World's oldest woman dies in Russia aged 123

A great-great grandmother in Russia, said to be the oldest woman in the world, has died aged 123.

Tanzilya Bisembeyeva, born two months before the coronation of tragic last tsar Nicholas II in 1896, had lived during three centuries, it is claimed.

She survived the Russian revolution, the tyranny of Stalin and the Soviet collapse through “optimism and hard work”.

She also drank kefir - fermented milk - and friends said she was over 100 before she went to see a doctor.


Nurgali Baitemirov, the senior official in her district in Astrakhan region, told Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta: “She died peacefully, she was buried in the family cemetery. The whole village came to see her depart on her last journey.”

She was 53 when she had her first child, a son, by her second husband. She had two more sons, then 10 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

Her claim to be the oldest woman in her country was recognised by the Russian Book of Records and evidently the Russian government.