Siamese twins Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov: they were separated by death. “Masha was a psychopath, and Dasha physically could not leave”: Daily Mail spoke about cruel medical experiments on the Siamese twin sisters Krivoshlyapov

Against the backdrop of the high-profile events of the last week, the once famous Siamese twins, sisters Dasha and Masha Krivoshlyapov, passed away very quietly. They were born in January 1950 in the USSR, they died in April 2003, in New Russia. About the life of the rejected, but not defeated, doomed to misfortune, but who found happiness in small joys Anna Loshak.

The death certificate became the first document in the life of Siamese twins Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov. “Your children were born dead,” they told their mother Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova in maternity hospital number 6. She signed a death certificate, but a few days later a compassionate midwife took her to the intensive care unit...

Seeing her daughters, Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova went crazy. She spent the next two years in psychiatric hospital. This is how the life of Masha and Dasha began.

They really were predicted imminent death. The year of life was prophesied by academician Pyotr Anokhin. He took them to the Institute of Human Physiology for further research we had to hurry, Masha and Dasha were considered a medical rarity.

Their mutation was phenomenal. She was later included in the Guinness Book of Records. The twins had separate bodies, but shared blood and genitourinary system and three legs for two, one of which consisted of two fused ones.

By the age of six they were transferred to the Institute of Prosthetics and Prosthetics. They did not know how to walk, sit or feed themselves. But doctors have already defended countless dissertations and a film benefit for medical universities has been made.

At the Institute of Prosthetics, nurse Nadezhda Lopukhina taught girls to walk. It was difficult - each nervous system controlled only one leg, the third leg helped maintain balance. It turned out that it was easier to first learn to ride a bike.

They tried to adapt the twins to life in society. And we celebrated their births, twisting them into rags in their hair, as girls should do. But Masha and Dasha realized at the age of three that they were not like everyone else. The sisters tried to lift up the nurses' scrubs to count how many legs they had.

As children, they wondered why there was always a crowd around them. Relatives of other patients who were in the institute tried to grab a bottle of vodka and look at Masha and Dasha...

They only had one birth certificate between them, Dashino. In order for Masha to receive a passport, the doctors had to write a special paper certifying that Masha and Dasha were two different people.

And they were completely different: Masha temperamental and tough, Dasha shy and sensitive. At school, Masha copied from Dasha, Dasha was the first to fall in love, and the first to learn how to kiss.

Love was crazy, unreal in the full sense. Slavik was very “severely disabled.” After polio, his arms and legs were paralyzed. The dates went like this: the sisters sat in the garden under the cherry tree, with a tape recorder, and Slavik next to him, in a wheelchair.

Masha and Dasha lived to see their 15th anniversary. And it became a sensation. The only thing that was unclear was what to do with them next, when everything had already been studied. Doctors decided to put the final touch on the girls' third, unnecessary leg.

And for the rest of their lives they suffered from phantom pain, both of them. They say that they both saw nightmares together, and read each other’s thoughts. Only Dasha was less able to endure it, she began to drink too much, and both had a hangover. Just at this time, the perestroika press wrote about the “closed medical facility of Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov.”

After the publication, journalists started a rumor that the sisters were the illegitimate children of Lavrentiy Beria. It was impossible to believe that something like this could happen to a person without any diabolical intent.

And they suffered from the inappropriate curiosity of neighbors in the nursing home. “How will you die”? this was the most painful question for the Siamese twins.

Masha died first. Dasha lived for another 17 hours. Death separated them...

At the time of their death in 2003, Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov were the oldest living twins in the world: the women were 53 years old.

The girls' story began with the fact that Masha and Dasha were taken away from their mother Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova in January 1950, who was under anesthesia after caesarean section. The woman was told that her children died shortly after birth.

The girls were taken to medical school pediatrics, where else long years carried out experiments. They shared one blood system, but each had its own functioning nervous system, which is why they became an ideal object for research.

Dasha is on the left, Masha is on the right

As children, one of the girls contracted measles, but the other did not. Their different nervous systems meant that the same illnesses would affect the twins differently.

"Lab Rats"

Masha and Dasha were treated like lab rats or guinea pigs. The girls were subjected to cold and heat treatment, they were forced to starve, electric currents were passed through their bodies, they were not allowed to sleep, they were injected under the skin different drugs to find out their effect on the body of twins. At that time, such steps were considered sacrifices in the name of “science,” writes the Daily Mail.

In 1956, Dasha and Masha were transferred to the Central Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics. Scientists experimentally determined the reaction of one organism to prolonged lack of sleep, severe hunger and sudden changes in temperature.

In one experiment, one of the twins was assessed for reaction to various kinds injections while the other was immersed in ice water, the purpose being to check the temperature of the adjacent body part.

At the age of 6-7 years, the cruel experiments stopped. The girls themselves hid from the public in the children's ward for eight years. Afterwards, the twins were sent to a boarding school for children with disabilities in southern Russia.

The experiments on the twins continued for a long time, and no one knew about them for just as long. But the general public nevertheless became aware of the cruelty shown by Soviet scientists.

One body - two different characters

The horrifying story was first touched upon by the English journalist Juliet Butler. Butler became friends with Masha and Dasha in 1988, and after several conversations with the twins, she said that, despite sharing genetics and bodies, the sisters had completely different characters and personalities.

One personality that Butler recognized is the cruel, domineering, emotionally oppressive Masha, and on the other side is the gentle and caring Dasha, thirsty normal life.

I have no doubt that Masha was a psychopath - she checked all the boxes."

“Dasha was emotionally abused - some people find themselves in a similar emotional dependence on their partner.”

“The only difference is that a person always has a chance to leave, but Dasha physically did not have one.”

“Masha denied absolutely everything that Dasha had ever been interested in and needed: a chance for love, a relationship with her mother, work, and even the most the main objective- separate body", -

Butler wrote in her book.

According to Butler, Masha and Dasha seemed to have blocked the trauma of their early childhood.

They could not remember cruelty, but instead they could remember happy things, such as when the nurse brought them a toy. Masha was angry, and Dasha simply said: “It’s not their fault, they were just doing their job,”

the journalist said.

In addition, Dasha also said that Masha could not drink alcohol, she immediately felt sick, so Masha had to force her sister to drink in order to get drunk herself. This made both sisters drunk.

Dasha longed for a normal life and fell in love with the boy, but Masha made a decision even earlier: her sister denied the couple happiness.

The boy really loved her, tried very hard to explain to Masha and wanted his sister to take his side. But, alas, no one could lay claim to Dasha except her sister,”

Butler said.

There will be no division!

With the development of medicine, the separation of twins became possible, and for many years doctors offered to perform an operation, but all proposals were rejected by Masha.

Juliet Butler remembers visiting the sisters in the late 1990s with a letter from a British surgeon who specialized in separating conjoined twins and offering to help them. At that moment, Dasha looked at Masha, her eyes were full of hope, but Masha immediately and directly said: “No.”

Already as adults, the sisters found their mother Ekaterina, but four years later Masha decided to completely break off relations against her sister’s wishes. Dasha tried and wanted to work, but all Masha was interested in was smoking and reading magazines. The girl was extremely uninterested in changing her lifestyle.

After the girls announced themselves on TV, they had the opportunity to move to a home for labor veterans with significantly improved living conditions. Juliet Butler said that despite their sad lives, the story of the two sisters is very inspiring.

Despite the dynamics of the story, in the end they went through a lot together and were constantly with each other. They clearly loved each other with their whole being, feeling what was happening very deeply,”

On April 17, 2003, Masha died from heart attack, and even then Dasha refused the separation, perhaps due to her inner need to stay with her sister. Dasha was taken to the hospital, and 17 hours later, due to poisoning with toxins from the blood of her deceased sister, she too died.

say sisters - Siamese twins Maria and Daria Krivoshlyapova

A lot was written about the Siamese twin sisters Maria and Daria Krivoshlyapov ten years ago, when the doors of state boarding schools opened to the press. Then the newspaper men lost interest in them, remembering them only when they needed to serve the reader some kind of “strawberry”. Moreover, the publications were mostly of a condemning nature - they say, alcoholics, prostitutes, rude people.

Negotiations about our meeting with them lasted for about two months. Over the phone, the sisters warned: “When you go, don’t go see the director. She doesn’t allow journalists to come to us.” And Maria - I was talking to her - insinuatingly asked: “Aren’t you afraid of us? Otherwise everyone is afraid of us"

And here I am in one of the Moscow boarding houses for veterans and disabled people. It's huge. In the nine-story building there are only bedridden patients, in the seven-story building there are those who can move independently - on crutches or in a wheelchair. A stern, mustachioed watchman, without asking any unnecessary questions, leads me to the sixth floor - it turns out that the Krivoshlyapovs have done preliminary work with him.

I knock on the door. Two voices shout in unison: “Come in, come in!” Getting in. There is a corridor with a large wardrobe, doors to the toilet, and a shower room. Nobody here. I carefully look into the room - sitting on a wide double bed strange creature. Two torsos, two heads, four arms and two legs in woolen socks and slippers - playfully thrown one on top of the other. At the first second I really feel a slight shock, although I have seen photographs of the sisters many times. Both heads smile welcomingly: “Well, why are you standing there? Hang up your fur coat and come in!”

Seeing the creature born, the midwife could not hold back her cry of horror.

Mash, just write the truth about us, okay? - the namesake asks me. “Otherwise they pour all the dirt on us, and then we get upset.” If you want to make it clearer about us, we’ll turn on the film?

In the twins' room there is an imported color TV and VCR. Clean and cozy. There is a carpet on the floor, on the wall there is a calendar with the image of the icon of the Mother of God, photographs of the sisters in a frame under glass and three charming kittens made from poplar fluff on velvet - “given by a friend.” Dasha puts on the tape, and footage of the Nauchfilm documentary flashes on the screen.

On the medical table are unswaddled twins. Pretty faces with huge eyes stare at the camera in surprise. One girl is trying to sit up, helping herself with her hands and jerking “her” leg. The second laughs joyfully, watching her sister’s attempts from the side. Well staged male voice behind the scenes: “Please note, Dasha is more active than Masha. But she only manages to control one leg. Masha doesn't make any attempts to get up yet. The third leg, with nine toes, belongs to both twins. It is located perpendicular to the body, and Dasha cannot stand up with its help.” Looking at the TV screen, one of the sisters sighs:

Lord, how, I wonder, did our mother give birth to us? I'm probably tired of it

They say that the birth of the Moscow dressmaker Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova was very difficult. Looking at her huge belly, relatives and doctors unanimously predicted twins. Katya was quietly happy: the children were welcome. On a frosty day on January 4, 1950, in the 16th city maternity hospital, she underwent a caesarean section. Seeing the creature produced, the midwife could barely restrain a cry of horror. The operation was difficult, the woman lost a lot of blood and after giving birth she could not recover for a long time. Meanwhile, the doctors consulted and developed tactics. As soon as Katya woke up, she was informed that the twins were stillborn. But the mother in labor did not want to believe it: even under anesthesia, she clearly heard the cries of the babies. And then a compassionate nanny was found who showed Katya her children through the glass in the children's intensive care ward.

After what she saw, the young woman spent two years in a psychoneurological clinic in a state of severe depression.

However, there is another version: it was not the mother who refused to take the girls from the maternity hospital, but the father, Mikhail Krivoshlyapov, who at that time worked as a driver for Lavrentiy Beria. When birth certificates were issued for the children, he, for unknown reasons, ordered that his daughters keep their last name and change their middle name: “Let them be Ivanovnas!”

From maternity hospital Siamese twins were transferred to the Research Institute of Obstetrics and Pediatrics of the Academy medical sciences THE USSR. After numerous studies, it became finally clear that it is impossible to separate them: the sisters have common internal organs, the circulatory systems communicate. Doctors began a detailed study of the “miracle of nature”; candidates and doctors of science came in droves to see the sisters and took students along. The famous Soviet physiologist Academician Pyotr Anokhin took a close look at them. Every week the girls were experimented on. They forced me to swallow a probe and hung it with sensors.

It was when we were three years old that we were specially put on ice to check whether we would get sick equally. Those experiences still give me chills.

The short film ends with a story about another pair of Siamese twins, born much earlier than the Krivoshlyapovs, in 1937. These were also girls, Galya and Ira, grown together chest. Such a pathology anatomical structure turned out to be incompatible with life. The sisters died at the age of 1 year and 3 months.

Happy! - Dasha sighs, looking at the screen. - We quickly got tired of it. And we survived to suffer further.

Dasha learned the poems by heart and quietly prompted Masha. It was impossible to stop this

By the age of seven, the sisters not only could not walk, but also had difficulty sitting. They were transferred to the Central Research Institute of Prosthetics of the Ministry of Social Security of the RSFSR. It took two years for the girls to learn to move independently. They were taught for a long time to coordinate movements. We trained in the gym, on mats and a wall bars. For example: one leans to the right, the other to the left, one moves right leg, the other - left. And the third leg dangles from behind - it doesn’t reach the ground, but it maintains balance. But when the sisters learned to walk, they immediately began to run along the long corridors of the institute. We even got the hang of jumping while simultaneously pushing off the floor.

When the sisters turned fourteen, scientific luminaries lost interest in them. The anomaly has been studied, experiments have been carried out, candidate and doctoral dissertations have been defended. To be honest, none of the doctors expected them to live that long It became expensive to keep them at the institute. And there is no need.

As a farewell, the Krivoshlyapovs underwent surgery - their third leg was taken away. The doctors thought that she was bothering them, and that she looked somehow ugly. After the operation, Dasha and Masha were no longer able to walk on their own, since then only on crutches and in a wheelchair.

American scientists who learned about the unusual twins wanted to invite them to their place. They even offered a ransom. They promised to give them jobs and education. But Soviet doctors were adamant: “The USSR does not sell children.” Young Muscovites were sent to a Rostov boarding school for children with musculoskeletal disorders.

M.: The question arose of what we need to teach. Although in Moscow, right next to the institute, there was a school. Teachers came to us. They knew us, and the guys knew us. The girls and I were friends and played hide and seek. Play football with the boys! But for some reason we were not allowed to go to school. Previously system It was idiotic: don’t show the ugly and sick to anyone. We didn’t understand this then, we were so eager to go to school! We thought, okay, they’ll call us names a couple of times - we’ll stand up for ourselves. But they didn’t let us in. Do you know how painful it was! They didn’t take us to pioneer camps either. One day the doctor Bolshakovsky, may he rest in heaven, wanted to take us to Artek. He worked there every year. He wasn’t allowed either: “Why show freaks to normal children!”

Were you sorry to leave Moscow?

M.: No! We were even happy. After all, they lived at the institute as if they were in a concentration camp. Well, imagine - you only have a bedside table, a chair, a bed. And pajamas. Everything you saw in the film - all these shirts, shorts, pants - was immediately taken away from us after filming. Until the age of fourteen, they lived in striped hospital pajamas, like prisoners. They didn't even give me panties. The regime just infuriated me! We were very active when we were little, we didn’t want to sleep, we fooled around and played. The nannies were annoyed by this. They taught us to be orderly: they forced us to make the bed, clean our room, and wash the floors. Now, by the way, we are grateful to them for this. Do you see how neat the room is? We are trying. And now I’m washing my floors. True, there is a cleaning lady here, but she’s old and can’t bend over and clean under the bed.

D.: At one time there lived in the room with us a boy who had no skin at all. He was born this way. He screamed so terribly. We covered our ears so as not to hear. But it was soon removed. Or maybe he died.

M.: When we arrived in Rostov, we immediately started getting sick. The climate there is different. We've been sick all winter, school year missed. But the teachers treated us well. The music director especially loved Dashka and me. All the guys took part in amateur performances, the choir was good. What music music didn’t teach us! And on the piano four hands, and on balalaikas. Gave Bayan to Dashka! But we had to give up everything - we couldn’t sit for long. Hurt. When we sit, our spines end up in a curved position. We can't even ride in a wheelchair for a long time. In the summer we walk outside - we get out of the stroller like washcloths! Then we lie down for half a day and rest.

“It was in Rostov that the thought of suicide visited us for the first time in our lives.”

When we started talking about music, I noticed the hands of the twin sisters. Both have beautiful thin hands and elongated fingers. It would not be difficult to imagine these fingers running across the keys of a piano.

In general, Masha and Dasha are similar only at first glance. Taking a closer look, you can easily begin to distinguish them not only on the basis of “the one on the left and the one on the right.” Dasha's face is thinner and dryer. Masha seems a little fuller. But both, especially if they do their hair and lightly touch up, look great in their fifties. However, the sisters had never used makeup in their lives. And the perfume that their friends gave them three weeks ago for their birthday remains unopened. I wonder if the sisters quarrel among themselves?

Masha seems to have read my thoughts. Because she immediately said:

For some reason everyone considers us one person. But there are two of us. Each has its own passport, its own medical book. And the characters are completely different. Dasha is more flexible, she is kinder, more affectionate. And it was like that in childhood. The teacher pats her on the head, she sits, blooms. I tell her: “Why are you happy, fool?” On the contrary, if they kiss me, I will wipe my cheek. They always said about me that I was angry and rude. So what to do? In life, we had to achieve everything through character. Screams, tears. Nothing was easy. Dasha is better for me. Whatever I don't forgive, she will forgive. Even the boys always loved her more. And I wasn't jealous. On the contrary, it was pleasant.

How did you study at school? Did you copy from each other?

Both grin.

D.: Well, get it in that yellow album and look at the certificates.

Come on! Yeah, I see Masha has only C grades. Dasha has B's and A's. Behavior is “satisfactory.”

M.: At first the teachers gave us one option. Then they look: Dasha has “4” and I have “4”. She has a “5” and I have a “5”. The teachers understood what was happening and began to give us two different options. And when I had to learn poems by heart - Dasha has a better memory - she learned them and slowly prompted me. Nobody could stop us here.

D.: We lived in Rostov for five years. It was there that the thought of suicide came to us for the first time in our lives. The guys teased me, poured water into my bed, and the employees showed it to their friends for a ruble. Masha fought with her classmates.

M.: But Dasha never got into a fight. He sits down and cries.

D.: After school they began to rush back to Moscow. Incomprehensible pain began, right here,” Dasha pats herself on the lower back. “I say: “You and I will die here, Dasha.” When our appendix was cut out, problems arose. Not a single hospital wanted to take on us. At least lie down and die. It turned out that there was only one appendicitis between two people. And then suddenly pus began to appear in the morning. We didn't even know we had kidney stones. And in general, when they examined it, they proved that we have one kidney. It turned out that there was another one. The stones then had to be pulled out with hooks. Those are big ones, they’re tied in my handkerchief here, look.

“Dasha started drinking after she saw her mother”

From Kyiv I brought gifts for the Krivoshlyapov sisters: homemade Ukrainian sausage, smoked lard, kulek roasted sunflower seeds and, I confess, at Dasha’s special request, a bottle of “Kirovogradskaya with pepper.”

During our conversation, Dasha took one sip from the bottle, washing it down with lemonade. Then a second time. Masha began to object; she didn’t even want to go with her to the refrigerator, where the gift was kept in a secret place. But Dasha whined:

Well one more time! It’s really delicious, with pepper!

Masha, sighing, went to the refrigerator for the third time with her sister. It became clear to me why the director of the boarding school is trying to protect the sisters from numerous visitors. Returning to her place, Masha said with bitterness in her voice:

Well, what should I do? And I beat her, and treated her, and coded her, but she only got worse. It all started back at school. We were invited to have a drink in company. I didn’t want to, Dasha also somehow hesitated. And then the guys started teasing: “They chickened out!” And one stupid one: “You drink and don’t breathe!” Dasha obeyed. And so we got it. I still can’t forgive myself for this!

Masha nervously takes a cigarette and lights it. Dasha immediately shouts: “Open the balcony, spray it with air freshener!” Masha, without taking a drag, releases smoke into the room. I think she smokes as a sign of protest.

But she especially started drinking when she met her mother. Dashka took out her phone through the address table. It was not difficult - my mother lived in Moscow all these years and never went anywhere. Her last name is the same. The main thing is that Dasha did everything on the sly from me. But when I found out, I tore up the piece of paper with the address. I tell my fool: “Think for yourself, why does she need us? She refused us once and won’t accept us a second time, you’ll see. And you will cry again.” Dashka again found her phone number through the address table. She tried to persuade me for ten years! Finally, she prevailed.

The sisters decided to call their mother on the day they turned 35 years old. Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova recognized her daughters immediately. But I wasn’t happy. Her husband Mikhail had already died of cancer by that time. After Masha and Dasha, Ekaterina had two more sons - Sergei and Anatoly. Until the sisters' unexpected announcement, they had no idea that their mother had two daughters.

M.: My aunt, my mother’s sister, picked us up at the boarding school by car and took us to her place. I didn't like them right away. They immediately began to get Dasha drunk. They offered to spend the night in the kitchen. The older brother, as it turned out, drinks constantly. And the father, they say, drank, and the grandfather. Alcoholism is hereditary in this family. That's why we probably turned out like this. After the first visit, we realized that we were strangers to them. By the way, Anatoly’s younger brother was invited to the 50th anniversary, but he never came.

Was your mother really in a mental hospital after you were born?

M.: (after a pause) I, you know, believe in it and don’t believe it.

Two years ago, Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova died. Relatives blamed the sisters for this, announcing that after their “resurrection” elderly woman started serious problems with heart. She was buried at the Khimki cemetery. Her daughters never visited her grave. In my opinion, they never forgave their mother for the “refusal letter” written half a century ago.

Masha, contrary to her own stories, who did not give the impression of being “rude” at all, suddenly says angrily:

M.: No, we didn’t go. Well, why should I go? We have depended on strangers all our lives. From their mercy and kindness Why should I go to her if she didn’t recognize us? Why?! So, should I pay off my debt? Don't want

“Dasha wants to have a family. And over the years I haven’t liked a single guy.”

We continue to leaf through the album. Some pictures fall out of it all the time.

D.: Here is our school company. Do you see what freaks?! (Crying).

M.: This guy loved us. Earring. His mother, they say, did not complete the abortion. So he was born without arms. He was the first of us to teach Dashka how to kiss Fool! Why did he teach? These are girls, our friends. This is our “twenty-year anniversary”.

Girls, it’s not very convenient for me to ask, but Have you ever had any men?

M.: Dasha fell in love. This Seryozha even proposed to her. But he died at 23. And since then there has really been nothing. So Yes, with whom in this boarding school? Dashka's ideal since childhood is Yuri Gagarin. But all the people here have on their minds are the bottle and the woman. I drive men away from Dasha. You can’t get pregnant - we ourselves are disabled, how can we care for a child? And you can’t have an abortion - bleeding may open. But Dashka is suffering - you see, she wants to have a family, give birth to a child, live in the village, raise cows. But my character is tougher. In all these years I have never really liked a single guy.

And it’s not surprising that Dashka drinks. She drinks out of desperation! After meeting with my mother, I settled down: no one needs you and me. And cries. She no longer wants to be treated. She, you know, can’t get used to us being like this. Still! There is no meaning in our life. We'd like to work. In boarding school No. 20, where they used to live, they even sewed on a sewing machine. Briefs, nightgowns. Even though it was hard, we tried so hard! They received a salary for this and were useful to society. (On the nightstand with the Machine on the side of the bed there are the books “They Fought for the Motherland” and “How the Steel Was Tempered.” - M.V.) And here? We sit all day long, looking at each other. Either we turn on the TV or listen to music. No one to talk to

Mash, well, you’re not judging me,” Dasha says. “I’ll have a drink and it’ll make me feel better.”

The sister waves her hand: sleep, they say. Dasha covers her head with a cotton blanket and falls asleep. Masha continues:

We were in Germany for a week at the invitation of a television company. We walked during the day and in the evening. They took us to any restaurant in a Mercedes. And no one stared. Even children, can you imagine? I still regret that we were born in this country.

“Bring us a psychic from Kyiv”

It's late afternoon, it's time for me to get ready. Dasha is sleeping with the blanket pulled over her head. Masha finally stretched out, straightening her spine. The table lamp is shining, Machine’s voice sounds muffled:

Don't go. Stay a little longer, I want to talk. Do you know how scary it is when a loved one dies before your eyes. My beloved sister. What should I do, how can I help her? And for yourself?.. No answer. I ask her: “Dasha, maybe you want to eat?” She calls: sausages there, fish. But then he doesn’t eat anything. All because of alcohol.

I do not drink. The body does not accept it. I drink a little - I feel nauseous. But you know what's scary? If she doesn’t drink, I’ll want to somewhere (runs his hand over his chest - M.V.). There is only one blood.

I ask you: find us a psychic in Kyiv who can help us. Bring it here, just so Dasha doesn’t know. Maybe it will work?

Already from Kyiv, I contacted by phone a student of Academician Anokhin - the head of the Moscow research institute normal physiology Konstantin Sudakov. Hearing a question about the Krivoshlyapov sisters, he said with annoyance:

I remember these girls very well! They were brought to us for lectures. They were still playing the piano four hands back then. They could tour the entire globe and become celebrities. But instead - I read about them in the newspaper - an ulcer of society, drug addicts, alcoholics

The names of Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov were known, perhaps, to every citizen of the Soviet Union. What can we say, even other countries showed interest in the sisters and even wanted to “ransom” them. Editorial website will tell you everything in order.

Birth

Until recently, young seamstress Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova had no idea that her babies were developing incorrectly in the womb. In 1950, doctors decided to perform a caesarean section, since the young woman’s labor was very prolonged, which could have a bad effect on the health of the fetus. What they saw shocked the entire staff. The team of gynecologists lied to the new mother that the girls were stillborn, but Catherine insisted on showing her the children.

The midwife took the mother to the incubator and showed her the condition in which the twins were born. Masha and Dasha (as the girls were later named) were fused at the hips, and they shared one leg. That is, the girls’ torsos were completely separate, but lower limbs for two there are only three.

Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova spent the next two years in a psychiatric hospital, and the children’s father begged the doctors to save Masha and Dasha’s lives and helped with money.

Mature years

From maternity ward the girls were not taken home; they were left under the supervision of the Institute of Pediatrics. Adult women recalled the years they spent there with a shudder. What kind of experiments were not carried out on them! They put him on ice, gave him electric shock, tried to burn him, didn’t let him long time sleep and starve. One of the girls had her body pierced with a needle to find out if the other one felt pain.

The results showed that the sisters had a common circulatory system, but nervous - each has its own. The girls never learned to walk on their own, they moved with the help of crutches, the third leg only got in their way and attracted attention, so by the age of 15 it was amputated.

Masha and Dasha had different characters. Dasha was softer and calmer, fell under the influence of Masha, who, on the contrary, tried to lead in everything, was more restless and rude. Towards the end of their lives, the twins became addicted to alcohol, especially Dasha, and Masha smoked a lot. According to eyewitnesses of that time, the woman smoked almost an entire pack of Belomor per day.

One day the sisters tried to encode, but a foreign journalist wanted to interview them, where she asked the twins about their lives. Negative memories forced the Krivoshlyapovs to call the doctor and ask him to decode them.

Death

How these women lived long enough for Siamese twins long life, so the case was included in the Guinness Book of Records. The sisters died in 2003, they were fully 53 years old.

One of the conjoined twin sisters, taken from their mother at birth and subjected to cruel medical “experiments,” turned into a psychopath, while the other remained a “gentle soul” yearning for a normal life.

Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov remained the longest-living Siamese twins until they died one after another in 2003, at the age of 54.

Stalin's Soviet medical administration ensured that girls were separated from their mother immediately after birth and subjected to cruel "experiments." The girls had a common circulatory system, but separate nervous systems, so they were considered “ideal objects for research.”

Masha and Dasha were treated like guinea pigs. The twins were tortured by fire, cold, hunger, shocked, forcibly deprived of sleep and injected with radioactive and other toxic substances- in the name of "science".

The sisters spent most of their lives in hospital, and their horrific story was revealed by journalist Juliet Butler. Having become friends with the twins, Butler insists that despite genetics, a monstrous childhood and a “common life” due to their fused bodies, the sisters were strikingly different from each other as individuals.

One of them was a cruel, domineering “psychopath” who committed “emotional abuse” against her caring sister, who managed to remain gentle, kind and yearning for a normal life.

Having met the Krivoshlyapovs in 1988 and struck up a friendship with them, Butler stated: “I have no doubt that Masha was a psychopath. She was one in all respects.”

"Dasha suffered from a relationship full of emotional abuse, like some people who tolerate this kind of treatment from a partner."

“But if others had the opportunity to simply leave, Dasha simply could not physically do this.”

“Everything that Dasha ever wanted was alien to Masha: a chance for love, a relationship with her mother, work and even a separate body - what Dasha wanted most.”

Masha and Dasha were born in January 1950 by caesarean section. The babies were torn from the arms of their mother, Ekaterina, and the woman was later told that her children had died of pneumonia shortly after birth.

The twin sisters were taken to the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, where the girls were mocked by “pundits.”

In one "experiment" one of the twins was pricked with needles to record the reaction of the other. In another case, one of the girls was immersed in a bath of ice water to check the body temperature of the other.

In 1956, Dasha and Masha were transferred to the Central Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics. For seven years, the patients were hidden from society in a children's ward before being transferred to a boarding school for children with disabilities. disabilities to the south of Russia.

Butler argues that as adults, the Krivoshlyapovs both blocked out memories of their abusive early childhood.

“When I found out about everything, I myself told Dasha and Masha that they were subjected to these monstrous experiments from birth to the age of six,” said Juliet.

"They said they couldn't remember anything. They only remembered happy moments, like the nurse bringing them a toy."

“Masha got angry, while Dasha calmly said: “It’s not their fault, they were doing their job.” For dear Dasha, such a reaction is typical.”

Butler mentions how Masha, unable to drink alcohol herself, forced Dasha to get drunk, since the feeling of intoxication was common.

“They had their own heart, their own lungs, but the same circulatory system, so drinking affected them both.”

“Masha couldn’t drink because of her gag reflex. Dasha hated alcohol, but her sister still forced her to drink.”

As a teenager, Dasha longed for a normal life and fell head over heels in love with a boy, but Masha did not want her sister to experience happiness.

“That boy reciprocated,” says Butler. “He really fell in love with Dasha. He tried so hard to improve relations with Masha, but she turned out to be a real owner.”

"Dasha should have belonged only to her."

Medicine has not stood still, and many doctors over the years have repeatedly suggested that the sisters try separation surgery. And every time Masha refused.

Butler remembers how, in the late 1990s, the sisters received a letter from a British surgeon who specialized in separating conjoined twins. He offered his help to the women.

"WITH with full eyes“Dasha looked at Masha with hope,” says the journalist. - But Masha, staring at Dasha, immediately blurted out “no.” As Dasha would say, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

In 1985, the sisters found their mother, Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova. They communicated for the next four years, after which Masha decided to cut off all ties with her mother, contrary to Dasha’s wishes.

Unfortunately, when the sisters met their brothers, two siblings, they refused to communicate due to appearance sisters.

Dasha wanted to work and tried to get a job where she was required to supply pipettes with rubber bulbs, but Masha did not want to change her life, she wanted to continue “smoking and reading magazines.”

After appearing on television, the conjoined twins had the opportunity to move to a Home for Labor Veterans with much better conditions life.

Butler says that despite the twins' sad lives, they still became an inspiration to her.

“I wanted to write a book to show people how sweet Dasha was. This is a kind of story about celebrating victory over tragedy,” the journalist said.

“Towards the end, I noticed how Dasha began to rebel against Masha and put her in her place.”

"Despite the toxicity of the unfolding events, at the end of the day, the sisters had been through a lot. They had each other. They clearly loved each other deeply."

On April 17, 2003, Masha died of a heart attack. According to one version, Dasha refused the separation proposed to her. On the other hand, this kind of operation requires a whole team of specialists and a long time for preparation...

Exhausted Dasha was taken to the hospital. She died 17 hours later due to blood poisoning from toxic products entering the bloodstream from Masha's decomposing body.