Siamese twin sisters in the USSR. Two souls in one body: the story of the Siamese twins Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov. One body - two different characters

Against the backdrop of the high-profile events of the last week, the once-famous Soviet Union Siamese twins - sisters Dasha and Masha Krivoshlyapova. 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 was the first document in the life of the Siamese twins Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov. “Dead children were born to you,” their mother Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova was told in maternity hospital number 6. She signed the 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. Thus began the life of Masha and Dasha.

They really predicted a quick death. A year of life was prophesied by Academician Pyotr Anokhin. He took them to the Institute of Human Physiology for further research - he had to hurry, Masha and Dasha were considered a medical rarity.

Their mutation was phenomenal. Later it was included in the Guinness Book of Records. The twins had separate bodies, but a common circulatory and genitourinary system, and three legs for two, one of which consisted of two fused.

By the age of six, they were transferred to the Institute of Prosthetics and Prosthetics. They could not walk, sit or eat on their own. But doctors have already defended a myriad of dissertations and a film-guide for medical schools has been made.

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

Twins tried to adapt to life in society. And we celebrated their births, twisted them into rags in their hair, as it should be for girls. But Masha and Dasha realized at the age of three that they were not like everyone else. The sisters tried to lift up the dressing gowns of the nurses 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 at the institute tried to break through for a bottle of vodka, to look at Masha and Dasha ...

They only had one birth certificate for the two, Dashino. In order for Masha to get 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, in every sense unreal. Slavik was a very "severe disabled person." After polio, his arms and legs were paralyzed. The dates went like this: the sisters sat in the garden under the cherry trees, with a tape recorder, and Slavik was nearby, in a wheelchair.

Masha and Dasha lived to be 15 years old. And it became a sensation. It was not clear only one thing - what to do with them next, when everything had already been studied. The doctors decided to put the final touch - to amputate the girls' third, unnecessary leg.

And for the rest of their lives, they suffered from phantom pain, both of them. They say that they saw nightmares for two, and read each other's thoughts. Only Dasha knew how to endure worse, she began to drink too much, and both had a hangover. Just at that time, the perestroika press wrote about the “closed medical facility Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapovs”.

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

And they suffered from the misplaced curiosity of their nursing home neighbors. "How will you die"? - this was the most painful question for the Siamese twins.

Masha died first. Dasha lived another 17 hours. They were separated by death...

Two souls leaving one body

Siamese twins Masha and Dasha were waiting for death as a deliverance from the cruelty of "normal" people

Last Monday, Siamese twins Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapovs died at the 1st City Hospital at the age of 54. The cause of death was an acute coronary infarction in one of the sisters. Another survived her by only 17 hours.

Masha and Dasha thought about death all their lives. Several times they tried to commit suicide. Once they almost jumped out of the window of the 11th floor, repeatedly poisoned themselves with pills, cut their veins and constantly prayed to God for death.

The last time we met with the Krivoshlyapovs was on the eve of their 50th birthday. When asked where they would like to celebrate the anniversary, the sisters unanimously sighed doomedly: "In the other world ..."

Some facts from the life of the Krivoshlyapovs were not included in the material at that time. Today we publish the details of that meeting.

"They won't last long"

There is nothing surprising in the fact that Masha had a heart attack, this was to be expected, - reacted to the information about the hospitalization of the Siamese twins Krivoshlyapovs, narcologist Sergey Fedorchenko, who coded the sisters a few years ago. - Five years ago, they already had a hard drinking heavily planted liver. Before coding Masha and Dasha, we consulted for a long time with doctors who had been observing them for many years. In addition to cirrhosis of the liver, the sisters were diagnosed with pulmonary edema, the heart was heavily planted, and in general their entire body was already poisoned then.

At the end of 1999, the Krivoshlyapov sisters began to complain more about their health. After another medical examination, the doctors issued a verdict: "If you do not stop using, you will have to live no more than two years ..."

They drank terribly. All attempts to get rid of alcohol addiction were reduced to zero. In addition, they have a rather complex character, and it was not so easy to gain their trust, - says Sergey Fedorchenko, head physician of the Perm Narcological Center. - We hunted them for two months and finally persuaded them. Finally, they drank a bottle of champagne, and we coded them.

The twins were coded using the Dovzhenko method in two hands, synchronously, for a period of a year. However, four months later, the Krivoshlyapovs again turned to Sergei Anatolyevich.

Decode us, please, an American writer writes a book about us, and we cannot communicate freely without alcohol, they begged the doctors.

Fedorchenko arrived in Moscow a few days later.

We literally begged them on our knees: "Girls, change your mind! Start drinking - you are not tenants!" They flatly refused to listen to us.

Doctors were afraid that the sisters themselves might break. And a week later they were decoded.

After that, the sisters began to drink with renewed vigor.

Despite the fact that only one of them drank especially hard, alcohol reached the other through the general circulatory system in a matter of minutes, says Fedorchenko. - Therefore, it is not surprising that both of them have poisoned the body, the liver has become, like pulp, friable. It is strange that Masha died first. It turns out that Dasha drove her sister to the grave with her drunkenness. She herself died after 17 hours, when, again, through the general circulatory system, cadaveric poison reached her.

In general, throughout their lives, the Krivoshlyapov sisters rarely went to doctors. They weren't just afraid of them, they hated them. At the sight of people in white coats, they recalled the time when, without their consent, at the Central Research Institute of Prosthetics and Prosthetics of the Ministry of Social Security of the RSFSR, their third leg was amputated, which was a counterweight for the sisters. Since then, they have not been able to move independently.

After our leg was taken away, we could not recover for a long time. It's like an ordinary person loses a leg. Most of all, we were afraid that everyone would laugh at us. We are already very shy, we have a complex because of our appearance. And when they were left without a leg, they were generally afraid to appear in front of people for about six months.

At the Institute of Pediatrics of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, where they spent seven years, experiments were carried out on them weekly. The sisters often recalled how they, as very young children, were put in ice for a long time, after which one of the girls fell ill with pneumonia, the temperature reached forty. Then they barely got out.

We are surprised - did the doctors really not understand that if we get sick, we will have to be treated much longer than normal people? they said. - For example, filling one tooth takes a whole hour. Recently, we again suffered pneumonia, so one immediately recovered, while the other could not recover for two whole weeks. Also, if one picks up any infection, the second is transmitted immediately. This is how we have been treated for 50 years.

In 1958, American scientists wanted to transport girls to the United States and promised to give them work and education. But Russian doctors defended their offspring ...

The sisters cursed their family

For the first time, the girls tried alcohol at the Research Institute, where experiments were carried out on them.

We were 12 at the time. Together with us, Ida, the eldest daughter of the first secretary of Armenia Arushanyan, was undergoing treatment at the institute, they recalled during our conversation. - She was so beautiful, she always treated us with foreign sweets, she dressed well. Maybe that's why we were so drawn to her. Once she invited us to her home and gave us some kind of tincture to drink. We were so carried away then, we could hardly walk. Then she began to invite us to her house more often, poured alcohol again and laughed at us. Then we were transferred to the Novocherkessk boarding school for disabled children. Everyone was already drinking. We were afraid to be white crows, so we had to drink on an equal footing with everyone else. We were only 14 at the time...

They spent four years in the Novocherkessk boarding school for children with diseases of the musculoskeletal system.

It was the most terrible test for us, - the Krivoshlyapovs recalled. - It was there that the thought of suicide visited us for the first time in our lives. The local guys didn't like us. We were boycotted, the boys beat us, how many ridicule, humiliation, insults we endured! For a bottle of vodka, the boys from the class showed us to the village children. It used to be that classmates would pour water into the bed and shout: "Look, the freaks have peed!" And we will lay down the oilcloth and keep silent. Once a huge dog was set on us. After this incident, we began to stutter a lot.

In 1970, the sisters fled from Novocherkessk to Moscow. On the way, we lost our metric, registration, and passport. They tried to get a job in the Moscow 31st boarding school for the disabled and the elderly. They didn't take it. "Who knows, what if they die tomorrow? And should I answer?" - the director of the boarding school was worried. A month later, they were sheltered in a boarding school for the elderly No. 6.

In the fall of 1993, German journalists invited the Krivoshlyapovs to Germany. After returning, they again began to think about suicide. Because they felt flawed and lonely in the capital.

We were already standing on the windowsill of the 11th floor. But suddenly Masha changed her mind, began to resist and pushed me back into the room. Now I really regret that we didn’t jump then ... We couldn’t agree, - Dasha sighed.

Abroad, we felt like people. We walked quietly down the street. No one stopped, no one pointed a finger. And in Moscow you even ride in a wheelchair, the crowd is already gathering, they are throwing money, asking you to walk or even dance. Once, a man offered us a hundred dollars for a dance of little swans performed by us. This is how we often make money. You won't last long on our pension...

In general, the Krivoshlyapovs considered heredity to be the cause of their drunkenness.

Mother said that grandfather drank heavily, father gave in, and the brothers also loved this business, the sisters said.

By an absurd accident, even the birth of their mother, Ekaterina Alekseevna Krivoshlyapova, was taken by doctors who were drunk.

At that time, our maternity hospital was far from the best, the medical staff often gave in, ”said Inna Chernyakova, a former employee of maternity hospital No. 6. - The doctor who took delivery from Krivoshlyapova took a little on his chest before. And when instead of an ordinary child they got some strange creature, the doctor lost consciousness. I woke up sober. "Lord, delirium tremens has begun, no more, no more before work ..." - he was baptized.

Ekaterina Alekseevna was first told that her children died a few hours after birth. The mother did not believe - then the doctors had to show the Siamese twins. After what she saw, Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova spent six months in a psychiatric clinic. Two years later, she became pregnant again. And even after many years, this woman did not tell anyone about her first birth. By the way, Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov were given a false middle name - Ivanovna. Their father Mikhail was afraid of publicity, hype at work, because at that time he was Beria's personal chauffeur. However, every month he transferred to the scientific institute where his children were, a decent amount for the treatment of twins. In 1980, Mikhail Krivoshlyapov died of brain cancer. Ekaterina Alekseevna died in February 1998. They were buried at the Khimki cemetery. Masha and Dasha often planned to visit their parents' graves, but they never made it.

We only saw my mother once. We found her address with the help of the passport office: we were lucky that she kept her husband's surname, and did not change it to her maiden one - Tarasova. When we came to her house, she began to scream, drive us away with the words: "Where were you before? Why did you remember your mother so late?" And we were just embarrassed to come to her, we didn’t want to be a burden for her. And our two brothers - Sergey and Anatoly - didn’t even want to talk to us, - Masha recalled.

Both brothers never recognized Masha and Dasha as their own sisters. They were ashamed of such a relationship, so in their entire lives they never visited the sisters and did not even call them. Many years after that meeting, the Krivoshlyapov sisters cursed their family.

They found some book of spells and one night, in complete darkness, with one candle, they read a prayer for several hours, - the roommate recalled. - The next day I saw a homemade cotton doll studded with needles. They say that this is how they send a curse ...

Yesterday we contacted Anatoly, the brother of the deceased sisters.

Mother never told us about her first birth. She said that she had twins and both girls died. I doubt she even knew about the birth of Siamese twins. But when they came to us for the first time, my mother nearly fainted. After this meeting, she began to have health problems. Noises in the heart appeared ... This disease later brought her to the grave. By the way, after their arrival, our whole life turned into a continuous hell. Brother Sergei is now generally drunk, he even speaks with difficulty. To be honest, I haven't seen him in a very long time. Maybe he has already died ... Recently, grief has befallen our family. My wife has been dying for several days now. Therefore, I am not up to Masha and Dasha now. I never considered them my family. Dead, you say? It doesn't bother me at all now.

"We warned Dasha - stop drinking!"

For most of their lives, the Krivoshlyapov sisters lived in a boarding house for the elderly No. 6. There they were given a small separate room, which served them as a bedroom, dining room and living room. An icon of the Mother of God hung on the wall, next to it was a huge portrait of Igor Talkov. There is a dressing table near the balcony. True, the mirror was practically all smeared with white paint. The huge layer of dust seemed to have not been wiped off for years.

Why do we need a mirror? We look at it only a few times a year, when we are photographed and on our birthday, the sisters said.

It seemed strange to me that these women did not use cosmetics at all, they never perfumed themselves, they even managed to comb their hair without a comb. Two pairs of tracksuits, one men's trousers, three old sweaters and formal red shirts - that's all the outfits of the Siamese twins.

We arrived at the boarding house the day after the death of the Krivoshlyapovs. Not everyone knew about their deaths. However, no one was surprised by this outcome.

We warned Dasha - the one who drinks: quit this business - you yourself will die and you will kill your sister, - an elderly resident of the boarding house shares with us. She didn't listen to us. AT recent times the girls have given up. They drank almost every day. And they bought the cheapest vodka. When there was not enough money, some peasant came to them, brought technical alcohol. So they diluted him with water and persuaded a liter in an evening.

Surprisingly, only Dasha took over the bad heredity. But Masha smoked two packs of strong "Belomor" a day.

At first I scolded Dasha, yelled at her, sometimes I even beat her when she was drinking, but all in vain, - Masha complained somehow. “I knew she needed it. She is a weak person, it was hard for her to survive among the cruel people who surrounded us.

I understand that drinking is harmful, but I can’t part with it, ”Dasha justified herself. - I don't want to. It's all about loneliness...

Every month, the Krivoshlyapov sisters regularly visited the Alcoholics Anonymous club. However, classes with psychologists did not help them either.

Until now, the residents of the boarding house remember the drunken antics of the twins.

Krivoshlyapovs became aggressive, angry, they could start a fight, - says grandfather Vitaly, an old-timer of the boarding house. - I remember once they were driving in their wheelchair, and then one of the men joked unsuccessfully: "Well, girls, maybe we'll somersault in a bunk?" So they attacked him, almost beat the peasant to death with crutches. He barely took his legs. In general, they were disliked here. After all, you won’t hear a kind word from them, they cursed all day long.

Throughout their lives, the Krivoshlyapov sisters dreamed of having children. Even the father was looked after for their future baby.

Only Nikolai Valentinovich lives here, a quiet, calm, very kind man, - says the cleaner of the boarding school. - He often helped them with the housework - either he would set up the TV, then he would beat the shelf. The whole boarding house knew that they themselves proposed to him, they really wanted to marry him. And as for the children, the doctors immediately told them that this was out of the question.

Masha died at about 5 o'clock in the morning. Dasha never found out about her sister's death. Doctors reassured her with the words that she had just fallen asleep.

When we talked with the Krivoshlyapovs, they said that they could read each other’s thoughts, that they didn’t need to retell their dreams - they have the same dreams, they don’t have to dine together - one will have a snack, and the other feels full, they are equally in pain. And they assured me that if one of them dies, the other will immediately understand this: "We are so unusual, we cannot hide anything from each other, especially death."

The sisters made a mistake, or maybe Dasha understood everything, but did not want to share her last human grief with strangers?

P.S. The Krivoshlyapov sisters closely followed the fate of other Siamese twins - Zita and Gita. For more than a year, Kyrgyz girls were being prepared for the most difficult separation operation. At first, the twins were going to be operated on in Germany, but after careful examinations, the Germans considered such an operation too dangerous and unpromising. The opinion of the doctors there was unequivocal: "in the process of separation, one of the sisters will surely die."

As a result, they took this risky step Russian doctors. The most difficult operation, which was carried out in the Filatov hospital at the end of March by a specially assembled team of doctors, ended in complete success.

“Thank God that at least these girls will not have to suffer all their lives, like us,” the Krivoshlyapovs said with a sigh of relief and at the same time some envy, having learned about the successful outcome of the operation.

Many years ago, doctors thought to operate on the Krivoshlyapovs as well. However, with a common circulatory system, it was impossible to separate the sisters. They had to live and die together. On Wednesday, the bodies of Dasha and Masha are cremated in the crematorium of the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery.

Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapovs remained the longest-lived Siamese twins until they died one after the other in 2003, at the age of 54.

Stalin's Soviet medical department made sure that the girls were weaned 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 subjects for research."

Masha and Dasha were treated like guinea pigs. The twins were tortured by fire, cold, hunger, electric shocks, 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 the hospital walls, and journalist Juliet Butler revealed their horrifying story. Befriending the twins, Butler says that despite genetics, a monstrous childhood and a "common life" due to fused bodies, the sisters were strikingly different from each other as individuals.

One of them was a cruel, domineering "psychopath" who did "emotional abuse" on her caring sister, who managed to remain gentle, kind and longing for a normal life.

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

"Dasha suffered from a relationship full of emotional abuse, like some people who endure such an attitude from a partner."

"But if others had the opportunity to just leave, before Dasha simply could not do it physically."

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"Masha was alien to everything that Dasha ever wanted: a chance for love, a relationship with her mother, work, and even a separate body - what Dasha wanted most of all."

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 giving birth.

The twin sisters were taken to the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, where the girls were bullied by "pundits".

In one of the "experiments" 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 in southern Russia.

Butler claims that as adults, the Krivoshlyapovs both blocked memories of their violent 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,” Juliet said.

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

"Masha got angry, while Dasha calmly said:" It's not their fault, they did their job. "For cute Dasha, such a reaction is typical."

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

"They had their own heart, their own lungs, but shared a circulatory system, so drinking affected both of them."

"Masha couldn't drink because of the gag reflex. Dasha hated alcohol, but her sister still made her 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 establish relations with Masha, but she turned out to be a real owner.”

"Dasha was supposed to belong only to her."

Medicine did not stand still, and many doctors over the years repeatedly suggested that the sisters try to undergo separation surgery. And every time Masha refused.

Butler recalls 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 women.

“With full eyes of hope, Dasha looked at Masha,” the journalist says. “But Masha, staring at Dasha, immediately blurted out “no.” As Dasha would say, there’s nothing to be done about it.”

In 1985, the sisters tracked down their mother, Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova. They talked 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 with their brothers, two siblings, they refused to communicate because 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 a television appearance, the conjoined twins were given the opportunity to move to the Home for Labor Veterans with much the best conditions life.

Butler says that despite the sad lives of the twins, they still became a source of inspiration for her.

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

"Toward the end, I noticed how Dasha began to rebel against Masha and put her in her place."

"Despite all the toxicity of the events that unfolded, in the end, the sisters went 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 offered to her. On the other hand, this kind of operation requires a whole team of specialists and a long time to prepare...

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

“Dead children were born to you,” their mother Ekaterina Krivoshlyapova was told in the maternity hospital number 6. She signed the death certificate (which became the first document in the life of the Siamese twins Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov), 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 a psychiatric hospital. Thus began the life of Masha and Dasha.

They really predicted a quick death. A year of life was prophesied by Academician Pyotr Anokhin. He took them to the Institute of Human Physiology for further research - he had to hurry, Masha and Dasha were considered a medical rarity.

Their mutation was phenomenal and was called dicephales tetrabrachius dipus. Later it was included in the Guinness Book of Records. The twins had separate bodies, but a common circulatory and genitourinary system, and three legs for two, one of which consisted of two fused.

By the age of six, they were transferred to the Institute of Prosthetics and Prosthetics. They could not walk, sit or eat on their own. But doctors have already defended a myriad of dissertations and a film-guide for medical schools has been made.

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

Twins tried to adapt to life in society. They celebrated births, twisted them into rags in their hair, as it should be for girls. But Masha and Dasha realized at the age of three that they were not like everyone else. The sisters tried to lift up the dressing gowns of the nurses 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 at the institute tried to break through for a bottle of vodka, to look at Masha and Dasha ...

They only had one birth certificate for the two, Dashino. In order for Masha to get 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, in every sense unreal. Slavik was a very "severe disabled person." After polio, his arms and legs were paralyzed. The dates went like this: the sisters sat in the garden under the cherry trees, with a tape recorder, and Slavik was nearby, in a wheelchair.

Masha and Dasha lived to be 15 years old. And it became a sensation. It was not clear only one thing - what to do with them next, when everything had already been studied. The doctors decided to put the final touch - to amputate the girls' third, unnecessary leg.

And for the rest of their lives, they suffered from phantom pain, both of them. They say that they saw nightmares for two, and read each other's thoughts. Only Dasha knew how to endure worse, she began to drink too much, and both had a hangover. Just at that time, the perestroika press wrote about the “closed medical facility Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapovs”.

After the publication, journalists started a rumor that the sisters were the illegitimate children of Lavrenty Beria. It was impossible to believe that this could happen to a person without any diabolical intent (the girls' father, Mikhail, was Beria's driver at that time. Under pressure from the medical leadership, he signed a death certificate for his daughters and never tried to find out anything about them again).

After two years of treatment in a psychiatric center, the girls' mother, Ekaterina, was released and she again began looking for her daughters. According to the newspaper El Mundo, she was again told that the girls had died. However, as the newspaper "Life" wrote, the mother found her daughters when they were 35 years old and visited for 4 years, but then Masha and Dasha refused to see her.

In 1964, Maria and Daria were placed in a boarding school for children with motor problems, located in Novocherkassk. In 1970 they moved to Moscow to a nursing home No. 6.

In total, the twins lived for almost 40 years in Soviet institutions for the disabled.
They suffered from the misplaced curiosity of nursing home neighbors. "How will you die"? - this was the most painful question for the Siamese twins.

In 1989 they moved to their own house in Moscow. The surgeons' proposal for separation was refused. Shortly before their death, at the invitation of a French firm, they visited Paris.

Near the end of them life path the disease of alcoholism began to affect health more and more. So, Maria and Daria suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and pulmonary edema. After many years of fighting alcohol addiction, Maria went into cardiac arrest around midnight on April 13, 2003. On Sunday morning, because of the living sister's complaints about the state of health, the "sleeping" Maria and Daria were hospitalized, then the cause of Maria's death, "acute heart attack", was revealed.
But for Darya, she remained fast asleep. Since the Krivoshlyapov sisters had a common circulatory system, 17 hours after Maria's death, Daria also died as a result of intoxication.

So, at the age of fifty-four, the Krivoshlyapov sisters died. Their bodies were cremated in the crematorium of the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery.

The Krivoshlyapov sisters are one of the most famous Siamese twins in the world. They are classic examples of ischiopagus. These are cases when the pelvis is fused at the same time, abdomen and limbs of Siamese twins.

Biography of the sisters

The Krivoshlyapov sisters were born on January 4, 1950. They were born in Moscow. Siamese twins originally had two heads, four arms and three legs. The spines of the sisters were connected at right angles. Even in the maternity hospital, their mother was told that the children died of pneumonia, and they were taken away from her.

For the first 7 years, the phenomenon of girls was studied by the famous Soviet physiologist Pyotr Anokhin. He became famous for creating the theory of functional systems - a special model that describes the structure of human behavior. The research was carried out on the basis of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR.

After the girls were transferred to another research center, which specialized in orthopedics and traumatology. The sisters' names were Dasha and Masha. In the new place, they seriously engaged in not only studying their phenomenon, but also helping them. They were taught to move with the help of crutches, they received their initial education.

life under the microscope

For many years, the Krivoshlyapov sisters have been subjects for the study of a rare disease. The real achievement was when they finally learned to walk after years of training. This was achieved only due to the fact that each of the sisters controlled her leg. The third leg was decided to be amputated. Physiologists came to this conclusion when the girls were in their teens.

The Krivoshlyapov sisters could move only with the help of crutches. But even under these conditions, everything happened very slowly. Each step demanded incredible efforts from them. Because of this, and also because of the increased general attention and curiosity of those around them, the Siamese twins of the Krivoshlyapov sisters could not get any work. And they received only primary education. They had to live on a disabled pension.

It is worth noting that not all Siamese twins who found themselves in this situation had serious problems with movement. For example, the American Hensel sisters, who are still alive, move around without any difficulty.

Own house

For most of their lives, Dasha and Masha lived in various Soviet social institutions designed for the disabled. In total, they spent almost four decades in them. Since 1964, they lived in a boarding school for minors with motor problems, which was located in Novocherkassk.

Maria and Daria Krivoshlyapovs found their own home only in 1989, when they were 39 years old. They remained to live together, despite the fact that domestic and foreign surgeons repeatedly offered them a separation operation. However, they invariably refused. In the early 90s, at the suggestion of a French company, the sisters visited France. The trip to Paris became one of the brightest impressions in their lives.

Personal life

It is worth noting that the sisters became addicted to alcohol at the age of 14. They started drinking regularly after a trip to Germany in the early 1990s. There they became heroes documentary film. The sisters themselves admitted that they were struck by the attitude of those around them - respectful and interested. Conditions were created for them to feel like people. They weren't pointed at or scrutinized at every step. Unlike Moscow, where a huge crowd immediately gathered behind their wheelchair.

Despite health problems, managed to join intimate relationship with the men of the sister Krivoshlyapova. Personal life they did not add up. It was almost impossible to find a person who would understand and accept them. Each story of their love is sad, Masha and Dasha themselves admitted, and therefore they were reluctant to talk about them. Even at school, one of the teachers advised them not to even start thinking about boys when one of the sisters liked a classmate.

Different tempers

Being connected physically, the sisters were very different from each other in spiritual development and character. Dasha has always been more frivolous and amorous. Masha, on the contrary, remained as calm as possible and, in a sense, even a passive person. At the same time, doctors categorically forbade them to have sex, but nature took its toll. Not paying attention to the fact that each such experience could end tragically, they took risks. A careless movement or an unforeseen reaction of the body could result in severe bleeding for the sisters.

Thoughts of suicide

Awareness of one's hopeless situation, life under a microscope, constant attention of scientists and journalists had a negative impact on the psychological state of the heroines of our article. They repeatedly visited thoughts of suicide.

Once such an idea came to Dasha in Germany, where they were like in a fairy tale. Polite treatment, delicate attention and at the same time sadness from the situation in which they find themselves. By chance, they lived at that time in a hotel on the 11th floor, and Dasha seriously suggested that Masha jump off the roof to fix these wonderful days, so that only they would remain in their memory.

Goodbye alcohol!

Over time, the sisters decided to code, but they were not enough for a long time. Life without alcohol turned out to be a long and painful torture for them, as a result, they literally insisted that the doctors return everything back. A slight intoxication from alcoholic vapors allowed them to forget about life's difficulties, at least for a while, about their problems, which ultimately turn out to be unresolved. All attempts to give up alcohol did not lead to anything.

Parents of the Krivoshlyapov sisters

The sisters' father was Mikhail Krivoshlyapov. He worked as a personal driver for one of the leaders of the Soviet state - Lavrenty Beria. When the girls were born, it was immediately decided not to give them to their parents, but to study and research them.

Mothers simply lied, saying that Dasha and Masha died of pneumonia. Then, however, they showed her the twins, but they did not allow her to take them away. The father was literally forced to sign the death papers for his daughters. This was insisted on by the party leadership, which scientists convinced of the need to study this medical and social phenomenon. Mikhail Krivoshlyapov signed the death certificates and never again in his life tried to find out anything about the fate of his children. He left the girls his last name, but put someone else's name in the "Patronymic" column. So the girls became Ivanovnas. In the column "Father" in their questionnaires there was a dash.

Soon after the girls were shown to her, Mother Ekaterina ended up in a neuropsychiatric clinic. After spending two years there, she returned to her normal life and began looking for daughters, but to no avail. According to some journalists and biographers, she was again told that they had died. The domestic newspaper "Life" reported that the mother managed to find her daughters when they were 35 years old. She visited them for several years, but then they themselves refused to see her. At the same time, the Krivoshlyapov sisters told a different story.

Meeting with mother

Dasha and Masha said that when they decided to visit their mother, they came to her house. However, the meeting was radically different from what they imagined. On the threshold they were met by a stern and cold woman. For them, she was a complete stranger, did not show any feelings. The meeting took place already in the 90s. It turned out that the father of the Krivoshlyapovs died back in 1980. Right from the threshold, the sisters were reproached for not trying to come to her earlier. At the same time, Siamese twins have long tried to find out about the fate of their parents. But for a long time they were told that either they could not be contacted, or they were no longer alive. So, back in Soviet times, Dasha and Masha were told that their mother died during a difficult birth.

Despite all this, they believed that someday they would meet. They managed to find the address when they were already over 30. On their 35th birthday, they gathered their courage and came to visit their family. The reception was most unfriendly. It turned out that Catherine lives with two sons - Anatoly and Sergey. But we also failed to communicate with them. Both were heavy drinkers. Then the sisters had a version that their addiction to strong drinks could be largely hereditary. It was not possible to establish relations with relatives.

The mother of the Krivoshlyapov sisters died in the 1990s and was buried next to her husband at the Khimki cemetery. Dasha and Masha repeatedly planned to visit the grave of their parents, but they never visited it.

tragic end

At the end of their lives, the sisters began to have more and more health problems. The Krivoshlyapov sisters, whose biography was constantly in sight, eventually became addicted to alcohol. Doctors gave them an unequivocal diagnosis - pulmonary edema and cirrhosis of the liver.

Maria was especially abusing strong drinks. She struggled with her addiction for several years until in the spring of 2003, around midnight, she went into cardiac arrest. In the morning, Daria, who survived, began to complain about feeling unwell She was rushed to the hospital. Doctors soon pronounced her dead.

The doctors managed to establish why the Krivoshlyapov sisters died. The cause of Maria's death is an acute heart attack. It is noteworthy that for Daria all this time she remained not dead, but fast asleep. The girls had a common circulatory system, so Daria's death was inevitable. She died 17 hours later. The cause of her death was intoxication of the whole organism. Realizing that the end is inevitable, and literally in a few hours, it was terrible.

The Krivoshlyapov sisters, whose funeral took place at the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery, lived only 53 painful years. Although if for an ordinary person this is a short period, then for a disabled person affected by such a disease, the age is very significant.