Battle in Ukraine hits Russian cemetery in France: NPR

A wooded walkway in the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, France.

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A wooded walkway in the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, France.

Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE-DES-BOIS, France – The largest Russian Orthodox cemetery outside of Russia is quiet on a winter morning except for the chirping of birds in the birch trees and pine trees planted between the graves.

Just a 30-minute drive south of the hustle and bustle of Paris, Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Cemetery looks like a piece of history suspended in time.

The distinctive Orthodox cross and tiny church cupolas crown the tombstones, most inscribed with the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Many carry black and white images of the buried – some 12,000 people who fled their country to start a new life in France. Among them are ballet prodigy Rudolf Nureyev, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, Nobel Prize laureate in literature Ivan Bunin and Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik.

Most of those buried here were part of the first great wave of Russian emigrants fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution. The cemetery was established in 1927 when these “White Russians”, as they were called, began to age and die.

Nicolas Lopukhine, head of the Russian Orthodox Graves Care Committee, points to a grave containing the remains of the descendants of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.

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“France was a world capital of white Russian immigration,” says Nicolas Lopoukhine, who heads the Russian Orthodox Graves Maintenance Committee, as he shows a visitor around the site.

There are aristocrats such as Prince Felix Yusupov, who in 1916 helped assassinate Grigory Rasputin in an effort to break the self-proclaimed holy man’s hold on Tsar Nicholas II’s family; and Prince Georgy Lvov who led the first Provisional Government in 1917 after accepting the Tsar’s abdication. There are members of the Romanov imperial family, as well as the children and grandchildren of writer Leo Tolstoy and composer Igor Stravinsky. Members of Lopukhine’s own family are also buried here

A newspaper article in France led to Russian accusations that the cemetery is in danger

But these days, even this quiet graveyard has become entangled in the Ukrainian war.

It all started with an article published in the French newspaper The world last month entitled “With the war in Ukraine, an uncertain future for the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois”. The article talked about the absence of Russian-speaking visitors and unmaintained graves. He even alluded to the possible resumption of the tombs by the French state.

The tomb of the great ballet Rudolf Nureyev. The mosaic of an oriental rug recalls Nureyev’s Tatar heritage.

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The tomb of the great ballet Rudolf Nureyev. The mosaic of an oriental rug recalls Nureyev’s Tatar heritage.

Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

Lopukhine denounces what he says are the inaccuracies of the article. “The war had no impact on the cemetery,” he says.

But in fact, the conflict had an indirect impact.

In France, the land for a burial site is leased to the commune, or local government, in what is called a concession. The families have the right of use, but the municipality remains the owner of the land.

The duration of a concession can vary – from five, 50, 100 years to perpetuity. All have different costs. But legally, when a grant expires and the grave is abandoned, the government can take back the land, remove the remains, and bury someone else.

Lopukhine says that every year there are dozens of plots in this cemetery that expire. Since 2008, the Russian government has paid to renew them. But with the war in Ukraine and Western financial sanctions against the Kremlin, this arrangement was put on hold.

Russian media have detectable The sector“complains Lopukhine, who says he has been on the phone with many Russian journalists.

“They wrote about it hysterically, because this notion of concession doesn’t exist in Russia, so they don’t understand what’s going on,” he says. “They said that there is Russophobia sweeping France and that the French want to get rid of everything Russian. They even talked about bulldozers razing the graves of Nureyev and Bunin. There were too many emotion.”

Despite the war, the cemetery functions as before

Lopukhine says there is no chance that the graves will be disturbed. First, even in a French cemetery, the process of recovering a grave after a concession expires takes years. And this is no ordinary cemetery. Since 2001, it has been classified as a national historical monument.

Many graves in the cemetery have not been maintained for years.

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“So you can’t touch it,” says Lopoukhine. “It would be a revolution. Everyone is watching.”

The city administration was clearly taken aback by the media storm. He recently posted a statement on his website.

“Since the beginning of the century, we have always safeguarded this extraordinary historical and cultural heritage, both for Russia and for the city of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois”, we can read. “War will never be an excuse to put out the flame of our obligation to respect and remember these people who are now missing, regardless of their nationality.”

Lopukhine says that in the 1990s at least six buses a day filled with Russian tourists came here. “The Russians coming to Paris visited two things,” he says, “the Eiffel Tower and the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery.”

Putin himself paid tribute to the historic site

In November 2000, the cemetery welcomed a special visitor, newly elected President Vladimir Putin. Jean-Pierre Lamotte was there that day to visit a family grave in the French section of the cemetery. Today, Lamotte is president of the association “Les Amis de l’Histoire de Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois”.

He remembers when he tried to leave the cemetery that day, the doors were locked: Someone important was coming, he was told. It wasn’t long before Putin and his wife got out of a giant green Mercedes. Lamotte says he followed the small delegation around the cemetery and saw Putin laying flowers on several graves.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and his wife Lyudmila Putina (now nicknamed Ocheretnaya) Stop at the grave of famous Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev during their visit to the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, south of Paris, November 1, 2000.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and his wife Lyudmila Putina (now nicknamed Ocheretnaya) Stop at the grave of famous Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev during their visit to the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, south of Paris, November 1, 2000.

Reuters

“What really struck me was that he looked very shy and said nothing,” says Lamotte. “It was Putin’s wife who asked all the questions.”

One of the graves decorated by Putin was that of 1933 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Ivan Bunin, who fled to France in 1920. Standing in front of Bunin’s grave, Lopukhin ponders Russian history.

“[Soviet leader Vladimir] Lenin was a guy who didn’t want anyone to think a bit, so he chased the intellectuals away,” he says. “He put all the philosophers and scholars in boats – called “philosopher boats” – and sent them to Germany. They never came back.”

When Lamotte looks at the French side of the cemetery, he calls it “very sad”. Maybe it’s because he looks so sterile. He says it is illegal to plant trees in a French cemetery, but the Russian side follows the Russian tradition of planting a sapling over a grave. The many birches and pines of the cemetery recall a lost homeland for these emigrants. Lopoukhine says the cemetery is lovely in spring and summer and attracts families on weekends.

But the trees are cracking and uprooting the tombstones too. Ivy took over the others. Lamotte says he fears the weather will wreak havoc on this special place. Maintenance of graves is another issue aside from expiring concessions, he says, and has nothing to do with the war.

The ghosts of Russian history are calling from this cemetery in France

Seventy-five-year-old Christian Paillotin remembers strolling here with his Russian immigrant mother. Today, map in hand, he anxiously searches for his grave after seeing the article by The world. He says he hasn’t visited in a decade and has forgotten where she is.

Christian Paillotin in front of his mother’s grave.

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Paillotin unearths his mom. Irina Sokolova was once born in 1914 in Tsarist Russia and died in 1979. “She came from Petrograd, that is to say before she was called Leningrad and then Saint-Petersburg”, says Paillotin. “She was an aristocrat and had to leave Russia.”

Paillotin says he hasn’t ever been to Russia and that extra a legendary playground for him. His mom taught some Russian to his siblings, however to not him. He says he was once introduced up at a generation when she was once turning clear of her nation. He believes his secondment started within the Nineteen Sixties when there was once a diplomatic thaw and his crowd contributors have been after all ready to discuss with him from the Soviet Union. However at that generation, there was once a chasm between them.

“Before this visit, she considered Russia to be a great country,” he says. “But when she was confronted with her family and the way they saw the world, it didn’t go well. She embraced freedom and had a different way of seeing things. She couldn’t stand herself. identify with them.”

Sokolova’s grave is overgrown with weeds. However Paillotin says he’s relieved to find that his concession is in endurance. He says he’ll build certain his grave is now in moderation cared for.