YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press, reports:

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — A woman believed to be the oldest in the world celebrated her 116th birthday Wednesday in the former Soviet republic of Belarus.

“I’ll drink to my own health with pleasure,” said Hanna Barysevich, a former farm worker who lives in a house outside the Belarusian capital Minsk.

“I’m tired of living already, but God still hasn’t collected me,” she said with a smile.

Barysevich was born on May 5, 1888, in the village of Buda, 37 miles east of Minsk, according to her passport. Her parents were poor, landless peasants.

“From my early childhood I didn’t know anything but physical labor,” said Barysevich, who never learned to read or write. She worked in a kolkhoz, or collective farm, until age 95, then moved to the house she shares with her 78-year-old daughter Nina.

Barysevich lived through the Bolshevik Revolution, two world wars and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The worst period for her was the reign of dictator Josef Stalin: Her husband Ippolit was declared an “enemy of the people” for allegedly harming the collective farm, arrested and taken to Siberia. He was never heard from again.

She raised her three children on her own, including throughout World War II, when she used to take her family to the woods outside the village to hide from the Nazis.

“A lot of men courted me but I preferred to live on my own,” she said.

Today, Barysevich moves with difficulty but unaided. She complains of occasional headaches and worsening vision “but nothing else bothers me.”

She attributes her longevity to genes: Her paternal grandmother was 113 when she died. As to diet, Barysevich prefers simple village food: homemade sausages, pork fat, milk and bread.

Daughter Nina said her mother has a good appetite, a tough character and very strong nerves.

“Throughout my long life, I understood that it isn’t worth it to get upset and take everything too close to the heart,” Barysevich said.

For her birthday, she hoped for a raise in her monthly pension, equal to about $50, and a chance to go to a Catholic church for confession.

Last month, the Guinness Book of Records recognized a 114-year-old Puerto Rican as the world’s oldest living woman. Barysevich said she’d never thought of applying for the distinction.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

May 5, 8:37 AM EDT