- Villagers have been battling a mysterious sleeping sickness for four years
- People fall into deep sleep for up to six days after striking without warning
- Now residents reveal the horrifying side effects - which include increased sex drive, inability to control the bladder and ghastly visions
- Worse, while no one knows what causes it, some fear they may be being deliberately poisoned to force them to make way for a gold mine
Published:
06:36 GMT, 30 April 2015
|
Updated:
17:21 GMT, 30 April 2015
People
living in Kazakhstan's 'Village of the Damned' have spoken of the
horrifying side effects of the mysterious sleeping sickness which can
leave them unconscious for days - as others reveal they fear they are
being poisoned to force them to make way for a gold mine.
When
a photojournalist spent a night at the infamous village, she was told
of how children have seen their mothers grow eyes on their foreheads and
usually well-mannered pensioners denounce their nurses as 'whores' and
'prostitutes'.
Meanwhile,
men struggle with uncontrollable sexual desires after waking from the
coma-like sleep in the village of Kalachi, in northern Kazakhstan.
It
is the first time residents of the village, which has also been dubbed
'Sleepy Hollow', have spoken of the debilitating side effects.
Scroll down for video
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Mystery: Photographer Vera Salnitskaya
travelled to the village of Kalachi to see if she could experience the
sleeping sickness which has ravaged the town for four years, leaving
residents terrified
+27
Victim: Almaz, 10, has been struck twice by the illness - and his mother believes it has left a lasting effect
+27
Abandoned: Many have already fled the small village, and there are more willing to leave
+27
Quiet: Kalachi now has a population of just 381 - all of whom are scared they could fall asleep at any moment
The
illness which sends people into a deep sleep without warning first
struck four years ago, and is thought to have affected about a quarter
of the population - about 160 people - at some time or another.
Known
side effects include headaches and memory loss, but when MailOnline
visited the village, which is about 250 miles from the border with
Russia, residents were willing to reveal more of the horrendous effects
of the disease.
Local
women told us that when their husbands and boyfriends come round from
the deep slumber, lasting from 12 hours to six days, they often awoke
craving sex.
'The doctors laugh and the nurses blush when they see our men,' explained one Kalachi woman.
'Other
women were saying the same. As soon as men were were recovering after
waking, they needed sex right there and then, and this feeling lasted
for at least a month.'
One
man just out of hospital 'still couldn't eat properly let alone walk,
but he was all over his wife,' she revealed. 'He really needed it.'
Unsurprisingly, the men are reluctant to talk about this aspect of the sleeping illness.
But
another woman, in her 40s, who had taken her son to live in a
neighbouring village to protect him from the unexplained disease, said:
'My husband after he woke up called me and said: "Listen either you
visit me right now, or I'll go to you".'
There are other debilitating symptoms, including an inability to control the bladder.
'One
poor man wet himself as he went to hospital. So the paramedics removed
his pants and there he was, not properly conscious but in a state of
sexual excitement,' a resident said.
'The view of the men lying in the hospital ward rooms is called "tents".'
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Terrifying: One of the victims of the 'sleeping epidemic', which affects people of all ages and genders
+27
Visions: Children affected by the mystery illness see monsters, and hallucinate things flying around rooms
+27
Hospitalised: One of the residents sleeping in the local hospital - the ailment can hit at any time
+27
Conspiracy: Daria Kravchuk, 27, is one
of those who worries the illness has been engineered in order to get
the villagers to leave the area, so a gold mine can be built
Some
rant uncontrollably. Locals cite the example of one man, known for his
impeccable manners, who cursed nurses as 'whores' and 'prostitutes' when
he was suddenly struck down by the Kalachi drowsiness
Another
man, apparently recovering, suddenly leapt out of bed, giving a Nazi
salute to his doctors, greeting them with 'Heil Hitler', while a
60-year-old grandfather imagined he was a rooster, flapping his arms
around and crowing.
Elena
Zhavoronkova and Lyudmila Samusenkyo - who are both described as
'serious minded' - found themselves in hospital at the same time
recovering from the sleeping condition, and experienced some of the
strange side effects.
'I
felt that something was wrong, but still I had an urge to escape, and I
asked Lyudmila to join me on a lift ride,' said Elena.
They shut themselves inside the elevator, playing a bizarre game of tag with doctors.
'We
were laughing and giggling and felt like we were schoolgirls. One of
the surgeons prized open the doors with a chisel, and we both jumped on
him and started hitting him in the face. It felt like great fun.'
Some
people think that there is a kind of a drug, preparation testing going
on, each time a different one. Others say an old Soviet chemical or
radioactive weapon was dumped here, and this is poisoning us.
Lyubov Rabchevskaya
Others feel they have been turned into zombies.
Many
have an urge to walk when they wake up - and a local man dressed
himself in only a hospital diaper, repeatedly fleeing his ward.
Children
are affected in different ways: many have been overpowered by delirium,
telling of seeing monsters, and extra eyes on their mothers' foreheads.
One
mother was told by her sick child that she had an elephant's trunk,
and Misha Plyukhin, 13, saw light bulbs and horses flying all around
him.
For distraught parents, it is an added burden.
Lyubov Rabchevskaya admits she is 'dead scared' for her son Almaz, 10.
'I still shudder over the first time he fell asleep,' the 28-year-old told MailOnline.
'He normally wakes up 7am. That day it was 10am - and he was still asleep.
'I thought at first that he was sick and it was better to let him rest, then I began shaking him, but he would not wake up.
'It's
really, really scary when your child is suddenly in a coma-like state.
Also when they wake up, they behave like sickly babies, they cry without
reason just bursting into tears.
'Like my son, he wanted to get off the bed, but fell down because his legs were too weak. Another burst into tears.
'And
another one when he needs to go to the loo, and he is too weak to make
it to the toilet, so he needs to use a hospital potty - and he feels shy
and embarrassed by it.
'How can a mother take it calmly and not be left brokenhearted over this anguish?'
+27
Ghost town: Krasnogorsk, pictured, is just a few hundred metres away from the village
+27
Crumbling: It used to have a population of 6,000 - now just a handful of people live here
+27
Mysterious: But residents have questioned why none of those people have suffered the sleeping illness
+27
Future?: Some think the village of Kalachi will soon be as empty as this town
Lyubov has made up her mind, like many others, that she cannot risk staying in Kalachi.
The
former shop assistant said: 'I had to give up my job because I started
driving other villages, looking for places to relocate. I had to be out
of the shop six times a month, for several days in a row. It was
impossible to keep the job. No matter what happens, I'll leave here.'
She added: 'Some reports say there are no health consequences after people fall asleep like this.
'Wrong, there are a lot of them. Almaz was full of energy before, but now he's not nearly as active as he was, he needs rest.'
Many have already fled Kalachi, a village guarded by a crumbling statue of Lenin, amid fears for their health.
It
is going the same way as Krasnogorsk, a town just a few hundred metres
away which once produced uranium ore for the Soviet Union's nuclear
weapons programme.
We
began to think that someone is deliberately poisoning us to force us
away. Some say that over the hill nearby gold was found and even the
road is built
Lyubov Rabchevskaya
Krasnogorsk
used to have a population of 6,000 but now only a handful of people
call it home: yet, strangely, there have been hardly any cases of the
sleeping epidemic among locals who live here among derelict apartment
blocks that look as if they were blitzed in a war.
The
fact the few residents of this ghost town have escaped the illness
unharmed has not been missed by the residents of the village.
Officially,
the most likely explanation is that leakages of radioactive gas radon
from former uranium mines four miles away are behind the mystery
condition, yet many are sceptical.
Daria
Kravchuk, 27, an assistant in the village store, who was laid low by
the sleeping condition after falling into a near coma when she was
drinking tea, said: 'People are dead scared of what's going, and the
pressure of staying here is hardly bearable.
'And
yet we stay because where else do you run? At least here we have a good
school, nice houses, and a good salary. There is a lot of rumours about
gold deposits being found here. Apparently there was even an
announcement on TV in Almaty that people were needed to mine it.
'Some of us wonder if this sleeping disease and the alleged gold mine can be related.'
Alexander
Remezov, 70, a married father-of-two who formerly worked at the
Soviet-era uranium mines, said: 'I'm leaving now but I'd never planned
to relocate.
+27
Radiation: Krasnogorsk used to produce uranium ore for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons programme
+27
Waiting game: Many parents are waiting
until the end of the academic year to leave the town, so their children
are some of the few still left at the village school. Pictured: one of
the pupils
WHAT COULD BE CAUSING THE MYSTERY SLEEP ILLNESS?
The cause of the mystery illness remains a mystery, but various theories continue to circulate.
Many locals believe the cause may be coming from nearby former Soviet-era uranium mines that are now abandoned.
Others claim toxic waste has been buried in the area.
Baffled
doctors have diagnosed the sufferers with encephalopathy, a disorder of
the brain, of unclear origin. Scans have shown that many of the
sufferers have excessive accumulation of fluid in their brains - known
as oedema.
Experts
fear that prolonged diffuse brain oedema could have long term
consequences on the neurological development of the children's brains.
But they are still no closer to finding out what might be causing the symptoms.
Some
have dismissed the condition as narcolepsy or even chronic fatigue
syndrome, but Professor Jim Horne, a sleep expert at Loughborough
University's Sleep Research Centre, thinks this is unlikely.
'I hear different versions about the cause of the sleeping disease.
'Yet I don't believe that it can be provoked by the proximity of the uranium mines.
'I
worked there for years, and sometimes miners even drank water from the
mine which as you can imagine was like a uranium concoction.
'But no-one fell asleep. It's not about uranium.
'I fear it might be a sabotage and us being used as a testing ground. I think this version must be investigated.
'Take
last year - people were falling asleep in bulk, 30 people each month.
Now we have had several quiet months, and why is that?'
Some
say it is because of the build-up to Sunday's election in which veteran
74-year-old dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev - who employs Tony Blair as a
consultant - scored a landslide victory securing 97.7 per cent of the
vote in a poll seen in the West as far short of free and fair.
Recently
a local official was fired over a suspicious land deal, at a time when
villagers fear they are being pressured to leave.
The
state is currently running an evacuation plan, under which people
should be given a place to live in a new location. The government pays
250,000 tenge (£890) to help meet the costs.
Some
52 families have already left the village, with ten more scheduled to
leave by the end of April. Others wait for the end of the school year to
leave, but some 381 people still remain.
Lyubov
said: 'We began to think that someone is deliberately poisoning us to
force us away. Some say that over the hill nearby gold was found and
even the road is built.'
She pointed out: 'There was a meeting at the beginning of February to discuss relocation.
'The
people who screamed loudest that they would not be going anywhere all
fell asleep. The locals joked that they each were individually
poisoned.'
+27
Living in fear: Tatiana Shumilina, 56, says everyone in the village is 'extremely nervous'
+27
Catching: The disease has struck 160 people in the village - about a quarter of the original population
+27
Patrol: A National Centre of Radiation control car in the area - some think radiation is the problem
There
are other elements which are making some residents fear the sleeping
illness is more than just an unfortunate side effect of the uranium
mining industry.
Sometimes
the symptoms resemble the impact of alcohol poisoning, but locals also
claim that the side-effects are now subtly different to when the first
cases appeared.
'The
last mass epidemic was at the beginning of March, when 15 people were
near falling asleep, but unlike earlier, they were not actually deeply
asleep, or out for a long time,' said one source.
'They
could walk themselves and all managed to get to the local hospital.
They felt exhausted and weak, but none of them needed to be taken to
hospital in Esil, the nearest town.
'Earlier
on, during another period all sleepers were aggressive and everyone -
from men to children - had to be tied to their beds because they were
trying to attack doctors, nurses and other patients.
'There
were moments when people were all vomiting, or hiccuping. This makes
people some people think that there is a kind of a drug, preparation
testing going on, each time a different one. Others say an old Soviet
chemical or radioactive weapon was dumped here, and this is poisoning
us.'
Locals have also complained that officials have sought to pin the blame for some cases on parents poisoning their children.
Oleg Svinarev's family have four children, and during September and October last year each of them succumbed two or three times.
Earlier
on, during another period all sleepers were aggressive and everyone -
from men to children - had to be tied to their beds because they were
trying to attack doctors, nurses and other patients
He was detained amid a suspicion they were given something toxic.
'Honestly I was ready to kick police in their faces when they asked me if we gave something toxic to children,' he said.
'We were scared to death for them, and they were bugging me with stupid questions.'
Tatiana
Shumilina told MailOnline: 'We are all extra nervous here - imagine
being in our shoes when you don't know which of your family members will
collapse, when and with what consequences, which is what we have lived
with for three years. How would you feel?'
Kabdrashit
Almagambetov, the district's top doctor, seems genuinely puzzled about
what caused this health hazard on his doorstep.
'It
all is very individual, depending on age, the patient's health
condition, what other chronic diseases they have suffered,' he said.
'For
example, the reaction of children strongly differs from that of adults.
Children's brains have not yet formed fully. They find it harder to
tolerate the disease, they have strong hallucinations.
'Elderly
people, too, have hallucinations, because of their age. Frankly, the
cause of the disease is still unknown despite the many institutions that
have worked here.
'The
radioactive background is normal, all products people are eating have
been checked, the water is tested, nothing is harmful there.
'All
those who have been affected are in Kalachi village. True, several
people who came from Krasnogorsk suffered from the illness - but only
after they visited Kalachi. So the strange effect is noticed only in one
village.
+27
Indiscriminate: Eight children were struck down with the illness in September alone
+27
Restricted: The only people to get the sleeping sickness in Krasnogorsk were people who visited the village
+27
Sticking it out: Lyudmila Penzenshtadlerm is one of the villagers who have remained behind
'I can assure you, it is not some mental disorder, it is not some hysterical epidemic, as it was supposed previously.'
He denied it was a psychological illness as some had claimed - 'only physical'.
'I
cannot say for sure about the radon theory for now, because we need to
obtain data from the scientists. I am not a specialist in this question,
but I doubt this theory, because we have many closed mines and uranium
mines and it is only in Kalachi we faced with such a disease. '
He stressed there was no evidence of artificial poisoning, as some villagers suspected.
'I do not have any working theories, because I am a doctor. I must think how to treat these people, how to help them.'
Scientists
from the National Nuclear Researching centre of Kazakhstan, who are
making bore holes to take samples of soil, water and gas, while
separately monitoring radiation including tests for radon, also dismiss
fears over being poisoned on purpose.
I can assure you, it is not some mental disorder, it is not some hysterical epidemic, as it was supposed previously
Doctor Kabdrashit Almagambetov
'There
is a lot of rumours about us among the locals - some say we are after
gold, others that we found extra pure water, while in fact our tasks are
basic - to keep drilling and taking samples,' said a scientists who
declined to be named.
The
teams first came a year ago and have been permanently working in
Kalachi since April 2014: yet the locals point suspiciously out that
none of these scientists have been struck down by the slumbering
disease.
'Every evening, when we gather together, we have debates on what is the cause of this condition,' he said.
'We have experts in different fields in our teams, so every one of us is trying to build up a version based on our knowledge.'
Some believe it maybe caused by radiation emanating from cracks in the ground.
Yet many of these experts are veterans of the Soviet nuclear testing site at Semipalatinsk in northern Kazakhstan.
'Here we have a much higher level of radon and no-on falls asleep,' said the scientist.
+27
Luck?: Olga Polezhayeva, 47, a Kazakh
Ecological Laboratory engineer, has been living with one of the
villagers, and seen the effects of the disease first hand - but has
never been sick herself
+27
Cause: The deserted uranium mines are one possible cause of the illness
+27
Top secret: Krasnogorsk was a secret and 'closed' uranium mining town run directly from Mosco
'Last
year our colleagues went through every house in the village, taking all
radiation readings, and making a census of people who did and didn't
sleep, writing their accounts on when and how it happened, down to the
routes people took when walking the village.'
Some houses with higher readings of radon are not hit by the sleeping epidemic. Others, with lower readings, are.
Yet still, despite all these tests, the scientists are no nearer finding an answer.
Olga
Polezhayeva, 47, a Kazakh Ecological Laboratory engineer, said: 'We are
working year here for the second year, since December 2013.
'Every
month we spend 10 days, taking samples for nitrogen oxide, nitrogen
dioxide, formaldehyde, sulphur, ammonia, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons.
We take samples every morning of those 10 days. So far all results were
normal.'
She and her colleagues live with a villager.
WOULD I WAKE UP AGAIN? MAILONLINE PHOTOGRAPHER'S NIGHT IN KALACHI
+27
Brave: Vera Salnitskaya spent the night in the norther Kazakh village of Kalachi
Photographer
Vera Salnitskaya travelled to the remote village to try to find out
more about the illness which has captured the attention of the world,
but has devastated a community.
Here, she shares her experience.
After
hearing all the stories of the sleeping sickness in Kalachi, I was
nervous, not just about going there but staying the night, too.
Journalists have been here before, but not slept overnight.
My host Lyubov (Lyuba) Rabchevskaya had suffered from the sleeping condition, as had her child and boyfriend Sergey.
Like
others in Kalachi, they are friendly and welcoming but the locals are
desperately worried about this illness so I feared what might happen?
Would I sink into a coma-like sleep? And what about the hallucinations that victims have suffered?
Lyubov kindly gave me her son's bed, while he slept with her.
My
sheet had islands, sea and palm trees on it - somehow, a long way from
the life here in Kalachi where the snow is not long gone.
I
reasoned that scientifically the chances of me going down with this
unknown but alarming disease was not too great. But the fear in my head
somehow defies this logic.
In fact, after my long train journey I dozed off to sleep quickly and woke at 6am, a white and ginger cat sitting on my bed.
I
check I am not sick, and doze off again for an hour. At 7am the house
is quiet, and another cat, grey with blue eyes, has come for a visit.
I
was on the verge of hysterical laughter: I'd survived the night and
woken with nothing more than a slight headache, maybe from the worry of
what might have happened.
I
felt the hysterical laughter and posed for a selfie with the cat. Then I
realise that around the house, I can hear snoring. Are they all right?
Should I wake them? Have they caught the sleeping illness again?
But it was a false alarm, and everyone was fine. Lyubov's son Almaz was soon up and he took me with him to his school.
'She fell asleep twice but none of us did. When I saw her I thought that she looked like she'd been under general anaesthetic.
'There
is no location tag to where people fall asleep - just one day one
person collapses at one end of the village, another one at another, and
in a week same people might fall asleep in different locations.
'The first time when we came here we were scared to touch anything, almost frightened to breathe.
'When
you don't know what and how can hit you, you feel really disorientated.
We brought water and food with us, but what do you do with the air?
There
is no location tag to where people fall asleep - just one day one
person collapses at one end of the village, another one at another, and
in a week same people might fall asleep in different locations
Ecologist Olga Polezhayeva
'I can see the locals are exhausted and concerned that there is no explanation of what on earth caused it.'
In several cases, the condition was caught by people after attending meetings or gatherings at school.
A Russian scientist who knows the area well is convinced he knows the true reason for the poisoning.
Leonid Rikhvanov, of Tomsk Polytechnic University, said: 'This couldn't have been done deliberately, that's complete nonsense.'
Though not invited to inspect the village by the Kazakh authorities he is adamant that he knows the cause.
'My
model is the only one which explains what is going on there,' he said.
'If to describe it simply, when the uranium mines were abandoned, they
began to fill with the ground water.
'Radon
and other inert gases which release as a result of the decay of uranium
are squeezed out by groundwater and through the cracks in the ground
rises to the surface. It can accumulate in the cellars.'
Yet critics say similar illnesses are not found near other disused uranium mines.
And
Sergei Lukashenko, director of the country's National Nuclear Center's
Radiation Safety and Ecology Institute, said: 'I am positive this is not
radon.
'Carbon monoxide is definitely a factor, but I cannot tell you whether this is the main and vital factor.'
He
stated: 'The maximum allowable concentration of carbon monoxide in
Kazakhstan is five milligrams per cubic meter and concentrations in
homes where sleeping sickness cases have occurred were 10 times higher.
This factor looks very suspicious. It is also odd. It should not be so.'
Asked why, he said: 'It could be natural gas or stove heating or machines or something else but that can happen anywhere.
'The
question is why it does not go away. We have some suspicions as the
village has a peculiar location, a hollow, and weather patterns
frequently force chimney smoke to go down instead of up.
'We have even photographed that. That could be a factor.'
+27
Dangerous: Radiation danger signs are used to warn people as they approach the uranium mines
+27
Tests: National Nuclear Researching centre's team are monitoring radiation levels in the area
+27
Unsolved: But the team is no closer to understanding why or what is causing the illness
Vitaly,
61, a TV repairman-turned-amateur sleuth who declined to give his
family name, used to work in the uranium mine which many blame for the
sleeping epidemic.
'It
looks like some kind of beam went through the village. I do not know
what it can be. Maybe some some special equipment, like emitter. But it
all is my speculation.
'I just see that the location of the homes, where people fell asleep are in straight lines, as if some beam cut through them.'
He warned: 'I'm not speaking about UFOs. I am simply trying to understand what is going on here.'
Karia Kravchuk, from the local shop, agrees.
'It's
shocking how long it goes on without an explanation. Four years have
passed since the first case, and we are still no wiser. Medical samples
are constantly getting lost, sometimes people have to be back to
hospitals two, three times to re-do the same tests.
'I don't believe we'll be told anything. They will never explain.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3059042/EXCLUSIVE-Sex-cravings-children-seeing-monsters-foul-mouthed-rants-Residents-Kazakh-Village-Damned-hit-mysterious-sleeping-sickness-reveal-sufferers-disturbing-new-symptoms.html#ixzz3Yr9Kfgd5
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