Kopeysk Family Has Back-to-Back Twins

«What«s your name?», «Do you have a camera?», «Is it heavy?», «I have a phone like yours, look!» — four-year-old Vanya immediately captures all the guests» attention, and while we«re taking off our coats, he impatiently hops around in the small hallway.

— He«s a lively little guy, — laughs the boy»s father Maxim, who came out to us from the room holding a newborn baby girl.

Vanya«s twin sister Vika hovers around her mother and is a bit shy around strangers. And as soon as the youngest sister left in the room makes a sound, she immediately runs to the crib to check if everything is alright.

The twins Vanya and Vika are four years old, and the younger ones Varya and Veronika are two months old.

— Do all your children«s names start with »V«?

— It«s a quiz, — the parents laugh.

Father«s Dream

Mother of many children Irina admits: she never thought she«d have twins, even though she is a twin herself.

— I heard that twins skip a generation.

— She told me the same thing, — smiles Maxim.

— I kept saying we wouldn«t have twins, and he said: «We will!», — recalls Irina.

— And now we have two sets! Myth busters, — the husband states not without pride. — It happened just as we dreamed.

Maxim has wanted a large family since childhood:

— I had no one — no brothers, no sisters. Completely alone. Not even cousins, only an uncle who was four years older. And I always dreamed of having a big family. So, it«s all happening gradually.

First Set of Twins

The young parents first learned that they would have two babies at once during the tenth week of pregnancy.

— I was in shock, of course, — admits Irina.

But the pregnancy went smoothly, Irina carried to 37 weeks, so Vanya and Vika were born almost full-term. The discharge was spectacular.

— I came up with everything the night before the discharge. They say nothing like that had happened in Chelyabinsk maternity hospitals, — says Maxim. — My friend«s sister organized parties, I wrote to him: «Do you have any costumes left?». I dressed all my friends as toys: there was a Smurf, a bear. So my guys didn»t back out (you can«t fit in a car in costumes), they went in a minibus, can you imagine! It was a hit. Everyone got into their roles perfectly.

At first, the parents were helped by the grandmother.

— We needed to gain experience, — explains Ira. — Vika was calm — she ate and slept. But with Vanya there were problems — his tummy hurt, we had a hard time with him.

— When did you start sleeping after the older children were born?

Ira laughs nervously.

— No, we don«t sleep, — supports his wife Maxim. — Why sleep?

— Well, no, by the age of two they became calmer, — says the mother.

While we«re talking, Vanya runs off to the children»s room, then comes back to us with new toys, and Vika sits on the sofa and cuddles up to her dad.

— You should go to Vanechka, — suggests the father, but the little girl doesn«t seem to hear. — We»re tired after kindergarten. She loves to cuddle so much.

«I Had to Go There»

It«s no surprise that the daughter doesn»t leave her dad«s side — he recently returned from the special military operation.

— They turned one year old, I went on my first contract. Well, that«s how it happened in life, I had to go there. The guys were taken, they started coming in droves. I thought, how is that? I went to check, — explains Maxim. — You see, it»s fine. Three wounds, but nothing serious, everything healed.

Irina was against it. On his first deployment, Maxim lied that he was mobilized.

— I have my guys there, my boys, — he explains.

The head of the family returned from his fifth deployment in June, but awards are still coming.

— I left as a squad commander. Recently, awards came for the Kursk incident. There was a strange situation with the last medal. I«m sleeping at home, a girl calls from Chelyabinsk, says: «Your award came to me». It turned out, my award came to her, and her husband»s to me. We had to meet to get my award… the sixth one.

«Maybe We«ll Get Another Pair»

Maxim started persuading his wife for a second pregnancy last year.

— Look, it«s the Year of the Snake, our year. Come on, we need little snakes. Maybe we»ll get another pair, — recalls Maxim.

But Irina was sure until the last moment that a second set of twins was impossible.

— The ultrasound doctor is doing it, silent. I ask her myself: «Is it not twins?», and she says: «Twins», — recalls the young mother.

The girls were born in August.

— Ira is an amazing person, she«s so calm. Her water broke at night, she writes me a message, and I»m at work, at the factory, I can«t have my phone there. I only saw the message in the morning. I come home — she»s at home, says: «I packed my things», — tells Maxim.

— Also, an uncle came with a watermelon. I say: «No, don«t call an ambulance yet. Let me eat some watermelon first», — laughs Irina.

Most importantly, they made it to the maternity hospital. Varya and Veronika were born weighing 2060 and 1980 grams.

— So, how is it with four now?

In response, both parents laugh nervously.

— Do you sleep in shifts?

— I try not to wake him, I manage on my own somehow. If I can«t manage, of course, I»ll wake him.

Maxim admits that he never ceases to be amazed by his beloved:

— If I have to go to work, she wakes up early, gets the children ready for kindergarten, my coffee is already ready — she«s such a smart one. While she takes the children, I drink my coffee, wash up. She returns, I run off. We»ve calculated everything down to the minutes.

Housing Issue

Now the family lives in a small two-room apartment: in the large room — the parents with the younger girls, in the small one — the older twins.

— Grandma left us this apartment, she moved to a one-and-a-half-room apartment herself, says: «Kids, stay here, we«re moving to another apartment», — tells Maxim.

But it«s obvious that in a couple of years, the large family will become cramped even in a two-room apartment.

— A mortgage, probably, what else? — says the head of the family.

— They called me from social services, a woman told me about the regional maternity capital. But all that goes into the mortgage. They also talked about some one-time allowance, but to be honest, we haven«t dealt with it yet, not up to it, — adds Ira. — Now we»ll get the certificate for a large family, then we«ll go and find out everything.

«She Doesn«t Play with Dolls, but with Real Sisters»

While we were talking, the newborn girls slept in their parents« arms, and as soon as they were put in the crib, they started fussing. I approached to try to calm them down while the parents were in another room with the older ones, but Vanya appeared immediately.

— Don«t touch our baby, — he warned sternly.

The parents say the older ones are very tenderly caring for their sisters.

— Vanya does something and runs off, but Vika is always with me, she constantly needs to help, she always asks what we«re going to do now? She»s interested, she bathes and feeds with us, — tells Irina.

— That«s the kind of childhood she has — she doesn»t play with dolls, but with real sisters. Everything is real, — says the father.

Now many familiar families joke that they should try their luck a third time.

— We need to go on a hike for boys in about four or five years, — says Maxim.

— While these are little, — smiles Irina.

Recall, last year we told another amazing story — dance instructor from Chelyabinsk Galina Minakina gave birth to royal quadruplets (two boys and two girls). In one moment, the family became super-large, as two older daughters are also growing up. How the parents manage to cope with the little ones, and what life hacks they found to make their lives easier, — read in our article.