InRussian Russian part of the cemetery in Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois makes up 62% of the total area. The lasti of Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois did not accept money for the maintenance of the Russian part of the cemetery. This year, the mayor’s office did not accept money from Russia for its maintenance, it became like “a forest where few people go for a walk”
Visible cemetery in Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois
Russian Russian cemetery authorities in Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois (located 30 km south of Paris) refused to accept money from Russia for the maintenance of the Russian part of the local cemetery, Nikolai Lopukhin, chairman of the Committee for the Care of Russian Orthodox Burials, told Le Monde.
“This year, the city did not accept money from the Kremlin to finance the renewal of the lease of land, which expired,” he said. Le Monde writes that this was confirmed by the Russian embassy, and the city hall declined to comment.
RBC sent a request to the press service of the Russian Embassy in France and to the Paris Mayor’s Office.
Russian Russian part of the cemetery has been operating since the late 1920s: in 1927, Princess Vera Meshcherskaya founded a Russian old man’s house in Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois, whose boarders were the first Russian emigrants. Subsequently, they were buried at the local cemetery. Russian grave site Le Monde calls it “the largest Russian necropolis abroad”: according to the Russian government, as of 2016, the Russian sector had more than 5,2 thousand graves. In the same year, the Cabinet of Ministers included it in the list of historical and memorial monuments abroad.
Lopukhin said he was looking for other sources of funding. According to him, the committee’s funds will be enough to lease 22 plots for up to ten years. He is also concerned about the dilapidated state of the cemetery: in 2018 and 2020, inspections organized by the Russian side showed that 45% of the graves need restoration. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the armed conflict in Ukraine, Moscow had to abandon this project.
According to Le Monde, the suspension of funding from Russia threatens the future of the Russian part of the cemetery – 62% of the total area. The publication notes that after the start of the military operation in Ukraine in February last year, the number of visitors who tended the graves has decreased, and this site now looks like a forest where few people go for a walk.
Writers Ivan Bunin and Nadezhda Taffy, ballerinas Matilda Kshesinskaya and Olga Preobrazhenskaya, artists Zinaida Serebryakova and Konstantin Korovin, ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev are buried in Saint-Genevieve-de-Bois. The grave of the latter, which Radio France calls a work of art, is decorated in the form of an oriental carpet; his sketch was created by set designer Ezio Frigerio.
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