Tyumen Man Celebrates 100th Birthday, Shares Longevity Secrets
— Dad, are you alive there? — after trying to shout to her father, Natalia jokingly calls him.
Pyotr Ivanovich comes out of the room and takes my palm with his warm hand. He listens to the congratulations and loudly begins: «The unbreakable union of free republics!» Natalia says that her father loves poetry and often recites it from memory.
Pyotr Ivanovich Yelesin has turned 100 years old. We visited him on his anniversary.
«Don«t panic, just keep moving forward»
Near Pyotr Ivanovich is his younger daughter Natalia. Today she is helping to communicate with her father: the pensioner has poor hearing. And sometimes she adds details to the stories. About his daughter, Pyotr Ivanovich tells the guests: «Natalia Petrovna is both my educator and teacher! She could entirely and completely run the government.»
Pyotr Ivanovich was born in 1925 in the village of Demyanka in the Uvat district. At 17, he received a draft notice. From Tobolsk to the Tyumen military enlistment office, he walked on foot. In our city, Pyotr Ivanovich was sent to a military mortar factory, where shells were manufactured for the front.
— I worked there throughout the war. I was put on a lathe, I stood cutting metal. Without a person, the machine doesn«t work, — says Pyotr Ivanovich.
He recalls that in the 1950s, he took a loan of 10,000 rubles (about $110 at current rates) from the factory and, together with a friend, built a house.
— We felled the timber ourselves, hired three more people, and built the house, — says the pensioner.
During the same period, Pyotr Ivanovich met his wife Yekaterina. The couple«s first son was born in 1950. In total, the family had five children.
Later, Pyotr Ivanovich moved with his family to Omsk and worked there as a radio telephone operator. After 20 years, he returned to Tyumen and got a job at «Gipr Tyumenneftegaz» (a design and research institute for the oil and gas industry). There, he worked as a plumber until the age of 60 and retired.
— How to live to 100? It«s not an easy task. My whole life is a struggle. You need to fight for a healthy lifestyle. Patience, and patience again. You must not panic, just keep moving forward. Only then will you achieve your goal. Every person needs to not give up, to fight. If we panic, nothing will come of it, — explains the pensioner.
In retirement, Pyotr Ivanovich worked at his dacha, and until the age of 90, he rode a bicycle. Six months ago, a new hobby emerged: he started making wooden benches.
«He has the strictest healthy lifestyle»
Natalia recalls that her father was always «cheerful and strict.» And when it came to food, he was very selective.
— First of all, he doesn«t eat anything unnecessary. He has the strictest healthy lifestyle (ЗОЖ). He chooses products: doesn»t eat GMOs. He somehow senses them. For example, when you unpack something — he refuses. He needs rice porridge, thin soup. Boiled carrots are his trump card. Sometimes he eats just carrots, — says Natalia.
Natalia adds that if her father falls ill, he might fast for a whole day.
— He doesn«t drink or smoke. I»ve never seen him drunk. The only time I saw him at a feast, he was just holding a shot glass like a microphone. And then he put it back, — says the centenarian«s daughter. — Every morning he did and does exercises. For example, I take him to the dacha, I dig the beds. And he does warm-ups.
On his birthday, guests came to the birthday boy one after another — the relatives never managed to count how many grandchildren the grandfather has.
We wish Pyotr Ivanovich many more years of life!
Earlier we wrote that Tyumen resident Rosa Tushnolobova turned 100 years old. On September 14, the heroine of our story celebrates her anniversary. The editorial team of 72.RU congratulated labor veteran Rosa Vasilyevna on her birthday.
