World’s Oldest Woman Dies At 129

A woman believed to be the oldest person to have ever lived has died aged 129. Koku Istambulova, a survivor of Stalin’s repressions, would have turned 130 in June, according to accepted pension records in Russia.

She was older than a woman listed in the Russian Book of Records who died last month supposedly aged 128, officials believed.

Koku made headlines last year by saying she had never lived a single happy day in her long life. Her grandson Iliyas Abubakarov said she had supper as usual on Sunday, January 27 at her village home in Chechnya.

“She was joking, she was talking,” he said. “Then she suddenly felt unwell, she complained of a chest pain.

“We called the doctor, we were told that her blood pressure had dropped, and injections were made. “But they failed to save her.

“She died in a quiet way, fully conscious, praying.” She has been buried in her home village Bratskoe, survived by five grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren.

A Muslim who was born before the last Tsar Nicholas II was crowned, she outlived the Soviet Union by a generation, according to her internal Russian passport.

Her date of birth was claimed to be 1 June 1889 – when Queen Victoria was on the throne in Britain.

But her passport gave only a year of her birth, not the exact day and month.