(July 10) – A 130-year-old woman in the former Soviet state of Georgia appears to have outlived her own birth certificate and any other documents she can use to prove her longevity.
Antisa Khvichava's family says her Soviet-era passport and pension book list her birthday as July 8, 1880. A spokesman for Georgia's justice ministry confirmed that to VOA News and several other media on Thursday, when Khvichava celebrated what she said was her 130th birthday.
But those documents aren't as old as she is. Georgia only became part of the Soviet Union in 1922. When Khvichava was allegedly born, her country was part of the Russian empire.
Antisa Khvichava is a Georgian woman who claims to be 130 years old
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Antisa Khvichava, shown here on July 8, is purported to be the oldest person in the world. But experts say her claim can be proved only with documents dating to the time of her birth.
It appears that her birth certificate and any other documents from the year 1880 haven't survived the test of time as well as she has. They were all lost over the years in wars and revolutions.
Without 130-year-old documents, Khvichava can't prove her age and claim her title as the world's oldest person.
"Otherwise, this claim will remain a curiosity in a newspaper or floating on the Internet," Stephen Coles, a University of California lecturer and a member of the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps track of the world's oldest residents, told The Associated Press.
Officially, the world's oldest person is Eugenie Blanchard, born on the Caribbean island in Guadeloupe on February 16, 1896, according to GRG.
Still, the dilemma didn't' prevent Khvichava from celebrating what she believes was her 130th birthday on Thursday.
"I feel a bit weak, but I don't want to stay in bed," Khvichava told Reuters as she invited guests to a birthday party in her small stone house in a remote Georgian mountain village. Among the guests were some of her ten grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, along with officials from the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
Khvichava is believed to have ended her formal schooling after fourth grade, and spent her life growing tea, corn and vegetables and looking after cattle. She retired as a tea and corn picker in 1965 at the age of 85.
On Thursday, her family baked her a birthday cake with three candles in the shape of the numbers "1-3-0." It took her five tries, but eventually she managed to blow them out.
Georgian Woman's Claim to Be 130 Is Hard to Prove
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Originally Posted by BocReaper
