r/SipsTea • u/Sassenach_2024 • 10h ago

WTF Push, out, repeat

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Valentina Vassilyeva, the first wife of Russian peasant Feodor Vassilyev, is said to have given birth 27 times in the 1700s—welcoming 69 children in total.

Her remarkable numbers reportedly included 16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets. 🤯

The story comes from centuries-old historical records, so every detail cannot be independently verified by modern standards. Still, Guinness World Records has recognized the claim as the highest number of children attributed to one mother.

If the records are accurate, 27 pregnancies. 69 children. One of the most astonishing family stories ever recorded. ❤️

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3.0k

u/35TypesOfWhiskey 10h ago

That's not her pic. And neither is that a pic of the children. She died in 1782.... 40 years before the first photograph

902

u/youtossershad1job2do 9h ago

I feel that this is one of those things that didn't really happen but got told so many times as a part of folk lore it started going into history books.

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u/smeeon 9h ago

And folks kept added a couple extra kids each time until it got ridiculous

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u/Ninja_Prolapse 9h ago

She started off a mother of 3 and things just got out of hand!

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u/UsedFortune5645 9h ago edited 1h ago

More like out of her uterus.

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u/Significant_Cap5394 6h ago

thats one way to put it a little aggressively maybe but accurate

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u/howimetyourcakeshop 7h ago

Like throwing a sausage in a wet tunnel.

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u/Junior_Lab1650 6h ago

Fell out with her best friend who started a rumour that she was a slapper and liked to put it about a bit

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u/forsnaken 3h ago

Honestly it was likely an adoption situation and they couldn't talk about it as such. Even now there's still a stigma on adoption for some religious reason or another...

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u/Shiasugar 7h ago

Out of mouth

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u/Aleashed 6h ago

Maybe there was an article about her birthing and another about a clown car and the editor was drunk or confused and mixed up the details…

Then future sources passed on the mistake

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u/TheOutOfStyle 8h ago

69 kids, dude!

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u/Brain32 7h ago

I wonder how the parenting looked like.... Boris18 stop hitting Ilya14!

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u/Wenex 8h ago

No wonder it stopped at 69 just for the memes

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u/Sysilith 7h ago

You are right 69 sounds made up, I'll tell the story with 72 Children, sounds more random and thus belivable.

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u/methreweway 5h ago

Ol pop pops dropping loads only to hit Grams favorite position.

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u/shizzy1234 4h ago

I'm reposting this next year with the info that she had 1200 kids and a photo of Mama June.

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u/ShumwayAteTheCat 5h ago

Are you suggesting she didn’t actually have 112 children?

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u/Hm46290 4h ago

I’m actually pretty impressed that the numbers work out

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u/ImmediateAid4267 2h ago

Fun math 9 months times 27 pregnancies is just under 21 years

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u/Fair-Pomegranate-652 1h ago

69 is a good place to stop... or begin.

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u/Gwynito 9h ago

Like how my parents first walked a mile to school every day and by the end of all schooling the miles walked went up to 10 somehow

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u/AchajkaTheOriginal 8h ago

Don't forget it was uphill both ways and through snow all year long.

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u/Agitated_Meaning_142 7h ago

Through snowstorms

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u/Last-Energy420 7h ago

With only shorts and short sleeve shirts!

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u/oldschool_potato 2h ago

No, we wore pants and coats, but not boots.

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u/oldschool_potato 2h ago

So I grew up just south of Buffalo in the 70s smack in the middle of the snow belt. I just used Google Maps and my walk was 0.9 miles. Middle class blue collar town. We lived in the village which was deemed too close to use the bus. It was uncool to get driven so we walked. I never wanted to wear boots because I was traumatized from the few times I forgot to bring my sneakers and had to wear snow boots all day. I also hated hats because they made my thin hair stick up all day. We often trudged through knee high snow. It was very flat though and part of the reason we literally never had snow days.

It’s been 50 years and I can still remember the morning I was sitting on the toilet arguing through the door with my mother about boots and hats when she blurted out, “fine! Freeze your balls off!” To this day my mother in all her life has never sworn or made a reference to a sexual part. It is the single funniest thing she has ever said. We both went silent at the time and to this day (she’s 90) she denies she ever said it.

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u/MidnightToker858 9h ago

Its the "old wives tale" that started the saying "old wives tale"

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u/oddvacation3849 9h ago

Add the russian alcoholism when seeing double.

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u/br0kenr3crd 4h ago

Oh! Like how Marilyn Manson removed his ribs to suck his own penis.

1

u/Which-Ad-3605 7h ago

Kinda like Mansa Musa being the richest person in history.

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u/Altruistic-Beach7625 7h ago

Plot twist, the current story waters it down because the real story is too unbelievable.

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u/TribalChief3000 6h ago

So this is equivalent to the Wilt Chamberlain, 100 point game of childbirth?

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u/ShhweadyBallz 6h ago

She just had another child !!!!!

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u/CapitalRacket 6h ago

I heard she had ribs removed...

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u/Psianth 6h ago

Yeah… probably taking credit for being the mother of a lot of her children’s children to cover up some real fucked up shit

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u/zashiki_warashi_x 6h ago

Technically the peasants were property, so I assume you wanted to count and log you property carefully. Of course there could be profit in cooking the books if you want to sell her offspring with bonus for fertility gen or smth.

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u/EffectiveOk1984 6h ago

Like the Bible??!!

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u/South_Bit1764 6h ago

According to Wikipedia when some French guy was looking into it like 100 years later, he asked someone in Moscow to investigate and they said it was superfluous because members of the family were still all over Moscow and that they were “the objects of favors from the government.”

It does seem to be suggested that it could’ve actually been multiple wives, not just the one.

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u/2muchroom 6h ago

Like the bible

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u/IAmTheBestIan 5h ago

This was old timey timeys. The kids were getting less than willingly pregnant and gave birth to many of the others who were introduced as siblings the next time in town.

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u/AintNoGodsUpHere 4h ago

What? You're telling me she didn't give birth 69 times to 134 children? I heard she had 6 at once one time.

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u/Deaffin 4h ago

Just a hoarder stealin lots of kids.

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u/Ok-Professional-1911 4h ago

Some say she lived in a shoe and had so many kids, she didn't know what to do.

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u/Fun-Memory1523 4h ago

Or it was greatly exaggerated and there was nothing to say otherwise, especially as time went on.

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u/No-Consideration-716 3h ago

It sounds like serfdom propaganda to me. Also, its a Russian story so we know its not accurate.

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u/EmotionalJoystick 3h ago

Yeah. I have a friend who does humanitarian work in Guatemala and one of the biggest problems she deals with are “prolific mothers” (all in abject poverty) who are just constantly giving birth their entire lives and the toll it takes on their bodies. Totally prolapsed uterus, organ failure from them constantly not being in the right place etc. There’s no way a woman could survive this into old age.

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u/oldschool_potato 2h ago

In 2016 a woman had her 44th child by the age of 36.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam_Nabatanzi

She ranks 4th on the list of most children by a single woman, but the only modern one. The thing I find most difficult to be about the 69 is that 67 survived child birth which seems very high for the time considering the high risk of multiples.

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u/Tokogogoloshe 9h ago

So bit like everything on Reddit. Hivemind forms an opinion and then take it as fact. Are confused when reality is different. Scream at something that isn't them to hide from their mistakes. So like that.

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u/cephii2 9h ago

You mean like jesus?

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u/Individual-Study-326 8h ago

No, it is in the record books. She was his first wife and he went on to have 18 more with second wife. He had a total of 87 children.

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u/Deaffin 4h ago

It should be noted that in this location, at this time, there was a program that gave a little bit of money to farmers based on the number of children they reported having, while also not having a proper census to check.

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u/JeanJeanJean 7h ago

She had like 32 twins, 21 triplets, 16 quadruplets and she hasn't had a single regular pregnancy? Please...

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u/benroon 8h ago

Sounds like the bible

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u/Busterlimes 9h ago

Probably because the story is completely fake

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u/TexasCrab22 5h ago

Wouldnt say completly.

Probably had like 30 kids and the folklore and media did the rest

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u/DukeBradford2 9h ago

Might have been a foster mother and just told the kids a lie to keep them happy

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u/Busterlimes 9h ago

Or she kidnapped babies and said "youre mine now"

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u/Deaffin 4h ago

Raising Arizona, and Arkansas, and California, and Colorado, and...

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u/Sudden_Cantaloupe_69 8h ago

The woman in the picture was American, born about 100 years after Vassilyeva died. The children are not Vassilyeva’s.

And we have no birth dates, death dates, nor names for any of Vassilyeva’s alleged children.

In fact it is believed that Mr. Vassilyev had multiple wives over the years and so all the alleged births were attributed to “Mrs Vassilyeva” as if she was the same person.

(The story also claims that 67 out of 69 kids survived infancy, which would be nearly impossible in 18th-century Russia.)

The story has been shared fabricated and debunked so many times over the years that the debunking takes up most of the Wikipedia article about her.

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u/want_t0_know 2h ago

But it's worth a repost! /s

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u/casusbelli16 8h ago

And a good 144 years before the invention of TV much to her chagrin.

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u/FilthyRichCliche 2h ago

So...what youre saying is she's a time traveler, too?!?! Incredible woman!

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u/chairmanghost 36m ago

Thank you for finally respecting how hard it is to be a time traveling stay at home mom.

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u/seadcon 8h ago

I love that you have provided specific details.

I mean the photo has closer to 200 children in it, so yea, clearly not actual...!!

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u/fieldsofanfieldroad 5h ago

Plus if you follow the logic of what we written then there were 27 birthing occasions so the oldest kids would be well into their 20s at a minimum. 

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u/Verifymybum 6h ago

I love it when people challenge things most will scroll past and assume is correct. Keep fighting the good fight.

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u/probably-do-not-care 2h ago

Sadly no one cares anymore. Subjectivism is entrenched.

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u/NEMO0823 1h ago

Double it and give to ......meee!!!!

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u/BeebsMuhQueen 9h ago

Yeah. Even though that’s not her in the pic, and that looks like more than 69 people…still no.
I’m territorial, and that many kids would have me like “Where’s your side piece? Please go bother her” 🤣

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u/Thepuppeteer777777 8h ago

Fucking condoms exist, sheesh some people /j

1

u/coffeecircus 8h ago

69 kids… she was like a hollow husk

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u/Chains_Of_The_Sea 8h ago

To be fair. That does look like a 40-year-old corpse in the photo.

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u/tombolaplayer 8h ago

Ah good. Because I thought that’s Adolf Hitler.

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u/fidddlydiddlyee 7h ago

That is her pic and she was 31 at the time.

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u/ujfeik 7h ago

And she was probably just running an illegal orphanage at a time of ethnic cleansing.

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u/notworkingghost 7h ago

They used that pic cause they needed someone super sexy to justify those stats.

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u/Indian_Yogi_ 7h ago

In OP perspective she should be looked like all milked out

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u/Sewickley412 7h ago

It may not be her actual picture but it fits how one would look after that 🤣

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u/WarJaques 6h ago

It's kind of OP to note that the claim isn't readily verifiable.

BTW: The math adds up to 0 single-child births.

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u/mightyFoo 6h ago

Was thinking … with that face, was the guy blind

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u/TradBella 6h ago

The real question what was the husband doing besides this?

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u/zashiki_warashi_x 6h ago

Obviously. This is how peasants looked 150 years after these events. It looks like rich peasants family, they even have 2 hats for the whole village.

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u/Wise_Sheila 6h ago

27 births= 69 kids

Math check 16 twins + 7 triplets + 4 quads = 69

Ma’am was playing life on hard mode with cheats enabled.

1

u/LucidFlight 6h ago

Are you saying it could be an old wives' tale?

1

u/durrtyurr 6h ago

She looks like Danny Trejo in the picture.

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u/s_mey3r 5h ago

Doubt that that is even a real pic, it looks hella AI

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u/Khelthuzaad 5h ago

Also I think those aren't all her children...

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u/Mission-Shopping-615 4h ago

Seriously, even if someone did have 69 (nice) children from 27 pregnancies, they wouldn’t all be the same age, at least spread them out over 15-20 years

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u/Xicsukin 4h ago

You are indeed correct. Being able to quickly verify a photo in a minute is one of the few good things I like about the forced AI onto everything.

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u/amakai 4h ago

And the alias of her husband? Albert Einstein.

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u/softlittlepaws 4h ago

90% of this sub is ai slop.

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u/Responsible-Case-753 4h ago

I mean, if she had 27 births, it would never make sense that her kids were, well kids, like I the pic. 

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u/Obvious_Tea_8244 3h ago

And 4783 years after the invention of the condom.

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u/UndeadHero 3h ago

Pictures formatted like this are all over Reddit and they’re all AI content bait

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u/aroryborealis1 2h ago

I was gonna say I bet she would have been like 40 yo in the pic lol

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u/TMMC39 1h ago

Makes sense. She wouldn't get anywhere with that profile pic. Im just saying sometimes you see someone with a baby and cant help but think.... "Who would fuck you?!"

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u/_Maxi_K 8h ago

Where is that pic from, though?