole between them.
Identical to Qambarova, Abbasov has been a busy villager his entire life, working within the fields till about seven years in the past, when his imaginative and prescient deteriorated.
“He has all the time been a great man and lived his life correctly,” his son says.
When it comes to meals, he eats “no matter God offers” with only one restriction – he by no means drinks alcohol.
Abbasov attributes his lengthy life to each day bodily exercise, to not the purpose of exhaustion, however sufficient to problem the physique.
Together with the great vitamin from the farm merchandise, he additionally used to drink liters of ice-cold spring water, which is wealthy with minerals mentioned to contribute to longevity.
The headache-inducing altitudes of mountains may be an element.
A 2017 research by the College of Navarra, Spain, discovered that dwelling at excessive elevation decreases the chance of coronary heart illness, stroke and diabetes. A 2011 research by the College of Colorado Denver discovered that these sky-high residents additionally stay longer.
The ages of a few of these celebrated centenarians should still be disputed, however right here in Lerik their legacy lives on by the individuals that also abide by the easy secret of Lerik’s longevity: bodily exercise, good vitamin, a lot of water and an perspective to life that claims: We solely stay as soon as, but when we do it proper, as soon as is sufficient.
Museum of Longevity, 22 A.Asadullayev avenue, Lerik, Azerbaijan; (025) 274-47-11
