The suspension of Moscow funding compromises the renewal and maintenance of Russian concessions, which represent 62 % of the area of the place. The necropolis was created in 1927 following the first wave of Russian immigration in France.
by Eve chancel
Before February 24, 2022, Nathalie Mougeot often heard Russian speaking in the aisles of the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (Essonne). But since the war in Ukraine led by Russia, the aisles have been deserted, and the vegetation seems to have resumed its rights. The ivy climbs along the Orthodox crosses, until sometimes wrapped around the blue bulbs overlooking the small roofs of the Russian tombs. Covered by vegetation, the names of certain deceased, in Cyrillic, are barely readable. Hundreds of pines, birch and fir trees surround the 5,220 Orthodox graves that extend as far as the eye can see. The Russian part of the municipal cemetery – 62 % of the total area – looks like a forest in which the biggest world does not go for a walk.
Nathalie Mougeot, she likes the calm that emerges from the place. The wooded style of the Orthodox cemetery reminds her of her childhood in Russia, where she lived seven years with her mother, a civil servant at the French Embassy in Moscow. Every day, the retiree puts on her sneakers, puts on her pink down jacket, ties her long graying hair and comes to tread the poorly maintained aisles. She takes the opportunity to flower the grave of her mother, died four years ago, and that of her grandparents, refugees from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
In recent months, she has noticed that small signs bearing the message “concession expired for renewal or abandonment, please address the town hall” had been deposited on tombs. Because, this year, the City has not accepted the Kremlin money, making it possible to finance the renewal of the Russian concessions coming due, explains Nicolas Lopoukhine, president of the maintenance committee of Russian Orthodox burials (CESOR) of the cemetery . What the Russian Embassy confirms. Solicited, the town hall did not follow up on our questions.
a cemetery of celebrities
Since the signing of a partnership between Moscow and Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, in 2005, Russia replaced absent families, and renewed unpaid concessions. “We are lucky, this year she should only have renewed twenty-two, which is very little,” said Lopoukhine. In 2021, the renewal of around forty concessions was thus paid.
If the Russian cemetery is known for the celebrities who rest there – like the dancers Rudolf Noureev and Serge Lifar, the Nobel Prize for Alexeïevitch Bounine Literature or the Princess Vera Obolensky – “It is a real society that takes shape Through the funeral inscriptions of the cemetery “, explains the Greek author Vassilis Pnevmatikakis in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois: history and identity issues of a corner of Russia in France, published in 2015. The Russian necropolis s’ was formed in 1927 following the first Russian immigration wave in France (1919-1921). Princess Vera Mestchersky created a retirement home in Sainte-Geneviève: the “Russian house” to welcome the oldest emigrants who were then buried in the municipal cemetery. “A particular square was thus constituted in the purest Russian style (…) This cemetery thus became the largest Russian necropolis abroad”, by sheltering the bodies of the refugees of the two other large waves of Russian emigration in France ( 1944-1945 and 1970-1980).
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