The world's oldest person is in Georgia

Georgians claim to have the world's oldest person. Living in a remote mountain village is a woman who celebrated her 130th birthday on June 8, 2010. Her age cannot be independently verified because her birth certificate was lost, but officials, neighbors, friends and descendants have testified that she is indeed the age she states. The official oldest person in the world, recognized by the Gerontology Research Group, is a 114 year old woman from Saint Barthelemy in France.

Antisa Khvichava retired from her job as a tea and corn picker in 1965 when she was 85 years old. She has a one 40 year old son (and 2 children from a previous marriage, both of whom died in World War II from hunger), 10 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and 6 great great grandchildren. Her 70 year old son was born when she was sixty, so she says. She lives with her 40 year old grandson.

She stays in bed most of the time (and has done so for the past 7 years). But she does walk to the outhouse on the other side of the yard, unaided. Her fingers are deformed with age and she no longer knits.

Her birthday feast consisted of traditional Mingrelian food such as corn porridge and chicken with herbs.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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