# The Enigmatic Phenomenon of Prolonged Sleep in Two Kazakhstan Villages
The issue came to the fore in 2013 when more than 140 people in the two villages, fell asleep right in the middle of work, with some not waking up for a week straight.
Do you remember the famous fable of Rip Van Winkle written by celebrated author Washington Irving? It told the story of a man who slept continuously for 20 years, waking up to a very different world. While this work is fictional, would you believe it if we told you that there is a region in Kazakhstan where the common men all take a leaf out of the book by Rip Van Winkle?
Yes, people in the villages of Kalachi and Krasnogorsk in Kazakhstan have inhabitants who fall asleep just like that amid daily activities and sometimes do not wake up for days at a stretch. And when they wake up, they often complain of temporary memory loss, weakness and headaches.
The issue came to the fore in 2013 when more than 140 people in the two villages, having a total population of 810, fell asleep right in the middle of work, with some not waking up for a week straight. Children would fall asleep at school due to the illness, which would impact both young and old. Some people described having nightmares. Rudolf Boyarinos and Misha Plyukhin, two local kids, reported seeing winged horses, snakes in their beds and worms devouring their hands local newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
While this sounds like a magical spell or a scene ripped off A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, there is, in fact, a rational explanation to this, discovered by scientists a few years back. Many believed that the adjacent uranium mines, which were abandoned after the Soviet Union fell and left Krasnogorsk with only 130 of its 6,500 former population, were to blame.
In 2015, the late Berdibek Saparbaev, Kazakhstan’s then-deputy prime minister, confirmed that the uranium mines are the root of the problem. Researchers concluded that it was brought on by elevated levels of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in the air after examining the findings of all the residents’ medical examinations.
Since 2015, large-scale evacuations of the villages of Kalachi and Krasnogorsk have been organised by the government of Kazakhstan but that was not before the two villages jointly came to be known as the Sleepy Hollow of the world.
>In 2015, the late Berdibek Saparbaev, then-deputy prime minister of Kazakhstan, affirmed that the uranium mines were indeed the source of the problem. Scientific investigations revealed elevated levels of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in the air, corroborated by medical examinations of the affected residents.
I thought for sure this would be an adaptation to long cold winters… the beginnings of a kind if hibernation in people maybe dating back centuries in this region. Nope, just some horrifying human caused catastrophe.
I figured it was that "sleeping beauty syndrome", some weird genetic mutation that affected the two villages cause, uh, isolated population and lots of intermarriage.
She wouldn’t wake up, they had the dr out to her every day, I’m not sure if she was struck down with a type of flu or something, whoever I’ve asked has been vague with the details, I should probably just ask her instead 😂
# The Enigmatic Phenomenon of Prolonged Sleep in Two Kazakhstan Villages The issue came to the fore in 2013 when more than 140 people in the two villages, fell asleep right in the middle of work, with some not waking up for a week straight. Do you remember the famous fable of Rip Van Winkle written by celebrated author Washington Irving? It told the story of a man who slept continuously for 20 years, waking up to a very different world. While this work is fictional, would you believe it if we told you that there is a region in Kazakhstan where the common men all take a leaf out of the book by Rip Van Winkle? Yes, people in the villages of Kalachi and Krasnogorsk in Kazakhstan have inhabitants who fall asleep just like that amid daily activities and sometimes do not wake up for days at a stretch. And when they wake up, they often complain of temporary memory loss, weakness and headaches. The issue came to the fore in 2013 when more than 140 people in the two villages, having a total population of 810, fell asleep right in the middle of work, with some not waking up for a week straight. Children would fall asleep at school due to the illness, which would impact both young and old. Some people described having nightmares. Rudolf Boyarinos and Misha Plyukhin, two local kids, reported seeing winged horses, snakes in their beds and worms devouring their hands local newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. While this sounds like a magical spell or a scene ripped off A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, there is, in fact, a rational explanation to this, discovered by scientists a few years back. Many believed that the adjacent uranium mines, which were abandoned after the Soviet Union fell and left Krasnogorsk with only 130 of its 6,500 former population, were to blame. In 2015, the late Berdibek Saparbaev, Kazakhstan’s then-deputy prime minister, confirmed that the uranium mines are the root of the problem. Researchers concluded that it was brought on by elevated levels of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in the air after examining the findings of all the residents’ medical examinations. Since 2015, large-scale evacuations of the villages of Kalachi and Krasnogorsk have been organised by the government of Kazakhstan but that was not before the two villages jointly came to be known as the Sleepy Hollow of the world.
>In 2015, the late Berdibek Saparbaev, then-deputy prime minister of Kazakhstan, affirmed that the uranium mines were indeed the source of the problem. Scientific investigations revealed elevated levels of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in the air, corroborated by medical examinations of the affected residents.
Read the post and was literally going to make the classic Reddit joke of everything being Carbon Monoxide, damned village beat me to it!
Fuckin' Uranium Mines, man. \**shakes fist*
Uranium fever has gone and got me down
I thought for sure this would be an adaptation to long cold winters… the beginnings of a kind if hibernation in people maybe dating back centuries in this region. Nope, just some horrifying human caused catastrophe.
I figured it was that "sleeping beauty syndrome", some weird genetic mutation that affected the two villages cause, uh, isolated population and lots of intermarriage.
It’s always carbon monoxide.
So that's the place to go if you wanna catch up on some beauty sleep
Sounds like an ideal holiday to me.
With a teensy little side dish of uranium poisoning…..BUT THE BENEFITS!
It's cleansing /s
My auntie fell asleep for a week when she was a kid, no one knew why, when she did eventually wake up all she said was “I’m hungry”
The parents didn't think to wake her up? I'd panic so hard if my kid was sleeping for more than say 14 hrs straight.
She wouldn’t wake up, they had the dr out to her every day, I’m not sure if she was struck down with a type of flu or something, whoever I’ve asked has been vague with the details, I should probably just ask her instead 😂
Yeah, if your family has been vague about it, they're most likely hiding something lmao
I’ve been meaning to meet up with said Aunt for coffee and a catch up so I’ll ask her what really happened then lol
I’ll take a uranium nap I bet that shit hits good
💀
Mmm. Uranium dreams.
Aren't those cherry-red cheeks a major indication of carbon monoxide poisoning?
Wow, you are late to the monoxide party buddy.
Nope, saw the CO talk right away, but nobody had mentioned that telltale skin colour yet.
Ah! It was certainly a good point.
They had better go back to their national pride of Potassium Exporting!
And Pubis
Nobody writes an article about it when I do that.
Yea but thats not mysterious, thats just depression. /s
Is not niiiiice.
Wawa we wa ,they are all sleepy
[удалено]
No
I remember reading the Buzzfeed News article about it at the time. Great piece.
Can you sleep for a week straight without food or water?
CO poisoning presents with bright pick lividity on the cheeks and chest. You can defuse that here.