People living in Kazakhstan's 'Village of the Damned' have spoken of the horrifying side effects of the mysterious sleeping sickness which can leave them unconscious for days - as others reveal they fear they are being poisoned to force them to make way for a gold mine.

When a photojournalist spent a night at the infamous village, she was told of how children have seen their mothers grow eyes on their foreheads and usually well-mannered pensioners denounce their nurses as 'whores' and 'prostitutes'.

Meanwhile, men struggle with uncontrollable sexual desires after waking from the coma-like sleep in the village of Kalachi, in northern Kazakhstan.

It is the first time residents of the village, which has also been dubbed 'Sleepy Hollow', have spoken of the debilitating side effects.

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Mystery: Photographer Vera Salnitskaya travelled to the village of Kalachi to see if she could experience the sleeping sickness which has ravaged the town for four years, leaving residents terrified

Victim: Almaz, 10, has been struck twice by the illness - and his mother believes it has left a lasting effect

Abandoned: Many have already fled the small village, and there are more willing to leave

Quiet: Kalachi now has a population of just 381 - all of whom are scared they could fall asleep at any moment

The illness which sends people into a deep sleep without warning first struck four years ago, and is thought to have affected about a quarter of the population - about 160 people - at some time or another.

Known side effects include headaches and memory loss, but when MailOnline visited the village, which is about 250 miles from the border with Russia, residents were willing to reveal more of the horrendous effects of the disease.

Local women told us that when their husbands and boyfriends come round from the deep slumber, lasting from 12 hours to six days, they often awoke craving sex.

'The doctors laugh and the nurses blush when they see our men,' explained one Kalachi woman.

'Other women were saying the same. As soon as men were were recovering after waking, they needed sex right there and then, and this feeling lasted for at least a month.'

One man just out of hospital 'still couldn't eat properly let alone walk, but he was all over his wife,' she revealed. 'He really needed it.'

Unsurprisingly, the men are reluctant to talk about this aspect of the sleeping illness.

But another woman, in her 40s, who had taken her son to live in a neighbouring village to protect him from the unexplained disease, said: 'My husband after he woke up called me and said: "Listen either you visit me right now, or I'll go to you".'

There are other debilitating symptoms, including an inability to control the bladder.

'One poor man wet himself as he went to hospital. So the paramedics removed his pants and there he was, not properly conscious but in a state of sexual excitement,' a resident said.

'The view of the men lying in the hospital ward rooms is called "tents".'

Terrifying: One of the victims of the 'sleeping epidemic', which affects people of all ages and genders

Visions: Children affected by the mystery illness see monsters, and hallucinate things flying around rooms

Hospitalised: One of the residents sleeping in the local hospital - the ailment can hit at any time

Conspiracy: Daria Kravchuk, 27, is one of those who worries the illness has been engineered in order to get the villagers to leave the area, so a gold mine can be built

Some rant uncontrollably. Locals cite the example of one man, known for his impeccable manners, who cursed nurses as 'whores' and 'prostitutes' when he was suddenly struck down by the Kalachi drowsiness

Another man, apparently recovering, suddenly leapt out of bed, giving a Nazi salute to his doctors, greeting them with 'Heil Hitler', while a 60-year-old grandfather imagined he was a rooster, flapping his arms around and crowing.

Elena Zhavoronkova and Lyudmila Samusenkyo - who are both described as 'serious minded' - found themselves in hospital at the same time recovering from the sleeping condition, and experienced some of the strange side effects.

'I felt that something was wrong, but still I had an urge to escape, and I asked Lyudmila to join me on a lift ride,' said Elena.

They shut themselves inside the elevator, playing a bizarre game of tag with doctors.

'We were laughing and giggling and felt like we were schoolgirls. One of the surgeons prized open the doors with a chisel, and we both jumped on him and started hitting him in the face. It felt like great fun.'

Some people think that there is a kind of a drug, preparation testing going on, each time a different one. Others say an old Soviet chemical or radioactive weapon was dumped here, and this is poisoning us. Lyubov Rabchevskaya

Others feel they have been turned into zombies.

Many have an urge to walk when they wake up - and a local man dressed himself in only a hospital diaper, repeatedly fleeing his ward.

Children are affected in different ways: many have been overpowered by delirium, telling of seeing monsters, and extra eyes on their mothers' foreheads.

One mother was told by her sick child that she had an elephant's trunk, and Misha Plyukhin, 13, saw light bulbs and horses flying all around him.

For distraught parents, it is an added burden.

Lyubov Rabchevskaya admits she is 'dead scared' for her son Almaz, 10.

'I still shudder over the first time he fell asleep,' the 28-year-old told MailOnline.

'He normally wakes up 7am. That day it was 10am - and he was still asleep.

'I thought at first that he was sick and it was better to let him rest, then I began shaking him, but he would not wake up.

'It's really, really scary when your child is suddenly in a coma-like state. Also when they wake up, they behave like sickly babies, they cry without reason just bursting into tears.

'Like my son, he wanted to get off the bed, but fell down because his legs were too weak. Another burst into tears.

'And another one when he needs to go to the loo, and he is too weak to make it to the toilet, so he needs to use a hospital potty - and he feels shy and embarrassed by it.

'How can a mother take it calmly and not be left brokenhearted over this anguish?'

Ghost town: Krasnogorsk, pictured, is just a few hundred metres away from the village

Crumbling: It used to have a population of 6,000 - now just a handful of people live here

Mysterious: But residents have questioned why none of those people have suffered the sleeping illness

Future?: Some think the village of Kalachi will soon be as empty as this town

Lyubov has made up her mind, like many others, that she cannot risk staying in Kalachi.

The former shop assistant said: 'I had to give up my job because I started driving other villages, looking for places to relocate. I had to be out of the shop six times a month, for several days in a row. It was impossible to keep the job. No matter what happens, I'll leave here.'

She added: 'Some reports say there are no health consequences after people fall asleep like this.

'Wrong, there are a lot of them. Almaz was full of energy before, but now he's not nearly as active as he was, he needs rest.'

Many have already fled Kalachi, a village guarded by a crumbling statue of Lenin, amid fears for their health.

It is going the same way as Krasnogorsk, a town just a few hundred metres away which once produced uranium ore for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons programme.

We began to think that someone is deliberately poisoning us to force us away. Some say that over the hill nearby gold was found and even the road is built Lyubov Rabchevskaya

Krasnogorsk used to have a population of 6,000 but now only a handful of people call it home: yet, strangely, there have been hardly any cases of the sleeping epidemic among locals who live here among derelict apartment blocks that look as if they were blitzed in a war.

The fact the few residents of this ghost town have escaped the illness unharmed has not been missed by the residents of the village.

Officially, the most likely explanation is that leakages of radioactive gas radon from former uranium mines four miles away are behind the mystery condition, yet many are sceptical.

Daria Kravchuk, 27, an assistant in the village store, who was laid low by the sleeping condition after falling into a near coma when she was drinking tea, said: 'People are dead scared of what's going, and the pressure of staying here is hardly bearable.

'And yet we stay because where else do you run? At least here we have a good school, nice houses, and a good salary. There is a lot of rumours about gold deposits being found here. Apparently there was even an announcement on TV in Almaty that people were needed to mine it.

'Some of us wonder if this sleeping disease and the alleged gold mine can be related.'

Alexander Remezov, 70, a married father-of-two who formerly worked at the Soviet-era uranium mines, said: 'I'm leaving now but I'd never planned to relocate.

Radiation: Krasnogorsk used to produce uranium ore for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons programme

Waiting game: Many parents are waiting until the end of the academic year to leave the town, so their children are some of the few still left at the village school. Pictured: one of the pupils

WHAT COULD BE CAUSING THE MYSTERY SLEEP ILLNESS? The cause of the mystery illness remains a mystery, but various theories continue to circulate. Many locals believe the cause may be coming from nearby former Soviet-era uranium mines that are now abandoned. Others claim toxic waste has been buried in the area. Baffled doctors have diagnosed the sufferers with encephalopathy, a disorder of the brain, of unclear origin. Scans have shown that many of the sufferers have excessive accumulation of fluid in their brains - known as oedema. Experts fear that prolonged diffuse brain oedema could have long term consequences on the neurological development of the children's brains. But they are still no closer to finding out what might be causing the symptoms. Some have dismissed the condition as narcolepsy or even chronic fatigue syndrome, but Professor Jim Horne, a sleep expert at Loughborough University's Sleep Research Centre, thinks this is unlikely. Advertisement

'I hear different versions about the cause of the sleeping disease.

'Yet I don't believe that it can be provoked by the proximity of the uranium mines.

'I worked there for years, and sometimes miners even drank water from the mine which as you can imagine was like a uranium concoction.

'But no-one fell asleep. It's not about uranium.

'I fear it might be a sabotage and us being used as a testing ground. I think this version must be investigated.

'Take last year - people were falling asleep in bulk, 30 people each month. Now we have had several quiet months, and why is that?'

Some say it is because of the build-up to Sunday's election in which veteran 74-year-old dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev - who employs Tony Blair as a consultant - scored a landslide victory securing 97.7 per cent of the vote in a poll seen in the West as far short of free and fair.

Recently a local official was fired over a suspicious land deal, at a time when villagers fear they are being pressured to leave.

The state is currently running an evacuation plan, under which people should be given a place to live in a new location. The government pays 250,000 tenge (£890) to help meet the costs.

Some 52 families have already left the village, with ten more scheduled to leave by the end of April. Others wait for the end of the school year to leave, but some 381 people still remain.

Lyubov said: 'We began to think that someone is deliberately poisoning us to force us away. Some say that over the hill nearby gold was found and even the road is built.'

She pointed out: 'There was a meeting at the beginning of February to discuss relocation.

'The people who screamed loudest that they would not be going anywhere all fell asleep. The locals joked that they each were individually poisoned.'

Living in fear: Tatiana Shumilina, 56, says everyone in the village is 'extremely nervous'

Catching: The disease has struck 160 people in the village - about a quarter of the original population

Patrol: A National Centre of Radiation control car in the area - some think radiation is the problem

There are other elements which are making some residents fear the sleeping illness is more than just an unfortunate side effect of the uranium mining industry.

Sometimes the symptoms resemble the impact of alcohol poisoning, but locals also claim that the side-effects are now subtly different to when the first cases appeared.

'The last mass epidemic was at the beginning of March, when 15 people were near falling asleep, but unlike earlier, they were not actually deeply asleep, or out for a long time,' said one source.

'They could walk themselves and all managed to get to the local hospital. They felt exhausted and weak, but none of them needed to be taken to hospital in Esil, the nearest town.

'Earlier on, during another period all sleepers were aggressive and everyone - from men to children - had to be tied to their beds because they were trying to attack doctors, nurses and other patients.

'There were moments when people were all vomiting, or hiccuping. This makes people some people think that there is a kind of a drug, preparation testing going on, each time a different one. Others say an old Soviet chemical or radioactive weapon was dumped here, and this is poisoning us.'

Locals have also complained that officials have sought to pin the blame for some cases on parents poisoning their children.

Oleg Svinarev's family have four children, and during September and October last year each of them succumbed two or three times.

Earlier on, during another period all sleepers were aggressive and everyone - from men to children - had to be tied to their beds because they were trying to attack doctors, nurses and other patients

He was detained amid a suspicion they were given something toxic.

'Honestly I was ready to kick police in their faces when they asked me if we gave something toxic to children,' he said.

'We were scared to death for them, and they were bugging me with stupid questions.'

Tatiana Shumilina told MailOnline: 'We are all extra nervous here - imagine being in our shoes when you don't know which of your family members will collapse, when and with what consequences, which is what we have lived with for three years. How would you feel?'

Kabdrashit Almagambetov, the district's top doctor, seems genuinely puzzled about what caused this health hazard on his doorstep.

'It all is very individual, depending on age, the patient's health condition, what other chronic diseases they have suffered,' he said.

'For example, the reaction of children strongly differs from that of adults. Children's brains have not yet formed fully. They find it harder to tolerate the disease, they have strong hallucinations.

'Elderly people, too, have hallucinations, because of their age. Frankly, the cause of the disease is still unknown despite the many institutions that have worked here.

'The radioactive background is normal, all products people are eating have been checked, the water is tested, nothing is harmful there.

'All those who have been affected are in Kalachi village. True, several people who came from Krasnogorsk suffered from the illness - but only after they visited Kalachi. So the strange effect is noticed only in one village.

Indiscriminate: Eight children were struck down with the illness in September alone

Restricted: The only people to get the sleeping sickness in Krasnogorsk were people who visited the village

Sticking it out: Lyudmila Penzenshtadlerm is one of the villagers who have remained behind

'I can assure you, it is not some mental disorder, it is not some hysterical epidemic, as it was supposed previously.'

He denied it was a psychological illness as some had claimed - 'only physical'.

'I cannot say for sure about the radon theory for now, because we need to obtain data from the scientists. I am not a specialist in this question, but I doubt this theory, because we have many closed mines and uranium mines and it is only in Kalachi we faced with such a disease. '

He stressed there was no evidence of artificial poisoning, as some villagers suspected.

'I do not have any working theories, because I am a doctor. I must think how to treat these people, how to help them.'

Scientists from the National Nuclear Researching centre of Kazakhstan, who are making bore holes to take samples of soil, water and gas, while separately monitoring radiation including tests for radon, also dismiss fears over being poisoned on purpose.

I can assure you, it is not some mental disorder, it is not some hysterical epidemic, as it was supposed previously Doctor Kabdrashit Almagambetov

'There is a lot of rumours about us among the locals - some say we are after gold, others that we found extra pure water, while in fact our tasks are basic - to keep drilling and taking samples,' said a scientists who declined to be named.

The teams first came a year ago and have been permanently working in Kalachi since April 2014: yet the locals point suspiciously out that none of these scientists have been struck down by the slumbering disease.

'Every evening, when we gather together, we have debates on what is the cause of this condition,' he said.

'We have experts in different fields in our teams, so every one of us is trying to build up a version based on our knowledge.'

Some believe it maybe caused by radiation emanating from cracks in the ground.

Yet many of these experts are veterans of the Soviet nuclear testing site at Semipalatinsk in northern Kazakhstan.

'Here we have a much higher level of radon and no-on falls asleep,' said the scientist.

Luck?: Olga Polezhayeva, 47, a Kazakh Ecological Laboratory engineer, has been living with one of the villagers, and seen the effects of the disease first hand - but has never been sick herself

Cause: The deserted uranium mines are one possible cause of the illness

Top secret: Krasnogorsk was a secret and 'closed' uranium mining town run directly from Mosco

'Last year our colleagues went through every house in the village, taking all radiation readings, and making a census of people who did and didn't sleep, writing their accounts on when and how it happened, down to the routes people took when walking the village.'

Some houses with higher readings of radon are not hit by the sleeping epidemic. Others, with lower readings, are.

Yet still, despite all these tests, the scientists are no nearer finding an answer.

Olga Polezhayeva, 47, a Kazakh Ecological Laboratory engineer, said: 'We are working year here for the second year, since December 2013.

'Every month we spend 10 days, taking samples for nitrogen oxide, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, sulphur, ammonia, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons. We take samples every morning of those 10 days. So far all results were normal.'

She and her colleagues live with a villager.

WOULD I WAKE UP AGAIN? MAILONLINE PHOTOGRAPHER'S NIGHT IN KALACHI Brave: Vera Salnitskaya spent the night in the norther Kazakh village of Kalachi Photographer Vera Salnitskaya travelled to the remote village to try to find out more about the illness which has captured the attention of the world, but has devastated a community. Here, she shares her experience. After hearing all the stories of the sleeping sickness in Kalachi, I was nervous, not just about going there but staying the night, too. Journalists have been here before, but not slept overnight. My host Lyubov (Lyuba) Rabchevskaya had suffered from the sleeping condition, as had her child and boyfriend Sergey. Like others in Kalachi, they are friendly and welcoming but the locals are desperately worried about this illness so I feared what might happen? Would I sink into a coma-like sleep? And what about the hallucinations that victims have suffered? Lyubov kindly gave me her son's bed, while he slept with her. My sheet had islands, sea and palm trees on it - somehow, a long way from the life here in Kalachi where the snow is not long gone. I reasoned that scientifically the chances of me going down with this unknown but alarming disease was not too great. But the fear in my head somehow defies this logic. In fact, after my long train journey I dozed off to sleep quickly and woke at 6am, a white and ginger cat sitting on my bed. I check I am not sick, and doze off again for an hour. At 7am the house is quiet, and another cat, grey with blue eyes, has come for a visit. I was on the verge of hysterical laughter: I'd survived the night and woken with nothing more than a slight headache, maybe from the worry of what might have happened. I felt the hysterical laughter and posed for a selfie with the cat. Then I realise that around the house, I can hear snoring. Are they all right? Should I wake them? Have they caught the sleeping illness again? But it was a false alarm, and everyone was fine. Lyubov's son Almaz was soon up and he took me with him to his school. Advertisement

'She fell asleep twice but none of us did. When I saw her I thought that she looked like she'd been under general anaesthetic.

'There is no location tag to where people fall asleep - just one day one person collapses at one end of the village, another one at another, and in a week same people might fall asleep in different locations.

'The first time when we came here we were scared to touch anything, almost frightened to breathe.

'When you don't know what and how can hit you, you feel really disorientated. We brought water and food with us, but what do you do with the air?

There is no location tag to where people fall asleep - just one day one person collapses at one end of the village, another one at another, and in a week same people might fall asleep in different locations Ecologist Olga Polezhayeva

'I can see the locals are exhausted and concerned that there is no explanation of what on earth caused it.'

In several cases, the condition was caught by people after attending meetings or gatherings at school.

A Russian scientist who knows the area well is convinced he knows the true reason for the poisoning.

Leonid Rikhvanov, of Tomsk Polytechnic University, said: 'This couldn't have been done deliberately, that's complete nonsense.'

Though not invited to inspect the village by the Kazakh authorities he is adamant that he knows the cause.

'My model is the only one which explains what is going on there,' he said. 'If to describe it simply, when the uranium mines were abandoned, they began to fill with the ground water.

'Radon and other inert gases which release as a result of the decay of uranium are squeezed out by groundwater and through the cracks in the ground rises to the surface. It can accumulate in the cellars.'

Yet critics say similar illnesses are not found near other disused uranium mines.

And Sergei Lukashenko, director of the country's National Nuclear Center's Radiation Safety and Ecology Institute, said: 'I am positive this is not radon.

'Carbon monoxide is definitely a factor, but I cannot tell you whether this is the main and vital factor.'

He stated: 'The maximum allowable concentration of carbon monoxide in Kazakhstan is five milligrams per cubic meter and concentrations in homes where sleeping sickness cases have occurred were 10 times higher. This factor looks very suspicious. It is also odd. It should not be so.'

Asked why, he said: 'It could be natural gas or stove heating or machines or something else but that can happen anywhere.

'The question is why it does not go away. We have some suspicions as the village has a peculiar location, a hollow, and weather patterns frequently force chimney smoke to go down instead of up.

'We have even photographed that. That could be a factor.'

Dangerous: Radiation danger signs are used to warn people as they approach the uranium mines

Tests: National Nuclear Researching centre's team are monitoring radiation levels in the area

Unsolved: But the team is no closer to understanding why or what is causing the illness

Vitaly, 61, a TV repairman-turned-amateur sleuth who declined to give his family name, used to work in the uranium mine which many blame for the sleeping epidemic.

'It looks like some kind of beam went through the village. I do not know what it can be. Maybe some some special equipment, like emitter. But it all is my speculation.

'I just see that the location of the homes, where people fell asleep are in straight lines, as if some beam cut through them.'

He warned: 'I'm not speaking about UFOs. I am simply trying to understand what is going on here.'

Karia Kravchuk, from the local shop, agrees.

'It's shocking how long it goes on without an explanation. Four years have passed since the first case, and we are still no wiser. Medical samples are constantly getting lost, sometimes people have to be back to hospitals two, three times to re-do the same tests.