The tallest man in the world 285. Fyodor Makhnov: what was the tallest man on Earth

In 1905, a note was published about him: “To have an idea of ​​​​the extraordinary growth of this giant, it is enough to say that boots with tops that barely reach his knees reach the waist of an ordinary mortal, and a 12-year-old boy can fit in them completely free with my head. A silver ruble passes through the ring that the giant wears on his index finger.”

And in December 1906, St. Petersburg newspapers wrote: “The other day, the Russian giant Fyodor Makhnov, who is 2 meters 68 cm tall, arrived in St. Petersburg and will be shown in one of the auditoriums, a height that has never before been seen in any part of the globe”...

By that time, the Russian giant had already turned into a “world-famous living exhibit,” and this fabulous exclusivity was not comparable to that short life which this amazing man lived.

IN Tsarist Russia the peasant Fyodor Makhnov was called a Russian giant. Despite the quite decent height of his parents and two brothers, the height and size of young Fedor were impressive - already in his youth he was approximately 2.5 meters. The length of his foot was 51 cm, the length of his palm was 31 cm. At the same time, he weighed 182 kg and was extremely strong.

At that time, Fedor was considered not only the tallest man in Russian Empire, but also the tallest man who ever lived on Earth. His height, according to unofficial data, was 285 centimeters. And the officially recognized record is 272 cm. It belongs to the American Robert Wadlow. It is the growth of the American giant that is considered undoubted and recognized to this day, listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

Fedor Andreevich Makhnov, a native of the small village of Kostyuki near Vitebsk, was born on June 6, 1878.

The boy was the first-born in an ordinary peasant family. Fyodor's mother soon dies after a difficult birth. The newborn was too big. The child was taken in by his grandparents.

Until the age of 8, Fedor’s growth did not cause much surprise and did not differ much from the growth of his peers. However, after that it began to grow “exorbitantly” quickly.

Fedya grew up to be a very strong boy.

At the age of 10, the father took the grown boy to live with him. Helping his father with housework, Fedya became stronger and more tempered.

Large beyond his age, he could easily pull a peasant cart loaded with hay up a mountain or lift an adult man on a dare.

Neighbors often used his abilities to build houses, where he helped lift logs.

The local landowner Korzhenevsky, having learned about the abilities of the young strongman, hired him to clear the nearby Zaronovka River from boulders that were interfering with the work of the water mill. Long-term work in very cold water played a very unfavorable role in Fedor’s life. He caught a cold, and the illnesses that followed subsequently made themselves felt for the rest of Makhnov’s life.

By the age of 14, the 2-meter young man could no longer fit into the house.

Because of this, my father had to build up the walls by several crowns. A local blacksmith was ordered to make a custom bed, but he, overloaded with work, spent the whole summer making it. In the end it turned out that Fedya had outgrown this bed.

Dressing and putting shoes on a tall guy was problematic. Everything was made to special order. They had to earn money for clothes in Vitebsk at the Polotsk Bazaar. It was there that the unusual teenager was noticed by the German Otto Bilinder, who owned a traveling circus. Being a business man, he quickly realized the prospects of this man in his troupe, and persuaded his father to let Fyodor go with the circus. Bilinder undertook to take on all the maintenance of the guy, and in addition promised that Fedor, with his data, would be able to earn good money and help his family.

It didn’t take long to persuade his father and the 14-year-old boy set off to conquer Europe with his abilities. Otto Bilinder took custody of Fedor. First, for the illiterate guy, he hired teachers to teach him German language. Otto took over teaching circus art. Fedor’s training lasted almost two years. When he turned 16, a contract was signed with him to perform. This is how Fyodor Makhnov became a circus performer.

His performances focused on power moves. The more than two and a half meter tall giant bent iron horseshoes with one hand, broke bricks with a blow of his hand, twisted metal rods into a spiral, and then straightened them again.

Particularly successful were the performances when he, lying on his back, raised a wooden platform with an orchestra of three musicians.

In those days, Greco-Roman (classical) wrestling tournaments were very popular in circuses. Famous strongmen and world-class wrestlers took part in them, including Russian titans Zaikin and Poddubny. Fedor Makhnov also participated in similar tournaments. True, he did not become a great athlete due to the fact that the best world wrestlers always came up against him, and a chronic back disease did not allow him to fully demonstrate his talents. However, his mere appearance in the arena caused wild delight from the public.

Makhnov devoted nine years to working in the circus, after which he became a quite wealthy man. However, great growth also brought a lot of trouble to Fedor. It was difficult for him to travel, since all transport, hotels, and catering establishments were designed only for people of standard sizes. Because of this, Fedor returned home to his native Kostyuki at the very beginning of the twentieth century. With the money he earned in circus performances, he bought his land and house from the landowner Korzhenevsky, who had gone to France.

Makhnov rebuilt the estate to suit his height, furnished it with suitable furniture and renamed it Velikanovo.

All necessary Construction Materials and furniture was sent to him from Germany by Otto Bidinder, with whom Fyodor maintained close friendly contacts until the end of his life.

Having settled in a new place, Makhnov decided to get married. And although he was very kind by nature, and not deprived of finances, they found a bride for him with great difficulty. She became Efrosinya Lebedeva, who worked as a rural teacher. She was a tall girl, but still inferior to her fiancé by almost a meter. In 1903, the first daughter Maria appeared in the family, and next year son Nikolai was born.

To replenish the family budget, from time to time Fedor went to various wrestling tournaments, performed in circuses, demonstrating his capabilities in various cities of the Russian Empire.

Such trips, along with some anthropological details of Gulliver of Vitebsk, were regularly covered by the press of that time. It was written, in particular, that Fedor weighs 182 kg, has 15-centimeter ears and 10-centimeter lips. The length of his palm was 32 cm, his foot – 51 cm. Makhnov’s height decreased slightly in weekdays and increased over the weekend.

The giant had four meals a day, but the portions were truly impressive.

For example, breakfast consisted of 8 round loaves of bread with butter, 20 eggs and 2 liters of tea. Lunch included 1 kg of potatoes, 2.5 kg of meat and 3 liters of beer. Dinner consisted of 2.5 kg of meat, 3 loaves of bread, 2 liters of tea and a bowl of fruit. And before going to bed, he was given another 1 loaf of bread, 15 eggs and 1 liter of tea or milk.

In 1905, the Makhnov family went on a tour abroad. Traveling around Western Europe, they visited France, Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, Italy.

They were granted an audience by the Pope himself. According to family legend, he took off his gold cross and gave it to the giant's daughter.

The Makhnov couple also visited the USA. To do this, however, it was necessary to remodel the ship's cabin.

During these trips there were some oddities. At receptions in palaces, Fyodor lit cigarettes from candles from the upper tiers of chandeliers, thereby extinguishing them.

In Paris, he had a clash with several townspeople. The arriving police wanted to put the giant behind bars, but not finding a suitable cell, they limited themselves to just a conversation.

During lunch at the German Chancellor's, a huge tea set was placed in front of Makhnov, but Fyodor did not appreciate such a “joke”, demanding that it be replaced with an ordinary mug.

But although the techniques are at their best high levels and were welcoming, it was difficult to travel around the world. First of all, the inappropriate size of transport, housing and restaurants had an impact. In addition, Makhnov began to besieged by various scientists who offered to conclude a contract for him to transfer his skeleton to them for study after death. Suspecting that they might kill him for this, Fyodor interrupted his foreign tour and returned to his home at Velikanov Khutor.

A long nomadic life undermined Makhnov’s already not very good health. Chronic joint disease, acquired in childhood in the cold water of Zaronovka, has worsened. It became increasingly difficult to walk. Otto Bilinder tried to help Fedor by sending a heavyweight horse from Germany. Unfortunately, the animal sent did not solve the problem, since with its nearly three-meter height, the giant’s legs still dragged along the ground when he sat astride it. And although Fedor became very attached to the horse, on trips he preferred to take a troika as his main means of transportation.

Traveling abroad brought a lot of new things into Fyodor Makhnov’s economic life. He was perhaps the first in the area to use agricultural machinery, which he purchased in Germany and kindly sent by Bilinder. For some time he even bred horses.

Unfortunately, Fyodor Makhnov did not live long. In 1912 chronic diseases The giant's health was finally undermined, and he died at the age of 34, having, however, before that managed to rejoice at the birth of three more of his children: daughter Masha (1911) and twin sons Rodion (Radimir) and Gabriel (Galyun), born in just six months until his death.

The exact reason early care their lives were never determined by Makhnov. Some documents say that he died from tuberculosis, others - from chronic pneumonia.

The Vitebsk giant was buried in a local cemetery near the village of Kostyuki. The Russian Sport magazine published an obituary announcing his death.

The growth of Fyodor Makhnov, even after his death, continued to surprise everyone. The undertaker, thinking that there was an error in the order for the coffin and fence, did the job counting on ordinary person. When it turned out that he was mistaken, the coffin had to be urgently remade, but there was no time left to redo the fence, and it had to be abandoned.

On the surviving tombstone you can still read the inscription: “Fedor Andreevich Makhnov born - June 6, 1878 died. August 28, 1912 at the age of 36 The Biggest Man in the World was 3 arshins 9 vershoks in height.”

The story about Fyodor Makhnov can be supplemented by the fact that his height on the tombstone is indicated incorrectly. It was taken from the contract with Bilinder, signed by the giant at the age of 16. Since then, Fedor has grown another 30 cm.

The giant's wife subsequently wanted to correct the mistakes on the tombstone and redo the fence, but the outbreak of the First World War and the subsequent revolutionary events prevented her from doing this.

One day, one of the sons of the Belarusian giant, having entered medical university, told the professors what an unusual person his father was. Then the scientists persuaded the widow Euphrosyne to give permission to exhume the remains. The skeleton of Gulliver from the Belarusian outback was examined by scientists from Belarus and Russia, and they came to the conclusion that his enormous growth was the result of a disease of the pituitary gland of the brain, which did not produce hormones correctly, but was not hereditary, so Makhnov’s children most likely received their usual human height from her mother - after all, she was not a little lady at all.

Before the war, the skeleton of the tallest man in the world was kept in the anatomical museum of the medical institute. And when the capital of the BSSR was occupied by the Nazis, the unique exhibit disappeared along with many other relics.

According to the stories of old-timers, the Minsk Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube was very proud of this “find” and was awarded for it, because Hitler, who, as is known, was delirious with the idea of ​​​​an Aryan supernation, was delighted to receive such a gift, and Nazi scientists spent a lot of time and human lives, trying to influence the pituitary gland to get a whole army of such giants.

The giant’s granddaughter Alla Dmitrieva lives in Minsk and knows her grandfather only from her mother’s stories: “He was a very kind and generous person, he did not refuse help to anyone, people from all over the area turned to him for money. In general, my grandfather loved his homeland very much, because he was treated like a person, and he completely refused his entrepreneur’s offer to be buried in Berlin - he did not want him to be turned into an attraction even after his death.

Instead of a conclusion

It may well be that recognizing Robert Wadlow's height as the tallest man on Earth is wrong! After all, the growth of Fyodor Makhnov was measured and officially recorded by the Warsaw anthropologist Lushan. In addition, the record growth of our compatriot was noted in the magazine “Science and Life” for 1970 and by the science fiction writer Alexander Belyaev in the story “The Island of Lost Ships.”

Makhnov met with the head of the traveling circus, Otto Bilinder, at the market, where he helped his grandfather sell agricultural products from the farm. Bilinder invited the young giant to his place and promised him a lucrative contract. Fedor agreed. In the arena, he demonstrated not only his height, but also his strength. He bent metal rods, lifted several spectators under the dome at once and acted as a wrestler. During the tour, Makhnov visited Germany, England, the USA and even met American President Theodore Roosevelt. However, he soon became tired of the circus life, and Fedor returned to his homeland.

After some time, Makhnov got married. His chosen one was the local teacher Efrosinya Lebedeva. Surprisingly, she was also tall - 2 meters 15 centimeters. However, compared to her husband, of course, even she looked small. Fellow countrymen nicknamed the place where the newlyweds Makhnov lived, Velikanovy Khutor.

Information about Fedor’s anthropometric data after 16 years was not preserved or did not exist at all. But if we take into account the fact that a person continues to grow until the age of 25, as well as photographs of the giant next to his wife and the testimony of his contemporaries, we can conclude that the height of the adult giant was 2 meters 85 centimeters. And this is 13 centimeters more than the record holder Wadlow.

According to the Russian Book of Records, the tallest person in world history was Russian citizen Fedor Makhov! His height was 2 meters 85 centimeters (with a weight of 182 kilograms).

A correspondent for the magazine “7 Days” reports that he personally saw the grave of our hero - at the Staroye Selo railway station, near Vitebsk. Today the giant is called in newspapers either Makhnov or Makhno. However, the text on the obelisk, touched by time, read:

"Fyodor Andreevich Makhnov. Born June 6, 1878. Died August 28, 1912. The most A tall man in the world. He was 3 arshins 9 inches tall."

He died at the age of 35. The height indicated on the grave, corresponding to 254 centimeters by modern standards, was in his youth, but, according to numerous testimonies, he grew significantly after that. Fyodor Makhnov was born into a peasant family on a farm near the village of Kostyuki. And today local residents can point out the place where he was born, nicknamed the Giant Farm.
The amazing child’s talents showed up early. At the age of 8, the child could lift an adult; his father taught him to play the harmonica. At the age of 12, he took the “bar” at 2 meters. He could sleep for more than 24 hours straight. A shoemaker from the nearby village of Yazvino, Vasily Orlov, left evidence of the length of the giant’s foot: 51 centimeters. The palm was 31 cm. Fyodor Makhnov bent horseshoes, and once raised the roof of a hut alone. His brothers Stepan and Nikolai were slightly taller than average. He developed his strength talents in the circus, where he twisted spirals of iron rods and then straightened them, smashed a brick with a blow of his fist, and while lying down raised a wooden platform on which an orchestra played. He was also involved in wrestling. The Vitebsk Regional Museum of Local Lore contains materials telling how Fyodor Makhnov got into the circus, and about his tours across Europe and the USA. He signed a contract with entrepreneur Robert Cook (and according to another version, the local landowner Bronislav Korzhenevsky made an offer to conquer Europe for Fyodor) and set off around the world. The magazine "Nature and People" for 1903 published the following note about him:

"The tallest man in the world"

They are now unanimously recognized as the Russian giant Theodore Makhov. Currently, he has arrived with his impresario in Berlin, where he is shown in the panopticon. In the Berlin Anthropological Museum, Makhov was carefully measured and weighed, and he was given a document with the following content: “Theodore Makhov, born in Russia, in the town of Kustyaki, Vitebsk province, has a height of 238 centimeters [typo - V.V.] and belongs to number of the tallest giants that have ever existed on the globe. In many respects, he is of great interest to science." And indeed, all the giants shown so far in Europe were in most cases 12-15 santa. below Makhov.
Feodor Makhov comes from an ancient family, whose ancestors moved to Russia from the south, from Syria. Makhov's parents, as well as his two sisters, are of quite normal height; his grandfather was very tall, but, in any case, not a giant. Feodor Makhov is currently only 22 years old. To give at least some idea of ​​the size of his body, let's say that his boot, barely reaching the giant's knee, reaches the chest of a normal person, and a 12-year-old boy could fit headlong into it . The impresario pays Makhov 5,000 rubles annually and also maintains it at his own expense. Only with such a huge amount of money was it possible for the impresario to persuade the giant to appear in panopticons, since Makhov, an intelligent man and not in need, for a long time refused such an honor."

When the giant came on tour to St. Petersburg, reporters from the capital found out how he eats. In the morning he drank about two bottles of milk or tea, while eating one and a half dozen hard-boiled eggs and 6-8 pieces of bread. At noon he was served a kilogram of fried meat, more than a kilogram of potatoes, a kilogram of bread and a bottle of beer. At lunch I made do with a few plates meat soup and two bottles of beer. For dinner, Fedya ate from 10 to 15 eggs and several slices of bread.

However, the entrepreneur, profiting from him, fed him poorly, and the hardships of nomadic life annoyed him. The peasant son did not like all this, and he returned to his home station Staroye Selo. With the money he earned, he built a farm. The people called the new place of residence the Velikanov Farm. Fyodor's house has not survived to this day - it was destroyed during the war. But the villagers still call this place the Giant. Here he and his wife, teacher Efrosinya Lebedeva, who was 70 centimeters shorter than him, gave birth to five children. Everyone was tall, but no one was taller than 2 meters.

Having caught a cold while cleaning the bed of the local Zaronovka River, Fyodor Makhnov suffered from leg disease. He is believed to have died from lung disease. But they rumored that he was poisoned by his rivals on the wrestling mat. An obituary appeared in the magazine "Russian Sport" announcing this unfortunate event. One of Makhnov’s sons, Radimir, or, as he was also called, Rodion, studied at the Minsk Medical Institute. Once at a lecture I heard a mention of his phenomenal father. I named myself. The scientists became interested and, through Radimir, conveyed an offer to the widow to sell the unique skeleton. 5 thousand rubles were offered for it, and in those years it was a substantial amount. A loaf of bread, for example, then cost 14-20 kopecks. 27 years after the burial of the bone from under the monument "The Most big man in the world" was removed, put in a box and taken away by scientists. The coffin and monument were returned to their original place.
The grandson of the giant, Evgeniy Nikolaevich, still preserves the memory of his ancestor: postcards, photographs, newspaper clippings... It is from the words of the grandson that there is a version that Fedor, having moved to the farm, did not give up performing in the circus. He often traveled to Germany with his family.

Fedor Andreevich Makhnov, who lived on turn of XIX-XX centuries, is called the tallest man in the world. His height was 285 centimeters! The size of the giant was such that a 12-year-old child could easily fit in his boot. Each meal consisted of several kilograms of food, and Makhnov could sleep for as long as 24 hours. In Europe, the giant was a real curiosity and a public favorite.

Fedor Andreevich Makhnov comes from the village of Kostyuki, Vitebsk district (former Russian Empire, now Belarus). In addition to him, two more sons grew up in the Makhnov family. Their height was above average, but Fedor “outdid” everyone. The grandfather took his grandson in to raise him, because Fyodor’s mother died during childbirth, the fetus turned out to be too large.

As they say, the boy grew by leaps and bounds. At the age of 12, his height was already 2 meters. Fedor also had the corresponding strength in his hands. He could lift a grown man with one hand, carried huge logs, harnessed instead of horses and transported carts with hay.

At a young age, the boy was hired by a local landowner to clear the river of boulders. They interfered with the normal functioning of the mill. Working in cold water resulted in illnesses for Fedor, which manifested themselves more than once in the future.

When the young giant turned 14 years old, he began to hit his head on the ceiling, and the hut had to be rebuilt. They were supposed to make a custom bed for Fyodor, but the blacksmith delayed fulfilling the order, and the boy managed to outgrow it.

One day, a giant teenager working part-time at the Polotsk Bazaar in Vitebsk was seen by Otto Bilinder, the owner of a nomadic circus. It is worth considering that this was late XIX centuries, at that time the performances of miracle people enjoyed enormous popularity. The German persuaded Fedor’s relatives to send him to Germany.

This is how the young giant came to Europe. First, Fedor studied German and at the same time mastered the circus craft. He learned to effectively unbend horseshoes and break bricks with his palm.

At the age of 16, Fyodor Makhnov signed a contract to work in the circus. The audience was delighted. People came to the performances not so much to watch the tricks, but simply to see with their own eyes the giant, whose height was more than 2.5 meters. Fyodor Makhnov, lying down, easily lifted the platform with a small orchestra.

By the age of 25, Fyodor Makhnov’s height was already 285 cm. Naturally, with such dimensions, the giant had proper nutrition. For breakfast, he ate an omelette of 20 eggs, 8 loaves of bread, and drank 2 liters of tea. Lunch consisted of 2.5 kg of meat, the same amount of potatoes, and a bowl of vegetables. The giant could sleep for more than 24 hours.

Fyodor Makhnov worked in the circus for 9 years, and then returned to his native village. With the money he earned, the giant bought the land and his house from the local landowner, which he rebuilt for himself. It is worth noting that Otto Bidinder always continued to help him. The circus owner and the artist remained friends.

Fyodor Makhnov married a local teacher, Efrosinya Lebedeva. Her height was more than 180 cm, but her wife still looked like a baby next to her husband. The family had five children.

When the supply of money came to an end, the giant again went to Europe, where he was met with constant success. After the performances, Fyodor Makhnov and his wife were invited to social events. Even there, Fedor managed to amuse the audience: he lit cigarettes directly from the chandeliers. Several times the police tried to arrest him for hooliganism or non-compliance with the contract. But each time Makhnov was released, because there was simply no cell in which he could fit.

Fyodor Makhnov died at the age of 34. According to one version, it was the consequences of a cold suffered in childhood. On the tombstone it is written that the giant’s height was 3 arshins 9 vershoks, i.e. 254 cm. However, this information is not correct. The figure was taken from Makhnov's contract with Bidinder, when the giant was only 16 years old. Then he grew another 31 cm. The wife wanted to correct the annoying mistake, but she was prevented by the outbreak of the First World War.

While Fyodor Makhnov was entertaining audiences in Europe, on the other side of the ocean in the United States, people went to see the married couple perform.

Today marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of the tallest man in the world and fellow countryman of Vitebsk, Fedor Andreevich Makhnov. And although the Guinness Book of Records lists the tallest man on Earth as the American Robert Pershing Wadlow with a height of 272 centimeters, the Vitebsk giant Makhnov grew to 2 meters 85 centimeters. This figure was recorded by the Austrian anthropologist Felix Luschan. In the Russian book of records, Fyodor Makhnov is recorded as the tallest man in the world.

Fyodor Makhnov with anthropologist Lushan

I only recently learned about Makhnov. Mom mentioned it in the conversation. And he remembered his grandfather’s old stories about a very tall man who once lived three kilometers from his home village. Then I didn't give it any thought of great importance, thinking that the person is tall by local standards. But it turned out to be on the scale of the planet :)

After collecting information on the Internet, two trips were taken to the places where Fedor was born, lived, died and was buried.

Having safely missed the morning diesel, we took a bus to Staroye Selo, a village 20 kilometers from the city. According to information from the Internet, there was a school folk museum with an exhibition about Fyodor Makhnov. That's where we headed. At the museum we were met by its creator and local historian of Staroselshchyna, Margarita Dmitrievna Yushkevich. Despite her busy schedule (she was writing a letter to France, to the relatives of a local war hero about whom she was writing a book), she told some details from Fyodor’s life and showed the further route on the map.

The museum contains quite a lot of written information about Fedor, photographs, and the main exhibit is the frame of his bed.

The axis of our hike route was the Zaronovka River. First we walked along the river to the east to see (on the advice of Margarita Dmitrievna) the picturesque ruins of a water mill near the village of Pobedinshchina.

Biography of a giant

Fyodor Andreevich Makhnov was born on June 6 (18th according to the new style) June 1878 in the village of Kostyuki, Staroselsky volost, Vitebsk district.

Fedor was born such a large child that his mother died during childbirth. He was mainly raised by his grandparents. From the age of 8, the boy began to grow very quickly, while sleeping a lot. At the age of 12, Fedya’s height reached two meters. Other children made fun of him because of his height. For this, he took off their hats and hung them on the ridge of the roof of a bathhouse or barn. Due to the growth of his son, Fyodor’s father had to rebuild the hut, raising the ceilings. As his height increased, so did the boy's strength. He could lift an adult man, independently pull a cart with hay, and helped in the construction of houses by lifting heavy logs. The local landowner Korzhenevsky hired a boy to clear the Zaronovka riverbed of stones near his water mill. The water in the river was always very cold and Fyodor had colds in his feet for the rest of his life.

The mill and the place on the river where Fedor worked and got a leg disease

At the age of 14, the boy and his father went to Vitebsk to the Polotsk market. There he was noticed by Otto Bilinder, the owner of a German circus that toured Vitebsk. The enterprising German quickly realized what benefits could be derived from the boy’s growth and suggested that Fedya’s father let his son go to Germany to perform in the circus. The father agreed and Fedor left for Europe. Until the age of 16, Otto Billinder taught Fedya circus art and the German language. And in general he treated the teenager well. At the age of 16, Fyodor Makhnov signed a contract with Otto and began performing in the circus. In the circus, Fedor showed his strength and height: he lifted a platform with a 3-person orchestra playing on it, bent and straightened horseshoes and iron rods, and broke bricks with a blow of his palm. He also took part in wrestling tournaments. The performances continued for 8 years and Fedor returned to his homeland as a wealthy man.

Arriving in his native place, Fyodor Makhnov bought from the landowner Korzhenevsky, who was leaving for France, an estate (farm), land and a water mill, near which he worked as a child. Fedor rebuilt the landowner's house to suit his size and taste. Otto Bilinder sent him furniture from Germany. The farm where Makhnov lived was popularly called Velikanov.
Currently, only part of the stone foundation and a few fruit trees remain of the estate.

Plan of Fyodor's house and estate

Fedor also decided to get married. It was not easy to find a bride of suitable height. In the end, the search was crowned with success, and the village teacher Efrosinya Lebedeva became Fyodor’s wife. She was 185 cm tall, a full meter shorter than her husband.

Fedor Makhnov's wife - Efrosinya

Fedor with his wife

In 1905, after the birth of two children, Fedor and his family went to travel around the world. He traveled around Europe and visited America. Makhnov received audiences with the Pope, the German Chancellor and US President Theodore Roosevelt. The Pope liked Fedora's little daughter Maria so much that he took off his gold cross on a chain and gave it to the girl.

Fedor Makhnov in London

Fedor and his wife on a ship sailing to America

While traveling, Fedor was often offered to enter into a contract so that after his death his skeleton would be given to scientists for scientific purposes. Fyodor refused, fearing that he might be killed because of the skeleton, and returned to his farm.

In 1911-12, the Makhnovs had three more children. Thus, the Makhnovs had five children in total. None of them grew above two meters.

In August 1912, Fedor died from lung disease. He was only 34 years old.

The tallest man on the planet was buried in the cemetery of the village of Kostyuki. They erected a metal fence and a granite monument, which has survived to this day.

Monument at the grave of Fedor. He suffered from bullets in 1943-44, when there were hot battles here. The height and age of Fedor are incorrectly indicated on the monument. The giant's wife wanted to fix it, but she never did - the outbreak of the First World War and then the revolution prevented it

General view of the grave. The cross fell off and lies on the grave

But this is not the end of Fedor's story. In the 30s, Fedor’s wife was offered to sell the giant’s skeleton for 5 thousand rubles. It was a lot of money at that time and she agreed. The scientists dug up the coffin, took out the skeleton, put the clothes back in the coffin and buried them. The skeleton was taken to Minsk, to one of the institutes. During the war, the institute building was destroyed, and the giant's skeleton disappeared.

On our first trip, we did not find the place where Velikanov Farm was located. But a week later I returned the other way, forded Zaronovka (the water is really cold) and finally found the site of the farm. It was covered with tall grass, and five storks were flying in the sky. The earth under white wings...

A few days later I learned that my great-great-grandfather was also buried in the same cemetery where Fedor was buried. There will be a reason to go there again.

Zaronovka River