Under a gray sky, on this winter morning, there is practically no one in the paths of the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
Mercury displays four degrees.
The communal cemetery of this city, located about twenty kilometers south of Paris, is not really like the others.
Some 5,220 Russian graves are accommodated there, making this cemetery the largest Russian necropolis in the world, outside the motherland.
Beret screwed on the head, jacket closed up to the neck, Nicolas Lopoukhine strolls in this place which he knows by heart. pointing to the tomb of Ivan Bounine, the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1933. Other personalities rest in these places: the dancer Rudolf Nureyev or the filmmaker Andrei Tarkovski.
President of the Committee for the maintenance of Russian Orthodox graves (Cesor) of the cemetery, Nicolas Lopoukhine is himself of Russian origin.
About twenty members of Nicolas Lopoukhine's family are buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, like his great-grandfather, an officer of the Legion of Honor who died in 1931. © Barbara Gabel , France 24
Eiffel Tower and Russian Cemetery
After the establishment of Bolshevik power in 1917, around two million White Russians, like the great-grandparents of Nicolas Lopukhine, fled their country.
Nobles, soldiers, intellectuals, men of the Church... Opponents of Soviet Russia, known or anonymous, were several hundred thousand to settle in Île-de-France.
A choice motivated by the cultural proximity between France and Russia at the time.
The origin of the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery dates back to 1927, when a retirement home for Russian refugees was founded in the town.
A wealthy British patron, Dorothy Paget, financed the creation of this place called "the Russian House", placed under the direction of her friend, Princess Vera Mestchersky.
Over the years, the municipality decided to set up a Russian square in the cemetery to accommodate the deceased residents. "The Russians very quickly appropriated this place and other personalities from the first wave of emigration began to be buried here", says Nicolas Lopoukhine.
In the early 1990s, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the cemetery became a tourist hotspot.
"We saw up to five to six coaches a day," says Nicolas Lopoukhine.
"For Russians visiting Paris, the priority was to go see the Eiffel Tower and Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. The rest was very secondary!"
Before the health crisis, nearly 30,000 people visited the place each year, the vast majority of them Russian tourists.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila Putina pay their respects at the grave of Vera Mestchersky, a Russian resistance fighter in France during World War II – who was taken prisoner by the Gestapo and shot in Berlin in 1944 – as they visit the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, south of Paris, on November 1, 2000. © Michel Lipchitz, AP
In 2000, Vladimir Putin, just elected president of Russia, went to the cemetery to pay homage to his exiled compatriots.
In 2007, Patriarch Alexis II visited the place, before Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in 2016. "But for three years, between Covid-19 and the consequences linked to the war in Ukraine, Russian tourists no longer tread the aisles of the cemetery", notes Nicolas Lopoukhine.
The municipality at the heart of a controversy
A few days ago, the town found itself at the heart of a controversy.
After accusations from Moscow that the Orthodox graves were going to be abandoned because of the war in Ukraine, the municipality had to justify itself.
The payment of the renewal of the concessions has been "temporarily postponed", explained the town hall in a press release published on January 17, specifying "that no Russian grave will be raised", that is to say taken over by the municipality, with transfer of the remains to the municipal ossuary.
Since 2005, the Kremlin has taken the place of absent families and paid for the renewal of expired concessions with the French town hall.
Since the first agreement, around two million euros have been paid by Moscow to the municipality of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
This suspension of renewal would concern "a few dozen burials", says the Russian House of Science and Culture on its Facebook page.
For Nicolas Lopoukhine, this suspension therefore entails "no immediate danger".
According to him, the priority is the restoration of the graves of this cemetery classified since 2001 as Historic Monuments.
"Families think that Russia also pays for maintenance"
With an assured step, Nicolas Lopoukhine begins his inventory.
He sneaks between the Russian graves in the cemetery, where nature has taken over.
Many tombs are dilapidated, cracked and overgrown with weeds.
The ivy sometimes moved the stone.
Elsewhere, the headstone sole is completely broken due to roots.
"For twenty years, the degradation of the tombs has accelerated", notes Nicolas Lopoukhine.
"A lot of families think that Russia also pays for maintenance and therefore no longer travel."
This tree found root on a tombstone, right in the middle of the cemetery.
© BG, France 24
The ivy wraps around the Orthodox crosses and the small roofs of the Russian tombs.
© Barbara Gabel, France 24
In reality, neither Russia nor the town hall are responsible for cleaning the graves.
To address this problem, several site rehabilitation projects, estimated at two million euros, have been considered.
But with the health crisis and the war in Ukraine, these projects are also on hold today.
On a small scale, Nicolas Lopoukhine's association, Cesor, maintains 600 graves for families who pay a membership fee of 275 euros.
The structure has fewer and fewer members.
"There is danger in the house," he worries.
At the bend of an alley, a woman looking for the tomb of an ancestor brings her testimony.
Parisian of Russian origin on the paternal side, Marie-Sylvie remains marked by the history of the former Soviet Union.
His grandfather, buried in this cemetery, met a tragic fate.
He worked for the French secret services and "was assassinated in 1945 by a Soviet officer while he was having lunch with American officers", she says when she arrives at the grave of her grandfather.
A grave in very poor condition.
This is the total surprise for Marie-Sylvie.
The tomb is abandoned.
A tree grew over the tombstone and the cross fell to the ground.
On the plate, the name of his grandfather, in Cyrillic, has become illegible.
"I did not expect to find her in this state!" Laments the Parisian,
The tomb of Marie-Sylvie's grandparents is in poor condition: the cross has fallen to the ground and vegetation has grown on all sides.
© Barbara Gabel, France 24
A cultural and historical treasure
At the very end of the cemetery, a tomb stands out from the others.
It is in perfect condition, entirely covered with a mosaic in the form of a carpet.
A real work of art.
This is the tomb of Rudolf Nureyev, emblematic figure of the Paris Opera, where he was a choreographer, star dancer and also ballet director.
"To bring back a souvenir, some visitors steal bits of mosaic," says Nicolas Lopoukhine, looking disillusioned.
"To repair it, we call on the Friends of Nureyev association, which brings in mosaicists from a workshop in Ravenna, Italy."
The tomb of the dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev can be seen from afar, covered with a carpet of mosaics maintained regularly.
© Barbara Gabel, France 24
A few tens of meters further on, at the entrance to the necropolis, a small church, surmounted by a bulbous bell tower painted blue and a green roof, stands proudly.
In the Novgorodian style of the 15th and 16th centuries, the Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption church was inaugurated in 1939. A very popular place of worship, it is one of the only Orthodox churches in the area.
Many faithful from the south of Essonne or Chartres travel to Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois for services.
French, Russians, but also Ukrainians and Moldavians.
Today, around forty burials take place each year in this cemetery, which constitutes a visible trace of the Russian presence in France.
"We have a real duty to remember to honor all those who have had a difficult life, in order to perpetuate their memory", underlines Nicolas Lopoukhine.
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