A woman who is believed to be the oldest and ‘most miserable’ human in the world has cursed Allah for giving her a long life. Koku Istambulova, 129, has lived through two world wars, the Russian civil war after the Bolshevik revolution, and two Chechen wars.
According to her Russian passport, her date of birth is given as June 1, 1889, but officials say originals of Koku’s documents were lost during the wars which ravaged her homeland in the early part of this century and there is no way to prove her exceptional age.
However, the 129-year-old has queried Allah for giving her a long life with little happiness, and has previously said she has not had a single happy day in her life.
She asked: “It was God’s will. Why did Allah give me such a long life and so little happiness? I would have been dead long ago, if not for Allah who was holding me in his arms.”
Koku said: “It is hard to live when all who remembered you died long ago. And it is very scary to die, however old you are.”
If her age is correct, Koku was 54 at the time, having earlier lived through the coronation of the last tsar Nicholas II two days before her 7th birthday – and his toppling when she was 27.
Now, in lucid and deeply shocking testimony, she has spoken of the day her native Chechen people were deported by Stalin to the steppes of Kazakhstan almost 75 years ago.