Why the USSR Kept 3 Tartarian Giants Alive Until 1968 — The Experiments They Ran

You're holding a cup of tea across from a woman who shouldn't be talking to you. . Her apartment in Almatti smells like old books and something medicinal. Out . Outside the Tian Shan mountains rise through afternoon haze . She's 89 years old. Her . Her hands shake when she sets down the cup . I was a nurse, she says at institute 47 . That's what we called it . Just numbers. No name . The tea goes cold while she talks . She tells you about the three beds . Three men who shouldn't exist. Me . Men so tall the beds had been welded together . End. Men who spoke a language that sounded like water over stones . Men who were dying slowly while Soviet doctors took measurements . The first time I saw them, she says her voice barely above whisper . I thought I was looking at something from before the world began . Her name is Fetlana Andre of Nekusova . She worked at Institute 47 from 1963 to 1968 . She wasn't supposed to remember any of it . [music] They made her sign papers , gave her a pension that came from a department that didn't officially exist , but she remembers . The facility sits 70 km outside Almati, where the step meets the foothills . You can still find it if you know where to look . The road isn't on maps anymore . The gate rusted through decades ago, but the buildings remained low [music] Soviet era concrete built to withstand something other than weather . I drove there in October