Everyone has their own cockroaches in their heads, but there are individuals in whom these cockroaches reach enormous sizes. We present to you 10 of the strangest lifestyles of people who invented their own world and live happily in it. 10 stories about crazy people and their crazy oddities.

The woman who lives like she's in the Victorian era

Sarah Chrisman never wanted to wear corsets, but after her husband gave her one for her 29th birthday, she claims it changed her life. She was inspired by the corset and delved into Victorian women's fashion and began to dress exclusively in this style. Today, she and her husband, Gabriel, strive to live the life of the Victorian era as much as possible within the modern world. This means that she bathes with a jug of water, sews clothes for herself from natural fabrics with her own hands, does not drive a car, and uses oil lamps to light her home. Sarah uses a 19th century recipe book when it comes to cooking. They currently still use the refrigerator to store their food, but they hope to move to an ice box soon for even more authenticity. Sarah wrote a book - "Victorian Secrets: What Secrets The Corset Revealed To Me About The Past, Present And Me"

The man who lives like a dog

"Boomer" is a man dressed as a dog who dreams of a doggy lifestyle.

Gary Matthews considers himself a dog. The 48-year-old wears a collar, eats dog food from a bowl, and enjoys nibbling on milk bones and dog biscuits. He even barks, chases cars, and digs burial holes in his backyard. The guy sleeps in a kennel, which he says is much more comfortable than a human bed. Boomer lives in Pennsylvania, wanted to live the life of a dog after watching NBC's hit show "Here's Boomer" when he was a kid, a popular series about a mixed-breed stray dog named Boomer who traveled and helped people in trouble. This dream did not leave him, but became his obsession. There are other people, like Boomer, who identify themselves as different animals, they even have their own subculture, which was first recognized in the United States in the 1980s. in animal costumes this is a hobby for most of them, but Boomer went to the extreme, making hobby the center of his life.

The woman who lived inside a respirator for 61 years

Martha Mason spent over 60 years of her life in an Iron Lung ventilator after being paralyzed by polio as a child. Despite her seemingly hopeless situation, Martha lived a fulfilling life, graduating from high school and college with honors, attending many dinner parties, and even writing her own book called Breathing: Living with Rescue Rescue Respiration, in which she recounts about her problems and joys in life. She is the only person on this list who did not choose such a life for herself. Martha was born on May 31, 1937, in a small town. She became paralyzed when she was only 11 years old after suffering from polio, in a short time after the illness killed her brother Gaston.After her brother was buried, he said that she realized that she had the same symptoms as her brother, but hid all her fears in herself so as not to frighten her parents. placed in an Iron Lungs respirator, a type of medical device that helps paralyzed people breathe by decreasing and increasing the air pressure inside the large jelly hot tank. Martha Mason has lived almost her entire life in such an aquarium. The doctors told Marta's parents to take her home and make her happy during her last year of life, as the doctors did not give her any more. Martha outlived her parents through her curiosity and desire to know the world. She died in 2009.

The man who spent the last 26 years of his life traveling the world with a giant crucifix on his shoulder to talk about Jesus

Lindsay Hamon, 60, spent the last 26 years of his life carrying a giant crucifix on his shoulder around the world and telling about Jesus to everyone who listened. He literally carried his faith on his shoulders, visiting 19 countries including New Zealand, Romania, India and visiting Sri Lanka. During his amazing journey, he saw both amazing and terrible things. After surviving the attack and shooting in Bangladesh, he was thrown from St. Peter's Square in Rome, Jamon has no plans to stop. Jamon took on the mission to carry the huge cross around the world in 1987, and he remains committed to his goal. The cross itself is made of cedar wood 3.66 meters high and 1.83 meters wide. He has a wheel at the base to make it easier to move around, and he actually wears it over his shoulder for up to 12 hours a day with no idea where he will be spending the night. Lindsay receives donations from his supporters to help him stay committed to his mission. He only stay in his hometown of Cornwall every time to work and pay the family's bills.

An absolutely healthy woman who lives like a person whose lower limbs are paralyzed

Being stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of your life is hell for ordinary people, but not for Chloe Jennings-White. A 57-year-old chemist from Salt Lake City, Utah, she has an unnatural desire to become paralyzed below the waist. Chloe lives the life of a disabled person. She uses a wheelchair and wears long braces that are attached to her knees to enable her to move with crutches. But when she has to go up or down the stairs, she just gets up, removes her braces, and walks like a normal person. Like most paralyzed people, she loves outdoor activities, but on her 12-hour hikes in the forest, she does not take her equipment, she climbs dangerous slopes like a normal person. In 2008, doctors diagnosed her with body integrity disorder, a serious mental disorder that makes sufferers feel like they would be happier with an amputee or paralysis. To calm Chloe down, the doctors suggested that she simply use a wheelchair to get around. She dreams of an accident that would paralyze her. Chloe says that she gets very angry reviews from people who find out about her deception, they just cannot understand her condition. Using a stroller saves her life.

The man who can't live without cockroaches

Unlike many people, Kyle Kandilian, a university student from Dearborn, Michigan, not only is not afraid of cockroaches, but he lives with tens of thousands of these insects. He currently keeps about 200,000 cockroaches in his home. A 20-year-old boy collects and breeds cockroaches for both pleasure and profit. Apparently, this unusual hobby helps him pay for his education at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Some rare cockroach breeds are priced at $ 200, such as the Macropanesthia rhinoceros species, which can live up to 15 years. It has a wide range of clients, including people who feed cockroaches to their pets and universities who buy insects for research purposes. His 200,000 cockroaches pose problems for his parents. His room is full of stacked boxes of cockroaches, and in total he raised about 130 species of cockroaches. After 8 years of occupation, breeding cockroaches remains his favorite pastime.

The woman who lives with her husband and her lover under the same roof

When Maria Butzki left her husband Paul for another man, she did not understand how much she would miss him. At the same time, she could not imagine life without her new lover Peter Gruman. Thus, when the two men became friends, she came up with the perfect solution ... She suggested that Peter move into her and her husband's house. Now 33-year-old Maria, 37-year-old Paul, their two children, 16-year-old Laura, 12-year-old Amy and 36-year-old Peter live like one big happy family. Peter sleeps on the couch, Paul sleeps in the upstairs bedroom, and Maria sleeps in the same bedroom with her eldest daughter. Maria claims that the three of them never sleep, although they have sexual relations with each of them. She claims that this lifestyle has its huge advantages. The children benefit from three adults who are able to help with work and school. Also, all their accounts are divided into 3 parts.

A family that lives like it's 1986

If you ask this man any question that interests you, he will go to look for the answer in the encyclopedia, because he does not have the Internet. The fact is that Blair and his girlfriend Morgan from Canada pretend that it's 1986. They do this because they don't want their kids Trey, 5, and Denton, 2, to sit in front of the ipad and ipod all day long, and just kick the ball around the yard. This is why any technique that was released after 1986 is prohibited in their house. They have no computers, no tablets, no smartphones, no coffee machines, no internet, that is, nothing on which most people currently depend. They want to educate their children the way they were brought up themselves. They take pictures with a film camera and pay a lot of money for it. They recently traveled across the United States and used paper maps and entertained their children with coloring books as they passed cars with headrest TVs. The only exception to their "past lifestyle" is their 2010 Kia car without GPS.

The woman who lives with 700 cats

Meet a woman who lives with over 700 cats. Throughout her childhood, Lynea Lattanzio dreamed of a cat, but her mother did not approve of this desire. So now she lives alone with hundreds of cats on her 12 acres of land in California, where she set up a cat shelter from her home. She began helping animals after her divorce in 1981, and has rescued nearly 19,000 felines. However, she claims that she is not crazy. Her mission is to place rescued cats and kittens in permanent homes and she opposes neutering and neutering. There are at least 700 cats in her house, as well as 15 dogs. She lives on donations and grants.

The woman who lives with a dozen false widows

Most people are scared to death of spiders, but Jay Reich is desperate for his false widows, and even wants to be bitten by one of them to show how harmless they are. The False Widow is the most frightening spider species in the world. Jay lives in Bracknell with a growing collection of spiders. He currently has three adult false widows and ten of their children. Jay plans to be bitten by a false widow to prove they are harmless.

There were many circumstances in Gogol's life that are still difficult and even impossible to explain. He led a strange lifestyle, wrote strange, but brilliant works. He could not be called a healthy person, but doctors could not classify his illness.

Gogol was ... a clairvoyant! Hence his striking phrase in a letter to Zhukovsky about a completely new country - the USA: “And what is United States? CARRION. The man in them has weathered to such an extent that it is not worth a damn egg. "

Realizing that "carrion" is full around and in his "native country", Gogol pondered, but for WHOM did he write the continuation of "Dead Souls" on January 1 (according to Art.), 1852?

The "abyss of the fall of human souls" seized by Gogol in the Nicholas Russian Empire inevitably led to the idea that almost the entire population of the country was going "in a straight line" to ... Hell.

And the damned question arose for the thinking writer: "What to do?"

Even after his death, his body did not find rest (the skull mysteriously disappeared from the grave) ...

Since childhood, Gogol was not distinguished by good health and diligence, he was "unusually thin and weak", with an elongated face and a large nose. The leadership of the lyceum in 1824 repeatedly punished him for "untidiness, buffoonery, stubbornness and disobedience."

Gogol himself recognized the paradox of his character and believed that he contained "a terrible mixture of contradictions, stubbornness, daring arrogance and the most humiliated humility."

As for his health, his illnesses were also strange. Gogol had a special view of his body and believed that he was arranged in a completely different way from other people. He believed that his stomach was upside down and constantly complained of pain. He constantly talked about the stomach, believing that this topic is interesting to everyone. As Princess V.N. Repin: “We constantly lived in his stomach” ...

His next "attack" - these are strange seizures: he fell into a somnambulistic state, when his pulse almost died down, but all this was accompanied by excitement, fears, numbness. Gogol was very afraid that he would be buried alive when they thought he was dead. After another attack, he wrote a will, in which he demanded "not to bury the body until the first signs of decomposition."

But the feeling of a serious illness did not leave Gogol. Beginning in 1836, performance began to decline. Creative rises became a rarity, and he sank deeper and deeper into the abyss of depression and hypochondria. His faith became frantic, filled with mystical ideas, which prompted him to go on religious "exploits."

On the night of February 8-9, 1852, Gogol heard voices telling him that he would soon die. He tried to hand over the papers with the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls c. A.P. Tolstoy, but he did not take it, so as not to strengthen Gogol in the thought of imminent death. Then Gogol burned the manuscript! After February 12, Gogol's condition deteriorated sharply. On February 21, during another severe attack, Gogol died.

Gogol was buried in the cemetery of the Danilovsky Monastery in Moscow. But immediately after his death, terrible rumors spread around the city that he was buried alive.

Lethargic sleep, medical error or suicide? The mystery of Gogol's death

The mystery of the death of the greatest classic of literature Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol has been haunted by scientists, historians and researchers for more than a century and a half. How did the writer actually die?

Basic versions of what happened.

Sopor

The most common version. The rumor about the allegedly terrible death of a writer buried alive turned out to be so tenacious that many still consider it an absolutely proven fact.

In part, he created rumors about his burial alive, without knowing it ... Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The fact is that the writer was susceptible to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, the classic was very afraid that in one of the seizures he would be mistaken for dead and buried.

This fact is almost unanimously denied by modern historians.

"During the exhumation, which was carried out under conditions of certain secrecy, only about 20 people gathered at Gogol's grave ..." writes in his article "The Secret of Gogol's Death" Associate Professor of the Perm Medical Academy Mikhail Davidov... - The writer V. Lidin became essentially the only source of information about the exhumation of Gogol. At first, he told about the reburial to students of the Literary Institute and his acquaintances, later he left written memoirs. Lidin's stories were untrue and contradictory. It was he who argued that the writer's oak coffin was well preserved, the coffin upholstery was torn and scratched from the inside, a skeleton lay in the coffin, unnaturally twisted, with the skull turned to one side. So, with the light hand of Lidin, inexhaustible on inventions, the terrible legend that the writer was buried alive went for a walk in Moscow.

To understand the inconsistency of the lethargic dream version, it is enough to ponder the following fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! It is known that the decomposition of a body in a grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after only a few years only bone tissue remains from it, and the bones found no longer have close connections with each other. It is not clear how, after eight decades, they could establish some kind of "twisting of the body" ... And what remains of the wooden coffin and the upholstery material after 79 years of being in the ground? They change so much (rot, become fragmented) that it is absolutely impossible to establish the fact of "scratching" the inner upholstery of the coffin. "

And according to the recollections of the sculptor Ramazanov, who took off the writer's death mask, the posthumous changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the deceased's face.

However, Gogol's version of lethargic sleep is still alive.

On May 31, 1931, twenty to thirty people gathered at the grave of Gogol, among whom were: the historian M. Baranovskaya, the writers Vs. Ivanov, V. Lugovskoy, Yu. Olesha, M. Svetlov, V. Lidin and others. It was Lidin who became almost the only source of information about Gogol's reburial. With his light hand, terrible legends about Gogol began to walk around Moscow.

“The coffin was not found right away,” he told the students of the Literary Institute, “for some reason it was not where they were digging, but somewhat at a distance, to the side. And when it was taken out of the ground - filled with lime, seemingly strong, from oak planks - and opened, then bewilderment was added to the heartfelt trembling of those present. In the fobu lay a skeleton with a skull turned to one side. Nobody found an explanation for this. Someone superstitious, probably, then thought: "Well, after all, the tax collector - as if not alive during his life, and not dead after death, is this strange great man."

Lida's stories stirred up old rumors that Gogol was afraid of being buried alive in a state of lethargic sleep and seven years before his death he bequeathed: “My body should not be buried until there are obvious signs of decomposition. I mention this because even during the illness itself they found moments of vital numbness on me, my heart and pulse stopped beating. " What the exhumators saw in 1931 seemed to indicate that Gogol's behest was not fulfilled, that he was buried in a lethargic state, he woke up in a coffin and experienced nightmarish moments of a new dying ...

For the sake of fairness, it must be said that the Lidin version did not inspire confidence. The sculptor N. Ramazanov, who was taking off Gogol's death mask, recalled: “I did not suddenly decide to take off the mask, but the prepared coffin ... finally, the constantly arriving crowd of people who wanted to say goodbye to the dear deceased forced me and my old man, who pointed out the traces of destruction, to hurry .. . ”There was also an explanation for the turn of the skull: the side boards at the coffin were the first to rot, the lid lowers under the weight of the soil, presses on the dead man's head, and it turns on its side on the so-called“ Atlantean vertebra ”.

Then Lidin launched a new version. In his written memoirs about the exhumation, he told a new story, even more terrible and mysterious than his oral stories. “This is what Gogol's ashes were,” he wrote. “There was no skull in the coffin, and Gogol's remains began from the cervical vertebrae; the entire skeleton was enclosed in a well-preserved tobacco-colored frock coat ... When and under what circumstances Gogol's skull disappeared remains a mystery. At the beginning of the opening of the grave at a shallow depth, much higher than the crypt with a walled-up coffin, a skull was discovered, but archaeologists recognized it as belonging to a young man. "

This new invention of Lidin demanded new hypotheses. When could Gogol's skull disappear from the coffin? Who could need it? And what kind of fuss was raised around the remains of the great writer?

They remembered that in 1908, when a heavy stone was installed on the grave, a brick crypt had to be erected over the coffin to strengthen the foundation. It was then that mysterious intruders could steal the writer's skull. As for those interested, it was not without reason that rumors circulated around Moscow that the skulls of Shchepkin and Gogol were secretly kept in the unique collection of A. A. Bakhrushin, a passionate collector of theatrical relics ...

And Lidin, inexhaustible on inventions, amazed the listeners with new sensational details: they say, when the writer's ashes were being transported from the Danilov Monastery to Novodevichy, some of those present at the reburial could not resist and took some relics for themselves. One seemed to have pulled off Gogol's rib, the other - the tibia, the third - the boot. Lidin himself even showed the guests a volume of the lifetime edition of Gogol's works, into the binding of which he made a piece of cloth that he had torn off from his coat that was lying in Gogol's coffin.

In 1931, the remains were exhumed to transfer the writer's body to the Novodevichy cemetery. But a surprise awaited those present at the exhumation - there was no skull in the coffin! The monks of the monastery said during interrogation that on the eve of the centenary of Gogol's birth in 1909, the grave of the great classic was being restored at the cemetery. During the restoration work, the Moscow collector and millionaire Alexei Bakhrushin, an extravagant personality of those times, appeared at the cemetery. Presumably, it was he who decided to sacrilege by paying the gravediggers for the theft of the skull. Bakhrushin himself died in 1929 and forever took the secret of the current location of the skull to the grave.

The merchant crowned the head of the writer with a silver wreath and placed it in a special rosewood chest with a glass window. However, the "acquisition of the relic" did not bring happiness to the collector - Bakhrushin began to have troubles in business and in his family. Moscow inhabitants associated these events with "a blasphemous violation of the peace of a mystic writer."

Bakhrushin himself was not happy with his "exhibit". But where to put it? Throw it away? Sacrilege! To give to someone means publicly
confess to the desecration of the grave, incur shame, prison! Bury it back? Difficult, since the crypt was soundly bricked up by order of Bakhrushin.

The unfortunate merchant was rescued by a chance ... Rumors about Gogol's skull reached Nikolai Vasilyevich's nephew, a naval lieutenant Yanovsky. The latter decided to "restore justice": to get the skull of a famous relative in any way and to bury it in the ground, as required by the Orthodox faith. This will "calm down" the remains of Gogol.

Yanovsky, without an invitation, came to Bakhrushin, put the revolver on the table and said: “There are two cartridges here. One in the barrel for you, if you don’t give me the skull of Nikolai Vasilyevich, the other in the drum for me, if I have to kill you. Make up your mind! "

Bakhrushin was not frightened. On the contrary, he gladly gave the "exhibit". But Yanovsky could not carry out his intention for a number of reasons. Gogol's skull, according to one version, came to Italy in the spring of 1911, where it was kept in the house of the captain of the Navy Borghese. And in the summer of the same year, the skull-relic was stolen. And now it is not known what became of him ... Is it true or not - history is silent. Only the absence of a skull is officially confirmed - this is stated in the documents of the NKVD.

According to rumors, at one time a secret group was formed, the purpose of which was to search for Gogol's skull. But nothing is known about the results of her activities - all documents on this topic were destroyed.

According to legend, the one who owns Gogol's skull can communicate directly with dark forces, fulfill any desires and rule the world. They say that today it is kept in the personal collection of the famous oligarch, one of the five Forbes. But even if this is true, it will probably never be announced publicly ..

A ceremonial bust was erected over the new grave by order of Stalin. The mystery of the death of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol has not yet been solved.

When in 1931 Gogol's ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery and the sculptor Tomsky made a Gogol bust with a gold inscription under it "From the Soviet government", a symbolic stone with a cross was not needed ... On the writer's grave, only a tombstone of black marble with an epitaph from the prophet was left Jeremiah: "They will laugh at my bitter word." And “Golgotha”, together with the white marble bust of Gogol on a column, was thrown into the pit.

This multi-ton stone, at the request of Bulgakov's widow, was pulled out with difficulty and dragged along the boards to the grave of the creator of the mystical creation "The Master and Margarita", laying it with its top down ... So Gogol "gave up" his cross stone to Bulgakov.

By the way, in 1931, when opening the coffin of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Soviet writers revealed their "dead souls": they robbed the deceased, tearing off "for memory" shreds from the coat of the great writer-"soul mate", from his boots ... They did not disdain to take even some bones ... Soon these "creators of new Soviet literature" fully experienced what the fetishist merchant Bakhrushin ...

Suicide

In the last months of his life, Gogol experienced a severe mental crisis. The writer was shocked by the death of his close friend, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova who died suddenly of a rapidly developing disease at 35. The classic gave up writing, spent most of his time praying and fasting violently. Gogol was seized by the fear of death, the writer reported to his acquaintances that he heard voices telling him that he would soon die.

It was during that feverish period, when the writer was delirious, that he burned the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls. It is believed that he did this largely under the pressure of his confessor, archpriest Matthew Konstantinovsky, who was the only person who read this unpublished work and advised to destroy the records.

The writer's depression intensified. He grew weaker, slept very little and ate practically nothing. In fact, the writer voluntarily squeezed himself out of the light.

According to the doctor's testimony Tarasenkova, observing Nikolai Vasilyevich, in the last period of his life he "at once" aged "at once" in a month. By February 10, Gogol's strength had already left so much that he could no longer leave the house. On February 20, the writer fell into a feverish state, did not recognize anyone and kept whispering some kind of prayer. A council of doctors gathered at the patient's bedside prescribes "compulsory treatment" for him. For example, bloodletting with leeches. Despite all efforts, at 8 am on February 21, he was gone.

However, most researchers do not support the version that the writer deliberately "starved himself to death", that is, in fact committed suicide. And for a lethal outcome, an adult needs not to eat for 40 days. Gogol, on the other hand, refused food for about three weeks, and even then he occasionally allowed himself to eat a few spoons of oatmeal soup and drink linden tea.
CONTACTS WITH ANGELS

There is a version that the mental disorder could have happened not because of an illness, but "on religious grounds." As they would say these days - he was involved in a sect. The writer, being an atheist, began to believe in God, reflect on religion and wait for the end of the world.

It is known: having joined the "Martyrs of Hell" sect, Gogol spent almost all of his time in an impromptu church, where, in the company of parishioners, he tried to "establish contact" with angels, prayers and starvation, bringing himself to such a state that he began hallucinations, during which he saw devils, babies with wings, and women who resembled the Mother of God in vestments.

Gogol spent all his money savings on the fact that, together with his mentor and a group of sectarians like him, go to Jerusalem to the Holy Sepulcher and to meet the end times on the holy land.

The organization of the trip takes place in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy, the writer informs his relatives and friends that he is going to be treated, only a few will know that he is going to stand at the origins of a new humanity. Leaving, he asks everyone he knew for forgiveness and says that he will never see them again.

The trip took place in February 1848, but the miracle did not happen - the apocalypse did not happen. Some historians claim that the organizer of the pilgrimage planned to give the sectarians an alcoholic drink with poison so that everyone would go to the next world at once, but the alcohol dissolved the poison and it did not work.

Having suffered a fiasco, he allegedly fled, abandoning his followers, who, in turn, returned home, barely scraping up money for the return trip. However, there is no documentary evidence of this.

Gogol returned home. His trip did not bring spiritual relief; on the contrary, it only exacerbated the situation. He becomes withdrawn, strange in communication, capricious and unkempt in clothes.
As Granovsky later recalled, a black cat suddenly approached the grave, into which the coffin had already been lowered.

Where he came from at the cemetery - no one knew, and the church workers reported that they had never seen him either in the temple or in the adjacent territory.

“You will involuntarily believe in mysticism,” the professor will write later. “The women gasped, believing that the soul of the writer had taken over the cat.”

When the burial was completed, the cat disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, no one saw him leaving.

Medical error

DRAMA IN A HOUSE ON NIKITSKY BOULEVARD

The last four years of his life, Gogol spent in Moscow in a house on Nikitsky Boulevard.

With the owners of the house - Count Alexander Petrovich and Countess Anna Georgievna Tolstoy - Gogol met at the end of the 30s, the acquaintance grew into close friendship, and the count and his wife did everything to make the writer live freely and comfortably in their house. It was in this house on Nikitsky Boulevard that Gogol's final drama took place.

On the night from Friday to Saturday (8-9 February), after another vigil, he, exhausted, dozed off on the sofa and suddenly saw himself dead and heard some mysterious voices.

On Monday, February 11, Gogol was exhausted to such an extent that he could not walk and went to bed. He was reluctant to receive friends who came to him, spoke little, dozed off. But he still found the strength to defend the service in the home church of Count Tolstoy. At 3 o'clock in the morning from 11 to 12 February, after fervent prayer, he summoned Semyon to him, ordered him to go up to the second floor, open the stove valves and bring a briefcase from the closet. Taking a bunch of notebooks out of it, Gogol put them in the fireplace and lit a candle. Semyon on his knees begged him not to burn the manuscripts, but the writer stopped him: “None of your business! Pray! " Sitting on a chair in front of the fire, he waited until everything burned out, got up, crossed himself, kissed Semyon, returned to his room, lay down on the sofa and began to cry.

“This is what I did! - he said the next morning to Tolstoy, - I wanted to burn some things that had been prepared for a long time, but I burned everything. How the crafty is strong - that's what he pushed me to! And I was there, I figured out a lot and laid it out ... I thought of sending it to my friends from a notebook as a souvenir: let them do what they wanted. Now everything is gone. "

AGONY

Stunned by what had happened, the count hastened to summon the famous Moscow doctor F. Inozemtsev to Gogol, who at first suspected typhus in the writer, but then refused his diagnosis and advised the patient to simply lie down. But the doctor's equanimity did not calm Tolstoy, and he asked his good friend, the psychopathologist A. Tarasenkov, to come. However, Gogol did not want to receive Tarasenkov, who arrived on Wednesday 13 February. “You must leave me,” he said to the count, “I know that I must die” ...

Tarasenkov urged Gogol to start eating normally in order to recuperate, but the patient was indifferent to his admonitions. At the insistence of the doctors, Tolstoy asked Metropolitan Filaret to influence Gogol, to strengthen his confidence in doctors. But nothing acted on Gogol, to all persuasions he quietly and meekly replied: “Leave me alone; I feel good. " He stopped taking care of himself, did not wash, did not comb his hair, did not dress. He ate crumbs - bread, prosphora, gruel, prunes. I drank water with red wine, linden tea.

On Monday, February 17, he went to bed in his dressing gown and boots and never got up. In bed, he proceeded to the sacraments of repentance, communion and blessing of the holy oil, listened to all the gospels in full consciousness, holding a candle in his hands and crying. “If it pleases God that I still live, I will live,” he said to his friends, who urged him to be treated. On that day he was examined by a doctor invited by Tolstoy A. Over. He did not give any advice, rescheduling the conversation the next day.

Doctor Klimenkov appeared on the stage, astonishing those present with his rudeness and impudence. He shouted his questions to Gogol, as if there was a deaf or unconscious person in front of him, trying to forcibly grope for a pulse. "Leave me!" - Gogol told him and turned away.

Klimenkov insisted on active treatment: bloodletting, wrapping in wet cold sheets, etc. But Tarasenkov suggested postponing everything to the next day.

On February 20, a council gathered: Over, Klimenkov, Sokologorsky, Tarasenkov and the Moscow medical luminary Evenius. In the presence of Tolstoy, Khomyakov and other Gogol acquaintances, Over told Evenius the history of the disease, emphasizing the oddities in the patient's behavior, allegedly indicating that "his consciousness is not in a natural position." "Leave the patient without benefits or treat him like a person who does not control himself?" Over asked. “Yes, you have to force-feed him,” Evenius said importantly.

After that, the doctors went to the patient, began to question him, examine him, and touch him. From the room came the groans and cries of the patient. "Don't bother me, for God's sake!" He finally cried out. But they no longer paid attention to him. It was decided to put two leeches to Gogol's nose, to make a cold douche of his head in a warm bath. Klimenkov undertook to perform all these procedures, and Tarasenkov hastened to leave, "so as not to witness the suffering of the sufferer."

When he returned three hours later, Gogol was already taken out of the bath, six leeches hung at his nostrils, which he tried to tear off, but the doctors forcibly held his hands. At about seven in the evening, Over and Klimenkov arrived again, ordered to maintain the bleeding as long as possible, put mustard plasters on the limbs, a fly on the back of the head, ice on the head and inside a decoction of marshmallow root with laurel-cherry water. “Their appeal was inexorable,” Tarasenkov recalled, “they gave orders like a madman, shouted in front of him, as in front of a corpse. Klimenkov pestered him, crumpled, turned, poured some caustic alcohol on his head ... "

After their departure, Tarasenkov stayed until midnight. The patient's pulse dropped, breathing became intermittent. He could no longer turn himself, lay still and calm when he was not being treated. He asked for a drink. By the evening he began to lose his memory, muttered indistinctly: “Come on, come on! Well, what then? " At eleven o'clock he suddenly shouted loudly: "Ladder, hurry up, let's get the ladder!" I tried to get up. They lifted him out of bed, put him on a chair. But he was already so weak that his head did not hold and fell, like that of a newborn child. After this outbreak, Gogol fell into a deep faint, around midnight his legs began to feel cold, and Tarasenkov ordered to put jugs of hot water on them ...

Tarasenkov left so that, as he wrote, not to run into the medical executioner Klimenkov, who, as they later said, tortured the dying Gogol all night long, giving him calomel, covering his body with hot bread, which made Gogol moan and shriek. He died without regaining consciousness at 8 am on Thursday 21 February. When at ten o'clock in the morning Tarasenkov arrived at Nikitsky Boulevard, the deceased was already lying on the table, dressed in the frock coat in which he usually went.

Each of the three versions of the death of the writer has its adherents and opponents. One way or another, this mystery has not yet been solved.

“I will tell you without exaggeration, - I wrote more Ivan Turgenev Aksakov, - since I can remember, nothing has made such a depressing impression on me as the death of Gogol ... This strange death is a historical event and is not immediately clear; it is a mystery, a difficult, formidable mystery - one must try to unravel it ... But the one who unravels it will not find anything gratifying in it. "

"I looked at the deceased for a long time," wrote Tarasenkov, "it seemed to me that his face expressed not suffering, but calmness, a clear thought carried away to the coffin." "It is a shame to him who is attracted to rotting dust ..."

Gogol's ashes were buried at noon on February 24, 1852 by the parish priest Alexei Sokolov and deacon John Pushkin. And 79 years later, he was secretly, thieves removed from the grave: the Danilov Monastery was transformed into a colony for juvenile criminals, in connection with which his necropolis was subject to liquidation. It was decided to move only a few of the most dear to the Russian heart burials to the old cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent. Among these lucky ones, along with the Yazykov, Aksakovs and Khomyakovs, was Gogol ...

In his will, Gogol shamed those who "would be attracted by some attention to rotting dust, which is no longer mine." But the windy descendants were not ashamed, they violated the writer's will, with unclean hands, for fun, began stirring up the "rotting finger." They also did not respect his commandment not to put any monument on his grave.

The Aksakovs brought to Moscow from the Black Sea coast a stone resembling Golgotha - the hill on which Jesus Christ was crucified. This stone became the basis for the cross on the grave of Gogol. Next to him, a black stone in the form of a truncated pyramid with inscriptions on the edges was installed on the grave.

These stones and the cross the day before the opening of the Gogol burial were taken somewhere and sunk into oblivion. It was only in the early 1950s that Mikhail Bulgakov's widow accidentally discovered Gogol's Golgotha stone in the cutters' shed and managed to install it on the grave of her husband, the creator of The Master and Margarita.

No less mysterious and mystical is the fate of the Moscow monuments to Gogol. The idea of the need for such a monument was born in 1880 during the celebrations for the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard. And 29 years later, on the centenary of the birth of Nikolai Vasilyevich on April 26, 1909, a monument created by the sculptor N. Andreev was unveiled on Prechistensky Boulevard. This sculpture, depicting a deeply discouraged Gogol at the time of his serious thoughts, caused controversial assessments. Some praised her enthusiastically, others fiercely condemned her. But everyone agreed: Andreev managed to create a work of the highest artistic merit.

The controversy surrounding the original author's interpretation of the image of Gogol did not continue to subside even in Soviet times, which did not tolerate the spirit of decline and despondency even among the great writers of the past. Socialist Moscow needed a different Gogol - clear, bright, calm. Not Gogol in Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends, but Gogol in Taras Bulba, The Inspector General, Dead Souls.

In 1935, the All-Union Committee for Arts under the USSR Council of People's Commissars announced a competition for a new monument to Gogol in Moscow, which marked the beginning of developments interrupted by the Great Patriotic War. She slowed down, but did not stop these works, which were attended by the largest masters of sculpture - M. Manizer, S. Merkurov, E. Vuchetich, N. Tomsky.

In 1952, on the centenary of the death of Gogol, a new monument, created by the sculptor N. Tomsky and the architect S. Golubovsky, was erected on the site of the Andreev monument. Andreevsky monument was transferred to the territory of the Donskoy Monastery, where it stood until 1959, when, at the request of the USSR Ministry of Culture, it was installed in front of Tolstoy's house on Nikitsky Boulevard, where Nikolai Vasilyevich lived and died. Andreev's creation took seven years to cross Arbat Square!

The controversy over the Moscow monuments to Gogol continues even now. Some Muscovites tend to see the transfer of monuments as a manifestation of Soviet totalitarianism and party diktat. But everything that is done is done for the better, and today Moscow has not one, but two monuments to Gogol, equally precious for Russia in moments of both decline and enlightenment of spirit.

Guys, we put our soul into the site. Thank you for
that you discover this beauty. Thanks for the inspiration and the goosebumps.
Join us at Facebook and In contact with

Our world is full of people who are not afraid to be branded as eccentrics and boldly destroy stereotypes. Each of them turned his life into an experiment and by his example managed to inspire others.

site collected for you the most unusual experiments that have forever changed the thinking and habits of people.

A girl for 3 years went to work in the same clothes

The essence of the experiment: Matilda Kahl radically decided the issue of choosing outfits for work. The girl went to work in the same clothes for 3 years and does not regret it at all. Once tired of endless thoughts at the closet, Matilda bought several identical sets of blouse and trousers. For the next 3 years she went to work exclusively in this "uniform".
Result: Matilda saved her bright outfits for the weekend. The experiment allowed her to reduce the time for daily training, because she always knows what to wear. She has more time to communicate with friends and family.

The guy ate only potatoes for a whole year

The essence of the experiment: Andrew Taylor ate only potatoes for a year.
Result: Andrew showed the whole world what will happen to the human body if you eat one potato. Look, this guy managed to lose 53 kg and looks great! However, such an extreme diet is not suitable for everyone.

Childhood without gadgets

The essence of the experiment: Mother of many children and photographer Niki Boon lives on a farm in New Zealand. She decided that her four children would grow up without TV or gadgets, in harmony with nature. The family has adhered to this concept for several years.
Result: Nika's family was convinced from their own experience that children need not gadgets for happiness, but love and a bit of freedom. They grow beautifully without tablets and smartphones. Niki dedicated a big project called "Wild Childhood" to her kids and their way of life.

20 years without money

The essence of the experiment: Heidemarie Schwermer decided that people attach too much importance to material values. She gave up a rented apartment, handed out almost all of her things and began a big experiment - to live a year without using money. In exchange for food and lodging, she helped people with the housework. She usually walked, and of her things she had only one suitcase with the most necessary things.
Result: Heidemarie lived without money for 20 years. With her life, she proved that money is far from the most important thing in the world. The experiment attracted attention, and soon the woman was invited to appear on television and in front of students.

The married couple lives in the Victorian era

The essence of the experiment: Sarah and Gabriel Chrisman tried to live like their Victorian ancestors. They gave up most of the modern goods: washed with a jug, sewed clothes with their own hands, used oil lamps and cooked dinners from a 19th-century cookbook.
Result: An unusual way of life helped them to look at the world and people differently, to better understand their own roots. It turned out that many things of a century and a half ago are amazingly convenient, and the cooking of those times deserves special praise. Sarah wrote a book about her experiences and life in the Victorian era.

Garbage-free life

The essence of the experiment: Bea Johnson has chosen a garbage-free life for herself and her family. She refused from things that cannot be disposed of on their own: disposable packaging, household chemicals in plastic bottles and a large number of unnecessary things.
Result: Bea proved by her own example that it is not so difficult to lead such an eco-friendly lifestyle: glass and paper perfectly replace plastic. Her family produces no more than 1 kg of garbage per year.

One year without internet

The essence of the experiment: Journalist Paul Miller spent a year offline. He ditched social media, mobile apps and even email, replacing it with a regular inbox. Having been a regular Internet user since 12 years old, Paul decided to find out what life is like on the other side of the browser.
Result: He started writing his novel, lost 5 kg and learned to focus better. After the experiment ended, Paul began to use the Internet more consciously. After all, the network is just a tool that needs to be managed wisely.

Africa is the "black continent", which is considered to be the most mysterious and enigmatic all over the world. Its extraordinary nature simply attracts researchers and tourists from various parts of our vast planet with its natural and animal diversity. Especially both those and others are attracted by the wild tribes of Africa. As a rule, their unconventional customs and way of life are of rave interest. What is Africa hiding outside of civilization? We will talk about this in our article.

Mursi

Mursi can be confidently included in the list of "The wildest tribes of Africa", because their way of life defies any logic. They are unable to control themselves and can often beat their fellow tribesmen to death, wanting to prove their strength and steadfastness. As a rule, such rash actions are explained by the frequent use of alcohol.

Unconventional way of life

Mursi is absolutely unfriendly. They meet tourists only with weapons or with fighting sticks, trying to demonstrate their supremacy in their territory.

In particular, women are distinguished by their morals. They look, frankly, unattractive. The backs are stooped, the bellies and chest are saggy, there is practically no hair. That is why unusual headdresses in the form of material made from dry branches, dead insects, animal skins, or even falling are often adorned on their heads.

The visiting card of the tribe is a huge lower lip, into which a clay plate 15-30 cm in diameter is placed. This custom is followed by almost all wild tribes of Africa. Women, while still very small, insert wooden sticks there in order to gradually increase the diameter. And on the wedding day, a plate is placed on the lower lip. The larger the lip diameter, the greater the ransom will be given for the bride.

Jewelry for women of the Mursi tribe is even more inexplicable. They are made from ... human finger phalanges. This "jewelry" has an unbearable smell, because it is smeared with human melted fat every day. Fingers of guilty men from the tribe serve as a source for jewelry. They are chopped off immediately after the offense by the order of the priestess.

Men, on the other hand, gain their reputation by scarring. As soon as he kills an enemy, a scar is applied to his body.

Women do it for fun. Sometimes, of their own free will, they cut the skin with a knife blade and water the wound with the juices of poisonous plants, or allow insects to cut. After that, the skin becomes infected and covered with pimples. This is how beautiful "ornaments" appear on the hand of women.

Few people know that many of the wild tribes of Africa are cannibals. It is to this category that the Mursi belong. They eat the dead tribesmen by boiling them in a cauldron. The remaining bones are used by the tribe for decoration.

Even more inexplicable is the faith of Mursi. Animism is the name of their religion. In short, there is a priestess of love in the tribe who distributes poisons and drugs to women. The beautiful representatives of the tribe should give them to their husbands every day. Many die after taking such a remedy. In this case, a white cross is drawn on the widow's plate. This means honor and respect for the woman who completed the main mission of the god of death Yamda.

For her, this means eternal respect and an honorable burial. That is, the woman will not be eaten after death, but buried in the hollow of the ritual tree. As you can see, the Mursi woman is in a more favorable position. However, at least something connects these people with a civilized society.

Maasai

The Maasai predominantly dominate the Kenyan and Tanzanian regions of Africa. There are more than 800,000 of them.

This tribe categorizes itself as "the most powerful wild tribes in Africa." The Masai do not reckon with other people's opinions, they do not care about customs or state borders. They move freely around the country in search of a better life.

Traditions and customs

As a rule, the Maasai feed on livestock, more precisely milk and animal blood. They are sure that the god Engai gave them all the animals of the world. That is why stealing from other tribes is a habitual occupation for them.

The Masai pierce the artery of the animals and drink their blood. Then the resulting hole is sealed with manure in order to use it again after a while.

The Masai are the wild tribes of Africa, whose reproduction is quite common. As a rule, many children are born in the families of this tribe. Women are involved in everything, including farming, children, raising livestock and even building huts. The men of this tribe are allowed to have as many wives as they wish.

The strong Maasai are busy guarding their territory and fighting back unwanted guests. In their free time, they chat and wander through the savannah.

The beauty and power of the men of this tribe depends on the size of the earlobes, into which they insert heavy jewelry made of beads and beads. In some, the lobes hang down to the shoulder.

Today, representatives of the Maasai tribe are evicted from their lands, shot or imprisoned. The authorities forbid them to live there, considering these territories reserved.

Now, left without a livelihood, many of the wild tribes of Africa, including the Maasai, began to engage in poaching. At the same time, elephants and rhinos are exterminated, because the tusks and horns of these animals are very highly valued on the black market.

There are very few real Masai who are in harmony with nature and animals. Many are hired to guard luxury hotels.

Hamer

Hamer not in vain occupies a place in the list of "The wildest tribes of Africa". They stopped in development for quite some time. Representatives of this nationality know neither feelings, nor love, nor affection. Men contact their woman only to conceive another child.

Tribe lifestyle

Hamers sleep not in their huts, but in specially dug pits that resemble graves. They are "covered" with a layer of earth to experience a mild form of asphyxiation. It is from this that they experience great pleasure.

The rite of initiation into men is also considered unusual among hamers. To do this, all young people must run on the backs of 4 animals. They must be naked. The wild tribes of Africa differ in this - almost all of their rituals and ceremonies must be performed without any clothing.

The newly-made wife is put on a benjar (leather-metal collar with a handle) around her neck. He is needed in order to take her to a bloody flogging with a cane rod every day.

Both newlyweds experience tremendous pleasure from this ceremony.

Due to the fact that husbands rarely contact their wives, hamers have developed sexual relations between women.

Today, hamers are considered the most unsociable and undeveloped.

Bubal

This tribe is known to everyone as the owners of the largest genitals. In men who have reached puberty, the scrotum grows up to 80 cm. This is due to the unusual lifestyle and beliefs of these people. They are convinced that by eating the menstrual flow of cows, they will cope with scurvy, leukemia and rickets.

From a scientific point of view, the regular licking of the cow's genitals causes hormonal changes in the human body, which make the scrotum of the bubals huge. Oddly enough, this does not prevent men from copulating, but it greatly interferes with walking and dancing.

Each nationality has its own inexplicable customs. The wild tribes of the Amazon and Africa, Australia and Asia are not important, the main thing that unites everyone is one thing - a complete rejection of civilization.

From a woman who lives in the Victorian era to a man who lives like a dog - meet some truly unique people with very unusual lifestyles!

1. A woman who lives as if the Victorian era is still in the yard

Sarah Chrisman never wanted to wear a corset, but after her husband gave her one for her 29th birthday, she says old-fashioned underwear changed her life. The corset inspired her to delve deeper into Victorian fashion, and she began to wear more and more of these things until she completely switched to the style of the Victorian era.

Currently, she and her husband Gabriel are determined to lead a Victorian lifestyle, of course, as far as the limitations of modern life allow.

This means she bathes with a jug and basin every day, sews all of her clothes (from natural materials) by hand, doesn't drive, and uses smokehouses to light up her Victorian home in Port Townsend, Washington. When it comes to cooking, Chrisman uses a 19th century cookbook. They currently use a refrigerator to store food, but hope to move to using an ice crate to further resemble their favorite lifestyle.

In his book Victorian Secrets: What a Corset Taught Me About the Past, the Present, and Myself, Chrisman reveals his lifestyle secrets and explains his choices.

2. The man who lives like a dog

Boomer is embittered by the whole world. He wants people to accept him and his canine lifestyle.

Born Gary Matthews, a retired tech clerk and self-confessed nerd, he believes he is a dog. The 48-year-old wears a collar, eats dog food from a bowl, his favorite food is Pedigree, and loves milk bones and dog biscuits. He even barks, chases cars, and digs holes in his backyard for bones like any other dog.

The man sleeps in his house dog kennel, which he says is much more comfortable than a human bed. Boomer, who lives in Pennsylvania, found his doggy look after watching the hit NBC show "Here Boomer" when he was a kid. The popular TV series was about a mixed-breed stray dog named Boomer who traveled the world helping people in need. This idea was very popular with Matthews, and soon his fascination with dogs, especially the star of the show, took on a life of its own and became his main obsession.

There are other people, like Boomer, who identify with different animals, they are called Furries and their subculture was first recognized in the United States in the 1980s. Furries believe that they are anthropomorphic animals with human characteristics such as high intelligence, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, make various facial expressions, and so on. Dressing up in animal costumes is a hobby for most of them, but Boomer took this hobby to an extreme, making his passion for furry the center of his life.

3. North Carolina woman who spent 61 years inside a respirator

Martha Mason was an extraordinary person. She spent over 60 years of her life immobilized in a respirator after being paralyzed by polio as a child. Despite her seemingly hopeless situation, Martha lived a fulfilling life, graduating from high school and college with honors, giving many dinner parties, and even writing a book called Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung), in which she described the problems and joys of her life. She is the only person on this list who did not live this life of her own free will. However, the greatness of her achievement earned her a spot in our article.

Martha was born on May 31, 1937 in Lattimore, a small town located 80 kilometers from Charlotte. She became paralyzed when she was only 11 years old after suffering from polio, almost immediately after the disease killed her brother Gaston (Gaston). After her brother's funeral, she realized that she also had symptoms, but she kept her fears to herself so as not to upset her parents.

However, she was soon immobilized in the Iron Lung, which she depended on to breathe. "Iron Lung" is just an informal name used by the people to describe a blower, a medical device that helps paralyzed people breathe by reducing and increasing the pressure inside a large iron tank.

Martha Mason lived in such a tank almost all her life, and the pressure contracted and expanded her lungs when her weak muscles could not do it. The doctors told Marta's parents to take her home and ensure her a happy life for a year, since that was how long she had to live. She outlived both of them thanks to her irrepressible curiosity and desire to learn more about the world.

She died in 2009.

4. The man who spent the last 26 years of his life traveling the world with a huge crucifix on his shoulder and telling people about Jesus

Lindsay Hamon, 60, has spent the last 26 years of his life carrying a giant cross around the world and telling about Jesus to anyone who will listen. He literally carried his faith on his shoulders, traversing 19 countries including New Zealand, Romania, India and Sri Lanka. During his amazing journey, he experienced truly spectacular moments and also got into trouble. Despite being attacked and shot in Bangladesh and thrown out of St. Peter's Square in Rome, Jamon has no plans to quit his job anytime soon.

Jamon took on the mission to carry the huge cross around the world in 1987, and since then he has rarely removed it from his shoulder. The cross itself is made of cedar wood. It is 3.65 meters long and 1.82 meters wide. There is a wheel at the base of the cross to make it easier to drag, and he actually carries it around on his shoulder for 12 hours a day, having no idea where he will spend the night. A father of two and a part-time social worker, Jamon receives help from supporters to help him remain committed to his role as a Christian evangelist. However, he still has to occasionally stop in his hometown of Cornwall to make money and pay his family's bills.

5. A healthy woman who lives like a person paralyzed from the waist below, and dreams of becoming paralyzed

Being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life is a horror for many people, but not for Chloe Jennings-White. A 57-year-old chemist from Salt Lake City, Utah, has an unnatural desire to become paralyzed from the waist down.

Chloe lives the life of a disabled person. She uses a wheelchair and wears long braces that grip her knees to enable her to move with crutches. But when she needs to go up or down the stairs, she just gets up, removes her braces, and walks like a normal person. Like most paralyzed people, she loves outdoor activities, only instead of using special equipment in order to afford such activities, she simply goes on a 12-hour walk in the forest, drives down dangerous slopes, and climbs mountain peaks like a normal person. ...

Chloe Jennings-White is not disabled, she just likes to feel incapacitated. In 2008, doctors diagnosed her with a syndrome of non-perception of the integrity of her own body. It is a serious mental disorder in which people feel as if they would be happier in life with an amputee or paralysis. To resist the urge to hurt her back and thus fulfill her desire to become paralyzed, doctors suggested that she use a wheelchair and special braces. Being able to spend most of her time as a paraplegic was a big relief for Chloe, but she admits that she sometimes dreams of actually hurting her legs in an accident or car accident.

A woman who suffers from the syndrome of non-perception of the integrity of her own body says that she hears various angry comments from people who consider her shameless, but they do not understand her condition. Being able to use a wheelchair, despite the fact that she can move like a normal person, literally saved her life.

6. The man who loves to live with cockroaches

Unlike many people, Kyle Kandilian, a university student from Dearborn, Michigan, not only is not afraid of cockroaches, but also lives with tens of thousands of these insects. He believes that he is currently inhabited by about 200,000 of these insects.

A 20-year-old man collects and breeds cockroaches for both pleasure and profit. Apparently, this unusual hobby helps him pay for his studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn (Michigan-Dearborn University).

Cockroaches are priced from “10 cents per 12” for common breeds, to $ 200 for rhino cockroaches, which can live up to 15 years. He has a wide range of clients, including people with pets that eat cockroaches and universities that buy insects for research purposes.

Although he loves his cockroaches, living with 200,000 of them has its own challenges, especially for his parents. One morning at about 4 or 5 in the morning, Candilian was awakened by his mother, who took him to the bathroom. “Kyle, this has to stop,” she said, pointing to a hissing cockroach resting on a roll of toilet paper.

His room is filled with stacks of boxes of cockroach colonies - in total, he has about 130 species. After almost eight years of growing these insects, he is still in awe of the diversity of their species.

7. A woman who lives with her husband and lover under the same roof

When the mother of two children, Maria Butzki, left Paul's husband for another man, she did not understand how much she would miss him. At the same time, she could not imagine life without her new lover Peter Gruman.

So when the two men struck up an amazing friendship, she came up with the perfect solution ... and moved Peter to the family home in Barking, East London. Now, 33-year-old Maria, 37-year-old Paul, their two daughters - 16-year-old Laura and 12-year-old Amy, as well as 36-year-old Peter, live as one big family.

In 2012, they all moved in after a three-year period when Maria was torn between her husband and lover. Peter sleeps on the couch while Paul has his own room upstairs. Maria shares a bedroom with her eldest daughter.

Maria claims that they are never the three of them in the same bed. Despite the fact that she has sexual relations with both men, this part of her life remains confidential.

She also notes that life as a threesome has its advantages. Children receive attention and help with their homework from three adults at once, who can drop them in and out of school. It is also beneficial from a financial point of view, as accounts are now split into three.

8. A family that lives like it's 1986

If you ever need to know who was prime minister in 1960 and are willing to wait 10 minutes for a response, Blair McMillan is the person to turn to. He leisurely flips through volumes of his old encyclopedia set, which was given to him by a puzzled man who probably wondered why the 26-year-old father of two could not just connect to the Internet. The fact is that Blair and his 27-year-old girlfriend Morgan from Canada pretend that it is 1986.

They do this because of their children, Trey, 5, and Denton, 2. They don't want their kids to sit with their parents' iPhones, instead of going out and playing ball in the backyard. Therefore, any technique that appeared after 1986, the year when the couple was born, is prohibited in their house.

They don't have computers, smartphones, tablets, fancy coffee makers, the Internet, cable TV, and from the point of view of technology-dependent people, there is no life. They raise their children the same way they raised them, just to see what happens.

They pay their bank bills, not over the Internet. They print photos instead of uploading pictures of their sons to Instagram.

They recently traveled to all states in the United States, using paper maps and entertaining their crying children with coloring books and stickers, passing numerous cars with built-in TVs and happy children in the back seats. The only exception to their lifestyle is the 2010 Kia, but of course it doesn't have GPS.

9. The woman who lives with 700 cats

Meet the largest cat lady in the world who lives with 700 cats.

All Lynea Lattanzio wanted as a little girl was a cat, but her mother would not let her have one. Therefore, she now lives alone with hundreds of cats on her land, an area of almost 5 hectares, in the suburbs of Parlier, California, where she maintains a huge cat shelter.

She began rescuing animals after her divorce in 1981 and has rescued over 19,000 cats to date. However, she insists that she is not a crazy cat lady. The Cat House on the Kings is the largest cat shelter in California, where animals are not caged or euthanized. The goal of the shelter is to find permanent homes for the rescued cats and kittens, as well as to prevent the growth of the cat population through neutering.

She cares for at least 700 cats, as well as 15 dogs. The shelter is supported by grants and donations from generous sponsors.

10. A woman lives with twelve false black widows or steatodes

All over the country, people are terribly afraid to meet steatods, avoiding their barns and basements so as not to run into these eight-legged creatures. However, one woman named Jay Reich is desperate to collect these poisonous spiders, and even says she wants to be bitten by one of them to prove how harmless they are.

Jay lives in the city of Bracknell with a growing collection of these creatures. She currently has three adult steatodes and ten small spiders.

Jay named Spider Mother Cilla and says she was surprised at how "cute" she is.

The recent media scare, including reports that a school in Gloucestershire has been closed due to the discovery of these spiders, is terribly annoying for the 26-year-old woman. “That school was closed for absolutely no reason - if they closed the school because a hornet's nest was found there, no one would have supported it. These spiders have gotten an undeserved bad reputation. "

In an incredible act of devotion, Jay plans to give one of the steatodes a bite to prove that these spiders are harmless. "