It took officials 7 years to annul this Russian woman’s death certificate

According to the website of the Krasnodar district attorney’s office, a pensioner in the city of Krymsk spent the last seven years trying to get the government to annul her own death certificate.

The 63-year-old woman, whose name is not being reported, recently appealed to prosecutors asking them to nullify a death certificate issued about her on September 26, 2007. Apparently police misidentified the body of a woman discovered in the area at that time.

The pensioner had appealed to local state record-keepers several times, demanding that they invalidate the death certificate, but she was told each time that this required a court order. On August 1, 2014, the state stopped paying the woman her pension.

The district attorney soon filed a suit with the local courts, and the woman’s living state was formally reinstated, along with her pension payments.

Prosecutors say they have taken disciplinary action against the individuals responsible for declaring the living woman dead, and police have set about discovering the identity of the woman who did die in 2007.