site.btaBalkan Centenarians: the Mystery of Their Longevity

Longevity remains a mystery to this day and scientists around the world continue to search for answers to the questions of whether genes, environment or some other factor determines the ability of some people to live more than a century and often amaze others with their enduring spirit. In the Balkans, where life expectancy is mostly below the European average, there is no shortage of centenarians either, and each of them has exciting memories of times gone by and a particular recipe for longevity.

Türkiye

Türkiye’s oldest citizen, 113-year-old Nuriye Babat, passed away last week. The mother of eight and grandmother of over 500 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren witnessed the rule of three sultans and 12 presidents. Although her documents said she was born in 1909, her son Yusuf said he suspected she was older, at 125, for record-keeping in those times were not so strict. He says she sometimes used to tell him what the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, had done.

Gölköy in Ordu province by the Black Sea is known as the town of centenarians because of the large number of its residents past a hundred. They are generally quoted as saying that they owe their longevity to the food they produce themselves, such things like honey, yoghurt, eggs and pickles. 

The largest number of long-livers are found in Tunceli province in the eastern part of the country: the average length of life there is 80.5 years, with 76.2 years for men and 85.7 years for women.

Greece

According to official statistics, as published by the Kathimerini last spring, the centenarians in Greece number 13,451.

Katerina Karnarou, the oldest woman in Greece, died in 2020 at the age of 115. Until her death, she was the fifth oldest living person on the planet.

Although Greeks were among those known for longevity in Europe in 1980, now it has dropped to 17th on the continent, with an average life expectancy of over 81 years.

The island of Ikaria has a special place in terms of longevity in Greece. Acclaimed as one of the world’s only five Blue Zones worldwide - a place where the environment is conducive to old age - in Ikaria it was found that residents are several times more likely to reach the age of 90+ compared to normal. It is also notable that on Ikaria instances of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes are significantly lower, and dementia is rare.

The secret of Ikaria seems to be a combination of factors including diet, social life and exercise. The diet is based on lots of homegrown vegetables including wild vegetables and beans, limited amounts of sugar and meat, more grains and fish, goat milk, honey, herb tea, Ikarian red wine and olive oil.

Romania

Romanian Dimitru Comanescu was the Oldest Man on The Planet for a month before he died at 111 on June 27, 2020. Born on November 8, 1908 in in the village of Draganeasa, some 100 km from Bucharest, Comanescu worked as an agronomist for 70 years. He said in an interview that the secret behind his longevity was the love of his family, his wife, his children and his grandchildren. His neighbours also remember him frequently saying they should consume milk and honey if they wanted to live as long as he did. 

Presently, the oldest man alive in Romania is 109-year-old Ilie Ciocan, born on May 28, 1913. He is also the oldest military veteran in the country, the Adevarul reported. The oldest woman in the country is 109-year-old Maria Mihai from Indepenta, Calarasi county, born on January 5, 1913. 

Last year Romanian philosopher and essayist Mihai Sora entered the list of the 50 oldest people in the world. Born on November 7, 1917 in Timis, Sora was a student of Mircea Eliade. In 2018, the then 101-year-old Sora attracted media attention for his participation in the anti-government protests in Bucharest. He turned 106 last week and continues to be extremely active on social media, posting a photo of himself with a big red balloon on his birthday, G4Media reported.

Serbia

There are probably more than 150 centenarians in Serbia, local media report, noting the lack of precise statistics on their number.

Zivorad Markovic is over a 100, enjoys life and says that nothing hurts. Back in the day, only a few could live to be a hundred. Figures however show that the number of centenarians in Serbia is increasing. At 103 years old, Zivorad Markovic still cooks, goes shopping, has never been sick and is in no pain, the Belgrade-based Blic reports.

He used to sunbathe for hours, once on the island of Ada Ciganlija in the Sava river and now on a bench in front of a building in New Belgrade. Walking is a must - when he was younger, he says, he walked more than ten kilometres. Now he walks only around the block.

"I don't have a special recipe for longevity. I haven't done anything special, nor have I indulged in anything special. I don't know," says Zivorad. Asked if he has the strength to work at 102, he says, "For God's sake, I do!"

In recent years, there have been more and more people with birth certificates issued at least 100 years ago. According to the latest data, there are 126,166 people aged 85 and over in Serbia, and the number of centenarians in the world has quadrupled since the turn of the century, Blic noted.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia does not keep records on the number of centenarians, i.e. the data it has only refers to the population over 85 years of age. However, estimates suggest that there are about 150 people living in Serbia who were born a century ago.

According to the Office, in 2018 there were 126,166 people aged 85 and over, with far more women among them - 80,025. In Northern Serbia, the list includes almost 60,000 seniors over 85, while in the capital there are about 30,000 people whose birth certificate is from at least 85 years go.

In Vojvodina there are almost 30,000 in this age group out of of 1.86 million people in the region. In Nis, out of 256,000 inhabitants, 4,158 are at least 85 years old. In Pirot region, with a population of nearly 85,000, 2,300 people are of this age, while in the Danube region of 187,000, just over 3,500 have celebrated their 85th birthday. In the southern part of Serbia there are 2,263 people of this age out of a population of just over 197,500.

The oldest person in Serbia was born in 1913 and is 109 years old, and more than 500 pensioners have been receiving pensions for more than half a century.

According to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia’s data for the previous census, in 2011 there were only 50 centenarians in the country, and now it is estimated that there are at least three times more. The Office notes that life expectancy in Serbia has generally increased, but the coronavirus epidemic has changed these statistics to some extent.

For men, according to data for 2020, life expectancy is 72.3 years, which is two years less than in 2019. There has also been a shortening of women's life expectancy - in 2020 their average life expectancy was 78.2 years, and in 2019 it was 0.9 years more.

Exactly how many people live in Serbia and what is the structure of the population, including centenarians, will be known after the census which was held in October. According to the Statistical Office, the first results will be known by the end of this year.

Croatia

Croatia’s oldest entrepreneur, 102-year-old Peka Zelic, passed away in July 2022, Croatian media reported. Baka Peka, as she was affectionately called by everyone who knew her, became famous for selling her handmade creations. At the age of 98, Peka opened her own little store called ‘Kod Peke’ (At Peka’s) at the Dom Ivan Pavao II (John Paul II) nursing home in the village of Donje Biljane near Zadar on the Dalmatian coast where she was a resident. 

Peka spent most of her life working on the land with her sheep and knitting has always been her passion, fitting it all in whilst bringing up 8 children. Baka Peka, born on March 17, 1921 and left behind 104 descendants.

One of the oldest Croats, Bozo Kralj from Pridvorje, celebrated his 107th birthday with his family in October. He was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, lived through six regimes and three wars, including two world wars. For 67 years, Bozo Kralj monitored weather phenomena in his native region and sent reports to the State Hydrometeorological Institute. His relatives say he doesn't count the years. 

The Dubrovacki vjesnik wrote that Bojo’s memory was like a Swiss watch. The centenarian told journalists from the newspaper in detail about his difficult life in his native Konavle, about the horrors of war and poverty and about the climatic phenomena that always fascinated him.

Croatian-born Milka Baukovic (date of birth: 5 February 1915) is currently the second oldest known living person in Serbia after Djurdja Stojkovic. Milka Baukovic spent most of her life in the village of Okucani in Croatia. After her husband died in 1945, she inherited his hat workshop and continued in the same business for another 35 years until her retirement. Until the age of 103, Milka continued to be involved in mass production of hats, and then worked only on commission and in smaller quantities.

In the summer Milka Baukovic lives alone in her house in Okuchani, and in the winter she lives with her daughter Dusanka Bozic in Belgrade, Serbia. Milka is in good health, can walk without help and has no health problems. She is also active in politics, and at the age of 107 in April 2022, she went to vote alone. She said then that she had never missed an election and that she had always voted regularly. She became the oldest known living person in Belgrade after the death of 110-year-old Tamara Krutikova on July 6, 2022.

The overall life expectancy in Croatia is 75.8 years, which is above the global average (average life expectancy around 71 years according to the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs). The average life expectancy for men in Croatia is 72.2 years and for women it is 79.6 years.

In 2019, there were 131 centenarians in Croatia - 22 men and 109 women. 

Slovenia

Perhaps the most famous Slovenian centenarian, writer Boris Pahor, died in May this year at the age of 108 in Trieste (Italy). 

Born in 1913, Boris Pahor lived through the horrors of the 20th century and fought against fascism, national socialism and the communist dictatorship over the years. His experiences in concentration camps form the basis of his most famous novel, Necropolis. Because of his positions against totalitarianism, the Yugoslav communist regime banned him from entering Slovenia.

After the fall of communism, Boris Pahor became a famous literary figure in Slovenia. He received a number of awards and his literary works often topped bestseller lists. With the end of the Cold War, he also gained recognition in Italy, where he was once marginalized because he chose to write in Slovenian rather than Italian.

In recent years, Boris Pahor's books have been translated into foreign languages, and in 2007 he received the prestigious French Legion of Honour. At the same time, he has repeatedly used his prominence in Slovenia to point out the failings of Slovenian governments since independence, Slovenian television RTV noted.

Slovenia's population of around 2 million is ageing rapidly, even faster than the European Union average. Ageing is mainly the result of longer life expectancy and a decline in fertility among younger generations. More than a fifth of the population (20.7%) is currently aged 65 or over, and by 2050 this proportion is expected to reach 31 per cent, representing almost a third of Slovenia's population, said Ales Kenda, secretary at the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.

Men in Slovenia live on average 76 years and women 84 years. According to the Slovenian government, there were 26 centenarians living in Slovenia in 1991 and 281 in 2021.

Albania

According to Eurostat data quoted by the Albanian newspaper Monitor, in October Albania was the fourth youngest nation in Europe after Kosovo, Turkey and Iceland.

The oldest resident of the country in 2010 was Tane Koleci, a resident of the Albanian city of Durres, who was 114 years old at the time and had lived in three different centuries - the 19th, 20th and 21st, the Albanian media Top Channel reported. According to the media outlet, Tane Koleci was born in 1896 and was taken care of during her lifetime by her husband's nephew, who said that she had no children and that she was a very hardworking woman, who was financially well-off.

According to Top Channel's information, Koleci received a special pension from the state and spent most of her time sleeping. She regularly drank coffee and smoked, and although her lips no longer listened to her, she never took the chibouka out of her mouth, the media outlet wrote in 2010, shortly before Koleci passed away.

The oldest resident in 2020 in Albania, according to the newspaper Gazeta Meydani, was Fatina Tolia, born in the town of Elbasan in 1899. She has lived through two wars, the reigns of five monarchs and 21 prime ministers. She is listed in the Albanian Book of Records as the longest-lived person, celebrating her 120th birthday on December 24, 2019.

Fatina was the great-great-great-grandmother of nine grandchildren, took care of the large house with a yard and livestock where she lived by herself, and was in good enough health to live independently, Gazeta Meydani reported in 2020.

She hoped to live to be 150 and advised people to take care of their circulatory system to be healthy and active like her. 

There is no information if the woman is still alive.