Ukraine war affects Russian cemetery in France: NPR

A wooded alley in the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois, France.

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A wooded alley in the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois, France.

Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

SAINTE-GENEVIVE-DES-BOIS, France The largest Russian Orthodox cemetery outside of Russia is quiet on a winter morning except for the birdsong in the birches and pines planted between the graves.

Just a 30-minute drive south of the hub of Paris, the cemetery at Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois feels like a piece of history suspended in time.

The distinctive Orthodox cross and tiny domes of the church crown the tombstones, most of which are inscribed in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Many carry black-and-white pictures of the 12,000 or so people buried there who fled their country to make new lives in France. Among them ballet prodigy Rudolf Nureyev, director Andrei Tarkovsky, Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin and Soviet dissident Andrei Amalric.

Most of those buried here came in the first great wave of Russian immigrants fleeing the Bolshevik revolution. The cemetery was established in 1927 as those “White Russians,” as they were known, began to age and die.

Nicolas Lopoukhine, head of the Committee for the Preservation of Russian Orthodox Graves, points to a grave containing the remains of 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 Committee for the Preservation of Russian Orthodox Tombs, as he shows a visitor around the grounds.

There are aristocrats like Prince Felix Yusupov, who in 1916 helped assassinate Grigory Rasputin in an attempt to break the rule of the self-proclaimed sanctuary in the family of Tsar Nicholas II. and Prince Georgy Lvov, who headed 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 Lopoukhine’s own family are also buried here

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

But these days, even this peaceful cemetery has become embroiled in Ukraine’s war.

It all started with one article published in the French newspaper The world last month entitled “With the war in Ukraine, an uncertain future for the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois”. The article talked about the absence of Russian-speaking visitors and careless graves. He even hinted at the possible recovery of graves by the French state.

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

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

Eleanor Beardsley/NPR

Lopoukhine deplores what he says are inaccuracies in the article. “The war had no effect on the cemetery,” he says.

But in reality, the conflict had an indirect impact.

In France, land for a grave is leased from the community or local government, in what is known as a concession. The families have a right of use, but the city still owns the land.

The duration of a concession can vary from five, 50, 100 years to perpetuity. Everything has a different cost. But legally, when a concession expires and the grave is abandoned, the government can take back the plot, remove the remains and bury someone else.

Lopoukhine says that every year there are dozens of concessions at this cemetery that expire. Since 2008, the Russian government has been paying for their renewal. But with the Ukraine war and Western economic sanctions against the Kremlin, that deal has been put on hold.

The Russian media saw The worldHis article was blown out of proportion, complains Lopoukhine, who says he has been on the phone with many Russian journalists.

“They wrote about it hysterically, because this concept of concession does not exist in Russia, so they do not understand what is happening,” he says. “They said that Russophobia is sweeping France and the French want to get rid of anything Russian. They even talked about bulldozers leveling the graves of Nureyev and Bunin. There was a lot of emotion.”

Despite the war, the cemetery functions as it used to

Lopoukhine says there is no way the graves will be disturbed. First of all, even in a French cemetery the process of taking over a grave after the end of a concession 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 cared for in years.

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

The city administration has been caught off guard by the media storm. Recently published a announcement on its website.

“Since the beginning of the century we have always preserved this extraordinary historical and cultural heritage, both for Russia and for the city of Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois,” he says. “War will never be an excuse to extinguish the flame of our obligation to respect and remember these people who have departed, regardless of their nationality.”

Lopoukhine says that in the 1990s at least six buses a day full of Russian tourists came here. “Russians coming to Paris visited two things,” he says, “the Eiffel Tower and the cemetery of Saint-Genevive-des-Bois.”

Putin himself paid his respects at the historic site

In November 2000 the cemetery had a special visitor, the newly elected President Vladimir Putin. Jean-Pierre Lamotte was there that day visiting a family grave in the French section of the cemetery. Today, Lamotte is president of the association “Friends of the History of Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois”.

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

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and his then-wife Lyudmila Putina (now Ocheretnaya) They stop at the grave of famous Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev as they tour the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois, south of Paris, November 1, 2000.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and his then-wife Lyudmila Putina (now Ocheretnaya) They stop at the grave of famous Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev as they tour the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois, south of Paris, November 1, 2000.

Reuters

“What really struck me is that he seemed very shy and didn’t say anything,” says Lamotte. “It was Putin’s wife who asked all the questions.”

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

“[Soviet leader Vladimir] “Lenin was a guy who didn’t want anyone to think small, so he kicked out the intellectuals,” he says. “He put all the philosophers and academics in boats called ‘philosophy boats’ and sent them to Germany. They never came back.”

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

But trees also crack and uproot tombstones. Ivy has taken over others. Lamotte says he worries that time is taking its toll on this special place. Grave maintenance is another problem besides expiring concessions, he says, and has nothing to do with the war.

The ghosts of Russian history call out from this cemetery in France

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

Christian Paillotin stands by his mother’s grave.

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Pilotin finds his mother. Irina Sokolova was born in 1914 in Tsarist Russia and died in 1979. “She was from Petersburg, before it was called Leningrad and then St. Petersburg,” says Paillotin. “She was an aristocrat and had to leave Russia.”

Paillotin says he has never been to Russia and it remains a mythical place for him. His mother taught his siblings some Russian, but not him. She says she grew up during a time when she was removed from her country. She believes her deployment began in the 1960s, when there was a diplomatic thaw and her family members were finally able to visit her from the Soviet Union. But until then there was a gap between them.

“Before that visit he thought of Russia as a big country,” he says. “But when she came up against 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 relate to them.”

Sokolova’s grave is overgrown with weeds. But Paillotin says he was relieved to find out her concession is in perpetuity. She says she’s going to make sure her grave is now carefully tended to.