The story that happened in 2012 shocked everyone without exception, because at its center was a woman who gave birth to 10 children. Even foreign citizens were not left out, who with great enthusiasm called Kursk to find out the condition of newborn children in the local maternity hospital.

Amazing birth

There was no time left to do an ultrasound, and the decision was made to immediately give birth. Within half an hour after admission to the hospital, ten charming babies were born. This story came as a real shock to local doctors, because the woman gave birth to 10 children at once.

Big harvest

The woman herself, who gave birth to 10 children, is also completely healthy and happy. She had long dreamed of having at least one child, but as a result she got ten. Irina has already given names to all her children, although she still gets confused about who gets what.

Plans for future life

However, the brave woman herself, who gave birth to 10 children, is not afraid of any difficulties. In her head she is already counting how much government money will be paid to her and gifts given for the birth of ten healthy Russian citizens at once. But so far only medical luminaries have become interested in such a phenomenal phenomenon, trying to solve the riddle of how exactly ten full-term babies could fit in a woman’s stomach at once.

Exposure

True, a few days later, information appeared in the newspapers that the woman who gave birth to 10 children was just an original one that local television reporters decided to pamper their townspeople.

In general, as part of the editorial planning meeting, it was proposed to make three stories:

The fact that on the main square of Kursk the monument to Lenin will be replaced by a monument to Zhirinovsky.
About the fact that an episode for a new film is being filmed in Kursk.
About the birth of ten children at the same time to a woman in a local maternity hospital.

It is not surprising that of the three proposed ideas, the last one literally “shot”, because it was about a heroine mother, who, moreover, would then have to raise her children alone. The idea of such a report originated with journalist Lyudmila Soboleva, who herself was pregnant at that time.

Initially, the plan was to report that the woman was pregnant with five or six children, but later everyone came to the conclusion that it would be best to talk about ten children, so that it was certainly implausible. The young journalist still cannot believe that many people, not only in Russia, but also abroad, were able to fall for this duck, because a woman who gave birth to 10 children simply would not be able to bear them and give birth to them healthy.

The whole truth about filming

In fact, Irina actually gave birth in 2012. But she gave birth not to ten children, but to one son, Ilya. He also gained his share of popularity by playing the role of one of the ten newborns. In general, the mother-heroine has two children - Lisa and Ilya. Irina loves to joke, so she agreed to this one without hesitation.

The heroine mother recalls that on the eve of giving birth, a doctor came to her and asked her to take part in the filming of a story, the main character of which would be a woman who gave birth to 10 children at the same time. To which Irina immediately agreed, because it’s a lot of fun.

The whole shoot was really a lot of fun. The film crew notes that both Irina and all the doctors at the maternity hospital immediately got used to their roles and were able to work them out from the first take, with virtually no mistakes. Perhaps it is for this reason that numerous viewers of the video were unable to understand that everything that happened was just an innocent April Fool’s prank. Local residents even began to raise money to help the heroine’s mother, who, moreover, was left by her husband, who was not ready for such a large number of newborns.

The story of the Kursk maternity hospital touched almost all local residents, and after it was posted on the Internet, it shocked the whole world. Discussions began to appear on many foreign websites about how a woman gave birth to 10 children in Russia.

Already on the first day after the broadcast, the participants in the story experienced for themselves what popularity is. Citizens from all over the country and even the world began calling to help the young mother. And how upset they were when they heard that it was just a joke!

Bearing and raising even one child is quite a labor-intensive task. However, historical documents claim that a certain woman gave birth to as many as 69 children. Is it true? And will modern medicine be able to expand women's reproductive capabilities? A BBC Future correspondent is looking for answers to these questions.

If the British tabloid press had existed in the 18th century, the story of the family of Russian peasant Fyodor Vasiliev would have caused a frenzy of excitement.

What's the matter? It is believed that Vasiliev’s first wife, whose name has not been preserved by history, holds the world record for the number of children born.

According to a message sent to Moscow by the monks of the St. Nicholas Monastery, between 1725 and 1765 Vasilyeva managed to give birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven times to give birth to triplets, and four times to quadruples.

She gave birth, respectively, 27 times, for a total of 69 children.

One can only wonder how a modern newspaper editor would react to such prolificity, especially given the uproar surrounding mother of octuplets Nadia Suleman (nicknamed "Octomom" and giving birth to 14 children) and the British Radford family (their 17 children were the subjects of a TV documentary).

So, is it actually possible to have more than 60 children?

A woman could theoretically mother more children than we ever thought possible

"Something from the realm of fantasy. Just imagine, 69 children? Come on!" - says James Segars, director of the Division of Research in Reproduction and Women's Health at Johns Hopkins University.

I decided to take a closer look at this surprising (and, at first glance, dubious) statement by consulting with reproduction experts.

I was hoping to find out what the physical limits were on the number of children a woman could bear naturally.

Along the way, it was discovered that thanks to the achievements of modern science, a woman could theoretically become a mother to more children than we ever thought possible.

Image copyrightGettyImage caption In Britain, only 1.5% of pregnancies are twins, and the chance of triplets is just 0.0003%

First, let's look at the mathematical part of the Vasilievs' story. Is it possible to have 27 pregnancies in the 40 years we are talking about?

At first, this doesn't seem counterintuitive - especially since triplets and quadruplets are usually born at an earlier stage.

It turns out that in total Vasilyeva was pregnant for 18 years

Let's make some rough calculations: 16 twins, 37 weeks; seven triplets at 32 weeks; four quadruplets of 30 weeks. It turns out that in total Vasilyeva was pregnant for 18 years out of 40. She had a craving for salty food - and so on for a couple of decades.

Another question is whether this is possible in reality.

First of all, it is necessary to understand whether a woman is able to maintain constant readiness for childbearing over such a long period.

Typically, women have their first period around the age of 15: every 28 days, their ovaries release an egg—usually one.

Ovulation repeats until the supply of eggs in the ovaries is depleted during menopause, which occurs around age 51.

Image copyrightGettyImage caption Most women cannot get pregnant after 45. Is there enough time to have 69 children?

However, a woman’s ability to conceive sharply decreases long before menopause.

"A 45-year-old woman's chance of getting pregnant is about 1% per month," says Valerie Baker, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

A woman's aging leads to a reduction in the number and quality of eggs. During intrauterine development, a girl embryo can have up to seven million immature eggs; by birth, about a million remain.

The ability to become pregnant decreases with each pregnancy, because each subsequent birth takes its toll on the body

An adult woman retains only a few hundred thousand eggs. Of these many cells located inside the follicles, approximately 400 reach maturity and participate in ovulation, providing their carrier with approximately 30 years of potential childbearing.

The last eggs that ovulate late in a woman's reproductive years are at much higher risk of mutations, genetic abnormalities, and other problems associated with aging.

Often, pregnancies involving such atypical eggs end spontaneously.

"Most women are unable to get pregnant after they reach 42-44 years of age," says James Segars. "However, sometimes this happens closer to 50 years of age."

Image copyrightGettyImage caption Women have only about a million eggs at birth, and the number is constantly decreasing

Moreover, the ability to become pregnant decreases with each pregnancy, because each subsequent birth affects the female reproductive system.

And if Vasilyeva breastfed her children - which is logical for a peasant woman who could not afford wet nurses - ovulation did not occur in her body. This natural method of birth control would further reduce her chances of having 69 pregnancies.

It turns out that Fedor and his wife were very lucky (or perhaps unlucky) that even after she reached 50 years old, she did not have any problems with having new children.

Survive childbirth

And this is not all the difficulties associated with the birth of 69 babies.

Evolution has taken care of slowing down women’s “biological clocks,” because bearing and giving birth to a child is an extremely difficult task, which only becomes more difficult with age.

“The limits must be set by nature,” says Valerie Baker. “Pregnancy is the most stressful process a woman’s body will ever go through.”

Image copyrightSPLImage caption Having multiple twins or triplets could theoretically lead to a large number of children in a family, but the health risks are great

The fact that childbirth is a burden for a woman gives the greatest reason to doubt the veracity of the story about 69 children - especially considering that it happened a couple of centuries ago in the Russian outback.

In developed countries, the availability of modern obstetric care (eg, medically determined caesarean sections) has reduced maternal mortality.

In Britain, per 100,000 births, only eight women die from pregnancy-related causes during pregnancy or six weeks after pregnancy. These are the latest statistics from the World Bank.

Meanwhile, in one of the poorest countries on Earth, Sierra Leone, the rate is 1,100 deaths per 100,000 births.

The tendency to have twins is usually hereditary. Perhaps in Vasilyeva it was especially pronounced?

In this regard, the assumption that Fyodor Vasilyev’s wife survived 27 births raises doubts.

"Previously, any pregnancy was a risk to the mother's life," explains Segars. With multiple births (for example, the birth of quadruplets), the risk of serious life-threatening complications increases rapidly.

“Every pregnancy at that time was complex, even if it was just one child,” says Jonathan Tilley of Northeastern University (USA), who is researching the use of oocyte stem cells to treat female infertility and other diseases (read about this below).

A bunch of backbiters

Another aspect that looks implausible in the Vasilievs’ story is the possibility of multiple conceptions of two, three and four children at the same time.

There are two types of multiple pregnancies: either several eggs that leave the ovaries as a result of ovulation are successfully fertilized by sperm (so-called fraternal twins), or one fertilized egg divides into two or more viable embryos, resulting in identical twins with identical genetic code.

Image copyrightSPLImage caption Modern fertilization technologies make it theoretically possible to have an infinite number of children

In general, such situations occur extremely rarely. So, in 2012 in Britain, the chance of having twins was only 1.5% of all pregnancies, triplets - an insignificant three ten thousandths of a percent, and four or more babies were born three times out of 778,805 times. This is evidenced by statistics from the Multiple Births Foundation.

Yes, the tendency to give birth to twins can indeed be hereditary, and in the wife of Fyodor Vasiliev it could be especially pronounced.

However, in general, the likelihood that Vasilyeva was somehow able to conceive and survive the birth of at least 16 twins looks microscopic.

“Are there 16 twins alone? I would be very surprised,” Tilly comments.

Another alarm bell in the Vasilievs’ story: it is alleged that 67 of the 69 children born to them survived infancy.

In the 18th century, infant mortality was high even for children born as a result of singleton pregnancies, and reached alarming levels in the case of twins and so on - these children were usually premature and less healthy.

Now surrogate mothers can carry embryos from other parents, which potentially further increases the number of children in the family

"Even if you had quadruplets today, I'm not sure they would all survive," says James Segars.

Finally, it is impossible to believe in the existence of a woman ready for such a life. “Just imagine how stressful it is!” - says Valerie Baker.

Segars echoes her: “You could go crazy! I can’t imagine what it was like to live in this house.”

If, after all, this story is true and not a legend, then the endless need to take care of children could be the decisive reason for the Vasilievs’ divorce, which followed several decades of marriage.

Already an elderly man, Fyodor Vasiliev remarried, and his new wife allegedly gave birth to “only” 18 children. This is about topics for the yellow press.

Brave New World

So what is the actual limit? The answer to this question is not so simple, since the “natural” restrictions that apply to the offspring of an individual woman can now be circumvented.

Firstly, the development of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), which appeared in the late 1970s, led to a surge in the birth rate of twins, triplets, and so on (Nadya Suleman used ART).

Image copyrightSPLImage caption One researcher says there may someday be a way to activate a woman's ability to produce many times more eggs

Secondly, surrogate mothers can now carry embryos from other parents, which potentially further increases the number of children in the family.

But here's what scientists recently found out: we probably greatly underestimate women's reproductive capabilities.

According to research conducted in recent years, inside women's ovaries there are "oocyte stem cells", the proper stimulation of which could lead to the creation of an almost infinite number of eggs.

Jonathan Tilley and his colleagues collected information about these cells from creatures ranging from flies to monkeys.

In 2012, they reached the stem cells of human oocytes. As it turned out, they do not contribute to the production of eggs, unlike similar animal cells. For female flies, this is a common way to produce new eggs.

In principle, women could become mothers to hundreds or even thousands of children

Many doctors working in his field express doubts, but Jonathan Tilly is confident: there is a theoretical possibility of activating this mechanism in women.

He hopes to help women whose egg reserves have been depleted, including prematurely, such as due to cancer treatment.

If this hypothetical procedure were to actually be possible, one would imagine that fertility drugs would be used to hyperstimulate the ovaries, causing multiple follicles to mature and ovulate simultaneously.

These many eggs can be surgically removed and fertilized in vitro, and then surgically placed into the wombs of any number of surrogate mothers, whose task is to carry the embryos. Each could potentially give birth to two or more twins.

Image copyrightSPLImage caption Men are capable of fathering hundreds of children. What if science gives women this opportunity too?

Thus, from a reproductive point of view, women could move closer to men, becoming mothers to hundreds or even thousands of children - leaving far behind the achievements of Fyodor Vasiliev's wife.

However, Tilly makes it clear that his research in no way suggests that women will be able to have thousands of children. He intends to help eliminate infertility in those diagnosed with infertility.

However, the researcher hopes that scientific advances will help equalize the reproductive capabilities of men and women.

After all, males produce millions of sperm throughout their lives, so the only natural limitation of their offspring is the presence (or absence) of ovulating partners.

When it comes to the idea that restrictions on female fertility might be lifted, everyone starts going crazy Jonathan Tilley

Conqueror (and some say serial rapist) Genghis Khan apparently fathered hundreds of children born across his vast Asian empire some 800 years ago. According to genetics, about 16 million people living today are his descendants.

"Theoretically, men can become fathers until very old age, and if you start early, the situation could develop like Genghis Khan," says Jonathan Tilly.

According to him, “male fertility is actually unlimited,” but if we assume that his research will give the desired result, then “women’s fertility too.”

If such a scenario does come true, the existence of mothers with countless children will create a sensation, perhaps even greater than the 69 Vasiliev children.

The question is: How would the public react to multiple fatherhood? If it's not so violent, is that fair?

“People take unlimited male fertility as a given - everyone knows we can do it,” Tilly explains. “But as soon as it comes to the idea that restrictions on female fertility might be lifted, everyone starts going crazy.”

The researcher believes that the issue needs to be put into perspective and the equality that women have deservedly fought for over the past few decades should also apply to issues of reproduction.

Tilly says this about this: “In fact, there should be no difference between the sexes.”

www.bbc.com

I believed it. A woman from Kursk gave birth to 10 children at once!

A Kuryan woman gave birth to ten children - the best April Fool's prank ever! (video)

An April Fool's joke about a Kursk woman giving birth to ten children was broadcast three years ago on the Kursk television company Takt. Then, at the editorial planning meeting, it was decided to make three April Fools' stories. The first is about the fact that a monument to Lenin will be removed from Kursk’s Red Square, and a monument to Zhirinovsky will be erected in its place. The second is about the fact that an episode for Yuri Grymov’s new film “Lenin in Spill” is being filmed in Kursk, the third is about a woman who gave birth to ten children

The best April Fool's prank

Of the three materials, one shot the most - about the heroine mother. Its author, journalist Lyudmila Soboleva, was pregnant at that time, which, in fact, prompted the idea of creating just such a story.

At first I thought of making a story about a woman giving birth to five children, then about six. Well, in the end I decided let it be ten so it’s completely implausible, says Lyudmila Soboleva.

Lyudmila Soboleva still cannot understand how people could believe that a woman managed to carry and give birth to ten full-term babies!

Everything in our lives is real - that’s what people decided and... believed in the prank, which was staged and filmed so masterfully that it left no doubt about its authenticity!

The role of the main character of the plot was played by Kursk resident Irina Alferova. In fact, then she had one son, Ilya. He also played his role 3 years ago - he was one of the “magnificent ten”. In fact, Irina has two children - Ilya and Lisa. Tatyana Alferova loves to joke, so she immediately agreed to participate in the drawing.

The doctor came to me and said, you will be filming, but I didn’t mind, it was fun! – says Irina Alferova.

Filming the story about the birth of ten children in the 6th maternity hospital in Kursk was indeed fun. Both the main character and the doctors immediately got used to their roles and worked literally from the first take. Perhaps this is partly why people didn’t see the joke and... showed their best qualities. Residents of Kursk immediately began collecting money to help the heroine mother, whose husband, moreover, as was said, had left her.

In a word, the story touched a nerve among all the residents of Kursk, and then, when the April Fool’s story was posted on the Internet, it shook the whole world. The very next day after the material was broadcast, all participants in the drawing fully experienced its consequences. The maternity hospital and the Takt television company began receiving calls from a variety of people - from pensioners and engineers, enterprise managers and administration workers. They called from different cities and countries - from Russia, Israel, Germany, England, the USA, Austria... People wanted to help and were even upset when they found out that it was all a hoax.

Be that as it may, all participants in the April Fool's joke believe that it revealed the most important thing - that people are ready to sympathize, help and laugh.

monitor.espec.ws

The largest number of twins born at the same time - Olga Ignatova - Rossiyskaya Gazeta

The largest number of twins born at the same time Photo: Fotolia/PhotoXPress.ru On January 10, 1974, in Cape Town, six twins were born to Sue Rosenkowitz and for the first time all newborns survived.

But this, as they say, is not the limit. More twins have been and are being born in the world. What is the largest number of children born at the same time?

Gears

In October 2008, 31-year-old Digna Carpio from New York gave birth to six twins - four boys and two girls. The weight of the babies at birth ranged from 0.68 to 0.9 kilograms. The happy mother and her husband, 36-year-old Victor, already had a seven-year-old son at that time.

The birth of six twins is an extremely rare occurrence, occurring in one case per 4.4 million population. Only once before had six babies been born at once in New York. This happened in 1997.

In October 2010, in the Italian city of Benevento, near Naples, 30-year-old Carmela Oliva gave birth to six children - four girls and two boys. In Italy this was the first such case in the last 14 years.

To help the babies be born, doctors were forced to resort to caesarean section. Children were born with a low weight - from 600 to 800 grams. According to doctors, this phenomenon is not associated with artificial insemination, but with the treatment that the mother underwent - the fact is that Italian laws prohibit the transplantation of more than three embryos.

Seventeens

Bobbie McCaughey (USA) gave birth to 7 children on November 19, 1997. They weighed between 1048 and 1474 grams and were born at 31 weeks of gestation in 16 minutes via caesarean section.

Most multiple twins born at one time

In August 2008, in the northern Egyptian province of Beheira, the 27-year-old wife of a local farmer, Ghazalu Khamis, gave birth to seven twins at once! As it turned out, the Egyptian woman dreamed of giving her husband a son and took pregnancy-inducing drugs. The result is four sons and three daughters.

Ghazala Khamis was placed under observation two months before giving birth: the development of the twins in the womb did not cause any concern - the doctors were only concerned about the increasing pressure on the kidneys. After the caesarean section, the woman in labor also underwent a blood transfusion. But all the babies were born healthy and quite large - from 1.4 to 2.8 kg, which in itself is a mystery of nature.

Octuplets

On January 26, 2009, 33-year-old Nadi Suleman gave birth to eight twins, and all of them were healthy.

The mother of a newborn octuplet lived then with her other children and parents in the suburbs of Los Angeles - in the small town of Whittier. The family already had six children aged from two to seven years old, including a pair of twins.

The children’s grandmother left her job and devoted herself entirely to her daughter’s family. And grandfather, to help Nadya, went to Iraq to work under a contract. Nadia herself claimed that she decided to take this step because of her own childhood, in which she so lacked brothers and sisters. In addition, the eccentric American said that she follows the example of her idol, Angelina Jolie, who has many children. A few years ago, Suleman even had plastic surgery to look like an actress.

The octuplets were conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). In such cases, doctors insist on reduction (removal) of some embryos. After all, such a quantity can have a bad effect on both the health of the mother and the health of future children.

But the Californian, with the support of her large family, refused the reduction. A single mother divorced her husband a long time ago precisely because they could not have children together.

The birth by caesarean section was nine weeks earlier than expected. The team of 46 doctors who delivered the baby were expecting the birth of seven babies, which, although not often, does happen. However, there were eight newborns - six boys and two girls - and all of them were quite healthy. The weight of babies is from 700 g to 1.9 kg. Seven of them were immediately breathing on their own and were bottle-fed. The whole family was discharged from the maternity hospital home just a week later.

Most multiple twins born at one time

From 10 and more

There is information about the birth of ten twins at once. Such cases were recorded in Spain in 1924, in China in 1936 and in Brazil in 1946. But this is not the limit.

Eleven children at once - this is the largest number of twins, information about which is known. The first birth of 11 twins occurred on May 29, 1971 in the USA, in the city of Philadelphia. The second - in 1977 in Bangladesh, in the city of Bagarhat. In both cases, none of the children, unfortunately, survived.

Besides

Largest number of children born to one mother

The largest number of children born to one mother, according to official data, is 69. According to reports made in 1782, between 1725 and 1765. the wife of the Russian peasant Fyodor Vasiliev gave birth 27 times, giving birth to twins 16 times, triplets 7 times and twins 4 times. Of these, only 2 children died in infancy.

Of our contemporaries, the most prolific mother is considered to be Leontina Albina from San Antonio, Chile, who gave birth to 55 children in 1943-81. As a result of her first 5 pregnancies, she gave birth to triplets, all of them male.

The woman who gave birth the most times

Elizabeth Greenhill from Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, UK, allegedly gave birth a record number of times - 38 times. She had 39 children - 32 daughters and 7 sons - and died in 1681.

The father with many children

The Russian peasant from the village of Vvedenskoye, Yakov Kirillov, is considered to be the most numerous father in history, who in 1755, in connection with this, was presented to the court (he was then 60 years old). The peasant's first wife gave birth to 57 children: 4 times four, 7 times three, 9 times two and 2 times one. The second wife gave birth to 15 children. Thus, Yakov Kirillov had 72 children from two wives.

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The beginning of the story about how a woman gave birth to 10 children in Kursk was more than ordinary. One morning a woman came into the local maternity hospital with contractions. The doctors were immediately surprised by the unusual size of her belly, which, compared to the woman herself, seemed simply huge. In addition, she was never registered with a gynecologist, did not have a hospital card and did not have an ultrasound scan during the entire period of her pregnancy. Accordingly, the woman in labor did not know about the number of children she was carrying under her heart. There was no time left to do an ultrasound, and the decision was made to immediately give birth. Within half an hour after admission to the hospital, ten charming babies were born. This story came as a real shock to local doctors, because the woman gave birth

Big harvest.

On this amazing day, Irina (that was the name of the young mother) gave birth to five girls and five boys, which shocked not only ordinary citizens, but also doctors who had seen a lot. They were especially amazed that all the babies turned out to be completely healthy and full-term. The woman herself, who gave birth to 10 children, is also completely healthy and happy. She had long dreamed of having at least one child, but as a result she got ten. Irina has already given names to all her children, although she still gets confused about who gets what.

Plans for future life.

Numerous aunts and grandmothers, who were immediately called from all over the Kursk region, will help Irina fight an entire army of toddlers. But dad, it seems, went to heal his emotional wounds. It is known that he visited Irina only once. Having learned how many children he had, the young father disappeared. No one saw him again. However, the brave woman herself, who gave birth to 10 children, is not afraid of any difficulties. In her head she is already counting how much government money will be paid to her and gifts given for the birth of ten healthy Russian citizens at once. But so far only medical luminaries have become interested in such a phenomenal phenomenon, trying to solve the riddle of how exactly ten full-term babies could fit in a woman’s stomach at once.

The harvest was stolen by mistake

Police say April 1 is not much different from everyday life. Unless some drunken joker tries to entertain you with a ridiculous phone call. But there are plenty of funny incidents on other days as well.

In the Fatezhsky district, one family had a house and a summer cottage, which they used for a vegetable garden. The residents of Kursk asked their relatives to help dig up the potatoes and explained the route. The owners themselves were away.

It later turned out that the helpers had mixed up the gardens, leaving the neighbors without potatoes, who were not there at the time. They filed a statement with the police, and they established who worked at the site. Fortunately, the conflict was avoided. The root crops were returned, and the victims helped the neighbors dig up a vegetable garden.

Quite often, tipsy Kursk residents turn to the police and rescuers. At first it seems that the crime is serious, but on the spot it turns out that the departure is false. A resident of Kursk was relaxing in the company of friends. After the feast, the man went outside and did not find his car. Stolen! The Kuryan resident called the police, and the city introduced the “Interception” plan. When the alcohol began to dissipate, the driver remembered that he asked a friend to drive the car to another place. As a result, the question arose about initiating a criminal case against the applicant: after all, it was a false report of a crime.

Another Kuryan, leaving the guests, confused his car with someone else's. One brand, color, didn’t pay attention to the license plate number. The door did not give way, which did not stop the man: he opened the car. True, he didn’t go far - he was detained by the police.

House for the President

Journalists love practical jokes. Just a few years ago, on April 1, almost every editorial office considered it their duty to release one or two comic news. DDD held a competition, inviting readers to try to separate truth from fiction. They didn’t always guess right, and sometimes reality exceeded fantasy.

In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev became President of the Russian Federation. On April 1, DDD wrote that the new head of state plans to visit the Kursk region. Then it only became clear that the homeland of Dmitry Anatolyevich’s ancestors was the village of Mansurovo. We joked that for the president’s arrival they were building a separate house there with a Russian bathhouse and a small pond in the yard, and the officials were seriously thinking about gasification. Like, it’s not good if a distinguished guest finds out that his fellow countrymen are still lighting their stoves.

Readers recognized the “duck”. Some were confused by the cost figure - five million rubles - it seemed too much even for a gift to the president; others did not believe in the gasification of a remote village.

The truth turned out to be more enchanting. Three years later, Mansurovo was transformed beyond recognition. Not only gas came here - all the roads were paved, major repairs were made at the local school, the Internet was installed, a mansion and a helipad were built so that Medvedev could quickly arrive in his small homeland. And the village was officially renamed a village after the construction of a large temple.

“The chicken woman gave birth to 10 children”

- this is still one of the most popular Yandex queries related to the word “Kursk”. Half the country suddenly believed in an April Fool's prank filmed 10 years ago by colleagues from the Takt television company in a Kursk maternity hospital.

The journalists themselves did not expect such an effect. Moreover, every effort was made to make the news as implausible as possible. “The idea to talk about the “heroine mother” came to correspondent Lyudmila Soboleva. She herself once worked at Maternity Hospital No. 6 and knew the staff well. Doctors happily joined the game. They described in vivid colors how the babies were born one after another, and their emotions about this. Moreover, they mentioned more than once that all the babies were full-term and were in excellent health. Each weight is 2.5-3 kilos. Even the fact that the woman’s belly in this situation would weigh about 30 kilograms did not bother TV viewers.

“The next day, the editorial office’s phone was red-hot with calls,” recalls 46TV editor Nina Nikitina, who worked at Takt at the time. “The people of Kursk wanted to help: with things or money. Entire teams raised funds at the enterprises!

Men called. After all, journalists said that the father of the children, having learned about their number, ran away from his wife. The angry Kursk residents wanted to find the “scoundrel” and have a heart-to-heart talk. “By releasing the story on air, we indicated that it was in the April Fools’ news block, and we emphasized this after the video,” continues Nikitina. “But no one paid attention to this.” There were two more comic news, one about the demolition of the Lenin monument on Red Square. But only the story about 10 children caused such a reaction.

They also called the maternity hospital. From different cities and countries - from Russia, Israel, Germany, England, USA, Austria. People wanted to help and were even upset when they learned that it was a prank.

The news reached federal channels. Three years later, NTV filmed a story about a joke between Kursk colleagues. The record birth was seriously discussed on forums and on social networks. Even now, 10 years later, the video on YouTube is still getting reviews. Some write that it turned out to be a great prank, others wonder: is it really true?

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(video). A Kuryan woman gave birth to ten children - the best April Fool's prank ever! (video) Where 10 children were born at once